New Ways of Working (Thorogood Report)

N

NEW WAYS OF WORKING

Stephen Jupp

IFC

A Hawksmere Report

NEW WAYS OF WORKING

Stephen Jupp

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The author Stephen Jupp is one of the UK’s leading experts in flexible working,well-known for broadening the perspective of his audience. He shares real experiences and insights gained through his work advising on and implementing new ways of working for a wide variety of organisations. He has just finished a spell on the advisory board for the journal Flexible Working,and has been one of the principal contributors to the award-winning Internet-based newsletter Flexibility at www.flexibility.co.uk Much in demand as a speaker on all aspects of flexible work practices,he has significant experience of advising, training and implementing this type of change. He was with the Home Office Partnership for three years and has now set up independently to concentrate on new ways of working. He has many years experience of business transformation and much of his time is spent discussing the business reasons for change. He gained significant experience with Digital over nineteen years,and was Digital’s principal spokesman,design authority and practitioner for flexible work practices and business needs assessment methodologies. He taught these methodologies to Digital consultants all over the world and advises on business process reengineering, management workshop design and facilitation. Prior to this, Stephen worked for Warren Point for three years as an engineer on several automatic test equipment projects.Of particular note was his involvement in training and compiler specification for ATLAS, a language for specifying tests for automatic test equipment. Stephen spent five years with the small engine division at Rolls Royce, first as an engineering apprentice, then in production engineering, then in their data processing department. Stephen is widely published,particularly on the subject of flexible working practices. He is much in demand as a speaker on all aspects of flexible working both at conferences and for organisations.He has appeared many times on television and radio, and is frequently quoted in the press.

Preface Achieving success for an organisation depends upon a combination of:

The right people

Appropriate competencies and characteristics

HR

The right organisation

Appropriate frameworks, processes and culture

Business/ HR

The right infrastructure

Appropriate work environments and tools

Property/

Shared, common goals

Business

The right strategy

Technology

Family,social,community and environmental responsibilities are also important, given the ‘good citizen’ charter for all organisations. New ways of working considers all the aspects of work in and around an organisation, looking at it holistically. From this perspective, it becomes obvious that the traditional interpretation of the success of an organisation contains significant gaps and fails to exploit huge areas of potential benefit.This Report seeks to: •

bring together the holistic view of work

•

demonstrate the significance of the holistic view

•

show, at least in part, how each factor influences every other

•

summarise the potential benefits

•

look at how organisations might begin or continue to realise the potential benefits

•

explore the risks

•

give practical advice on implementation.

Inevitably there are a host of special terms related to new ways of working or flexible working. Definitions are not always included when terms first occur, as early sections would then read as poorly as a dictionary.

I am indebted to many friends and colleagues who have influenced my thinking over the years and provided feedback on early drafts and also to Digital for permission to re-use material. This Report should not be used to replace original documents,such as those from the Health and Safety Executive or Inland Revenue, or to replace the need for professional advice and guidance on all matters associated with new ways of working or flexible working.While every effort is taken at the time of writing to ensure the accuracy of the information given,no liability can be accepted for any loss,damage or injury caused by errors in or omissions from the information given. Please check all essential information and seek professional or expert advice as appropriate to specific circumstances.

Contents

1

INTRODUCTION

1

What is flexibility? ........................................................................................3 Work location ...............................................................................................6 Work time .....................................................................................................7 Work practice ...............................................................................................8 Work staffing ................................................................................................8 What are the real benefits of flexibility? .....................................................10

2

INTRODUCING FLEXIBLE WORKING

13

Why consider flexible working? .................................................................14 Overall approach ........................................................................................17 New ways of working ................................................................................20

3

SETTING UP A SCHEME

25

Overview ....................................................................................................26 Business ......................................................................................................27 HR ...............................................................................................................29 Property ......................................................................................................36 Technology .................................................................................................38

CONTENTS

Management considerations .......................................................................38 Risks ...........................................................................................................41 Change management ..................................................................................46 Checklist .....................................................................................................52

4

POLICY CONSIDERATIONS

53

Overview ...................................................................................................54 Job characteristics to consider ...................................................................54 Recruitment and induction ........................................................................56 Training and development ..........................................................................59 Impact of new ways of working on communications ...............................60 Health and Safety issues .............................................................................62 Legal/contractual issues .............................................................................63 Family/work balance ..................................................................................66

APPENDIX

1

GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR FLEXIBLE WORKING 67

Communication ..........................................................................................69 Document handling ....................................................................................72 Work patterns .............................................................................................74 Job planning ...............................................................................................76 Coping with stress ......................................................................................77

APPENDIX

CONTENTS

2 3

WORKING FROM A TELECENTRE

80

Overview ....................................................................................................81

APPENDIX

Tips for working from a telecentre ............................................................85

SETTING UP A HOME OFFICE

86

Office equipment .......................................................................................87 Home telephone services ...........................................................................90 Formalities ..................................................................................................93 Insurance ....................................................................................................96

APPENDIX

Tips for working from home ......................................................................97

4

HEALTH AND SAFETY CHECKLISTS

99

Working from home .................................................................................100 The Health and Safety checklist ................................................................101 Section 1: Health and Safety .....................................................................102

APPENDIX

Section 2: Furniture and environment ......................................................103

5

REFERENCES

105

Introduction W H AT I S F L E X I B I L I T Y ? W O R K L O C AT I O N WORK TIME WORK PRACTICE W O R K S TA F F I N G W H AT A R E T H E R E A L B E N E F I T S O F F L E X I B I L I T Y ?

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Chapter 1: Introduction Why are so many organisations interested in new ways of working? Perhaps because they offer the potential both to reduce cost and to enhance service and productivity. For example you can: •

use home working/hot desking to reduce property costs and give staff more appropriate working environments;

•

give mobile workers (e.g.salespeople,executives,engineers) technology to enable them to spend more time with customers and have access to the data they need;

•

use home working/flexible hours to retain staff,avoiding training costs and familiarisation,and attract staff,who might otherwise not consider your organisation;

•

use flexible hours to match service times to customer demand;

•

use a combination of these ideas to improve equal opportunities and family friendly policies, and facilitate access to work for more disabled people;

•

radically improve environmental policies.

New ways of working,also called flexible working,offers benefits from the individual’s point of view as well: •

ability to work without interruption, thereby improving productivity.

•

better able to meet the demands of domestic and working lives,allowing a manageable balance between family commitments and career/work needs.

•

reduced travelling time leading to more leisure time and less stress.

•

greater self-knowledge which comes with better ‘life management’,often expressed as greater job satisfaction, which also allows re-evaluation of work processes, better sharing of work and improved use of skills.

•

opportunity to demonstrate high level of responsibility and ability to work without constant supervision.

•

greater flexibility.

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These benefits extend into the community and the environment by matching work to individual style, allowing flexibility in personal life, reducing travel, reducing stress, and reducing the use of paper and energy. There are two important things to find out before considering implementation: 1.

Which aspects of flexible working will give the benefits that your organisation is looking for?

2.

How to implement flexible working policies in practice to enhance these benefits and minimise the potential disadvantages. For example, in implementing flexible working it would be important to avoid: •

giving staff so many individual pieces of technology that life,far from becoming easier and more productive, becomes more difficult;

•

taking desks away from staff so that they become de-motivated and unable to work;

•

sending staff home to work so that they feel disenfranchised and disconnected from the organisation;

•

introducing technology that results in more paper being generated and escalating costs, perhaps because the technology is not sufficiently integrated;

•

compromising the implementation to an extent that outweighs the benefits;

•

delivering technology and infrastructure, but not realising the benefits because staff are not trained and motivated to use the new working practices.

The key question is how can the organisation realise maximum benefit from new ways of working or flexible working?

What is flexibility? New ways of working are about optimising the whole working environment to the tasks that need to be performed and to the needs of those who perform them. There are many terms used to describe new ways of working or aspects of it:flexible working,teleworking,home working,flexible office,mobile working,hot desking, hotelling or hotel desking, touch down desks, telecentres, telecottages, etc.There are also many areas enhanced and enabled by new ways of working or impacted by it: equal opportunities, family friendly policies, environmental policies, etc.

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Organisations should standardise on their terminology in this area so that staff have consistent definitions and internal communications are easily understood. For example, an organisation might choose the term touch down desks because it has less unpleasant overtones than hot desking and is a better use of English. Some of the principles behind flexible working are: •

Different tasks are best done in different environments e.g.some require group work in an informal meeting,others require intensive communication,others need concentrated personal work,and most projects will use or move through all three environments

•

Most traditional offices do not cope well with the wide variety of task needs;individual work can often be carried out more productively away from the office (many schemes show a sustained 30% improvement of personal productivity when working away from an interrupt driven environment)

•

Office occupancy within a traditional office is often less than 50% during the working day; this represents £m/year of workspace not being effectively used

•

Modern technology allows information and messages to be received as easily away from a base office

•

Work groups can, with guidance, develop much better working productivity by designing their own work processes rather than having them dictated from above: this notion of self-managed teams or high performance work systems was pioneered in manufacturing plants

•

Those who can work effectively away from a base office should be encouraged to do so

•

Those who by virtue of their work or domestic situation are office bound should have more say in the layout of the office than those who visit only occasionally.

It is important to emphasise that flexible working not only means home working, but also encompasses a broader adoption of shared space and equipment,teaming and a more flexible approach to how, when and where work gets done.Through the use of advanced information technology, work can be done in any sensible location – at home, in the office or other site, in a hotel or business centre and when mobile. The use of flexible offices,remote working and teleworking are ways of adopting a more flexible approach that bring business benefits as well as more closely meeting the domestic and lifestyle needs of staff. A flexible working environment is designed to support work which is no longer performed face to face or locally but mainly

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by telephone,and computer.The change affects everyone working in this environment, whether they be full-time office based, mobile or home-based. The environment is also designed to support current work styles more effectively. The benefits of this type of solution are: •

To maintain front-line operations as close to the customer base as possible

•

To minimise disruption to individuals and the business

•

To create a working environment that encourages flexibility and selfmotivation

•

To improve productivity by encouraging more time with customers and better time management

•

To show a lead for others to follow, thereby enabling further potential cost savings.

