Role Model Event
Geneva, November 20, 2019

The desire for working flexibly is gender and age neutral. Requesting for part-time, does not mean that you are not an ambitious person in regards to your career development. Another wrong assumption is that you cannot reach a leadership position if you are working flexibly.

Flexible work becomes the norm

Therefore, organizations should listen to the desires of Swiss households and offer flexible work alternatives in order to become an employer of choice and attract the best talent. Any organization should enable its employees to develop their career while allowing them to fulfill a life outside their work environment. For millennials, flexible work is no longer a “luxury” but a standard expectation.

At the moment, there is a gap between promoting and implementing flexible work. There are 5 enablers to help companies challenging the corporate culture and achieving their goal of implementing flexible work.

• 1. Challenge the status quo: as Natalie Wilkins said during the conference, “real changes occur when leaders challenge the corporate culture”. Leaders should make vocal their reason to work flexibly (e.g. personal interests, activities outside work). Functional managers should be trained.
• 2. Make it age and gender neutral: organizations should strengthen their flexible work culture by having different types of role models. Everyone has a role and influence on others. As in any cultural change, communication is key. Flexible work policies should be addressed to everybody and not limited to working parents.
• 3. Design flexibility into jobs: vacancies should be advertised by allowing part-time and job-sharing options, even in leading roles. Performance assessment should be based on results, not on hours.
• 4. Influence attitudes and behaviors: wrong behavior should be flagged and positive behavior recognized. The organization should open the discussion when corrective actions need to take place. Managers should be incentivized to promote flexible work within their teams.
• 5. Collect the data: organizations need to set up realistic targets and find their own way on how to measure and track performance in regards to the implementation of flexible work.

5 Practical tips for organizations and HR

• 1. Incentivise and reward the behaviour changes you want to see
• 2. Actively SAY and SHOW that you respect people who have a life and interests outside of work
• 3. Provide infrastructure to help people adopt flex work
• 4. Provide training and guidance on how managers can do this well
• 5. Make it the new norm by communicating and talking about it – very, very often

5 tips for employees

Each employee should feel brave to experiment new ways of working.

• Be clear on what you need and why
• Ask for and negotiate for what you need
• Stick to your hours
• Don’t be LIMITED by your hours
• Don’t make a big deal of FLEXWHERE

“Flexibility should be different for all individuals”

“If an employee is asking you to work flexibly, don’t say no,
try to work with him/her on how you can make it possible”

• Recognize and reward managers who apply Flexible working within their teams
• Make it the new norm by communicating and talking about it – very, very often
• Find a way to measure flexibility; set targets and track progresses.
• Make it available to all – no restrictions
• Provide guidelines to managers / training
• Celebrate role models /success stories
• Attention! Flex should not look that formal, otherwise it is not flexible
• Have the workload adapted to your % of work