Flexible, Agile or Remote Working?
Defining the Working Styles in a Modern Workplace
Remote working, working from home, agile working, flexible working… these are the broad range of terms and buzz words we’ve all come to hear a lot about over the past couple of years and we’d be forgiven for thinking they all meant the same thing. However, they don’t, and mixing up the definitions of these terms is like saying Coke is the same as Pepsi – we all know it’s not the same!
It’s important to distinguish the differences between them if we’re going to embrace these modern ways of working in our organisations. In this article, we’ll try to give a clear definition for each term so you can decide which way of working would fit well within your business and how you can implement it.
Flexible Working
Starting with the term we hear most often; flexible working can often be misconstrued to mean something it's not. At Nasstar, flexible working means moving away from the traditional 9-5 and understanding that personal lives happen within these hours, meaning that it’s not always possible to stick to the status quo.
Examples of flexible working could include giving an employee the opportunity to start work earlier on a particular day and allowing them to finish early so that they can make their child’s parents evening, or allowing a person to work later into the evening instead of starting early so that they can go to a gig on a Tuesday night. It can also encompass changing their working hours and working days more regularly, for example by not working on Fridays or changing their core hours from 9-5 to 10-4.
Times have changed and it’s not just employees with children who can benefit from this way of working. Changes to UK law have paved the way for flexible working by ensuring that all employees are entitled to request flexible working arrangements. This means that employees can gain a better work/life balance or simply just be at home to have a washing machine delivered!
Flexible working is not always a permanent solution though, it’s about being able to adapt your working situation to suit your personal needs as and when they arise. This also makes it one of the easiest working methods to implement in the workplace.
To implement flexible working, employers should consider having the following in place:
- A clear process for how flexible working will work within the business which is then circulated around the organisation
- Documented flexible working terms which have been agreed with individual employees and confirmed in writing
- Defined roles and responsibilities that employees have for making a flexible working scheme a success
- A review of support levels offered to line managers
- Sufficient communication methods, so it’s clear what type of flexible working is needed by individual employees and how to discuss modern working styles
- Performance management criteria, which incorporates flexible working to ensure people are measured on their outputs rather than solely on their office presence
- A revised culture that supports and encourages flexible working for everyone, not just a select few
- Technology that allows a person to stay connected and be able to do their work efficiently when they're outside the office
Agile Working
Often used interchangeably with flexible working, the term agile working goes together with flexible working but is not the same thing. Where flexible working mostly refers to a staff member adapting their working hours to suit their needs, agile working is more about the company enabling flexible working or remote working to become a part of their company culture and the wider organisation.
Agile working puts structure in place to allow people to work where, when and how they choose, as long as it meets the operational and strategic needs of the business. It’s about how you work, not where you work. It focuses on empowering employees to do their best work by optimising their performance to allow them to do their jobs with minimal working restrictions and maximum flexibility.
Of course, implementing agile working is not an overnight fix, as it requires a change in both management and structure. To have an agile workforce, an organisation needs to take stock of what processes are currently in place and how these can be changed to maximise workforce productivity; whether that be removing the time spent commuting by allowing people to work from home or changing the office environment to allow for hot-desking and increased creativity.
Executing agile working also requires the right technology to be in place so that workers can connect seamlessly with systems, resources, applications and files, as well as being able to communicate effectively with their colleagues.
For example, Sparkbay is an employee engagement tool that puts culture ahead of everything. Without the right technology in the workplace, things can go drastically wrong and the security of your business could be at stake.
When agile working is fully embraced and proactively managed, it brings a number of benefits to an organisation. A business can look forward to reduced overheads if a smaller premise can be used due to more people working remotely, increased productivity and improved creativity.
Companies may also experience improved employee retention, as they will be making staff feel more valued and offering employees a work/life balance that suits their needs and encourages them to remain at the organisation.
We find it’s a good idea to think of agile working as the process of removing boundaries to promote flexible working and improve office efficiency, whilst ensuring your staff have everything they need to work productively.
Working from Home
Working from home is a term that is very closely aligned with flexible working in that it’s not a major change to the day-to-day and is more of a temporary working solution. You might work from home if you have important deadlines to meet and need to work free from distraction or, as mentioned above, you might need to be at home to take delivery.
This type of working can often be confused with remote working because, in effect, a person working from home is working away from the office and therefore remotely. But they are not the same and each requires very different processes. For example, if you need to work from home you could just take your work laptop and set it up in the kitchen for the day without the need for much else, which is easy enough to do and can be great for productivity. However, the structure of the office is still apparent as you’d likely still be working your usual office hours and your desk would still be waiting for you on your return to the workplace.
Working from home means exactly that; you are working from home and therefore this is the location you are expected to be at, similarly to when you’re in the office. This way of working doesn’t allow for you to work in your local Starbucks or from a yacht in the Mediterranean (we can dream), it’s purely a temporary place for you to work from. Remote working, on the other hand, would allow you to work from any location.
Remote Working
Perhaps the most common phrase of them all, remote working is an all-encompassing working style that allows people to work away from the traditional office environment. Remote working incorporates all three of the aforementioned working methods.
This form of working is largely based on the concept that work does not need to be done in a defined place to be completed successfully. As mentioned previously, remote workers can work from anywhere; a coworking office space, the kitchen table, a local bistro, a taverna on a Greek island or even the moon (eventually)! There are no designated desks or working hours, and professionals can complete their work and meet business goals, targets and overall requirements.
Now it’s worth mentioning that our definition is a fairly general explanation of remote working. Every business that offers remote working will have its own company policy in place and a view of how it should manifest itself within the organisation. Some businesses will allow employees to work remotely on a full-time basis and collaborate online, whereas others will ask employees to attend meetings in the office or be present in the office a certain number of times each month.
A 2019 report by Buffer found that 99% of 2,500 workers surveyed said they wanted to work from home, at least some of the time, for the remainder of their careers. This is a significant statistic and remote working is something that we believe is only going to gain traction as millennials increasingly occupy the workforce and technology makes it easier than ever for people to embrace modern working styles.
Technology for Remote Working
Technology suppliers have seen the increasing need for remote working in a variety of businesses, and as a result; they now offer more dynamic communication and workplace collaboration tools that enable professionals to work from any location without losing access to important information.
Solutions such as secure cloud hosting and Microsoft Office 365 give businesses the opportunity to ensure their employees can access emails, documents and information from anywhere, at any time. Being able to seamlessly access office applications and data, with the same experience as working in an office, means that remote working doesn’t impact a business’ ability to best serve its clients. It also allows workers to better communicate with their clients: sharing files securely and collaborating live on document changes, as well as video conferencing with teams across the world.
Is Remote Working Secure?
It’s all well and good saying “yes, let’s offer remote working”, but have you thought about security? Cyber security is one of the biggest hurdles that businesses come up against when considering remote working, but that shouldn’t put you off. Taking security to the next level when it comes to remote working is of the utmost importance.
As an employer, you need to ensure that your employee’s devices are secured to the highest levels when being used both at home and in the office. Furthermore, when working remotely any data being shared in the cloud or outside of company networks needs to be protected. You’ll also need to implement risk-based multi-factor authentication to ensure an employee is who they say they are and even think about remote wipe functionalities and PIN-lock. But where do you start?
As a leading Managed IT provider, Nasstar can work with you to implement the technology, systems and processes needed to be able to offer superior remote working to your workforce, without compromising on system performance or data security.