Flexible working is not designed as a prescriptive solution to working,but it does require a more formal approach to certain aspects of working habits. By its very nature, flexible working requires individuals to be more self-sufficient. However, in a corporate setting,it is absolutely critical that this is not at the expense of lower quality standards,reduced team co-operation and general disconnection from the organisation. In particular, flexible working places greater emphasis on communications and time management, which can no longer be left to chance, and must be carefully planned and agreed between individual,customer and work colleagues.Communications also need to be planned into the infrastructure, obvious in telephones and IT, but less obvious and more critical in buildings and office layout. It is important to adopt good business practice in any environment.Good business practice is also needed in a flexible working environment. Similarly, staff need a good understanding of their role,job objectives and activities.Staff also need some ability to work on their own initiative.Perhaps most important,staff need to consider carefully and be properly consulted about working flexibly. A key part of the process of introducing flexible working is the need for the staff affected to embrace new working practices which support greater independence, whilst retaining organisational cohesion.

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Work location Considering the location of work,there are an increasing number of alternatives to the traditional office.This is made possible by a combination of factors,especially: •

a trend towards management by objectives, where staff are judged by output (achievements) rather than merely by their presence at work

•

a continuous downward pressure on costs,including office accommodation costs, making the provision of traditional office facilities no longer a foregone conclusion

•

the potential for information and communications technologies to overcome barriers of distance, extending features of the ‘office environment’ electronically to any location.

The main flexible location concepts are as follows:

Flexible working Flexible working is often used in its broadest sense to mean a shift away from traditional 9 to 5, office-based working. It can also imply flexibility in terms of location, time, practice, staffing, or even the skills required (i.e. multi-skilling).

Flexible office This implies that the central office base is responsive to the needs of a flexible workforce,employing policies such as hot desking,shift working,‘natural office’ concepts (matching ergonomic requirements with the demands of different kinds of work and individual). Also,the technical infrastructure will support a range of flexible working styles such as teleworking, telecommuting or mobile working.

Touchdown centres/telecentres/satellite offices Where there is insufficient need for a fully serviced,permanent office,employers are increasingly turning to these options to provide some support for staff who are otherwise capable and resourced to perform their work without resort to a permanent facility. It is part of a recognition that staff will need a place to meet colleagues and clients, and that the absence of a traditional office need not limit the social interaction which can be vital in a work setting.It also provides a suitable workplace for staff who, for whatever reason, are not able or prepared to work from home.

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Teleworking/home-based working This is increasingly an option where technology can ‘bring the office to the home’. However it is an option to employ with care as there are several important factors about home-based working which are often not understood by managers,including the potential for staff without a regular office base and regular interaction to feel very isolated from colleagues and the organisation. If the social aspects of work are managed carefully,having the ability to work from a home base can be extremely convenient for the employee,and provide the employer with the double benefit of increased efficiency from lower costs and higher productivity.

Work time The main concern of any organisation is that work is done efficiently and effectively and that a high level of service is provided to ‘customers’, whether they are internal or external. Enlightened organisations are matching customer need and convenience with staff need and convenience,and gaining significant benefit from improved service, morale and effectiveness. •

Professional staff often take work home,to do either on a day they stay at home, or in the evening or at the weekend.

•

Support staff are providing extended hours of cover by staggering work times.

•

Organisations which serve the public are beginning to offer services at times which suit the public.

•

Commercial organisations are realising that aligning the hours of work of their employees with their customers can benefit both their customers and their staff.

The overall effect is to make the employment contract more flexible in terms of actual time worked.This results in output-based measures, stating work hours in total hours rather than 9 - 5:30,with the annual hours contract being the ultimate version of this, leaving staff to organise their working time to suit themselves, their team and their customers.

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Work practice Grouping people together,often in a single team for a fixed set of hours,no longer necessarily reflects the way in which work is or can be done. Many staff belong to more than one team and have competing demands on their time. Staff may want to be with whichever team is most appropriate,not in a fixed location.Some of the work can be done more effectively ‘off line’or remotely or over the telephone or e-mail. Meeting face to face is reserved for times when it gives the most effective boost to the process. Importance is attached to being contactable and responsive, not to being in a particular place. Once again,it is the need to get work done;to give the best and most appropriate service to the customer (or colleague);to be available at the best and most effective time; that drives the process, organisation and management of work. The mechanisms/procedures/processes are subsidiary, and designed to support and ‘document’ (electronically).This provides the necessary audit trail, almost as a spin off, both for accountability, customer service and quality control.The use of paper is minimised to those applications where it is the best or only practical medium so that the organisation is freed from the paper mountain.

Work staffing There are increasing numbers of options concerning how to employ staff to carry out the tasks and work required.These divide into two main areas: traditional employment (sometimes referred to as core staff) and a contingent workforce (temporary, contract, outsourced, and partnership staff).

Traditional employment Although this is headed ‘traditional’,many of the newer options would not be considered as such. It is, however, traditional compared with the contingent workforce. The full-time job is still alive and well, although the flexible emphasis is on the number of hours worked rather than when they are worked.For example,in the drinks industry it is better for the credit control department to work mainly in the afternoon/evening to catch clients at work.The ultimate version of this is the annual hours contract where the hours are not only moved around in the day, but over days, weeks and months to average out at full-time over the whole year. Full-time jobs are also filled through job share, where two part-time people do the work of one full-time equivalent,and agree how the time will be split between

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them.Another modern version is the fixed term contract, where the post holder finishes after a specified number of months or years.These contracts are often used to tide over a period of uncertainty,or to set up a particular area where different skills might be required, or to fill a post temporarily while the right candidate is found, or to provide continuity running up to a major change. Part-time also covers arrangements such as term time and seasonal. In all areas of the workforce,the demand on staff is to become more multi-skilled and to achieve targets more directly related to the business.Credit control is again a good example. Staff now cover more of the process directly, and where they used to be measured on the number of invoices processed,they are now measured on the amount of money recovered.

Contingent workforce The well-known feature of the contingent workforce is the temporary worker. Where seasonal workers are not employed regularly, they also fit into the definition of a contingent workforce. Even here,though,organisations are innovating.Two organisations with opposing seasonal peaks combined to offer seasonal workers a full-time contract.1 This, naturally, led to them using only one set of office space and one set of contracts etc. putting the employees back into the ‘traditional’ employment category! The first development of temporary staff has come in the zero hours contract. Here organisations are making sure that their ‘temporary’staff are the right people for the job with the right experience,qualities and qualifications.In practice,the zero hours contract usually comes with a guarantee of a minimum number of hours per year. Bank nursing is one example of this type of contract. The next development is that the worker is employed by an agency, often on a zero hour contract, and is trained by the agency and the organisation so that they are fully competent. Like a temporary worker, they are managed directly by the organisation.These are termed agency workers,one example of which is engineers for some of the major computer manufacturers. Outsourcing develops this concept to the point where the service, rather than the worker,is provided by a third party organisation.Thus the worker is employed and managed by an agency or specialist organisation (providing specific expertise such as payroll,administration,IT,catering) to provide the levels of service contracted. Partnerships between organisations are becoming more and more common in both the public and private sector.These are typically used to develop synergy, provide a higher level of competence,use complimentary expertise and services, and save cost.

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What are the real benefits of flexibility? Economy Saving or reducing costs.This occurs mostly at the organisational level. Large savings can be made through savings in office space.Development of a contingent workforce can also reduce fixed costs of labour, particularly through outsourcing and the use of networking.Infrastructure costs may also be reduced by improving utilisation of equipment and services. Reduced attrition rates contribute significantly to reducing costs,particularly hidden costs. Indeed new ways of working can be a significant attraction for staff.

Efficiency Improving the input/output (productivity) ratio.This occurs mostly at the individual level. Typically this is measured as the time to complete a task or piece of work, or the ability to do more in less time.Working on the move is one way of making such a gain because it makes better use of time.Working from home can also avoid interruptions and save on wasted travelling time.Typical productivity gains are a minimum of 10% and often 30% or more. Flexible use of time also enables continuity of work such that tasks are completed more quickly, taking account of peaks and troughs, thereby providing a competitive edge, without the costs of additional overtime payments.

Effectiveness Maximising the value of work done.This occurs at both organisational and individual level. In practice this is a measure of business performance per employee. It is about getting more from people.It relies on having the right skills,deployed in the right place, with the right objectives and performance metrics, and above all with the staff having the right motivation. It can mean actually eliminating whole pieces of work, often created as a result of the bureaucratic structures within an organisation.Empowering administrators to take responsibility for the complete business process leads to less staff overall.

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This concept is not just about increasing the number of sales visits, for example, but also includes providing a framework for them to succeed. In a more traditional teleworking trial you might achieve a 25% increase in visits, but only a 5% increase in business. By taking a more holistic view of flexibility, the volume of business could increase by 4 times (400% vs 5%).

Financial flexibility One of the most important side effects of the three E’s above is that the organisation has moved to a flexible infrastructure which is more based on pay-as-you-use services, rather than expensive fixed cost assets. For example, off site meeting rooms away from the organisation’s own locations are booked with service providers such as hotels and telecentres.The benefits of this are: •

the pool of meeting rooms available for busy periods is increased

•

the geographical coverage is extended, saving on travel time and cost, and offering greater convenience

•

meeting rooms do not stand idle in slack periods or when not in the correct area.

