Tip of the month
Anthea Lowe & Associates
How rigid and inflexible are your work systems, practices and rules?
If you want to get the most out of each of your employees, encourage a diverse and therefore a more responsive and creative workforce and prevent costly direct and indirect discrimination (and/or other legal) claims, your systems, practices and rules need to be as flexible as possible.
For example:
- Are your hours of work and/or rosters so tight that you are disadvantaging or losing those with carer’s responsibilities, some people with disabilities, and others who might prefer some flexibility to better balance their work with their home, community, religious and other non-work activities?
- Are you inclusive of all types of living arrangements? Or are employees who do not have or live with a heterosexual partner/any partner/any children, or who live in broader family or other groupings, missing out on the benefits, flexibility, leave arrangements, and so on, that you give to those who have or live with their heterosexual partner and/or children?
- Do you insist that specific jobs must be worked full-time or not at all, and therefore lose the benefit of employing some great part-time or job-share workers?
- How flexible are you about your employees’ or potential employees’ religious or cultural requirements?
- Do you equate ability to do the job with how long someone has been doing it – that is, by insisting on x numbers of years experience? Or do you equate ability to do the job with how good they are or will be at it – that is, by checking for past successes and actively skills testing for ability?
- Do you equate good performance with how many hours someone puts in and/or with how much time they spend at work site(s)? Or do you measure performance by what they actually achieve?
- Must certain tasks always be performed in the same way? Or are you flexible about approach as long as you get the outcomes you need?
- Do you have ‘group think’? Are you surrounded by ‘yes’ women and men? Or do you actively solicit different and perhaps more creative ideas and approaches so as to get the best outcomes?
- When was the last time you employed someone quite different from the rest of the team? Does your insistence on ‘team fit’ mean that you are discriminating against people who are in some way different? Are you losing out on the skills and abilities of people from differing backgrounds? Or are you achieving better results by actively promoting, employing, valuing and supporting diversity?
The importance of flexibility
