The hybrid boost: Opening doors for a greater pool of talent
colleagues understand their working options, and how these need to be mindful of the needs of their team and customers. We also adopted a light touch policy with principles that allow both colleagues and the business to respond to any challenges or learnings as they arise. The results Initially we saw a lot of homeworking, but now people are recognising the role the office plays over time in relationships, organisational culture and team and individual performance. Our labour turnover is 2% lower than pre-pandemic, and our staff are happier with a better work-life balance. I’m super proud to say that 75% of our internal promotions, since implementing agile working, have also gone to women. This shows that in an automotive sector, which is traditionally represented by male leaders, agile working has opened up opportunities to a much greater pool of talent – and we are a better business because of it. We’ve got some phenomenal
Our hybrid journey first started during the pandemic when a staff survey told us the majority of our people wanted to have the option to work from home after lockdown. We needed to find a solution that suited all of our colleagues and the business, so we spoke to our people about the pros and cons of hybrid working in their specific role and area of the business. This led to us developing an agile concept, where our people could choose when, where and how they work, around the needs of the customer, their team and themselves. We trusted our people to work from home 18-months prior, and the business and our profitability had grown. But in order to make this work we needed to invest in the right technology and equipment to make hybrid working effective, regardless of location. Implementing agile working Firstly, we implemented operational guidance and manager training. The vast majority of this training was around practical scenarios that leaders would face, like how to have conversations with colleagues that perhaps want to work more from home, but need to be in the office if they have a customer or team that needs it. We did a huge amount of work around communication and provided lots of examples and scenarios to help
Zenith - an independent fleet management and vehicle outsourcing business – has seen 75% of internal promotions go to female talent since implementing more flexible ways of working. Stuart Price FCIPD, Chief People Officer at Zenith joined the CIPD Northern Policy Forum for a session on hybrid working where he explained more about the organisation’s journey to adopting more agile ways of working, the benefits, and lessons learnt along the way.
female leaders who are now running significant operations within the business because we’ve enabled them to successfully balance family and work.
Catch-up on the CIPD Northern Policy Forum session here .
REGIONAL INSIGHTS
Spring 2023
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