The same type of benefits and savings flow through to telephone,desk,network, meeting room, photocopying, post, and other support services. This pay-as-you-use provision of services means that the costs of the organisation tend to follow the business trends; greater cost in busy periods and less cost in slack periods.

HR benefits Flexible working can be strongly supportive of diversity and family friendly policies. It can give access to work for those who either find it difficult to travel to work or for whom the organisation would have to make costly provision at work.It forms the basis of widening the recruitment net to include staff further from base offices without necessarily incurring the cost of relocation and to give access to applicants who consider life plans before career plans.It offers an organisational culture that makes contingent workers indistinguishable from core workers,and full-time workers indistinguishable from part-time, job share workers etc. It also helps to generate an egalitarian culture where the work is more important than status. As new ways of working offer more potential for job satisfaction,job enrichment, multi-skilling and flexibility, it is a powerful tool for motivating and improving morale.It helps the organisation attract and keep good staff.Flexible working allows staff to sustain a higher rate of work and a higher diversity of work. It provides

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an environment where they are able to cope with work and personal life with less compromise and less likelihood of stress-related illness.

Environmental benefits It should be noted that the benefits of flexible working are not only realised by the organisation.Flexible working is both an environmentally friendly and a family friendly policy. It reduces both commuting and in-work travel. Less office space is needed, and that provided is used very much more effectively, thus reducing the environmental impact of both building and running offices. New ways of working also help people to be more effective in their use of paper and energy.

Community benefits Flexible working pushes work back into the local community, both through the presence of the workers in the community in the daytime,and through the services those workers need to buy locally. Staff also have more time to be involved in local community activities.

Personal benefits The individual can gain significantly from flexible working.Examples of this include better integration of home and work life,reduced stress,better control of the work environment, increased job satisfaction, and no regular commuting, only necessary travel.

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Introducing flexible working WHY CONSIDER FLEXIBLE WORKING? OVERALL APPROACH N E W W AY S O F W O R K I N G

chapter

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Chapter 2: Introducing flexible working

Why consider flexible working? Examining the work done in offices, or perhaps not in offices (!) is a surprising experience.It reveals the history of the office as a place created to bring together staff so that communication was possible within the organisation. In turn the grouping of offices made inter-organisation communication possible (towns and cities). Of course, that was in the days of face to face communications, when the quill pen was the only alternative and delivery was by runner or horse. Communications have changed a bit since then,but the concept of offices is still essentially the same.

The role of offices in flexible working Have you ever taken a day at home to work? People usually say that they can get two or three days work done in one day at home. Where would you sit at home to read a report? Probably not at a desk or table, but in an armchair with a cup of tea. If you wanted to chat to a colleague about something, where would you prefer to meet? Again, probably not at a desk or in a meeting room, but in the pub over a pint, or in a cafe over a cup of tea. If you need to prepare for a meeting with a client,would you travel to the office, and then on to the client? If the office is out of the way,then you’d probably choose to meet in a hotel foyer or roadside cafe on the way there. What has all this got to do with offices? Offices should be about providing the most productive work setting for staff so that the infrastructure investment supports the goal of the organisation,to get work done.So,taking the examples above,where are the armchairs in our offices? Why doesn’t the staff restaurant open all day? But perhaps even more important, what do we do with unoccupied space – the desks that are empty while people are legitimately away from them:in meetings, at the cafe, or working elsewhere, like at home, never mind when they are on holiday or off sick?

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What is work? One orthodox frame of reference (paradigm) we have about office work is that a desk in an office is essential in order to work.We conveniently forget the need for meetings, personal interaction, training, and all the other things we do when ‘working’ in an office for which we don’t use a desk. The activities outside the office,such as client meetings,meetings in other offices, training, and holidays, are more obvious, although we don’t think of the expense during these activities of the unoccupied desk. Observation of the office at any time during the day will reveal that occupancy of desks is not as high as we expect, even for staff whom we would consider to be permanently in the office.Surveys in any organisation confirm this. It is not that the office is not useful, just that it is not the right work setting for every activity.

Space allocation We are limited in our analysis of the effectiveness of offices by the expectations (demands?) of the office users,which are hidebound by traditions,pre-conceived ideas, or ‘paradigms’.We don’t ask the obvious question:‘Is this the best space for the work?’ Any space analysis will first look at the percentages of the gross area of a building taken up by,for example,walls,plant,core,circulation and ancillary space.When the end of the analysis is reached,2 it is likely to leave a small percentage of the space actually being used as net work space. Some would argue that this is as high as 50%,some as low as 25% of the gross area of the building.Bearing in mind the high cost of offices, this is not a good use of assets. But it is worse than that! If we take a range of levels from director to secretary, the lower levels tend to be in the office most of their working time, whereas the higher levels tend to be out more. Look at the space allocation traditions.Those who are in the most have the least space, while the larger spaces are empty the most.The 25-50% useful space is not allocated very effectively. But it is worse still! Most organisations don’t use offices at night, or at weekends and public holidays.That leaves the whole office building empty more than 70% of the time.A low percentage of useful space allocated badly and then not used for a staggering amount of time.

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Now ask the question about appropriateness for work.A survey of staff 3 showed that those working in the office have an average 50 hour week,of which 25 hours are productive.Those working at home have a 45 hour week, of which 40 are productive.Working at home means almost double the amount of work in a shorter working week. So an office building has only 25-50% useful space, allocated badly, with only the potential to be used 22% of the time, and for many tasks it is an ineffective place to ‘work’ anyway!

Different approaches There are many different approaches to providing productive work settings for staff and addressing the problems inherent in the current usage of office space. Settings in the office One flexible approach is to furnish offices so that all the work settings are available within them.Thus a large variety of work settings, such as desks, meeting rooms, social areas, café, storage, library, quiet spaces, stand up desks and tables, provide productive working environments within a single office building.This has been very successful in Scandinavia,and even in New York,resulting in some stunningly memorable offices such as Sol in Helsinki,Digital in Helsinki and Stockholm, and Chiat Day in New York.The culture in the UK changes more slowly. St Lukes,an advertising agency in London,was an early UK example and British Airways at the Compass Centre, and now Waterside, has used the ideas in some areas. Settings outside Another approach is to make the location for work more flexible, allowing staff to work outside the office, mainly in areas already providing the kind of work settings required.This is achieved by allowing staff the flexibility to choose the locations at which they work, and the times when they use them. Incidentally, this has the beneficial side effect of extending the hours of use of buildings.Staff in this scenario tend to make more use of homes,cafés,hotels,and business centres, as well as offices.

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Overall approach The following principles are underpin approaches to flexibility which serves business goals: •

Whole organisation approach – look to perspectives of environment, work processes, business goals, individual motivation, support from central corporate services etc.

•

Acknowledge the social dimension of work, ensuring that there are opportunities for face to face contact between staff and colleagues, managers and support staff.

•

Develop infrastructure and policies which are organisation wide and integrated (at least across all relevant areas).

•

Set goals for individuals and the organisation,which are integrated with business goals – these goals should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Targeted).

Strategic guidelines There are many guidelines which should apply when considering strategic issues relating to new ways of working, including: •

Organisations should aim to be able to support the widest possible forms of work organisation in terms of policies, infrastructure, management, training, support, IT and development – and these models should be under constant review and appraisal.

•

Individuals know their jobs best and should be encouraged as far as possible to determine their own ways of working, coached and supported by an appropriate person.

•

Information and communications systems and procedures should be universal (not different for different groups).

•

There should be no differentiation between staff on the basis of their main work location or amount of time spent away from the base office, either in terms of pay, expectations or ‘softer’ issues such as access to information and news etc.

•

The organisation needs to retain sufficient sensitivity about individuals and their right to privacy.

•

Managers and support staff will need to re-think their approaches to work and their interactions with others and adapt their behaviour to suit the new model.

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Flexibility – the vision The flexible organisation will provide a choice of work settings that staff use as appropriate from day to day,even hour to hour.Staff choose the work setting most appropriate to the particular task at hand.This will vary for the same task depending upon the individual’s perception of the most productive setting for the task. For a particular task,for example,one person may prefer to use their laptop in a café with a cup of tea, another at a stand up workstation, another at a touch down desk, another at home, another on a train. Such is the nature of this kind of environment that staff are very much more effective about their use of meetings, and their time management shows a marked improvement. Managers find that staff have a better understanding of the issues that are typically communicated via the manager,such as expectations,time use, and performance evaluation. Managers also find that, once they are used to the differences in management style in a flexible organisation,staff are on the whole better and easier to manage than before. The choice of work locations offered by the organisation tend each to contain multiple work settings. For example, the office provides informal meeting areas, restaurant,meeting rooms and desks,most suitable for interactive work.Telecentres, homes, hotels, and other locations provide a similar range of settings, some suitable for interactive work, some for individual work. Staff also choose their work times depending upon both their work and personal needs. This is not divisive or injurious to customer service (including internal customers) as they have a clear understanding of the outcomes required from them and the organisational interaction that this demands. The status of staff in a flexible organisation is difficult to determine.The ‘secretary’ may be found doing operational management.The ‘manager’ may be found working on a project.The ‘administrator’ may be found managing a project.The ‘professional’ may be found typing a report. Staff are recognised and rewarded for their skills, and treated as peers with a valuable contribution to make to the outcomes. Staff are employed to generate the outcomes for the organisation in many different ways. Core functions are often provided by employees of the organisation.They may be full-time,part-time,job share,annual hours or any other kind of employee. There are also contracted staff who may be employed by an agency but are trained for the specific organisation. Non-core functions may also be contracted out or outsourced, or staff may be shared between organisations with complimentary peaks.Different forms of contract are also used to generate the required outcomes within each team, both for static and dynamic workloads, and teams are formed as appropriate from internal and external resources.

