Co-designing flexible working
A workshop to inspire collaborative solutions
Flexible working became a necessity for many during lockdowns and continues into our post-pandemic world; presenting both opportunities and challenges for us personally and professionally. Born from global change and necessity, many organisations we work for were forced to “pivot” and adapt to survive requiring adoption of new technologies and ways of working. To successfully navigate and make the most of flexible working possibilities we need to reflect on what we have learnt so far.
Hosted by Cucumber Talent Solutions and Priority One, our recent design thinking inspired workshop brought together a variety of professionals from the wider Tauranga tech sector, to focus on the growing trend of Flexible Working. Lead by Cucumber Senior Business Analyst, Jo Newcombe Cook, our workshop participants were introduced to real life examples of successful flexible working and, with the aid of the “Innovators’ Compass”, the opportunity to explore, share and learn from their experiences to date.
It is important to note, that the tech sector is in a privileged position whereby many roles such as Business Analyst, Project Manager, Software Tester, Developer etc, already experience more flexible working benefits than others. This however doesn’t mean they haven’t had challenges adapting to this “new normal”.
Flexible working can mean different things to different people. Where you work, when you work, and how much work you need, or choose, to do. It can refer to the general flexibility of your employment arrangements ability to adapt to one-off life events or personal development opportunities.
The Innovators’ Compass Framework
The Innovators' Compass is a powerful tool that helps people move forward in any challenge, big or small-in one usable, shareable picture. It's the passion work of Ela Ben-Ur, MIT alumna, former IDEO coach, Olin College Adjunct Assistant professor teaching courses from product design to life. design, and parenting https://innovatorscompass.org
We used the #innovatorscompass to help us answer these key questions.
• how might we make flexible working work better for all involved?
• how might we help people achieve the balance they desire?
• how do organisations achieve a beneficial flexible working balance?
By identifying who is involved in our flexible work options, we move forward with increased understanding of the benefits and challenges to both our personal and work situations.
What’s happening and why?
Given there are so many different stakeholders in the mix it shouldn’t be a surprise that there are many different perspectives about the value and challenges associated with workplace flexibility.
The Challenges
Participants from the workshop shared many observations about the impact of remote working on team culture and personal connection. A summation of these are provided below:
• communication difficulties or trust issues caused by not being face to face, or working at the same time
• disconnection, social isolation or challenges with culture, especially with onboarding new team members
• difficulty separating life and work
• creation of a two tier workforce, those that can work flexibly and those that can’t
The Benefits
Flexibility in the workplace creates opportunities for people to design a work-life balance that reflects their individual needs. It enables certain groups to enter, re-enter or remain in the work force. With a shift to more autonomy for the individual employee through increased control over schedules; positive gains in well-being and lifestyle are accessed. Other tangible benefits include:
• financial savings through reduced costs (e.g. travel, childcare, meals, work clothing)
• time savings through eliminating travel time
• flexibility to fit work around life, especially for those with families or other dependants.
• ability to focus without the distractions of the office
Participants indicated this enabled them to achieve a better work life balance.
Principles and priorities – what matters
The key considerations for designing a flexible workplace identified by our participants were:
• Keeping good communication practices
• Being clear about expectations and boundaries and involving the team in setting these
• Ownership, accountability, trust, appreciation and mutual respect
• Right technologies and tools
“flexible working needs to be co-designed by all stakeholders and the process requires agreement of shared values such as transparency, trust, communication and flexibility itself.”
Digital technologies – an essential ingredient
Adoption of new digital technologies, tools and skill sets build the framework required to offer workplace flexibility options. Supportive performance-management systems and tools are key to collaborative remote working, by enhancing connection and transparency between all parties.
Flexible working ideas from the workshop
Workshop participants were encouraged to ideate solutions to some of the flexible working challenges, and to consider what short term experiments could be to test out some of these ideas.
A selection of these ideas included:
• online team building activities, flexi working buddys or virtual coffee breaks to help team culture
• being clear about meetings’ purpose and outcomes, and keeping focus on these
• guidelines around communications and work/life boundaries, and including the team in defining these
• rostered in office days for teams, so that people are together
• regular reviews of what is working well & what needs work (Innovators’ Compass is a great tool for this)
Flexible Working Initiatives at Cucumber
• 15Five direct line from employee to manager, weekly check ins, ability to call out appreciation for others work.
• Company meetings run via hybrid mode and recorded for sharing
• Hybrid working, flexible hours & part time options
• Social activities eg, Daily Stuff Quiz team call, shared community garden, monthly social activities, Friday pub lunch, and celebrating milestones
Collaboration - moving forward with intention
Two themes emerged from the workshop as key focus areas; employee well-being and business profitability. With stakeholders who are genuinely committed to balancing these focus areas and who are willing to genuinely consider not only what suits them best as individuals, but also what is best for the teams they work in and their organisation as a whole, we can and will get the best of both worlds from workplace flexibility. Through aligning values, the individual is entrusted to decide the best place and time for a particular task or day, reducing the power struggle between home life and work life.
“True flexibility aligns employers and employees to achieve mutual gain in meeting both performance and work-life needs: It is a means to compete in the market over the long term, and it gives employees a say and some choice in how flexibility is implemented on their teams and in their organizations.”
The workshop
We thank all our attendees for their contributions and the ideas and experiments generated from the workshop. We hope you arrived with curiosity and left with inspiration. The professionals of the Tauranga tech sector possess extensive knowledge, skill, and expertise across a wide range of technical domains. To promote knowledge sharing between communities of professionals with shared interests, we host professional networking events like this one which are hosted by a core set of leads with special guest speakers. We feel proud to provide an opportunity for like-minded professionals in our network to share information around concepts, methodologies, frameworks, technologies, opportunities for professional development, upcoming events and workshops.
