In this article, we will examine common challenges of flexible working and what steps you can take to address them before they become problems. We will also briefly discuss structural and setup questions.
Flexible working has become the standard in today’s workplace, but it still presents challenges for both early adopters and those trying to transition now. Interestingly, these are not isolated challenges but common obstacles faced by many companies. Solutions are available but are not discussed frequently enough, leaving businesses to experiment until they discover a way. To save you time, however, we are happy to summarise these common challenges in one article and suggest some solutions.
It’s important to note that the methods we discuss aren’t necessarily the only correct options. There are several ways to tackle the challenges we’ll be exploring, and ultimately, your approach should align with your goals, values, and circumstances. However, these are the solutions that have worked for us and our clients, so we are confident in sharing them.
How Do You Accommodate Flexible Work?
The biggest challenge of flexible working is creating a suitable environment. This includes aspects like ensuring a shared workspace for remote and in-person teams, setting the hours during which flexitime is available, and many more. There is an easy way to group these seemingly different challenges under one solution.
You can support flexible working by using digital tools that easily connect teams and allow you to modify how your business operates. These tools enable you to adjust limitations, requirements, and other aspects needed to create a structured and efficient workplace. Additionally, such tools will assist you in addressing other common issues we will discuss next.
Common Challenges of Flexible Working
Why do common challenges often lack documented solutions? Simply because, being seen as ‘common’, people avoid discussing them or asking questions to protect their professional image. However, we are not ashamed to talk or to educate others.
Security and Compliance
Let’s address the elephant in the room. While the most common concern about flexible working is the communication gap and difficulties connecting dispersed teams, there’s a bigger challenge: ensuring security and compliance. A greater focus on digital aspects and increased use of online solutions generally expose companies to more threats, especially if employees are not trained in cybersecurity. From falling victim to phishing and accidentally revealing company data to more serious breaches like GDPR violations, flexible working often raises security risks. The simplest solution is to train your teams in security and compliance, but such courses can be expensive, time-consuming, and ultimately ineffective. However, there is an easier method that relies less on employees’ vigilance—implementing measures that act as a security net.
Most digital solutions today come equipped with layers of protection to safeguard your data, ensure your business remains compliant, and more. With additional setup, you can implement blockers to automatically activate when a user is exposed to potential harm or to send a notification to the IT team if a threat of compromise is detected. It remains a good idea to train your teams on security and compliance, as there is no such thing as too much protection. This is especially true when handling sensitive matters like client data.
Maintaining Company Culture
Moving to a more lighthearted topic, another common issue observed in mixed offices is the decline of company culture. When interacting with your colleagues in person every day, bonds and values, which form the foundation of the culture, are actively cultivated. However, when half of the office is working remotely and people only see each other once or twice a week, if at all, the office culture as we know it becomes impossible.
The first step to resolving this is accepting that, alongside the working model, the idea of company culture has also evolved. This means traditional practices, like weekly company drinks or lunches, are no longer relevant. Instead, develop new consistent rituals that help your teams stay connected and encourage setting aside time for bonding. For example, a weekly recurring team call where everyone catches up for about 20 minutes. In the longer term, consider regular in-person events, such as group activities, outings, and so on.
Proactive Strategies and Tools
If left unaddressed, challenges cease being minor obstacles and instead become serious setbacks. It’s best to begin addressing them from the outset, proactively seeking solutions before they escalate. There are a few tools and strategies you can quickly add to your business and optimise as you go.
Implement Time Tracking
Flexible working, despite being common and the dominant work model nowadays, still causes concern in some companies, especially when assessing productivity. To ease your worries, it’s advisable to invest in a time tracking tool. Besides providing proof of where your team’s time is spent, it offers many additional benefits. For instance, it’s an effective way to ensure you bill your clients accurately and promptly. Additionally, it can generate insightful reports within minutes, which can become a key element of your strategy moving forward.
The best part is that while offering numerous benefits, time tracking solutions are very cost-effective. For example, at Timesheet Portal, we provide a pay model where clients choose only the features they need and pay solely for those. This makes our solution suitable for businesses of any size, including startups. Both upgrading and downgrading can be done directly within the platform, without involving the sales team. In other words, you have complete control over what you are paying.
Use Centralised Communication Platforms
Having multiple communication channels goes beyond merely connecting your teams. Naturally, when your workers cannot meet face-to-face, it becomes essential to foster an environment where conversations can continue, but not all communication needs to be direct to be effective. A system comprising several integrated solutions can create a centralised platform that facilitates seamless collaboration, complete visibility, and the elimination of departmental silos. In other words, it provides your teams with an ultimate hub designed to keep them connected.
What your setup involves will mostly depend on your team's needs to support their daily activities and the level of communication required. Common elements include a shared document drive, a holiday calendar, a shift scheduler, and a space to leave comments on others' progress or deliverables. Naturally, this list will grow as you add different solutions. The main aim is to build a setup that suits you.
Work-Life Balance with Less Effort
Flexible working can either enhance or harm work-life balance, depending on your team’s mindset. Since your employees’ well-being should be a top priority, it’s crucial to prevent issues before they arise. Fortunately, there are simple ways to do this using designated tools with minimal effort.
Boundaries Through Smart Scheduling
We’ve discussed this in another article, but for flexible working to be effective, it needs a clear structure. If your organisation is merely adapting to full-time hybrid working instead of considering it a temporary measure, or if you’ve just started working with mixed teams, finding the best setup can take time. However, there’s a solution to help speed up the process.
Smart scheduling may not eliminate all concerns about rotating your teams’ physical presence on site, but it’s a technology that learns and adapts to your processes the more it’s used. To begin with, when you first implement a scheduling system, simply input the information on how often your workers need to attend in person. The initial automated schedules will likely require adjustments, but these tools are designed to learn from trends, which means their accuracy will improve over time. If the system supports employees swapping shifts, such data will be recorded and utilised too. Not only is smart scheduling convenient for finding the optimal balance, but it also assists your team in adjusting their workflows based on each other’s availability, all visible in a centralised hub that further promotes team collaboration.
Summary
The biggest and most common challenge of flexible working is the least discussed, despite its potential to cause serious trouble for your business—security and compliance. The best approach is to combine solutions that prevent threats with training staff to be cybersecurity literate. Another, less damaging method is to maintain company culture. The first step is to recognise that it will take on a different form from what you’re used to. Then, it’s about finding both regular and less common ways to engage to nurture it.
The best way to address these challenges before they start impacting your progress is by adopting digital solutions promptly. Time tracking and scheduling tools can help you find the ideal balance of flexibility to improve your teams' productivity rather than hinder it. Incorporating additional solutions and ensuring they all integrate will also assist in creating a centralised platform for your teams to communicate and collaborate, fostering better rapport and alignment as they work together. A healthy balance between structure and flexibility is what will elevate your business to a new level.
Excited to see how high you can fly? Reach out to us for practical advice.