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The fluidity of the organisation is such that it is neither easy nor necessary to tell which of the staff are employees and which are not.Both share the same goals and success factors,and work together as a team to deliver the required outcomes. The organisation will be a leader in equal opportunity,family friendly,and environmental policy areas.This is not through any emphasis on these policies,but because the very fluidity and flexibility of the organisation, its staff and its management, and the concentration on outcomes,will offer the environment required for these types of employment to flourish. Staff will use information and communications technology extensively,sufficient to be able to reduce reliance where necessary on local office-based facilities.Remote workers will have the same access to information and use the same means of communication as those based in the offices, and will be free to use a range of flexible working options as appropriate. Typically,staff will begin the working day by accessing the corporate intranet,for news about the organisation, seeking views in the discussion forums, checking their e-mail and perhaps checking in to the nearest office-based facility to check availability of desk space. Accessing the desktop will enable staff to perform a range of activities including: •

electronic communication with people internally and externally (e-mail, file transfer, video links)

•

ability to access information from internal information services (such as an intranet) or external information services (e.g.Internet,CD ROM)

•

use locally-based software packages to manipulate centrally-held drawings and images (e.g. plans, maps)

•

generate a range of documents and correspondence,either using standard templates or originating the document

•

access documentation which has been received in paper form (e.g. correspondence, faxes) and which has been scanned for retrieval

•

continuous professional development, online learning and technical training (provided by the organisation or external suppliers)

•

self-management, time management

•

submission of management reports

•

access to a range of support services – typing,archiving,search,meeting arrangements, etc. – which can be supplied from a central point but which can be negotiated or requested online.

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New ways of working The strategy most likely to succeed is to develop a framework which supports a range of flexible working options in the short-term, and which can built upon in the longer term to support fully location independent working,4 delivering maximum efficiency and productivity.This section describes these options in more detail.

Flexible offices Sometimes called ‘natural offices’, the design and facilities will reflect a careful consideration of the types of work staff will undertake. For example, comfortable areas will provide staff with a quiet place to read; workstations (for seated or standing work) will enable staff to access the corporate information system and work as appropriate.Where meetings with colleagues and/or external people forms an important part of work, the provision of meeting rooms will play a role in this. The organisation of support facilities will reflect the importance of having professional staff ‘on the road’.Where professional staff are out a significant part of the time,then the support staff need to be able to manage their time,diaries,perform reasonably sophisticated call handling and call forwarding.The management and ICT (information and communications technology) systems need to support these needs. Flexible offices will normally incorporate one or more touchdown centres.

Touchdown centres A touchdown centre provides the following: •

workstations to use on a first-come-first-served basis (‘touchdown desks’, sometimes also referred to as ‘hot desking’)

•

all workstations have telephone and computing provision, a desktop PC and/or laptop plug in point, with access to corporate networks

•

standard office facilities, such as photocopying, fax, printing, outgoing post, drinks

•

some support will be provided at all touchdown centres to answer simple practical questions

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there may be more advanced facilities available at some touchdown centres, such as: –

binding, colour printing, shredding, etc.

–

support staff to send faxes, do typing, make slides, etc.

–

meeting rooms, quiet workstations.

Telecentres A telecentre provides the following: •

the facilities of a touchdown centre,normally including the more advanced facilities

•

permanent workstations which can be booked (sometimes referred to as ‘hotel-desking’ or ‘hotelling’)

•

point to which post can be sent, where post is received and sorted

•

public telecentres often also offer training and other services to the community

•

corporate telecentres provide a ‘hub’where staff can meet formally and informally – this is important to offset the isolation which would otherwise occur from more flexible work patterns

•

corporate telecentres in key locations can provide custodianship of essential paper-based records, including support staff to maintain the records (this will be an important consideration for organisations where the proliferation of paper-based files imposes a constraint,whilst moving towards a ‘less paper’ office).

Both telecentres and touchdown centres will typically be open over a 10-12 hour working day.Telecentres will normally have a minimum of two support staff,three workstations, a meeting room facility, and equipment which it is too expensive or too difficult to accommodate in individuals’ homes.

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Home-based working Home-based staff should have as many of their needs met as possible via the desktop and telephone, without resorting to visiting an office. It is important, however, that home-based staff visit the team base or hub regularly to meet colleagues (informally as well as formally) and be included in team activities.* Over the medium term staff may need to consult paper documents, and therefore there will be a need to travel to the central physical place in which these files and plans are stored. Once central document scanning of all paperwork becomes a practical reality,then it will be possible to have much more extensive information accessible by home-based staff. Even in the medium term however,ICT could deliver to the home-based worker’s desktop many useful supporting and developmental features such as: •

e-mail,fax,file transfer,access to corporate databases,access to the Internet

•

online learning,professional continuing development,technical training and support

•

electronic communities – interactive forums for discussion and sharing know how, incidental information or ideas, peer group support

•

information and help relating to administrative or ‘back office’functions

•

internal corporate information

•

access to external electronic communities and work-related information sources.

It would be useful for a home-based member of staff to have a PC with remote access to the organisation’s information systems,fax,phone (including voicemail facility and call transfer arrangement).Depending on the way in which post needs to be managed, a PO Box local to the home-based staff could be an alternative to sending post to a touchdown centre,or to the base offices.It may be that where an external relationship is established the post for that client could be direct to the home-based staff’s PO box (allowing transparency and transferability).

*

If managers want their staff to work at home five days a week, they should consider carefully the psychological aspects. Psychological profiling is recommended to ensure that their staff are suitable for this environment.Working at home five days a week is very stressful in the longer term on both work and personal life. It is generally only appropriate where there is a significant external motivator, such as those who work five days a week at home in order to retain their home and farm on an island in the Hebrides.

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Flexible/mobile worker Central to the success of the flexible organisation is the highly effective,self-disciplined flexible worker.They will be confident in their use of technology,choosing whatever means of communication or tool is appropriate under the circumstances. They will also be problem-solvers seeking to maximise the quality and efficiency of their output rather than simply following routines.They will therefore be prepared to experiment,be excellent communicators and gain substantial satisfaction from their work. As self-managing individuals, they will be effective at communicating with their team members.They will need to be good at managing their time and sharing information. They will organise their work in accordance with the priorities of the organisation,focusing on achieving results.Therefore the location of work will follow the setting of personal and work goals, and will reflect decisions about efficiency, rather than habit. The profile of a flexible/mobile worker outlined above has implications for the type of people to be hired, their training and the manner in which their training is delivered.

Employment flexibility Offering more flexibility in employment ensures that the most appropriate staff are available to get the work done in the most effective way.It frees staff to work at the times that best suit the work being done,for example removing the psychological 9-5 time so that staff can arrange to cover 8-6 whilst each working the same number of hours. It allows the organisation to employ staff who could not work without that flexibility, for example job share, part-time, working parent, disabled. It improves the organisation’s capability to use temporary, contract, outsourced and partnership labour and services more effectively. It encourages staff to become more multi-skilled and to work across traditional boundaries, including those of organisation and status as well as skill.

Impact on traditional jobs As a general rule,the more effectively information and communications technology is used, the lower the ratio of support to professional staff. One successful corporate telecentre example used the ratio of 1:16 (administrative :professional staff), and ratios above 1:50 can be achieved.

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The ratio of desks to staff will move from 1:1 to 1:2 or more. In organisations where home-based working is well used,or where geography or job type dictate, the ratio could be more than 1:10. The importance of interaction in the office will be recognised, both physically and in attitudes to work location and style. Management will be more about what needs to be achieved, the impact on the team,and facilitation than it is about presence and availability in a specific location. When new ways of working are introduced, the role of the administrative and secretarial staff is often the role which is most changed. It becomes much more of a value added role,focused on organisation and communication.The key features of the role, which depends on confident use of ICT, are: •

the hub of all social and work activities within the organisation – being the central point of information and news – the real ‘hub’of information

•

communication

•

organisation of others, particularly their time.

Longer term development – fully remote capability Extensive document imaging processing will enable inbound and outbound documents to be created and captured electronically,making universal electronic access to information possible. Once a document is scanned in, for example a plan or map, or has been generated electronically in the first place, then it can be transmitted, used as a basis for subsequent negotiations and transactions without needing to copy the original document. Once the organisation has this capability then the question for staff and management will be what are meetings (and meeting places) needed for? There are several reasons to meet apart from needing to use office-based resources and they include meetings to achieve the following: •

discuss complex issues

•

discuss career development, personal development, difficulties

•

establish personal rapport with other members in the team and with clients

•

mentoring, experience sharing, awareness of big picture

•

with clients which need to be face to face and which also need to take place in a business-like environment.

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Setting up a scheme OVERVIEW BUSINESS HR PROPERTY TECHNOLOGY M A N A G E M E N T C O N S I D E R AT I O N S RISKS CHANGE MANAGEMENT CHECKLIST

chapter

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Chapter 3: Setting up a scheme Globalisation and technology have radically changed the structures of industries and the processes of business.The way people work has changed less dramatically, largely because of deep-seated cultural factors.As a result of efficiency and cost pressures,new management skills,technology infrastructure and awareness, and workforce flexibility,these limiting factors are now being addressed and the barriers to radical improvement removed in many organisations. New ways of working include: •

better property,facilities and support services utilisation through office design and facility sharing

•

a variety of work settings – open plan desk, cellular office, touchdown desk, meeting room, café, etc.

•

improved team-working and information sharing

•

higher staff productivity through technology-enabled anywhere/anytime working (main office, other office, home, travelling, telecentre, etc.)

•

improved business efficiency through streamlined processes and less paperwork

•

reduced commuting and in-work travel through distributed information and communications systems

•

improved numerical and functional flexibility in the workforce through flexible working arrangements and multi-skilling.

Although information and communications technologies make new ways of working possible,the main issues to address are often to do with organisation,management, property, business processes and communications.

