The Flexibility Imperative: Essential in Creating a Destination Workplace that Unleashes Potential

Flexibility isn’t just an employee benefit -- it’s a strategic imperative that drives productivity, profitability, and innovation. It’s resisted as an operational standard when leaders mistakenly believe it reduces engagement, innovation, or culture. This conventional thinking limits both the organizational results and the individual potential of the employee. What’s often missing is an actionable framework, which when well implemented, positions your organization as a “Destination Workplace.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions express in the following show are
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(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the
answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose
at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their
lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization
that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their
highest potential. Business can be such a force for good
in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide

(00:51):
guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we
all want working on Purpose. Now here's your host, doctor
Elise Cortez.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Welcome back to the Working on a Purpose program, which
has been brought to you with passion and price since
February of twenty fifteen. Thanks for tuning in this again
this week. Great to have you. I'm your host, doctor
Elise Cortes. If we've not met before and you don't
know me, I'm an organizational psychologist, management consultant, local therapist,
speaker and author. My team and I at gusto Now
help companies to enliveen and fortify their operations by building
a dynamic, high performance culture and fortifying their operations by

(01:28):
building by activating meaning and purpose. And did you know
that inspired employees outperform their satisfied peers by a factor
of two point twenty five to one. In other words,
inspiration is good for the bottom line. You can learn
more about us and how we can work together at
gustodashnow dot com or my personal site at Lascortes dot com.
Getting in today's program, I'm very happy to bring you.

(01:48):
Men are Swilem Moraris. She's the founder, president, and CEO
of the Diversity and Flexibility Alliance, a think tank that
collaborates with organizations to transform organizational cultures. She is a
member of the President's Council of Cornell Women in the
International Women's Forum. Her work has helped hundreds of organizations
implement successful flexibility initiatives that drive measurable business results. She

(02:09):
is the author of the Flexibility paradigm, Humanizing the Workplace
for Productivity, Profitability, and Possibility, which we'll be talking about today.
In particular, we'll address why the workforce craves flexibility, the
business case for implementing it, how to use the flex
success framework created to make it work for your organization.
She judged today from the Potomacmarland Manar, Welcome to Working

(02:31):
on Purpose.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
Thank you, happy to be here. Thank you, Braving.

Speaker 5 (02:35):
I you're very welcome.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
I think your work is critical and I loved reading
every single last word of this beautiful book you put
into the world. I am a huge fan and a proponent.
I've been saying a few things that you've been saying like.

Speaker 5 (02:48):
This for years.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
However, your book is chock full of research. I mean,
if after somebody reads your book they are not convinced
to embrace flexibility, I don't know what to do for him.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
Manar, Yeah, well, I agree, oh hardly. I think that
it was luckily timely. I think right now it is
a good time to be having this conversation, and I
think it's one at every organization, and I love the
idea of, you know, working on purpose. It's a bit
of a part of the structure that I talk about
really that I.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Know and I want to get to something that I
think is really really special and promising. But first, let's
start about really where this whole came from your own
experience with flexibility and how it shaped your career and
really how it contributed to you starting the alliance in
the first place.

Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah, we say that I have both a personal and
a professional journey with flexibility. Really came out of my
own need for flexibility early in my career when I
was a litigator and I had my first son twenty
three years ago and really wanted to go on a
reduced hour schedule, and that it wasn't necessarily as popular
back then as it has become more prevalent today, and

(03:54):
so I really had to kind of chart my own
path around what that would look like with being able
to navigate a career one that I was passionate about
not kind of giving up the kind of work I
was doing, and then also fulfilling what I wanted to
do in my personal life. And so that charted me
down that path of looking at flexibility, getting the kind
of flexibility, and then starting to see it work in

(04:16):
real time, Like I was seeing the way that I
could continue to be a good contributor the work that
I was able to do, and slowly, over time people
would come up to me and say, if I could
have done it the way that you did it, I
wouldn't have left. And I thought, why can't we create
that within organizations? Why can't we make it work in
the ways that I was able to make it work.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, and I'm down for making that work. I can
tell you I don't have quite the same story as
you do, but I can tell you that the very
reason that I have a company of my own is
because when I had my daughter in two thousand and three,
I didn't want to do the thing where I dropped
her off at daycare at seven o'clock and I picked
her up at seven o'clock.

Speaker 5 (04:51):
I did not want to do that.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
So that is what would maybe ultimately start my own business.
So I had control of my time and my calendar
and how and when I worked.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
Yeah, And I think a lot of that is around autonomy. Right.
People will say, oh, is it about work life balance?
Let's say, no, it really wasn't necessarily about balance as
much as it was about how do I have the
autonomy to be able to work in the way that
I can work and fit within the things that I
want to do?

