Webinars versus Seminars

It struck me as slightly ironic that I'm involved in organising a workshop, based in London, on the subject of agile and remote working. If we are now in the age of webinars instead of seminars and YouTube recordings instead of live presentations, why are we running a physical event. Why not a virtual one?

That made me think. Why do we go to football matches when you can get a better view on TV? Why do people go to the cinema when they can watch the film in the comfort of their home? Why go to the pub if you can get a beer out of the fridge?

It's all about socialising. We like sharing experiences with other people, chatting and enjoying their company. We can do some of this by social media but there is no substitute for face to face communications. Going out for a meal with someone else is a very different experience to sitting in a restaurant on your own, even though you get to enjoy the same food.

So a seminar/workshop/conference has to be a worthwhile experience for the participant, not just sitting and listening to speakers. I can do that by looking at TED talks on YouTube without leaving my desk or TV. I want to be able to interact with the other people in the room, sharing ideas and learning from each other. I often reckon the best parts of some events are the coffee and lunch breaks where you happen to meet someone interesting. But this shouldn't be down to accident, there should be interaction designed in.

When we thought about the kind of event we wanted to run in November we realised it had to be one that was a learning experience. We resisted the temptation to come up with a list of impressive sounding speakers and decided to run the day between three of us. We've kept the number of people to a maximum of 24 so we could give everyone a chance to contribute. And to give real individual attention we added a telephone follow-up session to help with action plans.

To find out more about this workshop go to http://bit.ly/WW241115. It's going to be unique!

Peter

Building a productive workforce

Productivity has been in the headlines recently. The government is trying to improve the performance of the country in the league tables and various bodies have come out with reports on how this can be achieved. One of them is ACAS.

Its 50 page report “Building Productivity in the UK” focuses on the workplace as the place where “the elements of productivity come together to deliver goods and services.’  They say “How businesses manage and organise their workforce has a huge influence on delivering the improvements that the country needs.” -very true!

This will be a key theme at the Wisework/Workpond workshop being run in November , “Building a high performance productive workforce”. (More information here).

Here are some more points from the ACAS report:
In 2013, UK productivity was an estimated 17% lower than the G7 average
And…
Ineffective management is estimated to cost UK businesses over £19billion per year on lost working hours
But…
Employees reporting higher levels of control over their work had high levels of job related contentment, enthusiasm and satisfaction
And…
Best practice management development can result in a 23% increase in organisational performance

So it seems that giving people more autonomy over their working practices is likely to improve their productivity. This comes out in numerous case studies and on research into engagement. Since this is what management gurus have been saying for the last 50 years it should come as no surprise.

Making this happen is the challenge.  Getting managers to change their habits from ‘command and control’ to ‘trust and empower’ isn’t always easy. The workshop in November will tackle this by helping the participants build an action plan for their own organisation and they will get follow-on support after the event.

Let’s hope this adds a small contribution to the productivity drive for the UK as a whole.

Reinventing Work for the Digital Age

I recently had the pleasure of speaking in Boston at the USA launch of a new book “Reinventing the Company in the Digital Age”. The book was put together by the Spanish bank, BBVA as part of their Open Mind project (see https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/)

This was a great opportunity to reflect on how organisations are changing “in the Digital Age”. It’s easy to think of this as just being the impact of technology on the way we carry out our tasks. In fact the Digital Age is as much a social change as it is a technological revolution in the way we work.

Take the example of social media. This has revolutionised the way some people communicate with their friends and colleagues. They share views, express opinions, join in discussions, send congratulations and celebrate life’s achievements without the physical constraints of the “Analogue Age”. They are using the internet to cut through the barriers of time and distance to share experiences with others and make real friends.

So it’s hardly surprising to find that the “Facebook Generation” are much more comfortable than their predecessors in expressing their views through blogs, discussion forums and video clips. They can see the benefits in these being available to a wide audience instantly and being a lasting resource. Compare this with the traditional business meeting with its constraints of time and place. The digital alternative wins out much of the time.

Yet many organisations see social media as a waste of time and insist on cramming everyone’s diaries with inefficient face-to-face meetings. Sometimes, maybe, there is a need to get people together in the same room, but for many business decisions and sharing of opinions there is a better digital alternative.

