Joanne Bushell, Chief Executive Officer of Regus Africa says the a recent trend is calling the boss's caring side to come the fore. Factors behind the trend are hardly ‘soft', however. They include team member burnout, the rising price of absenteeism and the high cost of replacing good people.
“The ‘loving boss' might be an exaggeration, but they certainly want to deepen the relationship with talented people by guarding against burnout. They view remote working as a contributor to talent retention," Bushell notes.
“Cost efficiency will always be key, but prospective clients increasingly look at flexible options as a way of keeping good people happy and productive."
The international impetus is explained by research into the link between burnout and regimented office routines. A British study by Durham Business School found that 89% of five-day-a-week office workers feel burnt out.
When working policies allowed employees the freedom to choose an alternate working location such as a local serviced office for two or more days a week, burnout levels fell to 5%.
Durham researchers found that 46% of the workforce felt great levels of stress when constrained to the office five days a week, while 52% said they were at “the end of their rope” (an early alert that work-related health issues may be imminent).
Allowing team members to choose when and where they work two or more days a week reduced end-of-the-rope stress to 3%.
Bushell adds: “UK researchers found that the simplest changes to working practices can significantly enhance employee wellbeing, which ties in with some South African studies.”
The recent Sandton conference of the Institute of Health Risk Management heard that easy-to-implement interventions can save South African employers up to 40% of their health-related costs.
The finding comes from a team at Lekana Employee Benefit Solutions that has interrogated data on absenteeism and workplace health from more than 500,000 workers and managers at companies throughout South Africa.
Bushell points out: “International and local studies suggest a more caring and flexible stance by employers can pay off through improved productivity and savings on corporate health costs.
“Technology is a factor, too. Experience shows that home-based workers using mobile technology are just as productive – sometimes more so – than office-bound staff. You can work remotely and then join other team members at a corporate meeting room in a business centre. You can also use a business centre's video-conferencing facilities to connect to other regional and international offices.
“Caring and cost-efficient solutions are available and today's ‘caring boss' should be looking at them carefully,” Bushell concludes.
