The Great Flexidus
How organisations are responding to the changed expectations of workers for flexible working arrangements in a post pandemic world and in the midst of a cost of living crisis. Who wins, who loses?
Can we get the balance right?
I’m writing this from my home office. It is outside of my paid work hours, and I have dinner bubbling on the stove. I took my dog for a walk in the morning and took the kids to school. I completed a whole day’s work, and my commute time is as long as it takes me to walk down the hallway to the kitchen.
I have been working from home in various roles and capacities for the past 8 years. I was an early champion of flexible work arrangements as I believed, even before I had my own family to look after, that there was something beneficial in employees having the ability to carve out a better work life balance. The elusive work life balance that is simply harder to find when having to travel to a physical workplace. There are, after all, only 24 hours in a day. Time, the great equaliser.
Living and working in greater Sydney, I am familiar with the challenges and time sucking nature of navigating traffic not only to and from an office space where I would be based, but also between client’s homes and stakeholder offices for meetings. Sometimes I would enjoy the time to decompress and process my thoughts. Other times, I would just feel increasingly stressed about how long it took to get anywhere. Don’t get me started if there was an accident or road works enroute causing additional delays!
Once I was in a management role, some 10 years ago, I thought it would be a good opportunity to test out the views of my then organisation and I raised the question about working from home, say once a week, or flexibly around visits or meetings outside of the office. At that time, the concept was flat refused. It was not something that they were even willing to consider.
Fast forward to 2020 and the Covid pandemic threw all of our strongly held beliefs and well-established work practices out the window.
All of a sudden everyone was forced to pivot, and pivot quickly. At that time, I had moved on from the previous organisation who had refused to consider the option of working from home, or any other flexible working arrangements, including part time- or job-sharing options. The organisation I was now with was already embracing flexible work options and I was in a role that allowed me to work from home as needed. Prior to 2020 I was more often in the office than not, however, once the pandemic hit and we were all trying to navigate the new normal, I, like so many others, became quickly accustomed to working 100% of the time from home. And soon enough, I was required to balance this with home schooling my kids which is another story about balancing work and life all together!
While the pandemic has thrust the idea of working from home and flexible work arrangements in the face of all organisations, business, and even government, we are now in the phase of considering where to from here? A lot of workplaces are requesting or requiring their employees to return to the office, if not full time, at least part of the time. This is forcing employers to consider (or re-consider) what they want and need from their employees and how they want their workers to perform their roles.
It also gives employees the opportunity to think about what is important to them in a job and workplace. Do you value monetary reimbursement as the most important factor? Or are there other priorities that might be more valuable to you, such as the ability to work from home or having flexible work arrangements that allow you to structure your life around the requirements of your job? There are other factors to consider here, such as your own preference for working as part of a team or more independently and how productive you are in the bustling office environment compared to at home on your own with fewer interruptions.
Obviously, there are roles that cannot be done remotely, and we really started to better understand this during the height of the pandemic when the term “essential worker” was thrown around the media and amongst politicians in light of the ongoing lockdowns we all faced to some degree or another. A patient in need of stitches cannot be treated remotely by a doctor or nurse working from home, can they?
Nevertheless, the idea of flexible work arrangements is something that, in my opinion, has warranted serious consideration for as long as I have been employed. And I feel like it cannot be dissected with any discernment without looking at it through a feminist lens.
Social work is a heavily female dominated industry. There are issues inherent in this and it is also something we could unpack in terms of the history of the profession but let’s save that for another day.
What we do know is that generally speaking, females still hold the majority responsibility of unpaid labour, including caregiving, in our society. So, when our kids are sick and need to be picked up from school, it will most likely still be mum who is called and be expected to stay home with the sick child.
Even when the kids are well, though, women are still more likely to be responsible for the general running of the household, such as dinner prep, laundry and cleaning the house. All things that take time. So, the benefits of flexible work arrangements are more likely to impact the work life balance of women. Getting 2 hours back in our day that would have otherwise been accounted for by travelling between home and office, affords us the time to use however we choose, whether that be just to keep on top of our unpaid labour, or for some much-needed self-care.
On top of this, we are living through a cost-of-living crisis that is forcing people to consider the financial aspects associated with getting to and from work or working from home. Whether you live and work in a capital city, regionally or remotely, this is going to be a factor that you will likely need to consider when looking at work opportunities. The cost of petrol and tolls to get to and from an office, versus the cost of electricity to run a home office may be factors employees consider when applying for roles or remaining with their current workplace.
Looking at it through this lens, it seems as though the potential winners in this are women. If employees are in a position to select roles based on their individual needs and how an organisation may meet them, the power lays with them, and employers must consider ways to attract quality candidates by offering this kind of flexibility. Women are able to continue to be engaged in the paid workforce, while being better able to manage our unpaid work and caring duties. Win, win, right?
On the surface it seems to be a simple equation for the individual employee, particularly female employees. At least, I know that it is something that benefits me greatly.
However, where once I would have shouted from the rooftop for the ability to work from home all the time, since the pandemic has been downgraded and life has been attempting to return back to how things were before covid, I have been thinking more about the implications on having large portions of the workforce continuing to work from home.
Firstly, I wonder how our career opportunities are impacted by our lack of physical presence in the workplace. How much do we rely on management “seeing” us carry out our roles in order to be considered for possible career progression? I know as a manager it was not necessarily the staff who were at their desks bright and early and leaving last who were necessarily the ones who were considered to be doing the “best” in their roles. I would be aware if a staff member was not fulfilling their required duties, even if they appeared to be diligently working at their keyboard at all times.