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (05:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
The other thing that's just there's so many things about
your book that are just so compelling. But I appreciate
that you go on to say that this idea of
flexibility is not new. It's actually it's a culture change.
But let's talk a little bit about just kind of
a bit of you know, how it's emerged as of late.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
So I think COVID obviously gave a lot of organizations
a grand experiment in the way that working flexibly and
working from home because we had to so that. But
that was around for a long time, right. There were
organizations way before COVID that were one hundred percent remote
or virtual. There were organizations that were offering certain ways
of telecommuting and other virtual work. But I really what

(05:53):
I think it did was it forced those who never
would have thought they would do it, both whether it
was leaders orizations as a whole, to have to embrace flexibility.
I remember about two weeks before COVID I was presenting
to a group of managing partners and law firm chairs
and we were talking about the business case of flexibility.
I could barely get through kind of a third of

(06:14):
my deck. So everybody was talking about, you know, could
this work? Does it work? And suddenly in two weeks
everybody had to make it work. And so I think
that's what COVID did for us is really not bring
in a new concept, but it proved a concept that
had been around for a while that this could actually work,
and we could continue to be productive and profitable, and

(06:34):
we could continue to connect using flexibility as a format.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah, I think there's so many things that came from COVID,
And I appreciate how you also talk about too, how
much the workforce has evolved. It changed and certainly evolved,
and I think the pandemic, and you talk about this
in your book two has greatly contributed to that. So
this idea of it, of it offering you a time
of great reflection. I really believe in that if you

(07:00):
could say a few things about kind of what's been
happening for the workforce, what is it that they're craving
when it comes to flexibility in the general workforce.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
I think one thing that we saw really during the
pandemic was that it didn't just change how we work,
but it changed people's expectations from work. For the first
time ever, what was happening in the world was reflective
in what was happening in people's daily lives. Employers couldn't
unsee what was happening with their people, and so I
really think that changed fundamentally the people who I mean,

(07:32):
I've talked to organizations and say, the people who walked
out in March to go when everybody had to go
home are not the same people walking back into your offices,
like we can't go through something like COVID and say
we didn't fundamentally also change. And so that idea of
changing those expectations of wait a second. You know, for
a long period of time, people said we couldn't work

(07:53):
this way, but we held up and held our organizations
together because we found a way to work successfully flexibly.
And it's a little disingenuous for us to now feel
like now that we you know, when you needed us too,
you told us we could work this way, and now
you no longer and need us too, and suddenly you
want everybody back in the offices right like there's a
disconnect there. And so I think it really kind of

(08:15):
opened a lot of people's eyes to what was possible
for them in the workplace and thus wanting them to
they want to see that carried through mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
In my first book that I wrote, which is called
Purpose Ignited, one of the things that I said in
that book, mein aar was that I really I remember
watching out my bay window groups of people from the
neighborhood and I called them moving caravans and reconnection. And
the adults were slauntering along sitting on something, and the
kids were frolic along on the on their tresh cycles

(08:45):
and bikes, and the pets came.

Speaker 5 (08:47):
Along and it was joyous.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, and so and now you want to stuff all
that back in the bottle and put all that back
and make all that go away. And you know, you
don't get to go to your kids' games anymore, and
you don't actual to get to go to the gym
anymore because you don't have time, and because there's the
commute instead. And so the evolution of why the workforce
craves this flexibility, to me, is just so abundantly clear it.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
Is, and I think that there are you know, there
are ways to make it work, right, like there were
times or encovied where what we had to was done,
and I think that there are new ways of saying
how do we engage how do we give people the autonomy?
We can do it within guardrails right there. I think
policies and practices we can put into place, but really,
how do we give people the kind of autonomy they

(09:32):
need and at the same time, how do we continue
to build that culture and the engagement and the connection
and collaboration that's so important also for organizations to succeed.
And I really think that's sort of the magic, if
you will, of how do we make this work is
to implement it in a way that is intentional.

Speaker 5 (09:51):
Yeah, and I totally want to talk about that.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
We'll talk about that in the third segment for sure,
But I want to also really help help our listeners
understand just really the need here and one of the
other things that you see in your book that I've
also seen elsewhere too, of course, is part of what's
driving this workforce need and interesting for flexibility is the
new the gen y and the gen z who will

(10:14):
comprise what is it, seventy four percent of the workplace
by twenty thirty, and what they want from work?

Speaker 5 (10:19):
Could you talk a little bit about that?

Speaker 4 (10:21):
Yeah, I mean I think they want flexibility. If we
look at for the first time, we have five generations
in the workplace, right, and they all want that kind
of flexibility. Doesn't mean that they don't want to go
into an office, right, It just means that it is
ways of how do they make it work? If you
look at the percentage of caregivers I talk about flexibility
and say, you know, in order for it to work,

(10:41):
you do want to degender, deparent, destigmatize. It can't just
be seen as for women. It can't just be seen
as something that's just for caregivers. It's everybody wants and
need it. But it's not one size fits all. So
how do you think about the way that we can
fit the needs of our talent and adopt what I
call that yes and mindset? Right, Like, yes, we can
be productive in the word workplace, and we can also
be productive working virtually. Yes we can be on a

(11:03):
reduced hour schedule, and yes, we can be fully committed
to the work that we're doing, Like there's lots of
things that we have to be thinking about in the
ways in which we adopt flexibility.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
And the other thing that you also said too about
I think that the generation this has come from my memory,
so please correct me if I don't have this right.
Is you know that they want to have room for
the rest of their lives. They want to work hard
and have a career, but they also want to have
room for the rest of their lives. And whereas maybe
some of the previous generations see working long hours in
the office was the way to get promoted, and they

(11:36):
also want to be able to have a full life,
to be able to ensoy their friends. And since they're
digital natives, they relate to the way that we can
work very differently.

Speaker 4 (11:47):
Yeah, and I think that is the idea that they
embrace technology. Right. The technology is such that we can
connect virtually, we can figure out how to collaborate, we
can do all of the things that create a thriving workplace,
and we can create some autonomy to ourselves to say, look,
if I can cut down on a commute one day,
and I can get one day to work from home,
or I can get two days to work from home.

