Smart Working: Flexibility That Makes Employees Happy

12 of September, 2022

Employee satisfaction is important to business growth and productivity. So, if your business is going to reach its fullest potential, your employees need to have a good working environment; one that keeps them happy enough for them to put in their very best. In this article, we go through what smart working means and more. Keep reading!

What is smart working?

Smart working is a system that employees use to create a working environment for themselves. It is a mode of working that uses new technologies to make better the performance of the worker and the satisfaction derived from the performance on the job. 

Smart working provides employees with tools and means to better their craft and productivity. It helps them decide the method, time, and place best suited to help them increase their effectiveness in their given organization.

When an organization makes use of smart work, it does not only benefit the employees but the organization as well. The provision of newer technologies ensures that projects are faster and devoid of fewer mistakes. This then helps the company make more profit and drives them closer to achieving both its short and long-term goals.

How does smart work benefit employers?

It is important to take a deeper look at the benefits of smart work for employers. This is because smart work seems to be a means of just making work easier for the employees, but it goes beyond that. The benefits include:

Ability to take on more employees

Smart working also includes working from home. With this in mind, when an employer seeks new employees, he no longer has to deal with the problem of distance. He is more focused on selecting employees that are the right fit for his company without worrying about proximity.

Increase in the level of productivity

Smart working usually means working with newer and improved technologies from the comfort of your home. This means that employees can carry out their duties wherever they deem fit. They are no longer restricted by the construction of the office space. This proves as a means of increasing productivity in employees.

Decrease in the number of sick days

Employees with flexible time schedules and a smart work model work more than those who clock in and out at work hours. For example, if an employee had a contagious illness like a cold or flu, other employees stand a large risk of contracting that disease, thus increasing the number of absent employees and reducing productivity. But an employee who is a smart worker does not need to come to the office when they have a minor illness. They can still carry out their duties and also ensure that their fellow employees are also healthy.

Employees are less likely to quit

Smart work is not a model that has largely been adopted by a lot of companies or organizations. An employer that provides a flexible schedule to his employees, a better working environment, and technologies designed to improve productivity is more likely to retain staff than one who does not practice smart work. This in turn constitutes employee loyalty as the possibility of employees leaving this opportunity for something less is unfound.

How to implement smart working

Smart work is a wonderful phenomenon, but how does an organization that has little to no idea about the concept or model implement it? There are certain workable steps and they include:

Invest in smart working tools

For an organization to start its employees on the journey to becoming smart workers, investment needs to be made in smart working tools to help increase effective internal communication, easy collaboration, and increased engagement to work amongst team members. Sesame
HR is one of those smart tools.

Encouraging your employees to acquire knowledge

This ranges from letting them acquire knowledge and applying that knowledge in their work, to allowing them to handle decision-making in very few aspects. This in turn helps them to think on their feet and that in turn increases productivity.

Provide a reward for smart workers

Set an example by rewarding employees that are smart workers with time flexibility. This includes those that are agile and hit the targets set for them in the organization. This sets the tone for others to fall in line with the smart workers.

Ask that remote workers get a workspace

While working from home sounds like a great idea, the purpose could easily be defeated if there’s a lack of a workspace free from distraction. It could be a study or a desk and chair in the corner of a room. As long as it is not a bed or a place filled with distractions.

Decrease loyalty test by physical presence

It is sometimes easy to deem someone who is always in your presence more loyal than one who’s working from home. Start to measure loyalty by results and not by presence. This causes other employees to sit up and it in turn increases productivity. 

Smart work proves to be the future for any organization that is looking to evolve with the times and make a better profit, as well as achieve goals. At Sesame, we know how important is to have tools that simplify work. That is why we came up with an HR Software that makes the activities of HR teams much easier.