As you can probably imagine, workplace flexibility is an important quality to instill in your employees. However, it is not always an easy lesson to teach.
Let’s face it; nothing ever goes exactly according to plan. Ever! This is true in all aspects of like, including the workplace. As the saying goes, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” This is why Flexibility is so important in the workplace. Your employees need to be able to adapt to unforeseen changes without skipping a beat.
“You must always be able to predict what’s next and then have the flexibility to evolve.”
– Marc Benioff
Improve Workplace Flexibility, Improve Employee Performance
Flexible
adjective
- capable of being bent, usually without breaking; easily bent:
- a flexible ruler.
- susceptible of modification or adaptation; adaptable:
- a flexible schedule.
- willing or disposed to yield; pliable:
- a flexible personality.
In the workplace, flexibility is the ability to make changes to the time (when), location (where) and manner (how) in which a project or task is to be completed. As you can probably imagine, workplace flexibility is an important quality to instill in your employees. However, it is not always an easy lesson to teach.
“Creativity has always depended on openness and flexibility, so let us hope for more of both in the future.”
– Siri Hustvedt
3 Tips for Better Workplace Flexibility
Encourage Compromise, Communication, and Flexibility!
If you want your employees to be more flexible, you need to encourage collaboration and open communication. These are the backbones of a flexible workforce. Create an environment in which employees are encouraged to work together to remedy problems as they arise. Companies with engaged employees outperform those without by up to 202%, according to “18 Statistics About Company Culture You Can’t Afford To Ignore.”
“That which yields is not always weak.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel’s Dart
Reward Flexibility & Don’t Punish Mistakes
Your employees should not be afraid to fail as long as they tried their best. Failure is a part of life and an important aspect of being flexible.
“There’s no such thing as a mistake, really. It’s just an opportunity to do something else.”
― Ralph Steadman
As an employer, you should reward flexibility, even when it does not work out the way we had intended. You should view every problem as a teaching opportunity and treat every mistake as progress – a stepping stone on the way to success. A talented leader recognizes this and teaches his/her employees creative thinking techniques to stimulate their thinking.
Practice Makes Perfect!
Perhaps the easiest way to improve workplace flexibility is to practice being flexible. This is where Terrapin Adventures comes in. We will give your employees a crash course in flexibility. Through a series of team building activities your employees will be challenged to break down communication barriers and work together to solve certain problems. These exercises are fun but challenging and are designed to make your employees stop, think, communicate, adjust their plan of action on the fly, and ultimately fail once or twice before succeeding.
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
― Albert Einstein
Conveniently located in Howard County, Maryland, between Baltimore and Washington DC, Terrapin Adventures is able to create a customized program (onsite or offsite, indoor or outdoor) that knock down communication barriers, building trust and allowing your staff to work efficiently and cohesively as a productive unit. Hello, workplace flexibility!
Click Here to Schedule Your Team Building Event!
If you have any questions, please call Terrapin Adventures at 301.725.1313, or email us at info@terrapinadventures.com to learn more.