08/11/2021

For a coordinated and responsible labour flexibility model

In recent weeks there has been a lot of talk about going back to work. Or rather, there has been uncertainty about how we should get back to the office. Although it is a recurring concern, this year the approach has been fairly different. We are all aware of the fact that this return to our workplace cannot be addressed the same way as we have been doing it prior to the pandemic.

We must bear in mind that we are facing an important paradigm shift. Our social model seems to be unsustainable at all levels, and it had indeed been showing signs of exhaustion long before.

But, before we analyze how we work, we must ask ourselves the following …

So, why do we work?

In his piece, published at the beginning of 2019 ­–months before the crisis caused by COVID-19 broke out–

Professor Antonio Argandoña began IESE’s INSIGHT magazine editorial with this very question.

Argandoña spoke about how work should allow us to express our human condition, transform ourselves and seek the common good. Concepts such as digitization, mobility, coworking, the gig economy, labour flexibility, work-life balance, etc. were at that time already filling the pages of this publication, as well as many other studies and opinion articles.

In the same magazine there was mention of how, as early as the eighties, IBM not only was a pioneer in allowing employees to work remotely, but the company also proactively helped the different teams set up their home office.

Mireia Las Heras, also a professor at IESE, claims that the new work environment has blurred the boundaries between personal and professional life and that there is a need now for work spaces that facilitate the work/family reconciliation.

The health and social emergency situation that the world has gone through since the beginning of 2020 has caused a dramatic change in our lifestyle and priorities. In this context, many issues that already existed, but that many were reluctant to face, have strongly resurfaced and their resolution has remarkably sped up.

Some pre-COVID-19 experiences in labour flexibility

For years now, many companies and professionals have been exploring new ways of reconciling professional and personal life. The enormous value of their expertise should definitely not be wasted, especially since the global emergency situation.

Diane Gherson, Chief HR Officer at IBM, by the beginning of 2019, admitted: There was a time when we thought all work could be deconstructed and disaggregated and farmed out to freelancers on talent platforms, with just the ‘hub’ work, such as project and client management.”

At that time, “the gig economy was gaining momentum as the Uberization of entire industries became more commonplace, and work at home/from anywhere was gaining traction as the global labor market opened and internet and mobile computing became more pervasive”.

For companies, this change was a gift from heaven: labor is purely elastic with demand, and pay is for output, not input”. Professionals saw how their needs for benefits were solved by new players…

The need for colleagueship was filled by the emergence of coworking facilities, complete with Starbucks for coffee breaks.” However, for Gherson this model became obsolete long before COVID-19 accelerated the process.

Likewise, in 2019 a study by the French Government equally quantified the benefits of human resources policies and flexible work spaces.

Besides the direct benefits for companies –lower costs, a decline of absenteeism and larger productivity– employees who did not choose to work at the company headquarters dedicated the average daily 73 minutes, that they saved on commuting, to alternative activities.

As a consequence, they were less stressed, spent more quality time with their families and reduced commuting, meals and childcare costs. Indirect effects were also mentioned at that time, such as the reduction of fossil fuel emissions.

On the other hand, the European Union report, Working anytime, anywhere: the effects on the world of work, recognizes the positive effects of flexible work, but also points out its drawbacks, such as “the tendency to work longer hours and an overlap between paid work and personal life, which can lead to higher stress levels ”.

New types of work spaces

Now is the time to take note, evolve and try new pathways. We must have an open mind and assess the movements around us.

With this change in mentality, new formulas arise such as Space as a Service, i.e. providing workspaces as a service. This concept allows companies to not necessarily be tied to a fix space, but rather to rent the necessary space according to their equipment, in shared offices. Technology is a great ally, too, since it enables to make easy and quick reservations of the most convenient and accessible space. This particularly allows multinational firms to establish their presence in new geographic areas.

Another new formula that has recently popped up in the work-from-anywhere culture is workation, a concept that combines work with vacations. It is the ideal plan: coordinating professional life with personal life. Workation allows professionals to work from their vacation destination and away from the office. The challenging part is to work out which teams or professionals can opt for this benefit, for how long, under what terms and in which destinations.

It however enables companies to retain the talent, especially those who yearn for experiences abroad, without losing their jobs.

Labour flexibility is tied to corporate culture and leadership

As we said in the beginning of this post, labour flexibility is now on everyone’s lips. Mainly, two different scenarios have arisen: one of large companies, which seems to be banking on a more flexible model (face-to-face + remote) and one second, foremost of SMEs, which are approximately 95% of our national business fabric, which seems to be largely returning to an office-based mode.

We do not like generalizations, and even less when it comes to this subject since there are very different reasons for this kind of decision-making. But it should be noted that some SMEs, like ourselves, have been part of that 4.8% of companies (according to INE data) that, since before COVID, were implementing internal flexibility measures to improve our team’s family-life conciliation.

It is true that being a small company, the pandemic did make us more vulnerable, but it also allowed us to adapt more quickly to the new circumstances. Therefore, the shift in work processes did absolutely not catch us off guard, but it did accelerate the transformation that we already had going.

Thus, we do not believe that the size of the company is of much relevance in implementing either one or the other model, instead we prefer to regard it as a matter of corporate culture and of the type of leadership.

In a very versatile and fragile context, due to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, NOMON DESIGN is committed to leadership based on good practices, oriented towards efficiency, objectives, but most importantly, on people.

Learning how to draw the best out of each of the people who make up our teams, both individually and collectively, will ultimately increase their productivity and well-being.

This is not only a matter of location (home / office), but it is a mental shift in terms of work culture, both for the company and for the professional him or herself.

This new shift obviously requires big changes: in methodology, internal processes with clear deadlines and, above all, in a downright commitment, which is shared by each team member: collaboration and self-management capacity.

In this context, coordination and trust are obviously key. Possibly, this is the basis of the idiosyncrasy of our agency: low mobility rates (9 years of permanence), as well as the characteristic of being a highly feminized agency. 89% of our team are women who have been able to develop both their professional and personal careers without the need for any resignations.

In conclusion, and based on our experience, in the business fields in which its implementation is possible, we reckon that the flexible model is the win-win path, a balance between the sustainability and growth of the company itself, and the quality of life of its employed professionals.

Tags: Nomon Design, Sisón Pujol, Sostenibilidad

2021