#smarterworking
© 2020 Journey4 Limited
The Coronavirus pandemic has forced companies to operate differently under lockdown measures and varying degrees of restriction since lockdown. Businesses have learnt to adapt and change their business models to survive and many believe that they won’t return to the old ways of working. Instead, new ways of working have been tried and tested, many successfully.
Now is the time for businesses to work out how they can retain the best of these new ways for working and reintroduce the best of previous approaches, when possible, such that they emerge from the pandemic stronger and ready to benefit from Smarter Working practices.
Smarter Working Research
Journey4 has undertaken exclusive research with businesses across a wide range of sectors around the UK to understand what their experiences were during the Covid-19 lockdown and the subsequent period of various restrictions.
We have taken the learnings from this period to understand how business models will need to change in the future to be successful.
Here are the key research findings
We have also established the Smarter Working Forum, through which you can join in this ongoing discussion.
Smarter Working Themes
Our research identified four key themes for businesses to focus on:
- Leadership and Culture
- Work Life Balance
- Productivity
- Communication
For each of these areas we explore the key issues and identified what business leaders should ‘Stop’, ‘Start’ and ‘Continue’ doing to improve and work smarter in the future.
This process also identified some key considerations for business leaders in terms of how they engage with and manager their teams:
• Everyone’s personal circumstances are different, therefore, businesses will need to adopt an employee-driven approach, rather than implementing one-size-fits-all solutions top down
• Leaders will need to understand individual needs and circumstances and find flexible solutions that work for different segments of the employee population to maintain an engaged and productive workforce
• The best ideas about effective working arrangements often come from the employees themselves so business leaders should have the confidence to ask their colleagues what they think will work best
• Leaders should also ask their colleagues what they have found to be the best and worst aspects of the lockdown / restricted working period, including those who continued to work and those who were working from home
Smarter Working Services
To help business leaders respond to the key themes identified and manage the transition to these new ways of working, we have adapted some of our core services and developed others to provide a range of tools for managers and their teams:
Remobilisation Planning Service
Helping businesses ensure they review their processes to prepare for future extreme shocks like Covid-19.
· Vision and strategy review
· Risk management and business resilience/ continuity planning
· People, Engagement and Culture audit
· Re-mobilisation programme development.
Smarter Working Employee Survey
Understand employees needs and circumstances and find flexible solutions to maintain an engaged and productive workforce.
Assess employees’ views on working at home during lockdown: what they have liked or found difficult about it, what would help them work at home more comfortably and how they would like to work under different future scenarios.
Adaptive Leadership
A set of strategies and practices used to overcome obstacles, achieve meaningful change, and adapt to challenging and complex environments.
Our service helps business leaders to assess themselves against the characteristics of Adaptive Leaders and to develop ways of working, individually and collectively, that give leaders and their colleagues the confidence to change and grow.