How the Future Works. Brian Elliott

How the Future Works - Brian Elliott


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put it: “When asked about the biggest challenge they face today, CEOs named one above all others: talent, in nearly every form. Attracting, hiring, retaining, developing, growing, and engaging talent.”3 In fact, winning the battle for talent may be the most common reason companies adopt flexible work programs. As Helena Gottschling, Chief HR Officer for the Royal Bank of Canada, put it when talking about their flexible work model (something we'll look at more closely in the next chapter), “If done right, we believe it could be a true differentiator.”

      First, let's look at how it can help with an organization's recruiting efforts. There's really no way around it: When employees work in an office, they must live within a commutable distance from that office. This limits the talent pool that organizations can draw from. It's also one of the main reasons that companies locate their offices in dense (and often expensive) urban markets, where there are more potential employees to choose from. But flexible work allows you to simply choose the best person for the job regardless of location. It opens up possibilities for both employees and companies. Tracy Layney, Chief Human Resources Officer at Levi Strauss & Co., is located in the Bay Area, but the vast majority of her leadership team is not—a situation she's quite happy with. “I just want the best talent,” she told us. “There's all this amazing talent in the world, so why would I want to narrow my choices to people who already live here or are willing to move to a place with a super high cost of living?”

      There's also the fact that more people are looking for flexibility, so it's a real draw for companies, and it's an area where they can see an immediate impact. Soon after instituting their flexible work model, Dropbox began receiving three times the number of job applicants that they had gotten previously. We have seen similar benefits at Slack: a 70% increase in job applicants in Product, Design and Engineering after the company allowed for location flexibility.

      Flexibility gives individuals room to meet both their personal and professional obligations. That's important because, as all leaders know, replacing employees is a time-consuming and costly endeavor, one that can amount to as much as twice an employee's annual salary.7

       2) Engage Employees

      Every year Gallup conducts their State of the Global Workplace report, and every year it points to the same problem: a majority of employees are either not engaged or actively disengaged at work. It's an area where most companies are continually looking to improve because disengagement is expensive.8 But there is something that has been shown to have a positive impact: flexible work. Before the pandemic employees with at least some flexibility had the highest levels of engagement according to Gallup. That percentage actually rose to its highest point in 2020,9 despite all the disruptions that the pandemic brought, and the flexible work models that were imposed on companies were likely a big part of that.

      Flexible work can also lead to better creativity and innovation, even though leaders often express concerns that it will inhibit these things that are so crucial to growth. Future Forum research shows this concern is a myth, and in fact where people work has little bearing on how creative their team is (more on this in Step 5). To give one example, there's a persistent myth that the best method is to gather people in a room and brainstorm your way to new ideas. Companies have been doing this for decades, but countless studies have shown that this approach is a waste of time, at best; at worst it can lead to the dreaded groupthink and even harm productivity.10

       3) Build Better Results

      Because it has a positive effect on common business challenges, like recruiting and retention; because it leads to happier, less stressed, and more engaged employees; because of these things and more, flexible work, when done right, quite simply drives better business results.

      One example of productivity gains can be seen in Professor Prithwiraj Choudhury's study of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) as they made the switch to a more flexible work model. He and his colleagues found a 4.4% boost in individual productivity in terms of the organization's key metric for success—the number of patents examined each month. Contrary to expectations, quality of work didn't suffer with the switch, but employee engagement rose considerably. In 2013, a year after the new policy took effect, USPTO topped the list of Best Places to Work in the Federal Government.12

      Customer engagement can be positively impacted as well. At Slack, team members found that connecting remotely made it easier to meet with more customers during the day, as well as get time on an executive's calendar since videoconferencing often felt less formal than an in-person meet. Where they used to be able to visit one client a day, sales staff say they can now do three videoconferences in a day. Salesforce found similar benefits: Their Zoom customer calls had 25% higher C-level attendance and their sales teams reported getting back two weeks of selling time due to their virtual sales kickoff taking up less time on their calendars than previous in-person ones.

      Another way that flexibility builds better results


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