New ways of working: Is flexible working the key to attract top talent?

Today is one of the days I work in a co-working space in Antwerp. When I look around, there can be no other subject for my blog than the rising trend of flexible working. Surrounded by digital start-ups with millennials who believe that their app will change the world, business owners who have client meetings over a cup of coffee and even a father actively participating in a brainstorm session holding his newborn, I can only think how much working has changed in the last few years.

Or at least it has changed for some people. When we hear the traffic reports, most people still have a daily commute to their work place where they check in at 9 and leave at 5.

In an age when finding and retaining top talent is among the strongest predictors of a company’s success, is workplace flexibility a necessary tool to increase employee satisfaction and productivity or is it merely a gimmick to market your ‘hip’ factor?

Many employers have started to implement flexible working practices. Satellite offices have been opened, a commuter bus with Wi-Fi has been put in place and a home working policy has been written. However, the fixed working day remains the starting point and flex working initiatives are mainly exceptions, made to accommodate family needs. Nothing has changed about the actual working practices. Being ‘present’ rules, managers struggle with knowing what people are doing if they can’t see them and often assume they are not as committed as those who come in to the office. Consequently, embracing flex working opportunities is often seen as the fastest way to end your career.

The implementation of flexible working as a driver for attracting and retaining top talent goes beyond these initiatives and requires a significant cultural shift.

The new approach to work involves a shift of control from the employer to the employee.

To be a successful leader in such an environment, you might need to let go of a management style that you were trained in and that you used yourself to get ahead in your career: loyalty, hard work and putting your career above your personal life. In a twenty first century flexible working environment, it is key to embrace the buzzword ‘empowerment’ and measure achieved outcome instead of measuring the input, the hours worked. You will need to give employees autonomy and trust that they will not abuse the freedom.

It also involves strong engagement skills to ensure that people continue to work in the right direction without being physically present at all times. If you combine this with the capability to create and inspire teams, even in a remote setting, then you are all set to be a successful leader in a flexible working environment.

For the individual employee, the ability to work anywhere and at any time can be a blessing and a curse. You’ll need to learn how to manage the blurred border between work and private life. Self-management, project skills and effective communication will become increasingly important.

Implementing flexible working requires a significant shift in leadership and in required skillset. Some people may be attracted by that shift and embrace the opportunity, while others will prefer to continue to work in a more traditional way.

The true key to attracting and retaining top talent is the ability to mix those two requirements and to allow people to work in the way that best matches their personality with leaders who can adjust their leadership style to meet their needs.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Isabel

Through a personalized and tailor-made approach, Ingenium Executive Search aspires to assist you in attracting the right talent that matches the DNA of your company

Check out our website http://www.ingenium-search.be

Follow me on Twitter @IngeniumSearch

No guts, no glory...is risk taking a key to success?

I had a surprising feedback call with an HR director. He had decided not to withhold a candidate due to the fact that he did not believe he would have the ability to take risks. Of all the reasons why a client may decide not to continue a selection process with a candidate, this was a new one. Could it be true that the ability to take risk is a quality that can determine success?

When I started researching I immediately ended up with hundreds, if not thousands, of articles that have been written about how risk taking is linked to the willingness to fail. Managers are often thought to tolerate mistakes to foster a learning organization.

I believe that that is turning things the other way around. If risk-taking is immediately linked to making mistaking and learning from them, we are focusing on the negative. After all, who likes to fail? The concept of failure immediately entails the idea of embarrassment and the loss of esteem and stature.

When we look at today’s top business leaders, it is not their mistakes that we remember. It is their willingness to make bold moves, their courage to take tough decisions.

Is it an inborn characteristic or is it a skill that they have acquired throughout the years and improved with practice?

I believe that it is the latter.  People who become good leaders may have a greater than average willingness to make risky moves, but they strengthen their chances of success—and avoid career suicide—through careful deliberation and preparation.

And that is exactly where the key to success lies. The skill to make intelligent decisions between risk and irresponsibility combined with careful preparation and forethought will to a large degree determine the level of achievement that you will attain. 

Not all risks are equal. You can close your eyes and jump but without looking where you are going, you are merely rolling the dice in a casino. The most intelligent risks are those where the potential downside is limited and fixed, but the potential upside is wide.  Those are the risks you should jump to take. Making that choice comes with practice, with talking to others as a sounding board.

Ensuring that your choice becomes a success requires careful planning, clear objectives, the ability to look ahead and possibly a contingency plan. That way you can minimize risk and maximize the odds that you'll succeed.

Many people do what you do and so the only way you are going to stand out from the crowd, is by leaving the well established, proven paths.  That means taking risks. Consequently, having the ability to choose and manage risks by going through the process of calculating the risks, taking your chances, but also learning from your mistakes is how leaders are made and a key determining factor for your success.

So, go out there and find an intelligent risk you can take today.  Maybe it won’t work out. But what if it does?  Celebrate either way because no matter what the outcome, you’ll gain courage just by making the attempt.

I look forward to talking to you

Isabel

Through a personalized and tailor-made approach, Ingenium Executive Search aspires to assist you in attracting the right talent that matches the DNA of your company

Check out our website http://www.ingenium-search.be

Follow me on Twitter @IngeniumSearch

"What if I fall..."

“Oh but my darling, what if you fly…”

A friend of mine sent me this quote, admitted it is a bit of a fluffy one. On Facebook, I get bombarded with similar quotes that are all designed to lighten up my day. This one however stuck to my mind.

We all know the story about Icarus. He made wings to make him fly. When he came too close to the sun, his wings burned. From childhood on, we learn not to be overly ambitious, not to set goals that seem impossible to reach. We continue this way of thinking in our professional lives. Feedback during performance reviews is often focusing on areas of improvement rather than on achievements where you used your strengths to excel.

Focusing on strengths is becoming more and more an acceptable leadership style. Rath & Conchie wrote a book, Strengths Based Leadership, where academic research shows that to the extent we can use our strengths, people are six times more likely to be “engaged” in their jobs and more than three times more likely to declare they have an excellent quality of life in general.

Applying this strengths based leadership style requires a different way of thinking, a different way of hiring, coaching and assigning people to positions.

It all starts by knowing and acknowledging what your own strengths are. Strengths define who you are, they make unique. Often we are not aware of the innate talents that we have that can be developed into strengths.

Once you know your own strengths, you need to have the courage to surround you with people who complete these strengths. Rath & Conchie identified 4 domains of leadership strengths: executing, relationship building, strategic thinking and influencing. Any effective team should consist at least one person of each domain.

When it comes down to people management, you need to understand the strengths of people reporting into you and place them in the appropriate roles. This takes listening to people and empowering them to invest in their strengths. But it also requires thorough understanding of the business and the markets to know how to match employee’s strengths with specific projects and goals.

These three guidelines should allow you to make people fly without having their wings burnt. I’ll start by giving the good example, I promise never to ask you during interviews what your weakness are J.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Isabel

Through a personalized and tailor-made approach, Ingenium Executive Search aspires to assist you in attracting the right talent that matches the DNA of your company

Check out our website http://www.ingenium-search.be

Follow me on Twitter @IngeniumSearch