Leading the Flex Revolution: How to Choose the Right Work Schedule for Your Team | Scott McCarthy | Episode 340

Scott McCarthy [00:00:30]:
Hey, ladies and gentlemen. You know, the workplace is has and continues to evolve. And, you know, we as leaders, we need to evolve with it. So that’s why today we’re gonna be talking about various types of workplace, just simple workplace work arrangements and most importantly for you to understand what model, the different types of models that are out there for you, the upsides and pitfalls of each model, and then just a simple practical decision making framework to help you lead your team into the future without sacrificing performance. Alright. You ready for this? Let’s dive in Xiaomi. And really there are six right now, different types of work arrangements that are going on that we find in the modern work area and those are compressed work week, hybrid remote work, flexible slash core hours, job sharing, results only work environment, also known as ROE. Fun fact, that’s actually my mom’s

Scott McCarthy [00:01:43]:
maiden name.

Scott Clancy [00:01:44]:
And no, I don’t use it for any passwords, by

Scott McCarthy [00:01:46]:
the way.

Scott Clancy [00:01:47]:
And then finally, asynchronous work. Alright. So these are the six main types of work arrangements that are we find out there this day and age. Let’s dive in and look at exactly what they are, what advantages you get out of them, and what disadvantages you get from them. First off, let’s talk about compressed work week shall we? The compressed work week is just that you’re taking the exact same type of hours that you do. So the typical forty hour work week, which normally traditionally spread across five days, which means eight hours per day comes to 40. What we’re seeing a lot more now is companies doing four times 10, which still equates to 40. This is great because it boosts morale, because people, you know, they get a longer weekend out

Scott McCarthy [00:02:44]:
of it in the end.

Scott Clancy [00:02:46]:
It actually sharpens focus. What companies who have employed this model have found is is that people actually, waste less time when they

Scott McCarthy [00:02:59]:
have a compressed work week

Scott Clancy [00:03:01]:
because subliminally thinking they have less time, but the reality is you have just as much time. But people believe that they have less time because of that four day cycle versus the five day cycle. So they get focused more, and they concentrate more so on their tasks. You see a lot less water cooler talks going on, within, the workplace. Alright. And then finally, it reduces burnout because it gives them that three day weekend to rest, recharge, and be able to take care of the things they need to take care of at home.

Scott McCarthy [00:03:39]:
The downside though is it

Scott Clancy [00:03:42]:
is long days. Ten hour days can be long for some people, especially if you’re doing super physical work.

Scott McCarthy [00:03:51]:
Right? And then, you know, fatigue sets in.

Scott Clancy [00:03:54]:
I know I just said it reduces burnout, but also fatigue, people will get tired. Like, so burnout occurs kinda on the longer burn, whereas fatigue is on the shorter train. Right?

Scott McCarthy [00:04:06]:
So people are gonna get tired easier through the days, but on the

Scott Clancy [00:04:12]:
flip side, they don’t burn out per se because they get that chance to recoup and rest and so on. And the final con for the compressed work week is especially if you’re in a client focused organization or business, there may be limited availability for clients. So if you say, hey, our shops are closed every Friday, then you’re missing out on a full day’s worth of client meetings, people showing up, what have you. So that’s something to

Scott McCarthy [00:04:41]:
consider. K. The second type of work arrangement that we find out there in

Scott Clancy [00:04:47]:
this day and age is either the remote or hybrid work. This got, you know, exploded during COVID. Right? Everyone got sent home, and all suddenly, people were working, from home in a very remote type setting. As we came out of COVID, you saw people staying at home, some people going back to the office. There’s been a draw back to the office. That seems to have stabilized now, and what we’re finding is that, you know, the balance has set, between amount of people who are working in offices in traditional sense and then those who are doing remote and a bit of the the blend before between the two. We did see a little bit of this before COVID, but COVID really was the huge catalyst. So what are some pros of this? You know, it truly expands your talent pool, especially in the pure remote sense, because you’re not limited by boundaries.

