Flexibility, empathy, and care in the workplace

It’s been 18 months since the first major lockdowns forced massive change around the world. The rapid evolution of our lives and work has left many of us struggling to adapt and make sense of it all.

Amid this seismic shift, businesses have had to pivot from the traditional workplace to embrace a workforce that is now hyperdigital and often working from home. Early enthusiasm by employees in adopting this new arrangement suggested that the workplace as we knew it might be dead forever.

But a year on, a hunger for the conducive work environment of the office appears to be growing again. What has changed?

To understand better, we surveyed 1,500 people across Asia Pacific to gauge how office workers felt about their present work arrangement and its impact on their performance and well-being.

Interestingly, while remuneration remained high on the list of priorities, the foremost concern we identified among respondents was the desire for work-life balance. Also ascending the list of priorities was the desire to work for a company that ensured the health and well-being of its employees.

We can attribute this shift in worker priorities to the negative effects of the extended period of home working. Here are a few to consider:

Declining work productivity as fewer workers today (37 per cent) feel more productive at home than in the office, a sharp dip from the 48 per cent who felt this way in April 2020. However, only 47 per cent of workers are satisfied with their office today, which points to the need for businesses to consider an office redesign to match employees’ new expectations of what the office should be.

Then, there is the need to consider the lack of social interaction with prolonged home-working, with as many as six in 10 workers admitting to craving ‘real’ interactions with their co-workers to break from the monotony of the home office and endless video calls.

Just as importantly, the increasingly blurred boundaries between work and life have left a workforce feeling jaded. In addition, a number of young parents (60 per cent) have expressed that they have many personal responsibilities to cope with and are becoming disenchanted with work.

As a first-time father leaping into parenthood just as the pandemic started working its way around the world, I’ve been in a privileged position to experience this shift in work, and the effects it can have in the long-term. While the flexibility of working from home allows you to spend more time with your kids, I’ve heard from both colleagues and clients that extended periods at home have been challenging because they have found it hard to balance children’s home schooling and productivity on the work front.

My advice? Remember that our people are at the heart of everything that we do. It’s not about where and when work gets done – it’s about finding the best way to work and to manage and meet your work goals and life commitments. This was why we launched a guide for flexible working at JLL last year, where every employee is encouraged to discuss their ideal working arrangements with their manager, while ensuring work productivity and client expectations are not compromised.

Beyond JLL, we have also seen businesses respond impeccably to the evolving nature of work in this current climate to engage with and care for staff, and the impact this has had on productivity and staff happiness levels. HP, for example, recognized that kids would be spending a larger amount of time at home as a result of the pandemic, and set about encouraging employees who are also parents to play a more active role in steering their children’s learning, offering employees access to online resources that include weekly literacy activities curated by education leaders.

This is in addition to providing additional programs to assist employees, focusing on wellbeing, working in a mobile environment, and stress management. Ultimately, as leaders of our respective businesses, we have a responsibility to be collaborative and communicative with our employees on navigating the various stressors brought about by the waves of change we have witnessed these past two years. Similarly, we want to encourage our employees to care for themselves.

Be it curating staff wellness programmes or designing a healthier office space, a compassionate employer should show empathy and flexibility towards their workers during these challenging times. Most importantly, we need to serve as way-finders on the road ahead as we look to guide our workforce in emerging strongly from the shadows of the pandemic and into a new future of work.