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Recruiting, hiring, and retaining talent has had a lot of changes over the last few years. In order to compete in this volatile environment, HR needs to think outside the box and discover new ways to hire and retain employees. Some organizations have implemented fully flexible work, but what does that mean? Is fully flexible work appropriate for all industries? How can HR move toward fully flexible work and what are some tips to get started? We invited Daniel Choi, SVP of People at Slickdeals, to join one of our podcast episodes to answer those questions and more. Let’s first start with finding out more about Slickdeals.
What is Slickdeals?
Slickdeals is a community of millions of real people, working together to save, so consumers can be confident they’re getting the best deal. Twelve million shoppers help other shoppers by vetting and voting up the very best products at the best prices from all the top retailers. Through the power of human intelligence, the community at Slickdeals has saved its savvy shoppers $10 billion. Slickdeals is one of the top ten most visited shopping sites in the U.S. per Similarweb and can be experienced online, as well as through shopping tools such as its free Android or iOS app; its browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Edge; and its Slickdeals Cashback rewards program.
Who is Daniel Choi?
I had a great chat with Daniel Choi on our podcast. Here’s a little bit of information about Daniel’s background and present role from his LinkedIn profile.
Human resources leader and driver of business performance. Experience translating the business agenda into people strategies and executing to deliver results.
Passion for developing, mentoring, coaching managers and leaders who are responsible for cultivating environments to get the best out of individuals and teams. Strong relationship building, influencing and collaboration skills. Adept at scaling high growth organizations, understanding complex business situations, conducting root-cause analysis, and problem-solving to drive change.
Now, let’s dig into the topic of the podcast…
Why fully flexible work should be a “choose your own adventure” experience
What Caused Slickdeals To Choose Fully Flexible Work?
Slickdeals studied what environment, what place, what situation gets the very best out of their employees. We’ll get the best work out of you. During the pandemic, many individuals worked remotely and we didn’t know where they were working from, what location, what situation, or what hours, but great work was still getting done. When it came time to decide the best path for the organization after the pandemic, what we cared about was really getting the best out of our employees. So we determined that fully flexible work for our employees was the best option for us.
What Does Fully Flexible Work Mean?
We’ve looked at past behaviors of our employees over the last two years. It didn’t really matter the time of day they worked or where they were located, as long as there was alignment in the team on expectations. Regardless of time zone, regions, etc. providing fully flexible work gave more empowerment to our employees. Fully flexible to us means do what works for you and gets the best out of you, keeps you engaged,and ensures you are productive. We’ve given our workforce a lot more autonomy to make mature, grown up decisions.
Did You Set Up Any Guardrails?
We never questioned anyone during the pandemic. What we learned along the way was if we start putting up guardrails, we come across as big brother watching everything. We decided we did not want to do that. We decided to adjust and pivot along the way. As an organization we went all in with work being anytime, anywhere, wherever. Employees can work from the car, the beach, outside in the sun, or even another country, as long as they get their work done and don’t let their team down. It’s interesting, some people do want more clarity and aren’t really sure about ambiguity. But we are consistent with our messaging and communications: fully flexible all the time, just do your best work.
Have There Been Issues With Team Schedules?
We operate on west coast working hours. It’s up to the employees, their teams, and managers that everyone is available at certain times for meetings or online events. Our organization hasn’t had any situations where people didn’t work and didn’t get their jobs done. This is what’s best for our culture. When we made the announcement, people got really excited. Feedback is extremely positive. This way of doing things empowers our employees and requires managers to make sure their teams feel safe. No big brother. Just make adjustments as needed.
Discover More
There’s much more we cover in the podcast, such as:
- How do new employees respond to this fully flexible idea?
- What is the reception from candidates as a recruiting tool?
- For other HR leaders, what are some areas to avoid and best practices to roll out this strategy?
- And much more!
Listen to the whole podcast here: Why Fully Flexible Work Should Be A “Choose Your Own Adventure” Experience. This short and sweet 18 minute episode provides some great gems. Enjoy!