Last week AND held our first Roundtable of the year. Hosted by our own Catherine Winter, the virtual event had over 160 attendees who tuned in to hear from two of speakers on flexible work, and from Australia Post on gaining Disability Confident Recruiter (DCR) status.
All three speakers emphasised the importance of understanding in supporting staff with disability.
The future of flexible work
As workplaces shift to hybrid and flexible working styles, where employees work from both the office and from home, organisations must ensure they support their employees to continue to work productively across any location they chose to work from.
Adrian Letilovic, Virtual Office Manager at Deloitte, discussed strategies that Deloitte had implemented and provided advice for organisations who may find it challenging to work in a hybrid and heavily virtual environment.
His top tips were:
- Conduct research within your organisation to find out how to best support employees working flexibly. Also look at your organisation's broader diversity and inclusion goals and locate areas you can drive accessibility and inclusion in other employee experience areas as part of the flexible working support.
- Design an inclusive and accessible approach to flexible working that supports people with disability.
- Ensure your workplace premises are accessible when redesigning and rethink the use of your workspace to better support your staff in this new way of working.
- Support virtual and digital practices with accessible digital tools such as online whiteboards, Microsoft Teams and other interactive platforms..
- Stay connected with your colleagues and have open conversations with your colleagues, to support the health and wellbeing of the team.
Adrian acknowledged that the flexible working as we know it today is still new, and managers and teams alike will take time to adapt to this new normal. Having open conversations is vital in this new way of working to ensure staff are able to work equitably in the new environment through support from their employers.
Adrian also offered some questions for consideration "How do we start building into our day a different routine? One that is more catered towards this new way of interaction, so that we are getting the best from people?"