Scott Clancy [00:05:48]:
I know of companies who work here in Eastern Standard Time and their people are over in Europe and vice versa. Geography is not a restriction with remote work, which is awesome because it cuts or expands your town pool. On the other side, it also cuts costs. No longer do companies need these big buildings. Right? You don’t need these massive office buildings anymore because simply put, people are either remoting or for the hybrid sense, you need less desks, you need less office space because it’s kinda hot bunking, hot hot swapping, and so on. And then next, it boosts autonomy. People feel good. They feel, you know, energized, and they can work basically alone.

Scott Clancy [00:06:39]:
And it enables them to go after and get things done.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:42]:
Alright? So that’s actually a good thing for them. I would offer morale is also another one because,

Scott Clancy [00:06:51]:
you know, think about the cost of commuting

Scott McCarthy [00:06:54]:
for the work workers now.

Scott Clancy [00:06:57]:
It’s astronomical. Right? In both, you know, gas and time. And if you just eliminate that from your day, that increases

Scott McCarthy [00:07:07]:
morale big time. People can do their work and do their laundry at

Scott Clancy [00:07:12]:
the same time. It is a super force multiplier for that individual. On the flip side though, you do put your culture at risk. You do have to be intentional, extremely intentional, about your culture and ensuring you maintain it in a remote slash hybrid environment. K? Communication generally gets siloed. Alright? Because it’s it’s more deliberate to talk you have to be more deliberate to talk to people. So you have to worry about that. And then finally, team cohesion as well.

Scott Clancy [00:07:54]:
You miss all those water cooler chats that it’s quote unquote, time sucks. You they you missed the team lunches. Those types

Scott McCarthy [00:08:03]:
of things which bring people together. So you need to find ways to actually bring those

Scott Clancy [00:08:10]:
to the remote slash hybrid environment.

Scott McCarthy [00:08:13]:
Alright. So that’s remote slash hybrid.

Scott Clancy [00:08:16]:
Number three is flexible hours slash core hours. It’s essentially where employees set their own schedules within a set number of hours. So if they’re working eight hours a day, they can set it within the twenty four hour period of the workday. Okay? Again, this is enhances autonomy, so enables people, for them to adjust work life with their personal lives. You know? You know, some a lot of people that were kids, they’re like, hey. I can’t work prior to eight or maybe it’s nine or ten, what have you, and they adjust accordingly based on their children’s schedule. No people who take care maybe they have super young kids aren’t in school yet to take care of their kids during the day. Once they go down to

Scott McCarthy [00:09:03]:
the bed, they work, you know, eight hours and then crash and then restart. Difficult.

Scott Clancy [00:09:11]:
They’re superheroes. God love them. Incredible. Alright. So it’s great for autonomy. It’s great for caregivers. Those like as I just mentioned and also reduces commuting stress because some people will, if they’re working in the office, they’ll adjust their hours based on commuting. That’s something which I’ve done in my day job, which my team has done in their day in the day job, here in Montreal.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:33]:
So if you’re not tracking, if you don’t know my background, I’m actually a senior Canadian army officer and I currently command the country’s largest supply depot out of Montreal and Montreal being Montreal there is always construction and there’s always traffic issues. Long story short, people have changed their work hours to address the traffic issues and help them get in and out of work a bit better than the standard, basically, hours. Alright. So some, some issues though with flexible flexible and core hours is scheduling chain, challenges. Right? Especially if you got different time zones. Like, getting a team meeting can be extremely difficult in this sense. So scheduling is gonna be difficult. You’re gonna have inconsistent collaboration because frankly getting again getting everyone together, getting them together, being able to work together at the same time, it’s tough.

Scott Clancy [00:10:39]:
Especially in the flexible way people are constantly changing their schedules. Alright, so that’s number three. Number four, job sharing. It’s kind of basically a new spin on part time. It’s basically where two people split one full time role. The great thing about this is you you’re gonna get diverse perspectives from it because you have two different people doing the same job. That’s actually a strength. You’re going to enable work, life balance for both these people because they’re not working a full time job, but they can enable enables them to schedule their life a bit better around their job.

