For employers struggling to attract staff flexible working is now an important offer

Lee Copland, Managing Director, Maxxess EMEA

Amid the current labour market turmoil, we’re seeing an interesting attitude shift among employers.

Despite the cost-of-living crisis, increased pay is not seen as the most important answer for organisations struggling to fill vacancies. Instead, they are looking at a mix of efficiency gains and employee benefits aside from pay.

Offering improved working conditions, with more flexible home and hybrid working, is now a preferred solution for many according to the London-based HR professionals’ body, the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development).

It’s understood that when employees are weighing up the benefits of a job – whether to stay in their current one, whether to take a new one – they are factoring is cost-savings from reduced commuting, savings that come from being able to manage their time more efficiently, and hidden benefits such as reduced stress and hassle.

These employee motivations really matter. The CIPD’s latest quarterly outlook – a snapshot taken in April – shows that many organisations are still struggling to attract the people they need. In fact two-thirds of UK employers expect to have difficulties filling posts over the next six months, and a third expect those difficulties to be severe.

But even so, only 27% of employers believed raising wages would help them manage the problem (down from 44% on the previous quarter). Instead, 37% now said they were looking to upskill existing staff, and to introduce flexible working conditions.

The picture is still mixed, with other recent surveys point to record high starting salaries for some posts at least. But there can be no doubting that flexible and hybrid working are becoming the established norm in many sectors, for example in IT, communications, scientific services, and professional services generally.

The US, the UK and Canada appear to be ahead of Europe in this move away from the old model of fixed desks and default Monday-to-Friday office attendance.

Recent Google mobility data shows that commuter traffic in the UK is down by 22% on pre-COVID levels, compared with 7% down in Germany and 6% in Italy. Data from the US and Canada indicates a commuting decline similar to the UK’s.

A swathe of data around city centre footfall and building occupancy rates, as well as employee attitude surveys, all points in the same direction. In London, for example, where commuting costs are higher, some surveys show traffic down by over 40%.

While this this may be for some sectors of the economy – and a reason why some newspaper proprietors may be keen to stir up a ‘back to the office’ argument – if managed smartly, it is good news for many employers and their people.

In the UAE for example, 85% of companies reported an increase in productivity after shifting to hybrid working during COVID, according to a recent article published by Zawya, a pre-eminent source of MENA intelligence.  And 69% of the 2,500 businesses surveyed believe that adapting to new work patterns is essential for retaining and attracting staff.

The reshaping of corporate systems and infrastructure that we are now seeing – steadily rolling-out in support of hybrid working – is not just reactive. The same automations and efficiencies that have been deployed to make it easier for people to work remotely, and to visit premises flexibly, are also driving wider productivity benefits.

Upgrading access control and implementing visitor management solutions employers are finding that they can remove many of the old annoyances and inconveniences that employees, contractors, and other site visitors had to put up with every time they arrived on site and had to pass through security.

Now, these visitors benefit from touchless, frictionless access using biometrics and mobile credentials such as QR codes. At the same time the organisation benefits, with integration of HR databases, scheduling systems and security, allowing once cumbersome processes to be streamlined.

The next generation solutions are going further by enabling extensibility with corporate architectures. For example, by integrating physical access with Microsoft Active Directory and other core systems lets organisations manage access to multiple, dispersed physical premises – and access to networks and applications – much more effectively.

These solutions are already cutting out the inefficiencies of siloed technologies and information stacks in busy workplaces from hospitals and other critical infrastructure sites through to hotels and hospitality and transportation hubs.

And, we just announced, it’s now possible to integrate AI-powered, highly accurate facial recognition such as SAFR® from RealNetworks with these solutions. The result is not just improved security at physical premises – with facial recognition providing a powerful ID option – but improved network security and more secure home working too. The same technology is enabling better two-way engagement between employees and employers. Are people taking breaks from their desks? Are they working longer hours that they should be, or still working at the weekend when they should be resting? Do they want to report a concern anonymously, or do they need emergency help?

How does answering this kind of question help? Different approaches are being explored, with companies actively looking for new ways to drive up productivity; but wherever these new, improved two-way communications and engagement technologies have been deployed well, the feedback from the staff using them is positive.

And because these solutions don’t come with a high price tag, employers are reckoning they are a smart way to reducing staff turnover, making employees feel valued, and helping them to work more efficiently. With staffing pressures unlikely to end soon, it’s a good investment for the long term too.