(12:08):
That makes a difference for me to plan a very
full life. And so how do we leverage technology so
that we're meeting both needs? Mm hmmm hmm.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
I think it's really interesting too, as you know, you've
gone on to say that you know, there is this
belief in organizations and leaders that we're working from anything
but in the office. It detracts from culture, and of
course you say culture isn't isn't a place. And I
also really appreciate your focus on what that speaks to
is a bias for presenteeism, which I also have talked

(12:38):
about because you say a bit about this idea of presenteeism.

Speaker 4 (12:41):
Yeah, I mean I think that the idea that FaceTime
is an indicator of performance is really not It's not true. Right,
we can be we have all of this technology at
our fingertips. People can be in the office and I said,
you don't know what they're doing, right. You can have
people who are planning their next trip, they're shopping, they're
watching sport, like they could be doing anything. They have
a highway to anything in front of them through a computer.

(13:03):
And so the idea that you just see somebody isn't
really how you measure whether somebody is working, You're really
looking at output and impact, right, what is the output
that they're producing, what's the impact they're having on the
organization and the impact that they have on colleagues and
all of the things that it takes to be successful.
And so just to say, oh, well, just because someone's
in the office, that means that they must be productive

(13:24):
isn't really the standard that we should all be, you know,
measuring against when we think about who's a productive and
who's who's working. When we think about that in terms
of culture, I think there's a lot of things that
contribute to culture. Culture is about, you know, who you
are as an organization, what are your expectations, what are
your values, what's your mission? What's your purpose? As we're

(13:46):
talking about purpose is being an important part, there's a
lot of things that contribute to culture and that should
that should be infused in everything that you do. That's
not just in the office. That's in how people treat
each other, how people interact with each other. There's lots
of things that contribute to culture. But it isn't necessarily
just the four walls.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
M Yeah, I'm pretty convinced, not just I mean it
certainly I knew it before I read a book, but
now I really know it because I've read a book.
But this idea that flexibility really is here to stay.
I love how you see. You have a lot of citations,
a lot of statistics in your book, and you talk
about a recent survey from the Conference Board shows that
among US workers, sixty five percent said that having workplace

(14:25):
flexibility was the most important non salary compensation element of
all bonuses generous time off and so on.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
That is powerful, Yeah, And I mean I think there
are a lot of been studies since then too, showing that,
you know, people would be willing to take a pay
cut for a certain portion of flexibility in terms of
not that they would do that within their current jobs,
but the idea that they place a value on flexibility right,
that they would be that that would be something that
they would be attracted to in terms of going to

(14:54):
an organization. So I say, it's a talent retention tool.
It's a talent recruitment tool. It derives productivity, a drives
engagement for people to be able to have the kind
of flexibility that they need. But there's definitely a business case.
And then I say to you know in the book,
we talk a lot about you should build your own
business case. I think a lot of people talk about policies,

(15:14):
and we say, before you get to the step of
what should our policy be, you want to be building
your business case for you as an organization, to say
why is it important for us to offer this, Why
does it matter for our people? What can it do
for us? Why is it important? What's the value to
our bottom line? So you're building that flexibility on a
strong foundation.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
Mm hmm. Well, and furthermore, you go on to say
in your book, unlike salaries, bonuses, healthcare or retirement plans,
workplace flexibility is the rare employee benefit that can save
rather than drain financial resources, giving an advantage to companies
that plan proactively.

Speaker 5 (15:50):
Wow, I mean that's powerful.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
Yeah. I mean, like you can think about whether it's
office space that they're saving on, whether it's other things.
But it's also around what are the what's the money
that I'm saving from talent that's not walking out the
door because they're going somewhere else because they don't have
the kind of flexibility. So I talk about flexibility as
being pretty low in terms of the cost A low

(16:12):
cost benefit that you can provide that can benefit everybody.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
Right on that note, let's grab our first break. I'm
your host, doctor Release Cortes. We're on the air with
Manar Murrads. She's the founder, president, and CEO of the
Diversity and Flexibility Alliance, a think tank that collaborates with
organizations to transform organizational cultures. We've been talking about why
the workforce crave flexibility. After the break, we're going to
get into the business case for flexibility and talk about

(16:36):
what she calls holistic flexibility.

Speaker 5 (16:38):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Doctor Release Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose and inspirationational speaker and author. She helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her

(17:16):
at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get
your employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose
with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or
to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to
a lease a LISEE at Elisecortes dot com. Now back

(17:40):
to working on Purpose.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I too,
am dedicated to help them create a world where people
realize their potential at work, are led by inspirational leaders
that help them find and contribute their greatness. And we
do business at Betters the world researching and writing my
own books. So the last one came out in marsh
of twenty twenty three. It's called a Great Revitalization. How
activating meaning and purpose can radically in liven your business.

(18:09):
And I wrote to help leaders understand today's workforce wants
and needs and then offer twenty two best practices for
you to fold into your culture to help create that
for them. You can find my books on Amazon or
my personal site at leastcoretest dot com if you are
just now joining us. My guest is Manamradis. She's the
author of the Flexibility Paradigm, Humanizing the Workplace for productivity, profitability,
and possibility. So now let's get into that business case here.

(18:33):
I think it's pretty fascinating here. When you started to
talk about just some of the research around this providing
pretty compelling evidence for it being, as you said before,
a driver of talent, productivity, diversity, engagement, profitability, all these
sort of things. So let's stick into a few of
those and really help them help our listeners and viewers
understand just the power the possibility of flexibility.