Scott Clancy [00:11:17]:
And then finally, continuity. As long as you can keep those two people the same two people doing that one time that one full time role, you’re gonna have continuity. Reduces the risk of errors, mistakes, issues, so on, increases your ability to be productive.

Scott McCarthy [00:11:36]:
Alright? However, on the other side, complex coordination. You know, you’re coordinating with two different people, trying to work out schedules, coordinating tasks, and so on. Alright? Blurred accountability. So, you know, it’s tough. If the mistake happens, who’s at fault?

Scott Clancy [00:12:00]:
And you end up having to try to figure that out. And then there’s salary complications between maybe someone has more seniority than another and tracking exactly. Maybe there’s a flexible hour arrangement within that job sharing arrangement. So maybe one week, one person works more hours than the other and they flip flop from week to week.

Scott McCarthy [00:12:23]:
So it is difficult, but it can work for sure. Just have

Scott Clancy [00:12:28]:
to decide whether or not it’s for you. Okay. Number five, results only work environment or row. This is super common we find now in tech startups, startups in general. Okay. ROE. And that’s where employees are judged purely on output, not hours or presence. Okay.

Scott Clancy [00:12:51]:
I had a boss once upon a time. He was the opposite of Roe. If you weren’t in your desk at your seat, he believed you weren’t working, which was very challenging indeed. He would not would not, let me tell you, employ this type of model. Okay? The advantages of ROE is that it maximizes performance and it empowers your high performers. It go it it really energizes them because they feel they’re getting value, recognized for the value that they’re inputting into the company.

Scott McCarthy [00:13:29]:
So it maximizes their performance and empowers them to go after more. But on

Scott Clancy [00:13:34]:
the downside, it you really need a high level of trust and maturity within the team. It’s way too easy for people just to slog off and do nothing. And then suddenly nothing is done. Right? It’s difficult to adopt for traditional teams hence why we see a lot more in the startup community where you’re small, you’re feisty, and you’re going after things. Okay? So that’s row, number six. Finally, numbers or sorry. That was number five. And finally, number six, asynchronous work.

Scott Clancy [00:14:10]:
It’s basically it’s you you just have your tasks and away you go. There is no expectation

Scott McCarthy [00:14:16]:
of real time communication. Work happens when it’s best for the individual. You really the individual gets to decide their work hours, how long, how much they’re gonna work, and etcetera. Right?

Scott Clancy [00:14:31]:
It’s great for deep work and global teams. People can just kinda hunker down and, you know, crunch away, and it doesn’t matter where you are in the globe. And that’s pretty much it. It is on the opposite side, though, it is very difficult for decision making, you know, because it’s hard to get all the information in on in a timely basis or get everyone around the table so that you can get informed as a leader. You have super high risk of misalignment,

Scott McCarthy [00:15:03]:
between the team members because, you know, everyone’s basically doing their own thing. So you as

Scott Clancy [00:15:08]:
the leader, you need to be on top of that. And then you have a heavy need for documentation. Everything needs to be documented because everyone is basically disjointed around the world whatever. Okay? So that is asynchronous work. So again, those, six are compressed work week, remote hybrid work, flexible work hours slash core hours, job sharing, results only, and then asynchronous work. So let’s go into, you know, we talked about what they are. We talked about the pros, the cons of each one. Let’s talk about though how you can actually figure out,

Scott McCarthy [00:15:47]:
how to pick which one.

Scott Clancy [00:15:49]:
And, it’s simple. It’s it’s a very simple framework. We call it the flex fit leadership framework. Flex is the acronym. Okay. Function, leadership readiness, employee needs, execution, and metrics. Let’s talk about each one of those. So f function.

Scott Clancy [00:16:05]:
What does your team do? So when you when you’re looking at them, when you’re looking at changing the real work arrangements within your team, you have to look at what does your team do. What are the operational realities within your team? If you’re customer based, you know, you open you have a shop, Crest work week or asynchronous work might not be the best one for it. But, you know, potentially, you can think about, you know, job sharing or maybe some flexible core hours within a set

Scott McCarthy [00:16:34]:
particular map. K?