Overview The key driver for considering new ways of working is a sustainable and radical improvement in business performance:costs,productivity,quality,responsiveness, sales,etc.This is achieved through a combination of culture change,new working environment and practices, and more effective use of facilities and technology. This requires practical support across the full range of issues – property, facilities, processes, technology and human resources.

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Improving efficiency implies doing more for less – a combination of reducing costs and increasing output. Improving effectiveness implies doing a better or more relevant job. New ways of working can have a big impact in both areas. Some of the key areas of cost reduction (people,property,travel,etc.) are discussed in the following sections. Productivity and output improvements can arise from radical process changes and flexible working. In contrast to the conventional management-driven cost-cutting approach,dramatic cost savings can often be accompanied by better quality and increased staff motivation. The key to success is a holistic approach, bringing together people, technology, process,working practices,facilities and cultural innovations and developments, coupled with the organisation’s ability to manage change.

Business Processes and working practices The concept of business process re-engineering (BPR),(sometimes called re-design, innovation or transformation) has been one of the most popular ideas in business. BPR seeks to achieve a radical improvement in business performance by changing the ways in which work is organised and done. At its best, it brings together a number of business improvement concepts that have traditionally been pursued independently: •

process innovation

•

organisation for success

•

automation and streamlining

•

information technology and process integration.

Most organisations have made considerable efforts over the years to re-engineer many of the external processes, in particular logistics and customer service.This probably needs to be complemented by efforts to improve internal processes and working practices, in such areas as: •

paperwork reduction

•

field staff support

•

commuting and unnecessary in-business travel reduction

•

more flexible working arrangements.

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Organisation and culture Experience has shown that new ways of working need to be introduced alongside organisational and cultural developments in order to deliver their full range of benefits. A key concept is a ‘learning culture’,which has been defined as a working environment based around the following ten principles.5 6 •

all staff are aware of and identify with the vision, mission and strategy at all levels: corporate, division, department, project

•

the individual has the responsibility to acquire the skills and access the information, support and tools necessary to do the job

•

the organisation provides the necessary infrastructure and services to support the individual

•

access to information is constrained only by the competence of the individual and genuine security considerations, rather than outdated concepts such as ‘need to know’; information is not censored, except for good reason

•

it is accepted that the best ideas do not necessarily come from the most senior people

•

open debate and constructive criticism are encouraged, without fear of management reprisal

•

all staff,even those at the top,are committed to acquiring new knowledge and understanding and learning new skills

•

skills, abilities and learning achievements are recognised through meaningful accreditation

•

the organisation cares about the lives, careers, interests and well-being of its employees

•

the organisation is itself committed to continuous improvement in its structure, processes and working methods, including learning from its staff.

The application of networked information technology can support the development of a learning culture, which in turn can support the effective and efficient use of technology. Unfortunately many organisations invest in the IT but retain their traditional organisation and culture. Flexible working offers a unique opportunity to create a working environment and culture that is both most attractive to work in and most cost-effective. It is vital that this opportunity for change is not squandered.

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HR Beyond traditional typecasting One of the reasons for conventional working environments and practices is the traditional typecasting of people into single roles,each with straightforward requirements, for example: •

sales people are ‘on the road’ and need cars and mobile phones

•

administrative staff work at their desks in an office

•

senior executives need private offices and personal assistants etc.

New ways of working demand a less prescriptive and more versatile approach to the definition of roles,the organisation of work,the management and communication of information and the provision of facilities.

People Competition for qualified and competent people at all levels and in all disciplines is intense. Many such people are effectively excluded from the workplace by a combination of factors that make it difficult for them to commute to a ‘regular job’.These include those with caring responsibilities for children or elderly relatives, disabled people and those who have to relocate, for example, because of their spouse’s job. This is not just an equal opportunities issue.Widening the net of people who can be employed makes good commercial sense.In fact many people,especially women, struggle hard to balance their work and home lives, and a little more flexibility in this regard could benefit many people whilst,at the same time,increasing efficiency. Staff mobility in some occupations is high.To many creative and professional people the working environment, conditions and culture (see next section) are just as important as pay in their selection of employer. People can be categorised into those whose thinking originates in the left brain (logical,systematic) and those whose thinking originates in the right brain (intuitive, creative).7 Traditional employment and work practices and traditional education practices are based on left brain thinking.In 1967 80% of children operated from the left brain first. Today the proportions are reversed, with the vast majority of children operating from the right brain first. Indeed it is a trend amongst new entrants to the job market to consider whole life issues, rather than simply career. Employers who

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cannot offer flexibility to match these ‘right brain thinkers’ and their aspirations are often excluded from the better applicants’ lists.

Social and management changes The change in the way the organisation operates brought about by flexible working obviously has an impact on individuals, management and teams. It changes the way staff think about what they do,where they do it,and causes them to re-evaluate the function of locations and time. Working differently like this can cause some feeling of isolation.8 This can be not only outweighed but also used to improve effectiveness through the individual choice of work place for each task,the new role of the team meeting,the freedom for informal contact wherever and however the individual chooses,the enhanced meeting time, the improved social life, and the practice of good management. In the office there are behaviour and relationship norms.The change to flexible working sweeps these away,and they must be replaced by ‘new’flexible working norms.One method of achieving this is the creation of personal contracts which are a record of how individuals will work with each other.These ‘contracts’ are not necessarily written down, and they require continual review and re-adjustment as people become accustomed to flexible working.An example of this is the ‘contract’a secretary (who is likely to be looking after a large number of others) might have with a member of staff, and vice versa. There are many opportunities for increased effectiveness for flexible staff.Certainly it has an effect on the way staff think about their work and the inefficiencies that organisations have tried to tackle for years.For example,time management training and effective meeting training have succeeded in making small improvements in traditional organisations, whereas time management and meetings have changed radically for the better after the introduction of flexible working. Some recent surveys 9 13 carried out on compulsory flexible working schemes, contrasting them with similar office based staff in the same organisation,support these statements and draw interesting comparisons.

Team meetings Take, for instance, the team meeting. Office based staff usually think of this as a necessary evil, of the kind where you receive about ten minutes of useful information for your half day in the meeting. It is not uncommon for staff to agree to an appointment that clashes and takes precedence over the team meeting, for example a customer meeting, so that they can avoid the half day team meeting, receiving the same information in a ten minute summary from a colleague.

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Then there is the format of the team meeting.Usually lots of ‘input’sessions,each of which has value,but has to be sat through to gain that piece of value.The breaks are, hopefully, liberal, but of short duration so the agenda can be completed. What of the team meeting in a flexible environment? It is really appreciated by flexible staff.They use it to share with colleagues;to meet new colleagues;to have mini meetings; and generally to catch up. Oh yes, and to receive the ten minutes of useful information. The format? Short sessions and lots of long breaks.This means that the sessions have to be punchy and deliver the messages in short order so that the two hours for lunch and the one hour for coffee can be fitted into the same time.

Informal contact The coffee machine chat is an important method of business communication. Obviously with staff working wherever they find it most conducive,this is a feature that only emerges when they visit the office. Consequently, when they do visit the office, the effect is much the same as that on the team meeting.They will allow informal time to chat to whoever happens to be in and to build relationships with those permanently in the office. That is not to say that this type of communication never happens when staff are not in the office.It is an important part of any meeting with colleagues,wherever it happens to be held.Staff will also use the telephone (more) and the electronic and voicemail systems (less) to make informal contact with colleagues. It is interesting to look at the sites used for communicating in person. For flexible workers,these are very much more varied than those of an office worker,who basically uses only the office.Our experience indicates that this is likely to make the communication more effective for the specific meetings,though there is evidence 9 to suggest that some spontaneous communication is lost.This has to be weighed with the loss of undesirable spontaneous communication, commonly called interruptions, that lead to huge losses in productivity.

Effective time Flexible workers use their time more effectively than office-based workers.They do less unimportant administration,and less unnecessary time wasting.They have very little scope to be more effective compared to office workers.They spend much more time working and much less time in the office.

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Effective meetings Meetings are more effectively used,as is travel time.For example,a flexible worker will tend to fix several meetings in an area rather than just travelling for one.This is very evident when a flexible worker visits an office and has four,five or six meetings fixed as well as the long breaks in which to make informal contact. In itself this tends to make the flexible worker concentrate on the topic of a meeting. For example, an office based team meet on a Monday to discuss 20 items about a project.After the hour allotted,they agree to continue to try to get further down the list. After two hours they agree to meet again on Wednesday, and the story repeats itself on the Wednesday,although this time they actually finish all 20 items. A flexible team meeting like this on a Monday would have other meetings to go to.They are also not likely to be in the office on Wednesday.Thus they would decide which the most important items were, discuss those six and any other burning issues, and finish the meeting on the Monday.The other less important items are left till the next time. After all, if any do become urgent, a special meeting can always be arranged!

Social life Again, there is some evidence 9 to support the return of social connections into the local community.This not only benefits the local community,but the individual as well. Flexible workers have the opportunity, and indeed take it, to play a more active role in the family, to take up new hobbies, or simply to expand their social life away from the office. It also has potential benefits for work by giving a new dimension to work subjects garnered from work contacts outside the organisation,and therefore of a differing slant.

Home life In a similar way to the social aspects of life,there is a change in the way in which home and work interact. Instead of being run as two entirely separate activities, they become more integrated.This means that the ‘contacts’,such as that mentioned between secretary and member of staff, are also an integral and important part of the home/work interface.