Speaker 4 (18:56):
Yeah, I mean, I think starting with who your talent is, right,
attention to who your people are within the organization, and
even polling and get engaging in surveys and talking to
your people and saying why do you know? What does
flexibility mean to you? Why does it matter to you?
What's important? Is a really good first step, right, because

(19:17):
I think you have to build for the workforce you have,
not the workforce you used to have, And so a
lot of times leaders can get stuck in the well
I did it this way or I had this, or
this is not how it is, and not understanding we
are constantly you have a constantly evolving workplace. You have
five generations of talent in the workplace and their needs
are going to be different, and so paying attention to

(19:40):
your people is an important first step of saying like
what and then looking at, well, what does flexibility make
possible for us as an organization if we think about
even when we think about where we recruit. For a
lot of organizations, they might say, look, I can actually
recruit from a much wider base than I used to
if I was just tied to everybody has to be
in the office. Suddenly the talent pool opens up for me.

(20:03):
And so that from a recruitment perspective is a big
driver for a lot of organizations to say, you know,
who can I bring into the talent to the pool?
Who can I retain? If I look at people, I
would say, look at your regrettable losses. Who are the
people that walked out the door? And where did they go?
And what was it about wherever they went that was
more compelling than having them stay within that or you

(20:25):
know your organization. Or we talked about budgets right in
terms of salaries, it's like, if we can't keep up
from a perspective of where are the kinds of benefits
we can offer that don't provide a high cost for us?
And so maybe flexibility is something where we can offer
that people place a lot of value on and would

(20:45):
want to stay and make our organization more attractive for them.
So I think from the business case, it's really looking
at talent pool, looking at it as a recruitment, looking
at it as a retention, looking at it as a
driver of productivity. A lot of people will say, if
I don't have to commute in for an hour, that's
time I have that I can be more productive, and
so looking at that as a perspective as well. So

(21:07):
there's lots of ways to sort of build that business
case for you internally as an organization.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah, a few things I want to echo that I
got from your book Monar that I think are really
worth pointing out. One is, you know, for many leaders
who say that flexibility is they think if they're doing
their employees a favor, it's a nice to have, And
it was a pandemic era accommodation you say, And yeah,
you go on to say, but really is it's a
business imperative that quantifiably impacts your bottom line. And then

(21:33):
if you go and look at some of these when
you're serving your people, thinking about some of these benchmarks,
how they might compare it to your workforce. You cite
twenty twenty two Future of Forum survey says that sixty
eight percent of knowledge workers prefer hybrid work arrangements, which
we'll talk about in a second. Seventy eight percent want
location flexibility, and ninety five percent wants schedule flexibility. That

(21:56):
is really hard not to pay attention to.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
Yeah, I think it goes to that idea of it's
not one size fits all, right, that that idea of
looking at what are the various forms of flexibility that
people want and need? And for some I would say,
even if you do some stay interviews, you can get
to get into exactly what's keeping people within the organization.
So when you look at those high percentages, you can

(22:20):
see some of that as saying, well, if we are
offering that, that's also keeping people in the organization.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
M M.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
I want to go a little bit deeper into the
idea of diversity, because, as you said before, it's not
just about you know, this is something for women. But
I also really like that you talk about in your
book how you know workforce flexibility promotes the idea of
really bringing in more people that really fit your organization
from an age, race, ethnicity, gender, and ability vantage point.

Speaker 5 (22:47):
I think that's really important.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
I mean the other thing that I thought it was
interesting on are just seeing recently that we're seeing increasingly
a lot more like seventy plus year old people in
the in the workplace. If you're going to make it
too close to ninety five or one hundred, wouldn't you
want to keep working in the first place. And then
there's this other bit of for a lot of people,
they're going to need to work just to keep you know, money,
money coming in, and themselves supported. So the idea of

(23:10):
diversity on that front really makes a lot of sense
to appeal to more people across those different classes.

Speaker 4 (23:17):
Yeah, and I think that's an important piece. And if
you look at some of the research too, to look
at who wants to work in a flexible work environment
and the impact that that can have on diversity. Also
for some people who feel like, you know, there are
people who feel like the office environment. I might thrive
in that office environment, and for some people they feel
like I get very drained in that office environment. And
so having an opportunity where I can create greater psychological safety,

(23:40):
where perhaps working from home gives that to me, or
working you know, in that hybrid situation gives that to me,
is an important piece. And then you look at you know,
the impact on caregivers in the workplace, the impact on women,
the impact on people of color. I think it's important
to be looking across and the generational and age diversity
that you were talking about, which is the idea of
how do we create an environment where we can fit

(24:03):
the needs of a you know, of a very diverse
workplace that we have within our organizations to give them
an opportunity to do the work that they want to
do in an environment where they feel like they can thrive.

