Revolutionize the way we work

I read an interesting article recently that got me thinking about flexible work arrangements and how we’re not really using them to their full potential. If you’d like to read the whole article then here is the link http://www.changeboard.com/content/4084/leadership-and-management/leadership-skills/wake-up-hr-the-future-is-here

There are two main streams of thought that this article provoked for me. The first was the use of technology to facilitate flexible work arrangements. The second was a system of objectives based, rather than 9 to 5 based, performance management. Let me explain.

The use of technology is, I think, best summed up by this quote from the article “instead of the technology liberating us from the drudgery of work, it has added to the hours we are working and introduced new stresses into our lives. We have not taken the opportunity to redesign work to take advantage of the technology, we have simply overlaid it onto conventional working practices”. I agree, technology makes us more accessible and gives us more information, but it hasn’t really changed the nature of the work, it has intensified it. We’re bombarded by contact and information.

There are more opportunities for the use of technology then what we are currently utilizing including remote working. Face-to-face contact is nice, but how many roles in your organization are ‘head down, bum up’ for most of the day? Could they be working from home instead? Connected to your servers and equipped with communication devices. Where inter-office communication is required, are there ways technology can assist with this that don’t involve traditional meetings. One of the communication avenues that is of particular interest to me at the moment is social media. What if, instead of a traditional meeting, you conducted a webinar? Or teleconferenced? Or had a bussinessy version of facebook that you all discussed things on? The amount of money you could save on office space could be invested into technology to break down communication barriers caused by working remotely.

Ok, so one of the main issues I hear about working remotely is that, if you’re a manager, you don’t know if your employee is slacking off. This brings me to my next proposal. Rather than have a working day based around sitting at your desk 9 to 5, the work is based around achievement of some very well written objectives. So who cares if you’re not working 9 to 5, as long as you’re achieving your objectives?  Workers could pick up their kids from school, go to the beach, read a novel, clean the house, or drink margaritas in the sunshine (that’s what I’d be doing) whenever suited them, as long as they were achieving their objectives. Autonomy and responsibility are awesome motivators!

This is quite a change in mindset and does require a different set of skills of managers then what they might currently be using. Again, (as I’ve mentioned in a previous blog) there is more emphasis on empowering and coaching. You also need to have a pretty robust performance measurement and review system and have more conversations about performance. There is also a significant culture shift that needs to occur. We’re still working in an industrial, punch card/time clock mindset. This needs to be revolutionized.

Whose responsibility is it to make these changes to the way we work? That is one thing in the article that I do not agree with, that it’s up to HR to instigate these changes to workplaces. I’d argue that it is up to HR to influence senior leadership to, in turn, make these changes themselves. What do you think?

The guy who wrote this article, Peter Thompson, has also authored a book called ‘Future Work’. I’ve now ordered it from Amazon and will let you know what it’s like in a future blog.