Bromwich+Smith

Canadian insolvency and debt relief specialists seizes the opportunity to establish a workplace
flexibility program.


Challenge

Understanding where our employees are with their engagement levels, the need for workplace flexibility, and understanding technology requirements for remote or hybrid workplaces.

Bromwich+Smith is a nationally recognized leader in debt relief with a dedicated team helping Canadians rebuild their worth. With many locations across Canada, the company is well equipped to relieve the overwhelming financial burden individuals are experiencing, in accordance with Canadian legislation. Through Covid-19, the insolvency market quickly pivoted to virtual service for clients – safeguarding the interaction and supporting Canadians in financial distress.

With so many employees across the country, Bromwich+Smith became increasingly curious about their employees’ level of engagement and what their employees’ sentiment was around hybrid and remote work arrangements. Furthermore, leaders were also interested in knowing whether or not their employees had the proper technology and home office setup to work remotely for an extended period of time. This is especially important for a company like Bromwich+Smith because many of their services must be offered through a secure network for cyber security purposes, similar to a bank.

Another major challenge that Bromwich+Smith faced was maintaining high levels of engagement. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Human Resources prided itself on the high level of employee engagement but wanted to ensure it maintained this high level while employees shifted to a hybrid and remote work model.

Solution

Obtain data driven insights to inform a remote or hybrid workplace program.

In May 2021, Bromwich+Smith met with Better Workplace, a data and insights company specializing in supporting hybrid workforce planning and optimization. Human Resources leadership decided to use WorkFit by Better Workplace to help them gather the voice of the employee and to better understand the opportunities related to adopting a flexible hybrid or remote workplace model. Bromwich+Smith, along with many insolvencies industry peers, had never had a formal hybrid or remote work program which made difficult to extrapolate meaningful data about the potential benefits that a formal program could have on the company’s triple bottom line.

When Bromwich+Smith engaged Better Workplace, HR leaders were interested in learning the following:

  • What measurable benefits and/or challenges have employees experienced working remotely during the pandemic?
  • What are employee preferences for how and where they work in a post-pandemic environment?
  • What physical and technology gaps do employees have in their home office environment that would require support in adopting a flexible hybrid or remote workplace program?

The WorkFit assessment was distributed to 141 employees and was completed between June 1-June 8 of 2021. “Ensuring that employees had input and choice about their work location was a priority because everyone’s needs and wants are different,” said Karen Krull, Vice President Human Resources. “By better understanding our employee base, the more likely we are to advance the organization and build resiliency with employees,” she said.

Results and Benefits

Leveraging WorkFit, Human Resources was able to gain a better understating of their employees’ work preferences as well as learn more about current engagement efforts. Bromwich+Smith was also able to identify what employees might be missing in their employees remote work setup and potential ways the company can help mitigate those challenges.

According to human resources, it was important for the company to collect valuable data and metrics to present to the Board of Directors and the Executive Team in
order to make an educated decision about what the future work arrangements would look like. The Board was intrigued by the sustainability metrics collected by Better Workplace.

2022 WorkFit Assessment Results: 

  • The majority of employees (40%) noted a preference for working in the office 2-3 days a week, while 36% prefer to work from home 100% of the time.
  • The main reasons behind employee preferences for where they work are saving time commuting, improved work-life-balance, other, and feeling more productive working from home.
  • There is an 80% increase in the number of employees who would like to work from home since COVID-19. This demonstrates how attitudes and opinions around flexible work arrangements have changed during the pandemic.

Triple Bottom Line Benefits:

  • A total of $109,071 saved in employee commuting expenses, for an average of $1,100 saved per employee
  • A total reduction of 19,400 commutes which resulted in employee’s contribution to the reduction of 485,000 Kgs CO2e from car emissions.
  • A total of 9,700 hours saved commuting by car, which is equivalent to 19,400 half-hour walks with your dog.
  • Bromwich + Smith identified potential savings in the hundreds of thousands in Infrastructure expenses depending on the work arrangement they choose to implement. They also gained an understanding of the potential number of seats and square footage of office space they could save based on the new work arrangements.

In conclusion, the Better Workplace diagnostic facilitated conversations about employee engagement and work location preference in a highly personal manner, with Board and Executive Leadership endorsement.  This allowed the organization to effectively move through critical periods of transition during Covid-19 with grace and respect and consideration of their people.  Shifting from a more traditional workplace design to a technology-enabled remote/hybrid environment was pivotal and achieved through data collection, results, analysis, and the design of a framework for this transformation to occur.

Data And Insights
For Planning

  • Create a physical environment
    that reduces risk
  • Implement procedures to ensure employees feel safe
  • Inform policies and procedures
  • Prepare the workforce
  • Weave remote working
    arrangements into your culture
  • Mitigate COVID-19 risks
  • Enhance triple bottom-line
    benefits

Learn More

Better Workplace can help you develop a comprehensive distributed workplace strategy to improve efficiency, sustainability, and profitability. We can provide the tools and expert support to pilot, measure, manage, and scale a distributed workplace plan.

If your organization is interested in improving performance through distributed workforce planning and management, book a demo.

Contact us for more information about WorkFit by Better Workplace.