But if you work in an environment that has a hybrid model of remote and office-based working, and the people in power, for example, hiring managers, are office based, will those professional opportunities be easier to offer to those who are physically seen simply because they are in the line of sight of said hiring managers? Does that therefore put those working from home at an immediate disadvantage in terms of career opportunities and progression? And does this, by design put women at a disadvantage from the outset if they are the ones more likely to be utilising a hybrid/work from home modality in order to balance their lives?
Ideally our work should speak for itself in terms of whether we are achieving set outcomes and meeting deadlines, and this should not be impacted by the location of the work being completed (when thinking about the administrative side of our roles). And in an ideal world, our employers would all have a balanced approach to this and appreciate that not all workers are created equal. Some thrive in the office environment, while others are able to reach their targets better in a quieter setting at home where they are less likely to get interrupted by the busy nature of the office space.
However, the administrative aspect is usually only part of our roles as social workers.
Social work is social
As social workers, we are relationship-based practitioners. The face-to-face interactions with our clients and other stakeholders are essential to our work. I do worry about us losing the skills required to build that relationship and rapport with our clients and stakeholders as we conduct so much of the roles in isolation at home.
Perhaps, given the balance of human centred and administrative components of our roles, employers and organisations should take this into account when looking at their expectations of where and how the employee conducts these equally important aspects of their roles.
In addition, how we interact with each other, our colleagues, has been impacted. As we become more reliant on digital connectivity, gaining the ability to connect with others across regions and even globally, I wonder if we have lost the capacity to navigate the interpersonal relationships that are crucial in any workplace. Social workers are required to be, by design, social.
Part of being a functioning member of society is learning to deal with the frustrations of how other people do things. In order to get better at anything, we require practice. For example, we need to be exposed to a wide range of people, doing a wide range of annoying things to be able to practice managing our own responses and feelings of irritation in a socially acceptable and professional way.
I sometimes wonder if I have lost my ability to handle those seemingly minor irritations as a result of my long-term work from home arrangement. I have been able to curate my workspace, have things just how I like so that I am comfortable. My environment has been managed down to the temperature of my workspace just how I like it. When I do venture into the office, I can’t tell you how frustrated I get with all the air conditioning talk - it’s always too hot or too cold and I don’t think there has ever been a time where everyone unanimously agreed on the temperature of the board room at the same time!
Moving beyond the temperature control conundrums, there are certain work functions that do benefit from being together as a team. Things like training, team meetings, group supervision, communities of practice all have much better interactions and outcomes when the team members are face-to-face. It is these functions that employers may look at when considering what parts of the services we deliver that should be conducted from a shared office space.
Another factor that organisations need to consider when implementing any return to the office mandates is the different roles within programs/organisations and what their different functions are. Within any organisation, large or small, there are multiple roles with varying functions and purpose and not all roles will require the same level of office-based attendance. Like anything, it is hard for organisations to deliver blanket expectations for all employees when the work they do varies so significantly.
There is no doubt that technology and the pandemic have provided an opportunity for employers and employees to consider different ways of delivering services and meeting the needs of clients and individual employees.
But as we benefit in some ways from the ability to connect digitally, are we disadvantaging ourselves by losing those vital skills to be able to interact and empathise with others on a human level?
What about our clients?
Beyond the impact on the way we conduct ourselves with our colleagues, what impacts has this had on our clients and how they experience service delivery?
Working in Child Protection and OOHC, like so many other fields of social work, we are meeting people at some of the most vulnerable times of their lives. The issues we support our clients with, whether they be the child or the parent, are so sensitive and the decisions we make about them require the most careful consideration, analysis and compassion. How we cultivate this is through our ability to connect with our clients human to human. How can we create and sustain any meaningful connections when we are not in the physical presence of that person when they are at their lowest?
Further to this, is the experience of our foster carers, those at the coalface of caring for the children who are in need of a safe place to live and be nurtured. Foster carers live their work 24/7; they invite these children into their homes and lives and are with them around the clock.
We are facing a crisis of a lack of foster carers at the moment which is putting a huge amount of pressure on the system we are working in. This issue is incredibly complex in itself and not one I can claim to have any easy solutions to. But I wonder how their experiences, both during covid and since, has impacted on how supported they have felt to do the incredible jobs they are asked to do. How has isolation and the reduced physical presence of support workers for them impacted on their ability to build the resilience needed to keep going in their caring roles?
Undoubtedly these aspects of social work require a level of human interaction that can’t be replicated over a screen. It is also these parts of our roles that are difficult to quantify in terms of whether we are achieving what we set out to achieve with our clients. This part of our work is not always visible to management, funding bodies or other stakeholders. However, it is exactly this that makes the most meaningful difference to the lived experiences of our clients.
So, can we get the balance right?
Covid has disrupted the norms of how we perform work - we have been operating in a post industrialised world where productivity is king. But the extensive lockdowns and rapid pivot organisations were required to undertake at this time has given us all an opportunity to re-think what is important, both in a workplace capacity, and as individuals.
The answers to the questions we are now facing - what should work look like in a post pandemic world - are multifaceted and complex. Like anything involving humans, there is no one size fits all solution.
However, I believe employees are in a position to consider carefully what is important to them, what they want out of a role and leverage their skills and experience to find the role and organisation that delivers the right balance for them.
At the same time, organisations have the opportunity to be bold and creative in thinking about how they can attract the best applicants to build their workforce. No longer can we expect a blanket approach to meet the needs of the clients who organisations serve, or the employees who deliver the services. If organisations want to attract the best applicants and achieve adequate staff retention, they must take an individualised approach to what they expect of their employees. This may take some additional time and consideration, but I believe that this is a valuable investment that will benefit clients and organisations by being staffed by people whose own work life balance needs are met.
And, as social work is such a female dominated industry, the implications for this must consider the responsibilities of women in wider society in order to ensure our long held post industrialised preferences does not unfairly impact on those women who would otherwise be the best investment to an organisation.