As a large company, home-working is not new to Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and we already have over 800 employees working from home in the US.
However, here in the UK, home-working is a much more recent innovation because of the way our business model works. The reality of retail is that your employees have to be in the branch to serve customers. So home-working has not been something that we've considered until recently.
With the business growing and fundingspace at our administrative offices becoming more of a challenge, we began to explore how we could expand without necessarily taking more office space.
This was particularly acute at our support centre in Aldershot, where our call-centre team handles reservations and booking for customers.
The first thing we looked at was how commercially viable it would be to operate a home-working programme.
Setting up an employee from home carries a one-off cost of £1,500, with minor on-going costs. In comparison, for each employee based in our office, it costs us £5,000 per year.
So we were looking at a saving of £3,500 in year one alone, and more over time.
Based on this analysis, we took the decision to pilot a home-working programme for the national reservations department.
Not only has the pilot proved successful, we have seen a dramatic reduction in absenteeism and increases in punctuality and productivity.
Our plan now is to move this pilot into a long-term programme. For every office-based worker who leaves, we plan to recruit a home-working replacement, with a view to achieving a target of 50% of the reservations department being home-working over time.
The reservations department was ideal for trialling a flexible working programme, with staff required to work unsocial hours and a great need for flexibility in managing peak-time demands.
Now, if there is a spike in demand, we are able to send a text to home workers asking if they can log on to help alleviate it. Employees are incentivised with overtime pay during these spikes and receive special recognition from their team supervisor.
This has increased positive responses from our customers, who say there has been a noticeable difference in our ability to respond quickly.
When evaluating the HR success of the programme, additional benefits have included increased employee retention and increased team diversity.
For our home-based employees, retention levels have not only surpassed the market-wide level of 60-65%, but have surpassed our own high, office-based retention level (71%) by 10% (81%).
There has also been a marked difference between the candidates applying for office and home-based roles, with more mature candidates, often with a successful first career in a senior role, applying because they are now looking for increased flexibility.
Of course, the pilot would not have been successful without the implementation of strong internal communications. Home workers have a weekly catch-up over the phone with their manager and monthly appraisals are also carried out over the phone.
Employees can also attend virtual team meetings via online video conferencing software.
To engender team spirit and ensure home workers don't feel isolated, we set up our systems allowing home workers to see who else is online at any given time and communicate with them via internal instant messaging software and email.
Leigh Lafever-Ayer (pictured) is HR director UK and Ireland at Enterprise Rent-A-Car