Speaker 5 (24:15):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
And getting more specific too, when it comes to engagement
being part of your your business. Your business case here
for flexibility pretty interesting. The work that you wrote in
your book about how when you when you add flexibility
and now you've given your employees a sense of autonomy,
which is incredibly motivating for a lot of people. And
you're conveying you know, respect and trust that they will

(24:37):
do the work that they need to get done, which
also conveys that you you care about them as human beings.
And all of these things are known to increase engagement.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yeah, and I think that is an important One of
the things that I think COVID did too, was that
we saw people as humans right, We couldn't. We couldn't
now unsee the fact that people were going through a
variety of things within their lives, all impacted in a
variety of differentferent ways. I would talk to leaders who
would say, for the first time, I had to start
my meetings with one on a scale of one to ten,

(25:06):
tell me how you're feeling. We didn't do that before.
And I think that idea of seeing people not just
as employees but as people was an important piece that
and I think it does drive that kind of engagement.
But you know, and I think with all of that autonomy,
I would say the opposite side of flexibility is responsibility.
So it's not just that it's a free for all, right,

(25:28):
it is. There's a lot of responsibility to make flexibility work.
That's on everybody. It's on the organization, it's on leaders,
it's on individuals.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Yeah. Yeah, I think these other stats that you quote
and then relate to some different terms that are being
bountied about here or worth also sharing. You you also
talk about how, of course the Gallops State of the
Global Workplace twenty twenty three report shows that only twenty
three percent of the global workforce, or twenty one percent
in the United States is engaged. Fifty eight percent is

(25:56):
not engaged, which we also call quiet quitting, teen percent
are actively disengaged, which is loud quitting. I think it's
really important for listeners and viewers to really take in
those those figures and consider how they relate to their
own workforce.

Speaker 4 (26:10):
I do, And I also think that's the idea of
really surveying. We talk in the book about kind of
focus groups and surveying and talking to your people to
understand what is it that they need from the workplace right,
what drives them? What is when when we talk about engagement,
what helps them feel more connected and engaged in that workplace?
What are the things that we can be doing? And

(26:30):
you know, and I think Gallup talks about it too,
is in terms of what are the responsibility on managers
that drive a lot of engagement and how are they
relating to their people and talking to them and helping
to drive those engagement scores.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
And then another aspect of the business case that I
really find fascinating and alluring men are is you know,
the idea of sustainability in the carbon footprint of really
some of the numbers you code in your book about
how this really how when you have a flexibility culture,
how it packs that Just you say, in twenty eleven,
the existing two point nine million US virtual workers saved

(27:06):
and estimated three three hundred and ninety million gallons of gasoline,
preventing the release of three point eight million tons of
greenhouse gases annually. You know, this is this is incredible impact.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
Yeah, so we talk about it. We have to talk
about the environment too, And I think a lot of
people don't think about that necessarily or talk about it
as much when it comes to flexibility. But I would say,
what is flexibility doing for organizations? What is it doing
for people? What is it doing for the world? Right?
And when we think about that idea of the impact
it has on the environment, what can we be doing
by just even offering two days a work a week

(27:38):
of people working from home? And how does that cut
down on the impact of the environment, you know?

Speaker 3 (27:43):
And I like how as you also point out, that
really helps organizations to demonstrate their commitment to social responsibility, right,
And I think you know, if you have an ESG
program in place, that's certainly a place that you can
start to make further business case for this.

Speaker 5 (27:56):
This sort of thing.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, And that's that piece of saying, what does
flexibility touch within our organization? I think then that's why
we talk about it as that business and pair I
talk about it as a business imperative. It's not just
a benefit, and it's not really just siloed in what
it touches it. It impacts a lot of things within
your organization.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, and sometimes these things can feel Even though I
just quoted another really interesting statistic from your book, I
think this next one that I want to share, relative
to the sustainability pieces, is amazing from the Global Workforce Analytics.
It states that, based on their estimates, if those with
the work from home compatible job and a desire to

(28:38):
work remotely did so just half of the time, the
greenhouse gas reduction would be the equivalent to taking the
entire New York State workforce off the road. These estimates
assume seventy five percent reduction in driving on the telework
work days. That if you get your head around that,
that's pretty compelling to Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:58):
I mean, and we're seeing certainly that as we look
at in the federal government being called everybody being called
back into the office, and that's just the impact on
traffic in the environment right now in Washington, DC we're
based Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yeah, yeah, well, and so then you go on to
say the answer to all this is holistic flexibility, So
let's talk about that.

Speaker 4 (29:15):
Yeah. So, I think that part of the holistic flexibility
piece of it is it's not just one size fits all, right,
it' said Covid gave us a great experiment, grand experiment
with working virtually. But there are lots of different forms
of flexibility that are possible. You cited some of the
percentages around what kinds of flexibility people want, and so
I think it's important when you look as an organization

(29:37):
to say, what are the kinds of flexibility we can offer. So, yes,
we can offer some form of whether it's hybrid or
some form of virtual work that we allow for people,
But there are certainly positions that don't necessarily lend itself
to that attack. You know, if you have a receptionist,
well they can't necessarily work from home. There are other
forms of flexibility you could offer. You could whether it's
reduced hours, part time work, or it's shifting time. A

(30:01):
lot of people have an you know, want the kind
of time flexibility. So the hours are shifted. Somebody could
come in early, leave early, come in later, leave later.
That shifting of things. There's lots of different forms of flexibility.
So from my perspective, it's offer a lot. You know,
do audits on the jobs that you have within your

(30:22):
organization and then say here are the different kinds of
flexibility we can offer, and this is what it would
look like.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
Mm hmm. I also appreciate that you are you're all
saying looking at you know, where people do their work,
when they do their work, how they do their work.
You know, it's it's just there's so much that you
could actually really consider to improve the to improve it.
And I like how you say that, you know, at
the Alliance you define hybrid work as bringing together the
best of who we are in person and the best
of who we are unline to equal the best of

(30:50):
who we will be in the future.

