Rethinking How HR Can Support Employee Autonomy While Boosting Business Outcomes

A more global and distributed workforce has created new opportunities and unique challenges. The struggle is real for employers who want to create more flexible and supportive work environments while helping people remain productive. The rise of remote work, dispersed teams, and hybrid work on a global scale adds to the sometimes chaotic nature of the modern workforce.

All of those trends have combined to create the potential for a range of very real, daily conflicts between employers and employees when it comes to preferences for work location. However, the following five conflicts repeatedly rise to the top of most lists:

1. Mandatory return-to-office vs. employee resistance
   Employers increasingly want to reinstate the traditional office-based model. Employees are pushing back after learning to value the flexibility and work-life balance of working remotely.

2. Productivity concerns vs. proven remote efficiency
   Leadership worries about slumps in productivity in a remote setting. But, data and personal accounts show employees are more productive outside the office.

3. Team cohesion vs. digital collaboration
   Many companies believe in-person interactions foster greater team cohesion and collaboration. Employees often argue that digital tools have enabled them to collaborate equally effectively from anywhere that has internet access.

4. Corporate culture preservation vs. work location diversity
   In many cases, businesses emphasize the need to maintain corporate culture through in-person experiences. Meanwhile, workers advocate for — and research shows the benefits of — a culture that embraces diversity in work location and styles.

5. Productivity concerns vs. control issues
   Managers fear remote work reduces productivity. The real issue might be that they have a sense of losing control over their teams, not declines in work productivity.

Those conflicts are compounded by challenges that individuals who work remotely often face regardless of the position their companies take on workplace locations. These include the lack of personal connection with peers, a sense of loneliness or isolation, the absence of spontaneous interactions with colleagues, and not having opportunities for immediate or informal support and feedback from managers and team leaders.

All of these normal feelings that come with working remotely can further exacerbate the tensions that arise between workers and employers when it comes to the challenges of managing and engaging a dispersed workforce.

And, while the trend is moving toward a return-to-office mindset among employers, a remote workforce continues to show clear benefits for employers and employees For example:

• Access to global talent
• A much larger talent pool for specialized and hard-to-fill roles 
• Greater opportunities for companies to build a more diversified workforce
• Greater productivity, especially for project-based work that can more feasibly be performed at home or away from an office
• Increased flexibility for employees to determine their own work schedules, and have more control over their work
• More job opportunities for employees living away from centers of business or highly populated areas
• Reduced commuting time (or no commuting time) for employees, so they’re relieved of that expense and commute time

It’s not about which stance is “right”

When the dust settles, one thing is clear: employers and HR leaders by and large want to do the right thing. It’s just that they don’t have the processes and tools to balance a more flexible and autonomous working style with the business’ immutable need for productivity. 

But it doesn’t have to be that hard. Modern workforce analytics tools can be implemented to better track productivity and empower individuals, teams, and managers to help people remain in the flow of work and improve productivity, no matter where in the world they’re working. 

The key to finding balance is providing flexibility and freedom to individual employees and teams while ensuring the company’s financial well-being (driven by individual productivity). We call this balance collective autonomy. It might seem oxymoronic at first glance because autonomy traditionally emphasizes individual self-governance and freedom from external control, while collective refers to something done by people as a group. However, when examined more deeply, collective autonomy is a timely concept for our evolving workforce structures that combines elements of individual autonomy within a collective framework.

We propose a system and supporting technology that allows owners and leaders to manage employee productivity, hold people accountable, and do so non-invasively that respects individual privacy and autonomy in how work gets done. This new framework makes it possible to achieve both, especially in a global setting where teams and individual employees may be isolated, dispersed, and working remotely or in cross-functional teams. 

Three broad solutions to support autonomy and drive productivity

Improve communications

Effective communication can improve remote employee well-being, reduce conflict, and help staff feel better supported. A TELUS survey found that collaborative employees reported a Mental Health Index score of 68 — nearly three points higher than the national average.

Streamlined communication can also improve productivity. Employees are far more likely to be engaged when they understand their role and feel connected to their team. This can help foster innovation while simultaneously reducing burnout and turnover.

Bolster remote team collaboration

Managers of remote teams don’t have a straightforward list of dos and don’ts. They need to embrace the remote-first mindset by asking questions, listening intently, and learning about their remote employees. In other words, managers and leaders need to shift their leadership style to promote and support freedom and flexibility.

Hubstaff research has proven the business value of flexibility:

• 40% of people want to quit because their workplace is not flexible
• Over 70% of employees want flexible remote work options to be permanent
• 52% of managers say remote work environments boost productivity
• 82% of people say remote work is the future

Use the right online tools for remote team productivity

As remote work becomes more prevalent, having the right digital and async tools to stay efficient with your time is crucial. Whether a team is planning from a high level or working tactically on complex tasks with multiple collaborators, online tools can help bridge the distance and keep everyone on the same page.

For example:

• Video conferencing: Zoom, Google Meet, and Slack Huddles
• Workforce management: Hubstaff, Salesforce, and Scoop
• Communication: Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Discord
• Collaboration and project management: Hubstaff Tasks, Google Drive, and Asana
• Accounting: QuickBooks, Zoho, and Xero

Looking forward, a supporting framework and accompanying technology would also allow companies to grow with less friction that often comes with hiring and onboarding employees in multiple geographies. Such an approach would also:

• Enable organizations to better hire talent globally and integrate dispersed employees into workflows without friction. 
• Better equip organizations to attract and retain that talent, regardless of locations
• Create an employee/employer relationship that sustainably demonstrates mutual value (rather than it feeling like employers are pressing for people to work harder) 

At the center of this new framework sit technologies that HR teams already rely upon — tools to track and manage time and productivity like those outlined above. We’re proposing a new approach to workforce management that goes deeper and identifies workflow disruptions that can empower individuals and teams to become more productive while ensuring how the work gets done is more autonomous. 

Considering how more employers are tapping into a global talent market to find and retain the talent they need, creating a more flexible framework for work is an approach that meets the moment in the new world of work. 

Deel has partnered with Hubstaff to bring this approach to life globally. The partnership will build upon the solutions we’ve discussed to seamlessly integrate workforce management features into the Deel platform, especially for organizations with employees spread out in a more distributed footprint across the globe. Read more information about this partnership here.