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Management resistance Surveys 10 confirm what those implementing flexible working know well: the managers are very resistant. Although 56% of staff would like to work from home, the survey reveals that managers are very much less likely to be in favour of home working. Of course it is easy to blame the manager. Let’s just look at it from their point of view for a moment: As a manager in an organisation I have worked hard to climb the ladder. I’m proud of that comparative success.It has been measured by moves into increasingly more private and larger offices,by the acquisition of larger proportions of a secretary’s time, culminating in one of my own, and by an increase in the size of the department sitting outside my office.I maintain an open door policy,and do lots of management by walking about.I can see how hard people are working. Some put in really long hours, although I tell them not to stay too late, as I care for my staff. Given this point of view,a manager’s reaction to people asking to work out of sight is going to be negative. Ask them to give up their office and ‘hot desk’ with all their staff, and they are outraged.Work society is based on these ideas of status and work.Managers can’t really be blamed for asking questions like ‘How do I know they will work?’ and ‘What will I do when I need someone?’. This is confirmed by managers 11 who say they have the greatest difficulty coping with these changes for the following reasons: •

they are used to a high degree of control,and feel this change is largely out of their control

•

they have the most to lose,i.e.status,privacy and the potential for them

•

they fear for their continued competence in a new system which apparently demands a new kind of management.

Evidence Surveys of managers 12 who manage flexible workers give a completely different picture.One shows that flexible workers are regarded by their managers as more loyal,productive and reliable,with less absenteeism and staff turnover,and better work quality. It has been suggested that these results are due to the voluntary nature of early flexible working schemes. Evidence from compulsory schemes indicates these results are not due to the enthusiasm of volunteers. A survey 13 of compulsory flexible workers reports a better understanding of what their managers’ require them to do when compared with those still in offices, and how their manage-

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ment expects them to use their time.They do feel,however,that they don’t understand organisational changes quite as well as their counterparts in the office.They have a very clear understanding of how their performance is evaluated compared to the office based worker.Also, they suffer less from low morale, being generally more content. The managers report that they apply the management techniques they use with flexible workers to those still in the office,as they represent good management.14 As a result of changes in management techniques and the benefits of flexible working to individuals, the conclusions of the survey data point to improvements, not the difficulties managers fear. If managers are prepared to invest in this change, then the flexible workers are, in the opinion of those managers, much more effective members of their staff than office based workers.

Overcoming the barrier There is a huge barrier of perception created among managers to be overcome. This can be done partly by disseminating information about the successes of flexible working.Many are working on this,but it is not enough.There is a more powerful, and potentially unstoppable force. The Telegraph survey 10 shows that,unlike managers in general,very senior managers (directors and executives) share the staff view of flexible working as not only desirable, but also inevitable (44% think they will be working from home in the next five years,and 62% in the next ten years).This is confirmed by a recent survey of HR Directors 15 in which 43% stated that flexible working would be the largest trend of the 21st Century.The Cornell survey 17 shows that a visionary or leader at or near the top of an organisation results in the successful introduction of flexible working. Directors and executives should capitalise on the opportunity offered through flexible working by: •

giving support to their infrastructure directors, who generally have an understanding of flexible working, i.e. Human Resources, Property, Information Technology

•

making managers explain their resistance to flexible working, and ensuring that the infrastructure directors challenge these perceptions (i.e. start from the premise that everyone can and should be involved)

•

producing an outline strategy for flexible working for the organisation, including the target improvements and savings.

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Flexible working is an example of a paradox.Not only can significant reductions in cost be achieved, but also significant improvements in productivity, service and morale.

Change management Participation is the key to change management.What makes the difference between success and grudging acceptance is involving people in the change.People need to feel they have some influence over their future. People need to feel they are involved in the decision making process. People need to contribute ideas and express fears. People need to feel valued. It seems obvious that people should be involved.After all, they know their jobs better than anyone else.They also know largely what is wrong with what they have to do currently,especially given the opportunity to interact with people further up and down the same work process. Of course it is much easier and quicker to make the decisions on your own or in a small project implementation group.That way you can also come up with a better, more logical design with less kinks in it.You can also bring the solution bang upto-date with current thinking,and incorporate all the good ideas that can be shown to have worked. In short, the best possible solution. The problem with the best possible solution is that it doesn’t fit in with real life. People and organisations have their own individual character.The kinks sometimes make things work better because they fit better.That doesn’t mean the solution should not be pushed forward, and traditional thinking challenged. It does mean the ideal solution is a compromise between the ultimate,and what will be acceptable, accepted and work. Making it so is the role of participation. It has been known for a long time that participation in change improves productivity and satisfaction 16. Recent research 17 has shown that there are many areas where involvement helps: •

feeling that there was the opportunity to express opinions about the change

•

including ‘users’ on the design team

•

running change management workshops

•

allowing feedback about the initial design

•

explaining the reasons for the change, especially cost.

In cases where one or more of these types of involvement was exploited,staff felt more satisfied with the new strategy,felt more committed to the new strategy and

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had more accurate expectations about the new strategy. It was also clear that the more people that were involved,the fewer differences there were in these criteria between groups with or without involvement. So involving some of the people some of the time helps, but involving all of the people all of the time is best.

Property Office facilities In many office-based organisations,offices seem to suffer from the common paradox of not enough space and poor utilisation. The new approach to providing office facilities involves: •

emphasis on getting the work done rather than providing personal facilities

•

more shared and fewer private facilities and support services

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greater space and staff flexibility and freedom,e.g.temporary co-location of project teams

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paperwork elimination or reduction through process streamlining and electronic communications

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experiment with new work settings to enhance communications and productivity – café, soft seating, resource centre, etc.

•

touchdown facilities for regional and other staff without personal desks or services.

Buildings of modern construction can be further improved to support a wide range of new working methods.With the advent of wireless technology,older buildings are now more amenable to improvement at a reasonable cost.

Perceptions of success People’s experience of change is often not good. Decisions are made.Tenders invited.Comfortable,well designed schemes involving huge investment are implemented.But the people affected are just told ‘here is your new office’.Harsh,yes, but true for the majority.

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Consultation is a key tool for service groups, such as facilities managers.Their problem is that requirements, often relayed by managers, tend to be in code. For example: •

‘A closed office with a meeting table for confidential discussions’probably means the requirement is ‘status, personal comfort and territory’.

•

‘The whole department located together on the same floor’might mean ‘I’m worried about the disappearance of my role’.

•

‘A larger desk to take my PC and more storage’usually indicates ‘I want more space, and I don’t trust the shared library theory’.

The difference between on the one hand satisfying the wishes of the customer and on the other providing what is needed to perform successfully is key.These two things are also inextricably linked by the customer perception that what they wish for is what is needed. Clearly, organisations cannot afford to satisfy everyone’s wish, but must ensure performance by providing what is required. Somehow a bridge must be built between the two.

Remote working facilities In most organisations, many staff spend some or all of their time away from the office: with customers, at exhibitions, travelling, or simply at home for a bit of peace to get some concentrated work done.Many others would be more productive if they were able to work occasionally away from the office. Although plenty of technology exists to support remote working, it needs to be used sensibly to ensure the full range of benefits result.Remote working solutions can include: •

home-working ‘packages’,including technology (telephony,IT),insurance, furniture,health and safety,taxation,integration with colleagues,effective supervision, etc.

•

mobile-working ‘packages’ along similar lines

•

‘touchdown’ centres at main offices for visiting executives

•

access to local serviced office space (e.g.third-party owned and managed) for field workers.

Staff who are perceived to be ‘mobile’usually already have some remote IT solutions. These should be reviewed to ensure that they meet the real needs of all staff. In one scheme for example,senior managers used to be provided automatically with mobile phones.A review showed that they were rarely used,more of a status symbol

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than a work tool, and would be more effectively deployed with lower grades of staff who had a real need for them.

Technology The technologies for new ways of working are based around networked computer and phone systems and could include some or all of the following: •

a standard and location-independent IT and telephony ‘desktop’ that allows users to work anywhere

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full integration of remote workers (home and mobile)

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information stored on servers rather than personal workstations

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a single, integrated messaging system (e-mail, voicemail, etc.)

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support for desktop video conferencing and group working

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support for paperless working

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applications delivered to the desktop using intranet technology.

Management considerations Remote support from the office Individuals working flexibly will need a change in the management of the day to day operation.Those remaining in the office may need improved technology to ‘keep track’of their colleagues.They will need to continue to provide the following services to those remote workers: •

telephone handling

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diary management

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documentation support

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essential administration (expenses and travel)

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room bookings

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personal administration (for managers).

The remote workers themselves will need to be more self-disciplined in the way they work i.e. constant diary updates with full contact details.

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Formalising daily processes Whereas regular contact with colleagues is often taken for granted when people are office based, remote working, whether that is mobile, home or site based, requires a more formalised approach to even the most basic of activities.

Communication Communication is one of the biggest issues for people working in this way.Keeping in touch with colleagues and picking up the latest news is key and can suddenly become difficult. The manager and employee should decide what things and events the employee needs to keep abreast of in the absence of ‘corridor conversations’. Such requirements will be: •

phone in regularly

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come to team meetings (quarterly?)

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meet team members regularly (weekly?).

Out of sight out of mind There is also a great nervousness among remote workers that if they are not ‘seen’ to be working others may think they are not working.There is also a concern over how this impacts promotional prospects. This type of work requires a high trust environment and a ‘hands off’style of management, between colleagues and between the individual and their manager. Colleagues should be encouraged to phone the remote worker rather than waiting till they come in to the office. Such flexible working can also cause aggravation within groups and it should be openly discussed within team meetings.

Documenting goals So that both parties are clear about their role in working flexibly,goals and expectations should be discussed and clearly set so that both are aware of what success looks like.Often ‘absence’from the office can be blamed for lack of performance or vice versa. Unless the goals are clearly defined and measurable this will be a difficult issue to diagnose and manage. Therefore the job plan needs to be unambiguous so that the manager and individual both know exactly what is expected of them even though not ‘under the manager’s nose’.

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Contracts Formal

Any changes in work practice i.e.place of work or hours of work must be through HR as changes in terms and conditions of employment.