We are also now living in the age of ‘Skype’ video conversations.  I’m amazed at the number of people who use Skype in their personal lives but never use videoconferencing at work. Whilst Skype is free and easy to use, the view on video meetings in the office is still that it’s complicated and expensive. So, again, we have a generation of people living in the digital age at home and turning the clock back when they go in to the office.

So “reinventing the company” has to include radical changes to the way work is performed in the digital age.  Not just to use the technology more effectively, but also to keep up with the expectations of the new generation of digital natives. For business to succeed it needs to engage with this workforce, and it won’t do it using out-dated ways of working.

Another step towards Future Work

I'm writing this blog on December 1^st, the day the new regime of Shared Parental Leave came into effect in the UK. Employment legislation now recognises that fathers and mothers can share responsibility for caring for a new baby. This is a period of 50 weeks, in addition to the 2 weeks of paternity leave, which means a father can potentially take a whole year off to look after a new baby whilst the mother goes back to work.

This is another sign that the old assumptions about flexible working are no longer valid. Since professional women are now quite likely to be earning more than their male partners, there are economic pressures for fathers to take a major share of the parental leave whilst the mothers return to their careers. Since July this year, UK legislation has also recognised that it’s not just parents who want to work flexibly. Now all employees have equal rights to request flexible working and employers cannot discriminate on gender or parental grounds when considering a request.

These changes mean that employers need to be more prepared than ever to manage flexible workers. However, there is mounting evidence that many companies have not planned for the new world of agile working. In particular, there are still many organisations that don’t allow people to work from home, or from any remote location, because they are unsure how to make it happen.

To provide guidance on remote working, the Telework Association is planning to update the Telework Handbook. This will give practical advice to companies and individuals wanting to set up remote working schemes and will contain up-to-date examples of how it can be done. The project is being funded through the crowd-funding website Kickstarter and can be found at http://kck.st/1FzFuu0.

Is flexibility becoming the norm?

We have lived for the last 200 years with a model of work that involved a fixed contract of employment for the majority of employees. In exchange for an individual's time an employer is prepared to pay them to do a job. That is usually based on a fixed number of hours per week and a fixed location to do the work.

Now, however, we have technology that allows us to do a high percentage of work without having to be in a fixed place. We also have flexible working schemes that allow people to vary the hours that they work. But we still suffer from rigid work patterns based on the assumption that the norm is fixed time and fixed place. Any other arrangement is an exception to the rule.

Employment legislation reinforces this assumption. People now have a right to 'request' flexible working from their employer on the basis that they are asking for something out of the ordinary. The 'norm' is still seen as a contract that defines the time and place of work and any variation on this is a concession by the employer and a 'benefit' for employees. Well, maybe this is about to change.

On November 9th the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) launched a report 'A Better Off Britain' in which it calls for employers to "Challenge outdated assumptions around flexible working in firms and, where possible, adopt a presumption in favour of flexibility from job advert onwards, to help employees manage their work-life balance effectively, including childcare costs." So, they are saying that flexibility should be taken as the norm. They are also implying that it should be offered to new recruits ('from job advert onwards') as well as existing employees. So it's not something an employee has to earn or only get after 6 months in the job, it's the basis of the relationship from day one.

Managers will struggle to adjust to this new regime. It's harder to exercise control over people if they choose when and where to do their work, But is should be easier to motivate them and engage them by showing they are trusted.  There are also practical issues to be addressed and one current initiative that will help is the re-write of the teleworking handbook. This will help to reassure managers and employees that the new world of work, where flexibility is the norm, is not a recipe for chaos.

The handbook is being funded through a crowdsourcing initiative which will only succeed if there are enough backers. If you would like to support this initiative from the Telework Association you can do so for as little as £5.00.

Peter

Flexible working is no longer family friendly

For the last decade flexible working has been officially ‘family friendly’. In the UK we have had legislation that gave the right to parents to request flexible working since 2003. That gave a clear message that the reason for allowing someone to vary their work pattern was to accommodate family commitments and this was reinforced in 2007 when the legislation was extended to carers for adults as well.

