How Flextiming is Transforming B2B Work Culture
The first quarter of the year 2020 witnessed the outbreak of COVID-19; the situation being so severe that WHO officially declared the phenomenon a global pandemic on March 12 – causing thousands of employees in the B2B industry to work either remotely or from home.
With the concept of working from home emerged the concept of ‘Flextiming’ (not a new one though). At a time of the global pandemic, flextime is transforming B2B work culture by empowering the employees working from home to work on their own schedule; thus, contributing to business continuity and also holds immense potential for the post-pandemic work culture evolution.
It’s said that those who know how to bend can’t be broken.
The present times are uncertain, considering that most of the companies were not buckled up to face the vicious challenges underlying the pandemic outbreak – let alone having a full-fledged resilient structure to restore equanimity at the workplace.
Across the globe, people, including the B2B workforces have been asked to work from home.
Well, the survival strategy enforcement was much needed considering that lockdown is still better than being knocked down by the fatal viral disruptions.
Across the globe speculations are high on the pandemic will disrupt the global economy, leading us to a state of a global slowdown and inflation and how the world needs to have some sort of unified global plan to fight back the economic, social, healthcare and environmental repercussions of the pandemic outbreak. At times of uncertainty and inaction, flextime is transforming B2B work culture by allowing the employees to work from home, choosing the hours that work the best for their creative juices to flow, instead of adhering to an ardent schedule within normal office set-up.
Well, unlike software you can’t uninstall and reinstall the year 2020 just because it has a virus. The procedure to debug the biological virus seems to a long battle and we will be able to understand the exact impact it had on the global economy only when we can curb the infections worldwide, which seems uncertain with the virus possibly all set to enter in its second stage of proliferation soon.
Amidst the unfortunate malignancy of the pandemic cloud, flextime is transforming B2B work culture, positively and has emerged as a blessing in disguise.
The challenges of the pandemic are not just confined to physical impacts on the health of the people across the globe but there is also an evident impact on mental health-related complications that seem to be bulking up.
While many of us are smart enough to understand that humanity is fighting a battle, traveling an ultimate safari for survival, many of us fail to understand that we are in it together. Fear, trauma, overthinking to an uncertain future, distress, anxiety, and restlessness are mental challenges impacting many people while working remotely.
In such a situation, flextime is definitely helpful. It is transforming B2B work culture by allowing employees to keep themselves engaged to combat overthinking and yet have a positive sense of accomplishment by contributing something fruitful to the greater good of the global economy – no matter how small it may be.
Human beings are intelligent and social purpose-driven beings and at the time of quarantine or social distancing, flextiming is helping them contribute to their purpose. Flextiming is transforming B2B work culture by instilling in the workforces a sense of accomplishment at a time when many of them are finding it hard to battle mental distress following inaction and recreational gatherings.
So, flextiming is already helping. How many of us actually realize that flextiming is transforming B2B work culture by helping the employees become more psychically stable? Flextiming is transforming B2B work culture by helping it evolve both mentally as well as methodologically by customizing them to work smoothly within the most uncertain situations, in a way that demonstrates work culture resilience. Also, flextiming is transforming B2B work culture by empowering the employees to operate from a place of gratitude, trust, and togetherness, even as they are remote to believe that they are connected and dinner or later the pace of their lives on work as well as personal levels, will be restored.
Resilience and restoration are amazing ecological concepts – true as much as for biological ecosystems as for the business economies across the globe. So have those positive vibes that flextiming is transforming B2B work culture by empowering us to efficiently and tactfully fight a possible global recession already.
What is flextiming and What are examples of flexible work arrangements
According to Merriam-Webster, flextiming is “a system that allows employees to choose their own times for starting and finishing work within a broad range of available hours.”
Consider some hypothetical examples of flexible work arrangements. You’re working from home with a core period each day when you should be at work – say 10 AM to 2 PM, coupled with a broader period for the work completion, say 6 AM to 6 PM.
Flextiming is transforming B2B work culture by keeping the employees satisfied and motivated as they better juggle between their work, personal lives and emotional turmoil and save their precious time on daily activities such as commuting, daycare or babysitting.
On the employer side, flextiming is transforming B2B work culture positively by improving productivity and giving a boost to the company reputation as a ‘good place to work.’
Those questioning, why do flexible hours inspire performance, the answer is deep-rooted in employee satisfaction and motivation.
As substantiated by research at Forbes, employee experience is an indispensable component of customer-experience.
Flextiming is transforming B2B work culture and boosting employee experience for optimizing your branding endeavors is an integral part of the process.
How to develop flexibility in the workplace
According to a report by the Motley Fool, 60% of flexible workers say that the flexitime set-up makes them more productive and engaged in the office.
For those of us realizing how flextiming is transforming B2B work culture, in a positive way, and looking forward to implementing it as an integral component of our work environment, even as we return to offices post-pandemic, the following steps might help:
- Plan a flextiming model to best suit the nature of your business
- The basic rules of the game such as allocation of tasks and hours must be clearly defined
- There should be a proper communication channel for people to communicate with each other regarding projects, deadlines, workflows, etc.
- Test-run your flexible work model before implementing it across the company
- Get your managers involved to manage a flexible workforce
Benefits of Flextiming
According to a report by Financial Times, 89% of British workers believe that working on flexible arrangements boosts productivity.
Flextiming is Transforming B2B work culture by allowing employees to choose their work schedules with certain conditions such as working for a prescribed number of hours to meet optimum efficiency and productivity.
Flextiming is transforming B2B work culture benefitting both the employers and the employees in the following ways:
1. Boosts Mental Health and Keeps the Employees Motivated
According to research by Forbes, 84% of working parents consider work flexibility as the most important factor in a job.
Flexible work hours give employees the much needed creative breaks to energize themselves and feel good which boosts work productivity.
2. Absenteeism and Tardiness are Fewer
Flextiming improves B2B work culture by allowing employees to work with fewer stressors such as fear of running late for office.
With flexibility workplace stress is reduced leading to lesser absenteeism and Tardiness.
3. Optimizes Return on Investment (ROI)
Flextiming is transforming the B2B work culture by reducing the use of office utilities and other supplies. This results in minimized costs at the workplace and improves savings leading to an optimized ROI.
4. Improves Collaboration and Project Management
Flextiming is transforming the B2B work culture by allowing employees to choose the work timing that works best for them.
Thus, there is a better collaboration for the intra-department as well as cross-functioning, which, in turn, eases project management.
5. Recruitments are easier
As flextiming is transforming B2B work culture, reflecting on the workplace as a better place to work, with flextiming policies marketers can attract candidates whose job selection criteria include the prelude of being able to choose their own work schedules and manage their own tasks.
Wrapping Things Up
As flextiming is transforming B2B work culture while we continue to work remotely from home, it might be a good idea to implement it in our normal office schedules, once the life swings back to normal and we start heading back to our offices post-pandemic. Also, as we are getting more accustomed to working with flextiming, returning to our normal schedules can be a bit boring post-pandemic. We will have the golden option to test-run flextiming with our normal working schedules, if not essentially replace them completely.
Let’s face it monotony has never lead to evolution. Biologically creative thoughts leading to the evolution of mankind have mostly flourished with some quality leisure time – with a tendency to let things flow rather than controlling them.
It’s time to implement the same philosophy in business.
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