Informal It is a good idea to formalise this within the group so everyone is clear of their role in making the flexible approach to work a success. •

How will the interface with external contacts be managed seamlessly?

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Induction of new members.

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Phoning in for messages.

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Diary management.

Personal characteristics for success in working flexibly •

In the organisation for some years

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In the same team for some years

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Prefer socialising to be ‘batched’

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Self-contained/confident

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Dislike of physical office environment

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Motivated by internal factors

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Desire to integrate work and home life

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Find it easy to start and stop work.

Areas for concern Rather than managers having a concern about employees ‘slacking’when working out of the office, there is more a danger of employees overworking. Having the technology available at all hours is not only an intrusion into the individual’s personal life but can provoke a compulsive need to ‘log in’ and work. Managers need to know their employee’s work style well in order to know when to be concerned about the level of work being performed e.g. a clue may be the time at which emails are written. Extreme feelings of loneliness is another concern for home workers.This is why formal contact sessions are key. The personality of the individual is also vital, especially if they are to work more than 60% of their time at home. It is also important that flexible staff are not treated differently from traditional office based staff.There is evidence18 that,far from managers finding remote staff

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more ‘distant’from the organisation,remote staff are perceived to be ‘closer’than those in the office.This paradox can be expressed colloquially as staff being closer down the road than down the corridor.The research further suggested that the desire of many managers to have staff present in the office actually damages performance.

Health and Safety There are regulations from the European Commission that have implications for how office furniture and equipment is set up.If the organisation requires employees to work from their home, as the place of work, then these regulations also cover the home.The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) publishes a useful summary of the regulations applicable to home workers.19 This publication contains references to the 20 others from which the summary is drawn. Within this domain another area for concern is home workers taking breaks from work.There is often a guilt that such employees feel when they are not in an office and they may continue to work.In the office people have natural breaks through conversations with fellow colleagues.At home such interaction tends to be over the telephone. Employees must be encouraged to take breaks from their desk even if this means doing something completely diverse,for example mowing the lawn! So long as employees at home manage their interface to their customers and are achieving their goals, such activity must be acceptable.

Management of confidential information Mobile workers and home workers that deal with hard copy confidential information belonging to the organisation should ensure that this is locked away.When such documents are no longer required they should be brought into an office for shredding.Similarly the provisions of the Data Protection Act should be taken into account when dealing with information on PC and laptop computers.

Risks All projects carry risks, which are normally reduced to an acceptable level by good project management.Projects involving new ways of working are no different, carrying the same kind of project risk as any other.There is, however, a different emphasis on the importance of risks.New ways of working projects can be exceptionally well managed as projects,and still ‘fail’on commercial or morale grounds. The risks that damage a new ways of working project are not the normal high profile ones, but a series of more subtle risks that are often overlooked.

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Compromise The brief for a project may be clear, but people will continually try to re-assert the status quo or make a bid for more. Projects that are successful do not ignore these things; they try to accommodate them within the context of the spirit of the project.Those that ‘fail’make compromises which placate people but detract from the project – death by a thousand cuts. Examples are: •

Staff throwing up a myriad reasons why they will need a permanently allocated desk or an office in a project based on non-territorial space.

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People or departments demand special consideration or more space for ‘business reasons’.

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Huge pressure is generated to go ‘back’ to a traditional environment.

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Managers insist that everyone must be in the office ‘in case they need to meet them’.

The perception of the people will be that they really need these things to be successful.This demonstrates lack of communication and buy in to the project objectives, and a lack of understanding of how work is and could be done, both by the people themselves and the project team.

Overkill When we acquire anything we would obviously prefer to have the best. In our private lives,we recognise the absurdity of a Rolls Royce on a low income,and in the end recognise that we can spend a bit more on a Clio rather than a Ka, but even a Vectra is not a realistic option. In work, there is a tendency to take a set of criteria and apply them as if they were regulations, resulting not even in a Vectra solution, but a Mercedes (still recognising the Rolls Royce as unreasonable). It is very important to understand that a Ka would do the job, decide to give better in the form of a Clio,but recognise that the real regulations do not demand anything better. Some work examples: •

It is not necessary, or even desirable, to give people everything they ask for.There may be better ways of doing things. Benefits in one area may need to be traded for changes in another.

•

Premium prices can be paid for furniture – some organisations do this for a host of good reasons, but it is not suitable for all organisations.

•

Health and safety is critically important, but applying systems used in an office to home workers is not necessary. A system that is cost-effective and suitable for home can be developed, just as a system suitable for the office has been developed and made cost-effective over the years.

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Post is delivered several times a day in the office. Instituting a courier system to replicate this at home is not necessary. Very few items are both critically urgent and too large to fax. Some are required the next day (the traditional post is fast enough and cheaper). Most can wait or go second class. Some are not needed at all and can be thrown away. Very occasionally a courier may be necessary!

Single discipline project Projects that are driven by a single service department (e.g.property,technology, HR) usually become labelled. Staff then see that project solely from that point of view and become blind to the wider implications.The project is then pigeon holed as a ‘cost cutting’ or ‘limited’ or ‘negative’ project, and fails to achieve its objectives. It is vital that new ways of working projects take a holistic approach. In part this will come from focusing on measurable financial benefits throughout the project.It also results from co-operation from HR,property,facilities management, information technology, telecommunications and business areas. In particular the project must be driven by work processes,people and teams before infrastructure. There is always a danger that new ways of working is seen as a technology project, rather than enabled by technology.Technology is not always the benefit it is thought to be.An article 20 demonstrated well that having so many technologies to ‘help’ was actually stressful – looking for messages in e-mail, post, fax, notes, voicemail and pager.Technology is a hygiene factor – if it works, it helps. If it doesn’t it is worse than not having it at all.

Resistance New ways of working offer many positive outcomes, not least of which is that the commercial case is good, often resulting in payback in under one year.The impact on staff is also positive in a well conceived scheme. Generally new ways of working projects are also environmentally sound in addition to offering benefits to the local community.They also tend to fit in with current labour market demands and provide politically correct outcomes,such as supporting diversity and families.

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The single and most powerful obstacle to new ways of working is that it tends to break with tradition,challenging some dearly held assumptions and traditions. People therefore tend not to believe that new ways of working are possible or comfortable.Three major objections arising from traditional ways of looking at work are: •

New ways of working are fundamentally flawed. A survey 21 of workers at Cambridgeshire County Council showed that, although attitudes to new ways of working were negative when staff lived close to their place of work,these quickly became positive the further away they lived. If there was any fundamental flaw, the survey would have returned a result that showed similar resistance at all distances.The difficulty of people’s journey to work provides the motivation to break with tradition.

•

New ways of working only applies to a limited set of people. The same survey broken down by job type showed that there was no appreciable difference in attitude across the types.

•

If staff are not present, it is not possible to manage them effectively. A survey 12 of managers experienced in managing staff working in substantially new ways, and spending much of their time remote from the managers, showed that managers actually found them easier to manage across a broad range of categories.There is also evidence to show that these managers then applied the management techniques they used with the more remote staff to those still in the office.They found them to be more effective ways of managing generally,not specific remote management techniques.

Policy and practice Many policies will simply not affect flexible working,and others will not support it, just making it awkward.At worst, policy can damage flexible working. By its very nature, new ways of working are often concerned with flexibility in all its aspects. For example, having a help line that is open during ‘office hours’ does not help staff who work late.The classic example would be sales or engineers,who are with customers during office hours, and doing ‘paper’ work at other times. If they are unable to use their PC and unable to get help, then they are forced to do ‘paper’ work in office hours to gain access to the help.This then prevents them from being fully effective.

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Fixed sets of rules (policy) do not sit well with flexibility. It is better to allow elasticity and give guidelines, only insisting on those things which are essential (but beware of insisting on things that are traditional but not essential).For example, being in the office,even if for core hours,is not essential.What is essential is that the job gets done and the team is able to perform effectively.The latter will almost certainly mean meeting other members of the team, but don’t assume that this always has to be in the office! It may be cited as a regulation that a particular piece of paper is signed.Why? Is it really an inland revenue (or whomever) requirement? Or is it something that’s always been done for internal reasons? And if so, is it really necessary? Or will an e-mail from the signatory be sufficient? An example of this is ordering stationery or even cars. Many organisations now order such items by e-mail, in the case of stationery for next day delivery.That is not to say that there are no controls.The controls about who and how much are still there, but the mechanism is via email, not signed paper. Another example of damage is categorisation of staff into ‘those that can’and ‘those that can’t’.This immediately creates a them and us situation,which is not helpful and does not promote understanding of differing work styles.For example,managers will ask staff to come to a meeting on a particular day when perhaps they were not intending to come into the office. Managers also often say that they need people in the office ‘in case’.Surely if there is an emergency, staff can make a special journey.Why should they be there all the time just in case. Similarly, there are often attitudes which favour long hours and presence in the office for promotion and as indicators of hard work. Surely performance and contribution should be measured on results? Co-workers,especially if they are excluded from flexibility,will also develop attitudes which cast flexible workers in an unfavourable light.These mostly arise from lack of understanding of their needs and seeing the negative effects but none of the positives.

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Change management Change control as part of the project management will help to keep control of the costs, benefits and time scale of the project.The role of change management is in influencing the success, morale and motivation arising from the project. Ultimately it is the people that deliver the benefits.Change management is aimed at them. One of the common demands in an organisation is that the change is minimised for the people.Whilst this is an understandable reaction to change,which is a situation all people find difficult,it is only partially correct.What is required is that the beneficial aspects of change are maximised, whilst undesirable side effects are minimised.Thus the real job is to maximise change, but in the most painless way possible. Initially,a radical change is needed.This should then stabilise into a climate of natural, but slower,change and the organisation becomes one that ‘learns’as it progresses. In practice, changes do not move through a series of straightforward positives and negatives before delivering the benefits desired. Rather there are a series of complete change cycles, in themselves positive and negative, which move the change through a series of increasing benefit.The change gathers in momentum through a series of smaller changes.This systemic change is encouraged through phasing of communications,training and implementation,again allowing the staff and the organisation to learn as it goes.

