PI wins Best Workplace Flexibility Program Award

Planet Innovation’s flexible work offering has been recognized at the 2022 Australian HR Awards, with the company taking home the Best Workplace Flexibility Program Award.

The annual Australian HR Awards is the leading independent awards event in the HR profession, showcasing the country’s most outstanding HR teams, leaders and employers for their strategies, achievements, and programs over the past year.

Commenting on the award, PI’s HR Director, Kris Reynolds, said: “For our workplace flexibility program to be recognized at a national level is a fantastic achievement and a testament to all our people who bring this program to life and embed it into our organization.

“Winning the award signifies just how empowered our people feel to work flexibly in a way that suits them and benefits our business needs at the same time,” she said.

As we have talked about previously, PI has pioneered flexible working for many years now, and the establishment of our Ways of Working (WOW) policy really cemented this approach for all staff across the business. Since the implementation of WOW, our people have continued to enjoy a flexible working environment that looks different for everyone.

Our project team members negotiate working arrangements with their project leader and together they agree on working arrangements that suit individual needs as well as those of our clients and the business. For some, this means working from home; for others, hybrid work; for others, it is part-time hours; and for others, it means ordinary hours that are not 9 to 5.

WOW is not limited to our office-based staff who can work remotely with ease. WOW has been applied to PI’s large manufacturing workforces, which remain largely onsite at our Melbourne and Irvine facilities. As this team’s work cannot be done remotely, flexibility is offered in the form of starting and finishing times as well as selecting break times during the working day.

Our philosophy is that we have talented, committed and smart people in our employ, who we trust to do the right thing for both the business and themselves.

Shannon Psaila, PI’s Global Organizational Development Manager, said: “Our most recent staff engagement survey provided great insights into the different ways our people are choosing to work flexibly.

“We also learned more about the reasons that staff enjoy spending time in the office and their sentiment towards things like belonging and inclusion, as well as learning and growth opportunities.

“Pleasingly, 96 per cent of respondents feel as though PI is living up to its ways of working and flexibility commitment,” she said.

When we talk about ‘ways of working’, we are not just referring to where people choose to work – but also how they work. All team members at PI undertake a work preferences workshop that enables them to build an understanding of both their own work preferences and practices as well as those of their colleagues. This enables PI staff to better understand:

• when they are at their most productive;
• what helps and hinders them build high performance (both individually and in team situations); and
• how they like to approach their work in four key areas – relationships, information, decision-making and organization – that can inform the best workplace conditions to undertake certain work.

The universal use of this work preference tool means that people have a shared language and understanding of ways of working preference. There is an understanding that certain tasks are suited to certain environments at certain times of the day, to naturally suit the individual. Many find working on tasks that require detail and concentration is better suited to mornings at home, while collaborative ideation is suited for the office with others.

At PI, we believe this is the way of working for business and our people, for now and into the future. We are embracing flexible work opportunities and continue to see benefits to both our clients and our business.

Sound like a place you’d like to work? Check our Careers page for current opportunities.