Vlexible: 4 Questions and More!
When I first came across the word ’Vlexible’ I was curious. What is this? — and my mind went straight to some sort of movement activity relating to flexibility.
I laugh to myself looking back now, as to be honest movement and flexibility are exactly the subject matter but its not necessarily related to body flexibility! Its intended meaning is related to Virtual and Flexible in relation to what the new normal will be for businesses now that lockdown has forced us to move away from offices and crowded places.
There are of course many challenges that this presents for the HR Departments and the wider business functions. The first few questions perhaps worth examining are:
✔ What does the ‘New Norm’ look like for your business?
✔ What is the impact on customers?
✔ What is the impact on your human resources?
✔ Overall what does your new Operating model look like?
Businesses all over the world are impacted by this and I don’t believe that given new habits have been formed and normalised that going back to what we had before in exactly the same way will ever happen. No, instead we have to embrace the change and work with it and accept the idea that with the challenges there will also be benefits.
So, with this in mind, how can HR functions support Vlexibilty and influence best practice?
I have listed a few considerations to get you started on the brainstorming of what this means for your organisation and in particular HR Functions. I am sure this is just the start and lots more ideas and suggestions will come to the forefront of your minds as you read this.
🤔 Is it viable for your organisation to have the ability to offer a return to work ‘Vlexible’ options for your employees?
🤔What would ‘Vlexible’ look like, for example, a hybrid approach to some home working and some office working?
🤔What boundaries would you consider within Vlexibilty?
🤔What benefits do you perceive from returning to the office — both for Business and Employees and could they be achieved through a hybrid approach?
🤔Have you surveyed employees to understand how they are feeling and what they would like now that new habits have been formed?
🤔To what extent will you be employee-led in agreeing on individual Vlexible working patterns?
🤔 Equality — how will you ensure equality in your approach to ‘Vlexiblity’ and how will you monitor this?
🤔New Policies and Procedures may well be required to ensure clarity of application of any ‘Vlexible’ arrangements.
🤔New employee contracts may be required to reflect the change to terms and conditions
🤔How will you record and manage requests for ‘Vlexibility’ if requesting is an option?
🤔Office Space and Locations — what impact does it have for your business to keep everyone safe whilst keeping the business operations smooth?
🤔Employee Allowances — if employees currently get location allowance (a London allowance for example) then is it time this is reviewed if working from home becomes part of their new normal?
🤔Health & Safety aspects also to be considered in relation to work stations. Will the company arrange for online assessments of workstations and fund any equipment necessary to achieve this?
🤔Does ‘Vlexibility’ open up Recruitment opportunities to search further afield and how does this impact your Recruitment Procedures?
🤔 Graduates and Apprenticeships — how will you manage this stream of new employees if remote working becomes your organisation’s future?
🤔Given trust is key for ‘Vlexible’ working conditions, what training would you put in place to help Managers work in a vlexible way to ensure consistency?
🤔If permitted will you keep records of those employees vaccinated and what about visitors to premises?
🤔Outbreaks of the Virus — do you have tools to monitor this and react quickly knowing who was where when?
🤔How will you manage ‘Teams’ and the feeling of connection to others?
As you can see there are so many areas to look at and this only touches the surface. One thing I do know is that organisations need to have their plan in place and not assume that they can effectively go back to how things were before.
All organisations need to consider what this new way of working means to their business and their employees and be ready to take on board the challenges. With that comes the need to ensure that HR systems and processes support the new ways of working. For example, PeopleSoft, Oracle HCM, and many others.
I leave you with one final consideration and that is don’t leave it to the last minute to look into the possibilities of how your HR system can support you and Vlexible working arrangements.
About the Author
Caroline is currently a Managing Consultant for Oracle Applications at Version 1. Follow Caroline for more Oracle Applications related blogs.
