TM - October 2007 - (Page 58) [techniques] by Nigel Paine S S Get Serious About Flexible Working: It Works! ix years ago, I had my own office. When I first moved in, I had a lovely spot at the end of a large area with an L-shaped desk, a ton of wall space for files and my personal assistant nearby at a smaller desk. When I left that particular role six months ago, I was on my fifth office move, I occupied a space no larger than anyone else’s and the files had long gone. Storage was four drawers in a filing cabinet. Hardly any paper was ever kept (it was pointless, as it was all online). Papers were recycled, and documents were distributed via e-mail or shared drives. Four years ago, my request for WiFi access in the office was turned down. A senior IT person told me, “We will never have Wi-Fi in this organization.” expensive and getting more expensive. Somewhere, at sometime in the last three years, we crossed a line where flexible working became the norm rather than the exception. Mobile became mainstream, not marginal. The next obvious step was taken a couple of years ago. Every building established “hot desk space,” which was open to all staff members, wherever they were based — your electronic pass allowed you access to any location with the company logo on the front (if it was easier to work from Boston for a couple of days rather than New York, then work in Boston). You did not need to ask permission. Rather, just let the team know a couple of days in advance. And if it was acceptable to work in any convenient location, why not work from home? With ubiquitous login popped up on your screen, telling you they were online. Even inside company buildings, people phoned one another’s mobile, rather than the desk, phone, largely because few people were actually at “their” desk. Most desk phones defaulted to voicemail or to the mobile anyway. The fixed point vanished. We used to be tethered by the Ethernet cable and the phone line. Wireless set us free, and we began to build a mobile lifestyle at work and at home — access everywhere, all the time, always on. E-mail often was able to reach out Today, it is in every building and in some outside areas to faciliWithout quite realizing it, tate outdoor working and meetings. Laptops we have been in the throes are pervasive — wherof a quiet revolution. ever you can get conEverything has changed, it nected, you can work. And people work everyhas been relatively painless where. Requests for and it parallels the pace of laptops now exceed change in our social requests for desktops, and they no longer environment. require a special form. Rather, almost anyone can have a laptop, and the increase in productivity more than pays for the addi- broadband, the network ran fast and access was straightforward. tional cost. Instead of personal space (which is Then, you no longer needed perseverely limited), there is public, mission to work at home for one shared space for casual and formal day because pressure on desk space meetings. Instead of physical stor- and meeting rooms now required a age, there is almost unlimited net- proportion of staff members to be work capacity and shared drives — away from their desks — if the megabytes became gigabytes, entire staff turned up, not everymerged into terabytes and no doubt one would be able to find a seat. will seamlessly become petabytes. This is because the digital world is cheap and has virtually infinite capacity, and the physical world is Organizations relied on 60 percent attendance but 100 percent effort. And instead of being able to physically see team members, you knew they were at work because their About the author Nigel Paine is the former head of people development for the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC). He can be reached at editor@TalentMgt.com. faster than a phone call, and with that came the demand for more and more information at your fingertips and complex devices that could deliver e-mail, phone and Internet from almost everywhere. In less than a year, thousands of BlackBerries sprouted up. The volume of e-mail increased, but the length and complexity of e-mail messages drastically reduced. Without quite realizing it, we have been in the throes of a quiet revolution, and that should be acknowledged. Everything has changed, it has been relatively painless, and it parallels the pace of change in our social environment. Organizations that behave as if it were still 1998 look increasingly like dinosaurs that somehow escaped the great technology explosion but cannot adapt to the new habitat created in its wake. 58 October 2007 talent management magazine www.TalentMgt.com http://www.TalentMgt.com
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