Our client, a boutique software consulting firm of 150 members, engaged us to scale their business sensibly and coach on organizational and engineering Agile Practices. As part of the #transformation, managers and teams were actively being coached on self-organizing practices and driving greater team alignment, ownership and participation. One of their efforts was to establish a remote-first work-from-home (#WFH) policy. The leadership had concerns about misuse, decreased availability and responsiveness to clients etc. and they initially considered having management and HR define a policy.
We, #SemcoStyle consultants instead, advocated for collective decision-making, drawing from practices like #BringTheClientIn, #InternalCommittees, #StepBackManagement, #SharedDecisionMaking etc. We facilitated the formation of a voluntary committee comprising 20% of the workforce, tasked with crafting WFH guidelines.
The committee identified all stakeholders, including not just service providers but even family members! They mapped out the potential impacts of WFH on each and prioritized these impacts and brainstormed solutions, converting them into guidelines prefaced with “WE.”
The level of engagement and maturity displayed by employees pleasantly surprised leaders. The rollout proceeded smoothly, with employees understanding the rationale behind the guidelines and their role in upholding them. Participating volunteers were able to answer questions that came and not get “escalated to management”. Everyone understood WHY the guidelines were needed and the employees’ role in protecting it.
Over three months, reviews indicated no adverse business effects. Teams autonomously managed and adapted the guidelines to their specific contexts, demonstrating self-governance capabilities.
The transparent and inclusive process bolstered trust within the organization. Ultimately, employees collaboratively crafted a policy that could be self-governed and self-managed, departing from traditional HR and management-driven approaches.
#ShapingTheFutureOfWork #DrivingBusinessResults #HumanCentric
To learn more about how we help organisations become self-managed, resilient and thus future-ready, click here.