How to make flexible working work for your firm
This is the time of the year when there’s likely to be more employees off sick, increasing the workload for other employees during tax season in small and medium accountancy practices.
It doesn’t matter how well you plan for the self assessment season. There are always things that you can’t control in an accountancy practice and employee sickness during the busiest time of the year is one of them.
But have you thought about how flexible working can help?
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Employee sickness, especially around December and January, isn’t fun for anyone involved and it can be more stressful for other staff if their colleagues are off.
When you are quite ill, of course, you need to stay at home and take time off to rest. But what about those times when you are not feeling well but you aren’t ill ‘enough’ to call off sick?
In this situation, employees, especially if they don’t have the systems they need to work from home will need to call off sick more often. Worse still, some will feel obliged to go to the office even when they are not feeling well, spending a day feeling miserable and undermining their job satisfaction.
Advantages of flexible working for your firm
Besides helping employees stay healthy during the winter months, flexible working is an important factor in your employee’s general satisfaction, allowing them to balance their job with their home and family life.
This means that offering flexible working also helps you improve your employee engagement and retention. In fact, an AAT study found that three-quarters of flexi workers would be reluctant to leave their current job if a new one didn’t allow the same level of flexibility.
Flexible working is also key to their productivity, with a 2017 HSBC survey finding that 89% of the employees and businesses considered flexible working to be a key motivator.
What you can do and how Uku can help
Besides offering your employees the possibility of working from home when they need to, you also need to make sure all (or at least most of) the systems you use at the office are available from any location.
Cloud accounting is now a reality that is improving the way practices work. Cloud systems are not only safer than their desktop counterparts, but also much more convenient when it comes to accessing information and working from different locations.
Your digital assistant Uku is also available from anywhere, meaning that you and your employees can see all your tasks from any location. Employees working from home can see their calendars, task plan and track time so they can work exactly as they would in the office.
And when someone is off sick or on holiday, you can easily delegate clients to other colleagues, so that your quality of service is not compromised.
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