Measuring the impact of flexible work arrangements in your organisation can help you understand your data and impacts of initiatives, and to show you where more work needs to be done to realise the full benefits.
“It’s the age-old truth that what gets measured gets done. As leaders of organisations, we have a responsibility to bring flexibility and new ways of working to the forefront,and to ensure its viewed as a business imperative, rather than an HR issue.”
Sarah Naude, Managing Partner Propero Consulting
When designing measurement of your flexible working initiative, it can be useful to think about the different categories of change you might want to know about. We recommend measuring basic outputs of the initiative, the immediate and medium-term changes, as well as long-term impacts.
The volume of change in work practices in your organisation. For example, the number of:
The benefits or changes for employees as a result of the implementation of flexible working practices. For example, changes in:
You can also measure individual evaluations of flexible working initiatives by looking at, for example:
The long-term changes in the organisation as a result of flexible working practices. For example, changes in:
Generally, a mixed method approach will produce the most valid and reliable results. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods means the strengths of each offset their weaknesses.
It is important that the results of these two approaches are integrated, and that the findings of the two methods of enquiry are not simply reported on separately. The value of mixed methods approaches is only fully realised when the findings from one method are used to inform and understand the results of the other.
There are many ways to gather information or data. Some of the most common ways include:
But as you get specific about what you want to learn about flexibility in your workplace, you can think of new and innovative ways of collecting the data you need.
Any workplace evaluation must be designed to respect employees’ privacy. Where relevant, you should seek employees’ consent to collect data, and provide assurances that the information will not be used for any purpose other than that for which it was collected.
When possible, making the data anonymous can also help to protect people, without compromising the quality of the results. By collecting anonymous data, participants may be more honest in their contributions, rather than saying what they think you want to hear.
“You have to treat flexibility like any other business challenge - which means you measure it, set up targets and allocate accountabilities.”
David McLean, Champion and CEO Westpac