Speaker 4 (30:52):
Yeah, So that it goes to really around how are
we being intentional As people were kind of coming out
of COVID and organizations were come out of COVID and
looking at all, right, where do we go from here?
What do we think about for hybrid it said, Really
it's taking for organizations that used to be one hundred
percent in person, said what was good about that? What
were some of the things that really were effective and

(31:14):
what you missed that you want to bring into this
new hybrid environment. And when you were working virtually, what
was good about that? What were the benefits there that
you want to bring that back into the hybrid environment.
So it was a lot of designing around how do
we design this new workplace to say if we can
do the best of both worlds. Now we have an opportunity,

(31:34):
to the extent of organizations that were embracing hybrid to say,
how do we be intentional about what does it look like?
And I talk in the book we might go into
this conversation around the return on experience, like what was
the benefit of being all together? And then what were
really good about being able to work virtually? And how
do we design this new workplace to get the best
of both of those worlds?

Speaker 3 (31:55):
And we will discuss that after the break. Let's grab
our last one. I'm your host doctor really's quartet us
we br on the Eric Manar Morales. She's the founder,
president and CEO of the Diversity and Flexibility Alliance, a
think tank that collaborates with organizations to transform organizational cultures.
We've been talking in this last segment about what it
is that the workforce really wants in the way of flexibility.
After the break, we're going to talk about how to

(32:16):
embrace this new workforce by implementing her flex success Framework.

Speaker 5 (32:20):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her

(32:58):
at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get
your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose
with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or
to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to
Alise A Lisee at elisecortes dot com. Now back to

(33:22):
working on Purpose.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to Working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor at Elise Cortes. I
mentioned in the last break that my latest book came
out in March of twenty twenty three, called a Great Revitalization.
What I did for you is I created a very
simple three page assessment that you can pull off my
website gustodashnow dot com to help you understand the extent
to which your organization is providing what the workforce wants today.

(33:51):
If you are just joining me now, my guest is
Manada Muradi. She's the author of the Flexibility Paradigm, Humanizing
the Workplace for productivity, profitability and possibility. So for this
last segment here, I wanted to get into a little
bit about how we can start to pull this off.
But before we do, I do want to reiterate a
little bit of what you said before about really how

(34:13):
many organizations many of the leaders are really pinding for
you know, when do we get to go back full
time to the office, this idea of returning to office
to work, and you've really talked already before about you
know that workplace is gone.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
Yeah, yeah, you know I think that the I say,
the way that nine to eleven forever changed how we travel,
I think COVID will forever change how we work, and
so really kind of it's not around how do we
go back, but how do we move forward? What do
we look at? What were the lessons learned, what were
the things? How do we embrace change? How do we
think about technology? How do we think about innovation? And

(34:48):
I think a lot of people say we want to
be innovative, we want to embrace innovation, but then they
don't want to change, and so you can't have innovation
without change, and so that idea of going back doesn't
seem to be doesn't work. I think it is around
how do we move forward with getting the best at
of all of that we've learned and think really about

(35:08):
what does that future of work mean for us as
an organization?

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Mm hmm. You had mentioned earlier kind of queuing up
the idea of talking and forget what exactly what the
phrase was, but it was something about the experience would
tell me.

Speaker 4 (35:21):
About that return on experience?

Speaker 5 (35:24):
Thank you? Yeah.

Speaker 4 (35:25):
So we say for organizations or leaders, I'm like, if
you are calling people back into the office, so what happens,
like what is it that you want? And can we
think about how do we intentionally then design and experience
so that people can have that right. So the idea
is that if you're just calling people back. But mandates

(35:47):
don't tend to work because what people are looking for
is okay, if you're telling me to do an hour
and let's say, if we're just talking about virtual versus
you know, be working in the office. If you're telling
me to do an our commute and you're telling me
that I have to be what is what is the
value I'm getting from being in the office, and how
do you incentivize that over just saying we just want

(36:11):
people back in the office, right back in the office,
so that what happens? And how do you create intentional
design so that people experience what is there are real
benefits for being in an office environment? I don't you know?
And I think when I talk about flexibility within the
book and for organizations that are in bracing hybrid as
you say, there are benefits for those in person interactions,

(36:33):
and there are benefits for virtual like how do you
create opportunities for connection collaboration when people are together in
person and when people are together virtually, Like we have
to be intentional about designing those things. And so both
organizations kind of creating that roe And then I say,
for individuals, look, if you're going to go into the office,
create an roe for yourself, Like, don't if you go

(36:54):
into the office and you shut the door and you're
just head down and working, then you're really just telecommuting
from the office, so you don't get the benefits of
what it means to be in an office environment. So
being intentional even designing your own day to say, the
days I'm working in the office, I'm doing this, The
days I'm working from home, I'm doing this, Like how
do I get the benefit of where I the environment
that I'm in at all times?

