How Flexible Should An IT Department Be?

By Natalie Burg

Flexibility: More and more studies are showing how much employees value flexibility with regard to their work schedule. But no one wants their IT department support to be anything but consistent. While accounting or marketing departments might be able to deal with lighter staffing on certain days of the week or times of the day, what happens when a system crashes or a rush of help requests comes in and half of the IT department is simply not there?

And yet, IT professionals are people, too. Don't they deserve one of the most coveted of work options? Can IT departments offer both flexibility to their staff and serve their companies to the best of their abilities?

Open Your Mind to Flexibility

Simply put, yes. And CIOs must consider flexibility an option for their staff. The demand for it is just too great. Even as early as 2007, The Washington Post reported a quarter of IT professionals had turned down a job because of a lack of flexible work options.

"Employers have no option but to ensure they are going that extra mile to retain high-caliber candidates," Ray Duggins, managing director of The IT Job Board stated at the time, "and that starts with an attractive recruitment package."

There's good reason for those employees to be so demanding. Various studies have found flexibility to improve employee health and happiness, decrease work-family conflicts and increase staff retention.

Consider the Entire Scope of "Flexible Work"

A research-based mandate for more flexible work doesn't necessarily imply that less availability and responsiveness to the company's technology needs has to be the inevitable outcome. The definition of flexible work actually includes many options. Choosing and managing the best options for your company can prevent detrimental scheduling gaps.

Here are a few of the flexible work options available, and how each can be managed from an IT perspective:

• Compressed Hours: Some workers may prefer to work their 40 hours all in four days. While this takes some planning to ensure the IT department isn't vacant every Friday, it can also be a benefit, as IT services are available to the company for extra hours each day. "The key consideration," writes Steve Brooks for Business-Cloud.com, "will be the ability to measure the output of those staff and ensure it matches those who work a more traditional week."

• Flextime or Staggered Hours: Based on commuting concerns, childcare and other issues, it may be more convenient for some workers to come in from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., while others show up at 10 a.m. and stay until 7 p.m. As with compressed hours, careful scheduling can result in no loss of IT coverage during peak hours, and extended coverage at the end of each day.

• Remote Work: This can be a great benefit for IT staff, who can reap the rewards of a more flexible workplace but still be available during regular hours—just in another location. While this might only be ideal to offer a limited number of days a week, that can be a big deal to parents and employees with a long commute.

Connectivity, Performance and Security

Of course, remote work in particular raises issues of how to manage security from afar, and all types of flexible schedules have IT supervisors wondering how to manage staffers who are coming and going at all hours.

"The fear of many managers is that something could go wrong and the IT department would not be able to resolve the issue from a remote location," writes Sande Golgart, regional vice president for office management firm Regus, in Fierce CIO. "However, technology has improved tremendously over the last several years, and don't forget—the IT industry is responsible for many of the improvements that are now making remote work possible."

Golgard recommends putting in extra effort to stay connected with staff throughout the day, regardless of their location. Well-scheduled, regular meetings—virtual or otherwise—can help make up for the loss of the casual face time that occurs when everyone is in the office from nine to five.

It's also important to keep an eye on performance, says Golgard. In fact, learning to measure the performance of those you aren't face-to-face with as regularly can change the way quality work is measured in a positive way, allowing you to truly assess the work, rather than hours in the office.

In terms of security, Brooks notes that there are multiple cloud-based ways to ensure IT workers are secure as they work remotely. Thanks to the BYOD boom, ensuring remote security is old hat for many IT departments—expanding that to their own devices and operations is simply the next step.

With so many benefit to both workers and companies for allowing staff to work with flexible schedules, it's critical that this option is extended to IT departments as well. While careful scheduling of staggered scheduling and amping up regular staff communications and performance measures are necessary to ensure ample coverage, the effort can be well worth it for IT staffers who are happier, healthier and easier to recruit and retain.

Additional Reading:

1. The 4 Most Difficult Changes To Make In Information Technology (IT) 

2. Managed Hosting: Lower Costs, Better Use of Internal Information Technology Resources 

3. The #1 Thing In Their Information Security Programs That IT Managers Would Change