This has led to the inevitable link between flexible working and other benefits such as maternity leave, designed to accommodate people who have children. Many organisations introduced policies and procedures that simply complied with the law and allowed parents to ask to vary their hours, or maybe do some work from home, but did not allow other employees this opportunity. As a result, thousands of people are now benefitting from a flexible working arrangement because their employer was obliged to listen to their request. The vast majority of the proposals from employees turned out to be reasonable and have proved to work well for both parties.

 However, the world of work has moved on. Now people who don’t have children are asking why they too can’t work flexibly. They may want to avoid commuting every day and have a different work pattern. They notice that their colleagues who are parents still manage to get their work done effectively and that many of them say they are more productive. And finally legislation has caught up with the realities of working life in the 21^st century. Now all employees have the right to request flexible working, so those employers who were simply complying with the legal minimum have had to update their policies.

For those organisations that already gave and equal ‘right to request’ to all employees this may not be a dramatic change. However they are still likely to get an increased number of applications from non-parents as the idea of flexible working for all takes over. For those employers who have so far treated this as a ‘family friendly’ policy there is a bigger shift involved. No longer does it make sense to discriminate on the basis of the family situation. The reason that someone wants to work flexibly becomes irrelevant and employers should not be putting themselves in the position of judging the value of one employee’s personal life versus another.

So finally, employers are being forced to view flexible working as something other than family friendly. If they take the time to look at the evidence they will find that it is actually ‘business friendly’. There is now a wealth of evidence to show that giving people choice over when and where to do their work, results in improved productivity. Those organisations wanting to attract and retain the best talent (and who doesn’t?) will recognise that saying ‘yes’ to requests makes business sense. And as we move further away from the ‘family friendly’ era we will move closer to the day when the idea of fixed working patterns becomes the exception and it is assumed that all work arrangements are flexible as long as they meet the business requirements.

Flexible working for all

Today is a key date in the evolution of work. In the UK there is a change to the legislation giving employees a right to request flexible working. It will now apply to all employees not just parents and carers.

You could just dismiss this as a minor change which will involve a quick revision of the appropriate HR policy. Or you might see it as a fundamental change in our assumptions about work. I think it’s the latter.

For the last 200 years we have made the assumption that work consists primarily of full time, permanent employment. Flexible working, temporary jobs, part-time working, job sharing and working from home have all been exceptions to the norm. So employees have to ask permission to work differently from the standard ‘9 to 5’ routine at their employers premises.

Then the government, in its wisdom decided to introduce some ‘family friendly’ legislation to encourage employers to at least consider that work could be done differently. This reinforced the view that flexible working was only applicable to people who had children and didn’t really apply to everyone else. So up to now it has been seen as an employee benefit along with items such as maternity leave and therefore a cost to the business.

Now we are about to enter an era when people without children or other caring responsibilities will start to ask for flexible working. It will become more acceptable for ambitious, career minded professionals to work in non-standard ways. Employers will come to realise that by giving people more choice over when and where they get the job done they will get a more effective workforce.

By giving people more freedom over how they get their job done their productivity will increase and employee turnover and absenteeism will reduce. So flexible working will move from the current situation, where it is the exception, to being the norm. This means that managers will need to develop new skills to cope with the increased variety in the way their people work. And that also provides a great opportunity for HR to guide the organizational culture and management behavior to reflect the new world of work.

Webinar about the changing workplace

I've had the pleasure of being on a couple of panel discussions run by Philip Tidd of Gensler and know that he has an informed view of the way the workplace is developing. So I'm delighted to be running a webinar with him where I will be covering the changing world of work and he will be looking at the implications for the workplace.

It's happening on Thursday May 22^nd 18.30-19.30 UK time

I will be basing my contribution on the latest version of my book ‘Future Work’, co-authored with Alison Maitland (www.futureworkbook.com) and my extensive experience in helping clients to implement flexible working. Philip will talk from his experience as Head of Consulting, EMEA at Gensler where he advises organisations on all aspects of how improved working environments can lead to enhanced business performance.

This session is not just about new office design. It’s about the changing nature of work and the implications on the places it can now be performed. It will therefore cover developments such as hubs and shared space as well as working on the move and at home.

There are just 25 places on this webinar so attendees will get an ample opportunity to ask questions and comment if they wish. To book a free place please email me (peter.thomson@me.com). We will be recording the event so if you can’t make the date let me know and I can point you at the video afterwards.