Speaker 3 (37:18):
I think one of the things that really draws me
to your work and really aligns me to your work,
Manar is what you say, is you see flexibility can
play a significant role in unlocking human potential.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think it's thinking about like
where are people at their best? Right? Yeah, Like I
think that there are leaders I would talk to that
say I can't wait to be back in the office
and just you know, be in a room and we're
bouncing ideas off of each other, and just you know,
everybody's bouncing ideas back and forth. They say, well, that
might be where you're at your best. For some people,

(37:51):
they get their best ideas when they have a quiet
space to think and to work and they need that
away time, and then they come to the meetings really
energized with you know, and are able to participate. I
think I talked to a lot of people during COVID
who would say, you know, if people who are more
introverted would say, I actually participated a lot more in
meetings because I was able to. I might not have

(38:14):
wanted to chime in, but I would type in the chat,
and so I felt like my voice was being heard
more than necessarily in a room where I wouldn't necessarily
chime in, And so really paying attention to like where
are we getting the best from our team? Where are
the best ideas being generated? How do we create opportunities
where the ways in which people think and operate and

(38:35):
work can really go to people's advantages so that we
get the best out of our people.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
I think there needs to be some major mental decoupling here,
and I appreciate how you talk about the you know.
As you mentioned earlier, we need to shift the idea
that the end product, rather than where and when it
was produced, is the focus.

Speaker 5 (38:54):
So that's the presenteeism again.

Speaker 3 (38:56):
And I had to chuckle at the example you gave
in your book and where you're talking about face time
is not an indicator of commitment. You talk about a
leader said, I just don't want people sitting around in
the pool in their flip flops doing their work. And
that's when you're like, well why not if they're actually
if the output is fantastic, why do you care where
they're doing their work?

Speaker 4 (39:15):
Right?

Speaker 5 (39:16):
And I think that's such an important.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Thing to showcase this because there needs to be a
decoupling of what we're focused on. If you're focused on
seeing people and that presenteeism versus the output, I would
argue that you're really missing the boat.

Speaker 4 (39:29):
Yeah, And I think that goes to the idea is
that just because you see people in an office environment
doesn't mean they're working right, we don't know what they're doing.
You really good leaders are judging by the output and
the impact. I do think impact is important too, to
pay attention to that, right, Yes, am I mentoring? Am
I contributing to organizational citizenship? Am I being a good

(39:51):
steward of culture and all of those things that people
can absolutely contribute in an organization. I would say that
you know it's not always just a about getting your
work done. There are other things that contribute to success
that you want to make sure that you're doing too.
And so that's like the impact that I'm having, and
that's why I say to individuals, you need to be
also thinking about that as well in these environments.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
So for the rest of this conversation, Mona, I want
to focus on your beautiful flex success framework that you've
developed and how it can be used to positively influence
a company's business continuity around flexibility. So if you could
take us through each of the five steps, the five
aspects of it, and we'll kind of bring it to
life for people.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
Yeah, So the first step is to reflect and that's
really going to the topic of your whole podcast, but
is around purpose, right, what is the purpose? And we
talked about that in the beginning segments of the idea
of really building the business case for your organization. So
it's built on this strong foundation and so that reflect
is a lot of work around what does flexibility make

(40:57):
possible for us as an organization? What's the business case?
And then the reimagine is around what is the shared
vision of looking at who do you want to be
as an organization, What do you want the future? What
do you want your people saying about you? What do
you want your competitor saying about you? What do you
want the market saying about you? When you think about flexibility,

(41:18):
when you think about your values and is it an
alignment with who you say you are? So there's a
lot of strong foundation there in that second step of looking.
I spent a lot of time with organizations looking at, okay, well,
what are your values, what do you put in your marketing?
Is it an alignment? What's your culture? What would people
say to describe your culture? And how does flexibility fit
in with that? So you're really those first two steps

(41:41):
of reflected and reimagine are building that strong foundation. The
third step, then the redesign, is Okay, let's start designing
the kind of flexibility that we want to offer. That's
the holistic flexibility. That's what do the policies look like,
what are the things that we want to do? What
can we offer our people? And then the most important step,
which I think people forget, so we say that flexibility

(42:02):
is not a policy shift, it's a whole culture shift,
and for it to work, that next stage, which is
the reintegrate is really around how do we integrate flexibility
into our culture? And so that involves an alignment of
I say, in order to integrate it well, you have
to bring your purpose, align your purpose with a set

(42:24):
of principles. What are we talking about when we talk
about flexibility, Things like flexibility is not a trade off
for performance, things like you know, facetime's not an indicator
of commitment, things like the core kind of principles so
that you clear up any of the misperceptions that people
might have about flexibility. So those are a set of
principles you develop with your policies. What your policies that

(42:45):
you created in step three were with a set of
best practices. How do okay, So now we've rolled out flexibility,
what are the practices we need in order to make
it work. What are the practices that relate to how
we're going to build connection, how we're going to maintain culture,
What are the practices around how we're going to collaborate,
how we're going to communicate in order to make it fit?

(43:07):
And then you align that with your people. For people,
they do need to be trained, they do need to
have a set of expectations, they do need to have
a set of resources around what does it mean for
me to be successful in this environment? What are some
of the things I need to be doing. What are
the expectations on me in order to be successful? And
in addition, leaders need to be trained is how do

(43:30):
I lead in this new environment? To the extent that
we're we're creating a flexible work environment, what does that
mean for me as a leader? How do I make
sure I'm still giving people feedback? How am I making
sure I still give people opportunities? How am I make
sure I still build relationships in this environment? What are
the mindset shifts I have to have as a leader? Right,
a lot of times flexibility isn't working because people have

(43:51):
a set of perceptions around it that are actually not true.
And we need to make sure that we're talking about
not just the practices, but also mindset shifts that have
to happen. So that's that fourth step of reintegration. It
takes actually a lot of work to be able to
integrate it successfully within an organization. And then that last
step is how do we reinforce, which is how do

(44:12):
we measure and continue to tweak and iterate. So I
talk about we have to be really intentional with flexibility.
We have to be inclusive and we have to be iterative,
constantly looking at what's getting in the way, what's not working.
Is it a policy issue, is it a purpose issue,
is it a practices issue? Is it a people issue
or people not doing the right thing? And so really

(44:34):
kind of constantly looking at if we as an organization,
you invested in flexibility for the business case right, there
is a real purpose behind it. Are we getting the
benefits of all of that? Are we constantly measuring and
so that we can tweak to make sure that it's working.
So that's the framework.

