Unitywater’s flexible work approach boosts engagement and retention

Unitywater’s flexible approach to hybrid work is boosting engagement, retention and office utilisation – while keeping teams connected and supported.

In February 2023, Unitywater introduced a hybrid working policy across the organisation. It not only improved workforce engagement and productivity, but increased office site utilisation and talent attraction. While transitioning to such an arrangement wasn’t without challenges, Unitywater found ways to make it work.

“Leaders were asking for clarity around the organisation’s position on hybrid working and expectations on appropriate messages to team members,” said Vic Chow, Unitywater Manager for Capability and Culture.

“We realised that we needed a clear way of managing the balance between flexibility and working at home, with the obvious need of being a utility with feet on the ground.”

In the post-COVID era, organisations have taken different approaches, from mandating that employees go back into the office to avoiding setting mandates with no clear expectations.

“We wanted to offer flexibility. Unitywater has always been known for that in our employee value proposition,” Chow said.

As a utility, diversity of work and safety was paramount. “A one-size-fits-all approach just wasn’t going to work,” Chow said.

“Culturally, we needed to equip our leaders with more accountability and give them trust to manage their own teams, depending on the nature of the work to be done.”

Balancing act

Unitywater found the best approach was to provide a set of common principles that provided clear guardrails for leaders, but also allow them space to find the best ways of working for their own teams. After all, a call centre team is vastly different to an on-site operation. Chow said setting these principles empowers leaders to find their own ways of working with their teams, within an agreed framework.

“It was fairly easy to implement, and everybody was receptive to it. The challenge was: how do we keep these conversations going as employees leave and join these teams?”

To manage this, Unitywater pegged their approach to existing organisational processes, such as annual objective setting, and onboarding/offboarding processes.

“When a new team member comes into a team or someone exits, it’s a reminder to the leader to revisit that conversation and their team charter, so that everyone is clear on their commitments, and that the differences in the changing team are reflected,” Chow said.

Kenan Hibberd, Unitywater’s Executive Manager of People, Culture and Safety, added that “flexible working is not the same for everyone”, as the utility has a lot of people working out in the field each day.

“We talked a lot about equity of opportunity rather than flexible work, because the flexibility was different for different cohorts,” he said. “When we started the program, around 87% of businesses were introducing mandates for people to come back to the office – and they were setting the number of days that people needed to be there.”

Like many utilities competing for talent with engineering companies, petrochemical firms and the mining industry, Unitywater is a “mid-level payer in the market,” Hibberd said. “We’re not in the top 25% – we’re competing against others for the same trades and technical skills. We need to make sure our value proposition is leveraged in a good way, so that we can be attractive.”

The challenge, then, is to both understand the employee marketplace, but balance that with safety. Hibberd said individual plans, such as safe workstations at home and emergency contact arrangements, became critical.

It’s a challenge that asks: “how do you balance the health and safety element and not be seen as monitoring or being too intrusive?”

Trialling different types of work patterns for the mechanical, electrical and reactive maintenance crews is a start. Unitywater introduced trials of nine-day fortnights, 19-day months, four-day work weeks, and staggered start and finish times for those field teams, allowing appropriate shift swapping so that field employees could have the flexibility that office staff are afforded.

“Being upfront about the fact that there are different ways work has to be performed, but being willing and open to listen to those on-site teams has helped us to overcome what could have been a divisive issue,” Hibberd said.

Positive feedback

Good intentions are one thing, but the proof is in the pudding. Hibberd said two key metrics highlight that Unitywater’s approach is working. “Between our last survey in 2024, and that of three years before, we saw a positive shift in all areas,” he said.

A six-monthly metric assessing employees’ perceptions of the organisation’s key behaviours and values found having influence over work and how it was organised was crucial to employee satisfaction.

“Our last culture survey showed an increase in ‘employee involvement’ by 8% and our turnover is down to 12%, compared to the national average of 15%,” Hibberd said.

“Our people are feeling like they are more valued. Utilisation of office space is up 21% per square metre. Absenteeism is trending down, and we’ve got good outcomes on all diversity indicators.”

Another key indicator is moving the needle on employees under 30. “We cracked 25% for the first time in the last two years, and our hybrid working process is resonating with younger team members,” he said.

For other utilities looking to replicate Unitywater’s success, Hibberd has a few pieces of advice.

“Make sure whichever approach you take to hybrid working is aligned to your strategic goal,” he said. “For us, it was having a united culture, not separate businesses.”

Balancing performance and control are equally important, so that employees have the opportunity to have a say in their own working arrangements, but remain accountable.

Finally, “leaders make everything happen,” Hibberd said.

“They bring it all together. The most important thing is investing in your leadership team, giving them clear guidance around the principles, and supporting them to do this is what makes it all happen – they are the golden thread.”

This article was originally published in the AWA's Current magazine.