When South Africa went into lockdown our company was better prepared for remote work than many others. This was mainly because we had already started researching flexible working hours in late-2019. We did this because we were curious to see if flexible working hours could achieve similar positive results for us in both productivity and well-being that other companies were reporting from experimenting with remote work.
I was asked to investigate if there was any value in implementing flexible working hours, and, if we did, how we would manage the inevitable logistics and challenges. Would flexible working hours really add value to people’s lives? And how on earth would we coordinate it among so many diverse people in such diverse roles?