Speaker 5 (44:51):
It's beautiful, so tight.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
A couple of things I just want to call out
here in Menar that a relative to that that you
also talk about in your book, is you say, according
to a Future Forum study, workforce policy planning is largely
happening at the executive level, with sixty percent of executives
saying they're designing their company's policy with little to no
direct impact input from employees. And so I also like

(45:15):
in your book how you talk about creating something I
forget how you described it, but I would call it
MABE something like a task force where you're enrolling different people,
different stakeholders from the organization in terms of creating and
implementing and rolling out the policy, including people who are
on the front line.

Speaker 4 (45:30):
Yeah, I think there sometimes can be a disconnect, right
that leaders are not actually really tuned into what are
their people saying about it, or they're not hearing seeing
the things in the surveys, or they're not looking at
it from a diversity perspective, they're not looking at it
from a talent perspective. There's lots of things that go
into it, and I think it's important that when you're

(45:50):
making those decisions that you are building that task force
and you're looking at who can sit on that task
force that are making sure that they have insight into
all of the different impacts.

Speaker 5 (46:00):
Right.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
We talked a lot about the fact that, Okay, well
there's an impact on the environment. Are we having our
ESG groups or leaders sitting in that room as we're
designing there's an impact from technology perspective or the technology
individuals sitting in there? Are the HR folks in there,
are the diversity people, are the talent leaders? Like making
sure that that task force is pretty robust in representing

(46:20):
all of the different aspects that flexibility touches within an organization,
and then we can make that decision.

Speaker 5 (46:27):
You know, it just occurs to me.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
You have many examples in your book here, and we're
close to being out of time. But can you think of,
like short, a simple example of like an organization with
I don't have to say the name if you don't
want to, that it really was against this idea of
flexibility and that incorporated it and had tremendous results.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:47):
I mean, I think that we have lots of examples
of seeing leaders who have sort of switched, who said
like I never imagined before but now kind of going
through the whole process of really seeing. But I will
tell you that happened because there's a lot of intentionality
and conversation of spending a lot of time building it up, right,
Like that is one of the things I say is

(47:08):
that there were a lot of times during COVID and
even in the work I'm doing post COVID, where I
spend a lot of time with executive committees and leaders
to talk about the why. Why is this important?

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Right?

Speaker 4 (47:19):
Like, forget about the what first of all, Let's talk
really about the why and spend a lot of talking
time talking about what is flexibility and what isn't? What
is it not? Because I think there's a lot of
perceptions out there. So the organizations that I've seen successful
spend a lot of investment of time really talking about
let's define flexibility first, like, let's clear up what's the mindset,

(47:42):
what are the things that you think get in the way,
and give people a space, even within executive committees, to
have an honest conversation, because then we can move forward.
We can clear that all up. And you know, I
remember somebody saying, you gave me the space to hear
myself think and talk, and I realized what I was
saying wasn't correct, And I think you have to give

(48:04):
people that space in meetings.

Speaker 5 (48:06):
Yeah, agreed.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
I am so happy our paths across Manar and your
work is so hugely important. I'm grateful that I read
the whole book and learned so much, shared you with
my listeners and viewers.

Speaker 5 (48:17):
You know, this show's listened to.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Why people around the world who care about either improving
their own leadership or their organizations or their experience at work,
what would you like to leave them with?

Speaker 4 (48:27):
I think that it is give yourself the time and
space to really be having the conversation. So we say,
let's have the right conversations about this. And I think
that the more we can have honest and open and
conversations around this, the better we'll be agreed.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
Menar, You're a gift. I'm so happy to know you.
Thanks for being on working on purpose.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
Likewise, thank you so much, and thank you for all
the work that you do. It's nice to meet fellow
individuals who are trying to change the world.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Like minded souls. That's right, rowing the boat in the
same direction. Listeners in view, wish you were going to
want to follow this woman and her work Monarmana Morales,
the work she does at Diversity and Flexibility Alliance and
her book The Flexibility Paradigm. You can start by visiting
her website, it's d F Alliance d Like Diversity f
Like Flexibility Alliance dot com. Last week, if you missed

(49:18):
the live show, you can always catch it be a
recorded podcast. We were on air with doctor Carlos Hore,
the Professor of Strategic Management and director of the Chair
Management by Missions and Corporate Governance at the University THT
International in Barcelona. He is also the founder of DPMC,
which provides strategy and change management services, and he's also
the author of various books on implementing and measuring purpose

(49:39):
in organizations. He gave us an incredibly accessible framework to
measure and track how purpose has lived in your company
and how it supports your performance. Next week, we'll be
on there with Josh Friedman, the author of At the
Heart of Leadership, How to Get Results with Emotional Intelligence.
We'll be delving into this now well known topic in
a really grassroots, practical, hands on way. See you then,

(50:02):
and remember work as one of the best adventures and
means of realizing our potential and making the impact we crave.
So let's work on Purpose.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to
tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise
Cortes each week on W four CY. Together we'll create
a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires and passion performance,
and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning
and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.