Product News

Rhema Group reduces the risks of flexible and remote working

Flexible and remote working, involving employees in working some or all of their hours from home or another non-office based location, presents employers with both opportunities and risks.

The major benefit of satisfying the employee’s psychological contract, and securing their valuable contribution, is often offset by the risk that that managers and staff will not use time as productively as they would if working at the organisation’s offices. Add to that the need to check on this risk.

It is important therefore not only to assess the individual’s capability to work flexibly and/or remotely but it is also vitally important to assess their suitability to do so. 

Rhema Group’s assessment process, known as the Profile XT, addresses both needs. Before choosing or allowing people to change their work patterns organisations can create the “DNA” of the successful flexible or remote worker and use this to assess the fit of people to the “DNA” profile of the job.  The assessment instrument measures behavioural traits which include:

• Energy level when working on their own.
• Manageability when working at a distance.
• Attitude to work and the working environment.
• Decisiveness when working alone.
• Degree of independence when unsupervised.
• Ability to make objective judgements without reference to others.

The assessment also measures the degree to which the employee can learn and develop on his/her own.

Rhema Group MD Jeremy Francis is convinced of the assessment’s value: “Flexible working can be both very productive and cost effective for organisations wanting to achieve increased job satisfaction for the employee and improved levels of performance.  Handled properly, the transition to flexible and/or remote working can be a great success.  We aim to help organisations achieve this transition by ensuring the fit of employees to this new way of working.

Results have shown that those organisations which carefully assess this fit achieve five times the productivity levels of those which don’t.”