Scott Clancy [00:16:36]:
So what does your team do?

Scott McCarthy [00:16:38]:
What are the operational realities? That’s f.

Scott Clancy [00:16:43]:
L, leadership readiness. Are you ready to let go of control and lead through trust and accountability? You need to check yourself. Right?

Scott McCarthy [00:16:53]:
This is a lot that’s going on to your team members and you as the leader, you need to be ready. You need to know, alright. How am I going you need to think about things such as culture, cohesion, check ins. Okay? And how

Scott Clancy [00:17:10]:
are you actually going to go about that? Accountability, how are you going to keep your team accountable for results? L is all about you as the leader because you are not ready for this. You’re not ready to get away from the traditional sense. This is going to fail. It doesn’t matter what one you pick. That’s l. E, think about your employee needs. What does your team value? Is it stability, freedom, predictability? What do they need from their standpoint to achieve their day to day? If they need fast decisions, asynchronous is probably not right. If they can’t get a hold to you when they’re working at 3AM because you’re asleep,

Scott McCarthy [00:17:57]:
yeah, you might rather reconsider. K. So what do they need? And then finally, x, execution, and metrics,

Scott Clancy [00:18:06]:
can you measure success without measuring time in seat?

Scott McCarthy [00:18:12]:
It’s not always about sitting in the seat. What deliverables? What

Scott Clancy [00:18:20]:
do they have that you can go ahead and measure to give them back, you know, make sure. K. So that is the flex fit leadership framework when you’re thinking about changing your arrangement. Again, function, leadership readiness, and again this might be not just you but your subordinate leaders too. Okay? Employee needs and then execution and metrics. Okay? So you’ve gone through, you’ve decided you’re going to change your frame, you know, how are you guys operate. You’ve gone through that framework and now you’re like, okay. We got a model.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:58]:
How do we go ahead and implement the model? And it’s simple.

Scott Clancy [00:19:03]:
Pilot it first. Test it with a single team if you have multiple teams or maybe with a couple people if you only have a single team before you go and scale. Test it first to see how it’s working.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:17]:
Okay? Next is set your expectations. To find what great performance looks like, to find what not acceptable is, ensure everyone understands what those are, what the two ends of the spectrum are, and everything in between. Do not let anything go to assumption. K?

Scott Clancy [00:19:38]:
Next is gather feedback from your team. Ask them how it’s going, what do they think, what’s working for them. Again, it’s all about them.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:47]:
Gather the feedback. Don’t guess. Ask them. Hold town halls. Call them face to face. Go visit them. What have you. It doesn’t matter.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:56]:
Just get the feedback. And then finally, refine and expand. Tweak what doesn’t work and double down on what does work. And if you’re good for it, keep going.

Scott Clancy [00:20:07]:
So that’s it, ladies and gentlemen. That is the framework for enabling you to decide what kind of, you know, what kind of work relationship you should change to or employ within your organization if you’re going to get away from it. Again, those six different ones are, they are sorry.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:35]:
Compressed work week getting tongue tied here. Compressed work week, remote hybrid work, flexible hours, core hours, job sharing, results only work environment row, and then finally asynchronous work.

Scott Clancy [00:20:50]:
And if you’re thinking about changing, again, use the Flexfit model of function. What does your team do? Leadership readiness. Are you ready? Are your support leaders ready? Your employee needs. What do they need? Execution and metrics. How do you measure success? That is it. That is all. I am your chief leadership officer, and, hey, if you need if you need help, if you need a community of like minded leaders, there’s one there for you. I’m literally getting off this live stream.

Scott Clancy [00:21:24]:
And jumping into our our weekly call with our leader growth mastermind. So if you want a community of leaders, you want support, you want the ability to talk about your issues, get guidance, get coaching, this is it for you. It is by far the best program on the planet for leadership development, and you’d be shocked at what you get for what you pay. Simply just go to leaddopeboss.com/mastermind, and you can sign up now. Alright, ladies and gentlemen. That’s it for me. Remember as always, lead, don’t boss. Take care, and we’ll see you

Scott McCarthy [00:22:01]:
next time.