Team work is all about the daily practices that bring flexible work to life in your organisation — at a team level.
A team’s actions and how they self-organise are the beating heart of flexibility. You can have all the policies in the world, but this is where the rubber hits the road when it comes to making flexibility work!
Here are some of the common ways of working that reinforce — or undermine — flexible ways of working in a team:
What people say and do
How teams communicate and use tech
How teams work together
Take action
What people say — team language
Language is a powerful tool for building inclusion in a flexible workplace. What conversations do you hear about flexibility at your organisation?
Inclusive flex language looks like…
“What is your work pattern?”
“What is everyone’s capacity to work on this project? How can we best work together on different schedules?”
“Are there any urgent client issues you’d like to hear about on the day you don’t work? Or would you prefer us to triage and deal with them?”
“I thought this was your non-working day. Is your workload ok?”
Non-inclusive flex language looks like…
“Enjoy your early mark” to a colleague leaving at 3pm (who started at 7am)
Talking about a colleague who is working from home while using “air quotes”
“She won’t be able to work on this project because she only works part-time”
“I only work part-time” or “I just work part-time”
What people do — team behaviour
Whether conscious or not, our behaviours can send messages to the team about flexible working and how it’s seen.
Has your team truly embraced the different ways of getting work done?
Supportive flex behaviour looks like...
Approaching flexible working with an open mind and experimenting with different ways of making it work.
Scheduling team meetings during agreed “core hours” and on days when everyone is working.
Only asking team members to attend a meeting outside their work hours due to an unusual circumstance or one-off situation. Making sure they can make it work without high stress.
Establishing and working towards team objectives, planning deadlines in advance.
Unsupportive flex behaviour looks like...
Only offering flexible work options to long-serving employees in the manner of “earning the right” to flexibility.
Consistently scheduling team meetings for times/days that exclude some team members.
Regularly asking team members to attend meetings or complete tasks outside their work hours.
Working to last-minute, “urgent” or false deadlines — causing unnecessary high stress work peaks.