One of the biggest challenges faced by current business organizations is building teams and retaining the talents within while maintaining measurable results. The way employees work has changed drastically over the years. People no longer appreciate a highly corporate or regulated environment. Employees want flexible working hours and autonomy of work. Failing to reach this requirement often creates an issue of work-life balance in business organizations. This leads to unhappy and non-productive employees. And the performance of the overall business will start to fall.
As a result, many managers are being trained in enhancing teamwork through focusing more on results rather how many hours their team members put in per day or week. Many modern business organizations, especially those that are welcoming of millennials, are incorporating this strategy.
Why is a Results Oriented Approach More Important Than Number of Working Hours?
The world has become saturated with digitization and globalization trends. These trends allow people to become distracted and lose focus easily. However, the same trends allow them to be more productive in less time. Moreover, we have a fast-paced business world where results are more important than how many hours it took a person to produce them. Globally, performance is preferred as compared to competing over how much time someone has invested.
If daily and annual goals are being met, it means the teamwork is effective and so is your role as a manager. Either employees work from home or simply spend fewer hours at the office, your main focus should be on being results oriented.
Benefits
Work-life Balance
If your business market is becoming competitive and complex, so are the personal lives of your employees. Nowadays, people have as much responsibilities outside of their work life as within. With the rapidly increasing pace of life, employees are pushing for work-life balance. If you allow your team to work from home twice a week or let them complete unfinished tasks at home, you are allowing them a better chance at maintaining a balance and experiencing less stress in the workplace.
Sense of Accountability
Teamwork often decreases the autonomy of a single member but you can create accountability by trusting them with flexible working hours. A level of trust will make them more motivated, which adds to the value of teamwork.
Increased Focus
With flexible hours, employees are less likely to feel stressed. With limited hours, they feel rushed, scattering their focus. With the ability work on their own terms, they are likely to produce better results even with fewer working hours.
Drawbacks
Decreased Office Visibility
With more work from home chances, the visibility within business premises decreases, which is not always a good business solution if your company experiences a lot of foot traffic. However, a balance can be maintained and results can be measured.
Rigidity
Many managers and senior employees (who follow the traditional 9-to-5 workday) will find it hard to adjust with these modern traditions. However, training can help in establishing positive behaviors towards such changes.
Although this type of flexibility and results-oriented culture may not work in every office, managers can play a major role in improving teamwork results by applying this strategy as applicable to their team and subsequent goals.
Read more about attracting and maintaining employees at TechCo