Fred D’Amato
President
WFA Staffing Group
“Recent Gallup surveys consistently have found that flexible scheduling and work-from-home opportunities play a major role in an employee’s decision to take or leave a job. That being said, flexibility within the workplace is by its nature something that is earned, whether by track record, years of experience, or proven results within a field. This includes flexible hours and/or work schedule, an employee working remotely, or a sales representative working a territory—in essence, managing their business within a business. Our account executives and recruiters provide cell numbers to candidates and clients to allow for contact both during and many times after business hours when working from home. In any case, trust and results are obviously critical factors.
“Even within a traditional 8-to-5 office schedule, there are options to offer some flexibility. At WFA, we find great value in staying open on Saturday mornings to allow convenience for candidates and companies busy during traditional business hours. This also provides an opportunity, as we allow employees the option to ‘flex’ their one Saturday per month hours to time off during the week as needed for family and personal commitments. In addition, by offering PTO time versus a traditional vacation schedule, this allows each employee to manage his or her time as needed, whether with family, health, vacation or children’s schedules.”
Manoj Nair
Chief strategy officer
Swarming Technology
“Swarming Technology believes in the concept of working through people. This involves continual teaching, recognition of both group and individual achievements, development of our community and culture, and inclusion of people in the development of processes. As a company, we always strive to cultivate the expertise and passion of our team to create a culture that inspires it to meet and exceed our commitment to our customers.
“This approach empowers our associates to take ownership of the projects they are involved in and assumes their responsibility to deliver the project on time and meet the commitment. We also tailored our bonus program to reward efficient delivery, high quality and exceptional customer support of our customers.
“The ability for our associates to deliver on our customer commitments from anywhere enables us to provide flexibility with work hours and location. We have a very collaborative and inviting work environment with many tools to facilitate unified communication between clients and associates. Tools like Slack, Google Hangout, Join.me and Skype not only facilitate communication, but also provide the ability to share screens and a unified, collaborative experience.”
Sandra Nix
President and CEO
Connected Technology Solutions
“About 10 percent of our team members work remotely from home offices around the country, and many at our home office have staggered start and end times or other flexible schedule options. Regardless of location or schedule, team members are all accountable to each other and ultimately to providing the best quality product and service to our clients. Our team members who work remotely attend meetings via GoToMeeting or Skype, are included on email strings and are treated as much a part of our process and teams as office or production workers—and they frequently visit the home office to do some ‘brain bumping’ with co-workers.
“As a company, we measure everything and hold all team members accountable for results. That means we have thoughtful and detailed processes in place and work hard on creating effective communication channels.
“We do a lot of work in communal digital environments—a shared network, Google docs and cloud-based solutions. This allows everyone access to the most up-to-date and current information and also provides us a way to work both collaboratively and simultaneously so all our team members are heard, understood and together move us toward predetermined, shared goals.
“Accountability at CTS is viewed as a bilateral, specific process that binds together members of our teams, all moving toward a mutually beneficial outcome.”