People It is easy both to forget people who are affected by new ways of working, and to forget to look at the benefits and pitfalls from their point of view.Staff directly involved should be informed not only of the benefits to the organisation,but also of the benefits to themselves – the WIFM factor (What’s In It For Me). Managers of staff directly involved should if possible be a part of the scheme,however small that involvement,to give them a better understanding of why it is different, so that they gain similar benefits, and so they are not left out.They require just as much training and communication as those directly involved. Co-workers who are not directly involved need to understand what those who are involved are experiencing.There will be knock on effects, such as changes in availability,telephone answering,different needs when in the office.These affect people not directly involved, and they need to understand so that reactions are not negative and the benefits to them are made clear.

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Consultation Consultation at all levels and particularly with those affected will gain greater commitment. People will feel part of the design process, will feel that new ways of working are not (entirely) being forced upon them, and will feel that their opinions and knowledge of the job are taken into account. Staff doing the job often have the best ideas about how it could be done more effectively.Using these ideas and consulting about needs generally gives a scheme the best chance of working.

Communication Workforces always criticise communications in regular employee attitude surveys. However strenuously management try to respond, improvement in the surveys is small.You can’t do enough communication, as people will always claim they haven’t been told. Much of the reason people miss information is that it comes in a form which does not suit either them or their style of learning.So it is important not only to do enough communication, but also to use a variety of different media for it. It is suggested that all, or at least several, of the following tools are used: •

Articles in house journals. Consider all of organisation-wide, countryspecific,region-specific,office-specific,department-specific and disciplinespecific publications,and aim to publish in local publications every issue and wider circulation journals perhaps once.It is also worth considering customer or external publications.

•

Don’t overlook the value of a notice board.This can either be a notice on an existing notice board,or a special display,for example in the staff restaurant.

•

E-mail is a good mechanism for a short, punchy, regular update. Longer information can be published on the intranet, and referred to in an email.Again, it is worth considering pages on the Internet, as new ways of working has publicity value, and as this enhances the value of the scheme for the staff.

•

Management briefings.The cascade system is much maligned as it can be patchy and slow. It is valuable. Giving managers good material will help to ensure that it works effectively,and enhance the opinion of the scheme. Don’t forget business television, if your organisation uses it.

•

There are many other tools, such as cassette tapes for playing in the car, CD’s for PC use, video tapes, either for personal use or as part of a management briefing, specially printed brochures or packs. A

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questionnaire also has value for communication.It will normally be used for other purposes,such as consultation,data gathering and measurement. Care should be taken to ensure that it is also designed as part of the communications strategy.

Training A useful approach is to train all levels of staff in the same session.This allows more of the valuable interaction between levels, and helps to give everyone a better understanding of the issues facing other groups.The only obvious exception to this is detailed training for managers to help them adopt new models of management and guide them through the new thinking that they will need to apply to their management style and operation. Awareness module This is a short session to all staff, managers and support staff affected directly or peripherally by new ways of working.Its objectives are to provide a vision of what new ways of working can do for an organisation, alert staff to the future implementation, and to start them thinking about the change in a positive way. It helps to reassure staff,to satisfy their need for information and to stem less helpful rumours. The basic motivational messages should be given by senior management,with general motivation information woven into the fabric of the vision of new ways of working. The session format will accommodate large numbers,but should be split onto two or more separated days to give the everyone the opportunity to attend. It should be a half day or less, taking place several months before implementation begins. Manager module This helps managers to explore new management styles and approaches in order to orient them to flexible working.As yet there have been no formal methods devised for or books written about the management of flexible workers, so that there is little external material that can be used to inform this session. There is also a certain dichotomy about the delivery.Ideally this information should be incorporated into the standard management training and induction programme. Initially it may be necessary to run some catch up sessions based on the same material. Note that this training is in addition to the awareness and preparation training, both of which the managers should also attend. The workshop is also an opportunity to gain knowledge of other schemes and their management,to share best practice and concerns,and to enable a good start to new ways of working.Depending upon how the sessions are run,support staff

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could also attend with managers,as it is they who provide the stability and problem solving for internal processes, whilst the professional staff are engaged in their roles.The interaction between the support staff and management is an important element of the home base, the support structures for staff and the infrastructure provision and management. It is often also a good idea to work on internal processes, such as paper management, outside the training.The management workshop can then concentrate on the management,team building,belonging,monitoring,support,mentoring,morale and motivation.The result should be some rules of thumb and good sharing of experience.This workshop will almost certainly need to be run again to explore these issues in more depth and share early experience.Ideally the first workshop should take place before the preparation module to ensure that relevant outcomes are communicated to all staff. Preparation module Many of the issues that concern staff turn out not to be the challenging aspects of new ways of working, although these will be the ones that make life difficult later.Two important elements of this workshop are allowing staff to get their issues on the table and giving them the benefit of experience so that they are well prepared to make a success of the new scheme. One of the aims of the workshop will be to give staff considered and sensible answers to their issues and concerns, and allow them to air their fears.They also need to be given guidance on how new ways of working is expected to work, including material such as best practice guidelines. People also need to understand the challenges they will face in making the scheme work well, be given honest advice on strategies to cope with these challenges, and information on the kind of support they can expect from the organisation generally. Practical information should be supplied to them via the practical module, but it will be important to amplify that in this session,particularly in answer to concerns raised at each session. Some of the information will relate to physical provision, some to new policies,and some to the general expectation of how the new scheme will support their work. All staff involved,including managers and support staff,should come,and the sessions should be limited to 15-20 people so that discussion is manageable.

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Practical module In this module all the detailed training for the new scheme takes place.It contains practical and regulatory information.This will enable staff to orient themselves and make use of the infrastructure,such as telephones,computers,offices,administration, policies and procedures. Post implementation modules A number of enthusiasts will emerge as work on a new scheme progresses.It will be essential for the success of the programme for those individuals (champions), or teams (exemplars) to be identified, encouraged and supported. Champions are staff who challenge,innovate and promote new ideas.Colleagues also turn to them as a sounding board and for informal support in the business processes and systems before resorting to the formal help structures.The role of champion is not related to job function, but to concepts like respect, tenacity, convenience,character,warmth,innovation,ability to acquire and pass on knowledge.They tend to be self-selecting. The role of the project team is to keep an eye out for them and to nurture and support them. A suitable type of forum in which champions can share, question and acquire information is a quality circle or ideas group. Best practice guidelines will need to be reinforced and issues and concerns that arise after implementation aired and taken seriously.Those that are critical will need to be worked on and new solutions and work-arounds developed to give new ways of working the best chance of success, and to help staff to feel most positive about it.It may be appropriate to run a session similar to the preparation module again in order to do this. Similarly the manager workshop should also be considered again post implementation to help shake down new management techniques and solve issues that have arisen.

Documentation Documentation today is an odd word.Much computer documentation now comes either on CD or help files or the Internet. It is important to understand that new ways of working itself has an effect on how an organisation stores information and accesses it.Documentation should not,therefore,be produced in the old style, but in a form suitable for the new ways of working it is about.Even if paper versions are produced, everything should also be available on the intranet. Three types of documentation are needed: Introductory;Transitory; Reference.

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Introductory Introducing staff to new ways of working in the context of the organisation could be seen as a transitory activity.There is a transitory element to the introduction, but the documentation referred to in this section is necessary in the long-term. It would be found,for example,woven into the induction pack given to staff joining the organisation. Introductory documentation for new ways of working expresses the view of how work is done in this organisation, how staff are expected to make the most of the work infrastructure, and how support is provided to them. Much of what is to be found in the introductory documentation will tell staff of the norms in this organisation,especially if they are different from those found largely in the wider world of work. It is essential to add to, prune and update introductory material, as the organisation will change as time passes by.New ways of working,in particular,develop as staff become used to them.What is seen as rocket science at the start of a scheme will become part of the fabric after time and other new ideas will develop to replace it. Transitory Documentation relating to change occurring at a specific point,e.g.the telephone system was like that and is now like this,is short-term.It alerts staff to new things, gives them basic information to get started,and generally refers them to reference materials which give more detail.Another good example of this is information and questions leading up to a move – what do you need,how do you pack,what happens on the day, etc. Reference Most reference material will already exist within an organisation.A new ways of working project will have a great effect on some, and no effect at all on others. Reference material such as policies need checking and updating,not least for accessibility in the new environment. New guidelines will be needed to tell people how to handle the new situation, incorporating new processes and procedures where appropriate.There will also be practical material such as information on operating and using the telephone and IT systems. Note the subtle interaction between the practical ‘how to use the telephone’ and the guidelines on ‘how we expect telephone calls to be handled’,sometimes referred to as ‘norms’.It is critical that both types of information are provided in all areas.

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Checklist •

Build a vision that matches the work and the people,and stretches just beyond their comfort zone

•

Write the vision in a clear business plan with good benefit targets, a broad-based understanding of the benefits, and the associated costs

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Communicate, consult with, train, involve and document for managers and staff

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Continually benchmark changes against the plan.22

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Policy considerations OVERVIEW JOB CHARACTERISTICS TO CONSIDER RECRUITMENT AND INDUCTION TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT I M P A C T O F N E W W AY S O F W O R K I N G O N C O M M U N I C A T I O N S H E A LT H A N D S A F E T Y I S S U E S LEGAL/CONTRACTUAL ISSUES F A M I LY / W O R K B A L A N C E

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Chapter 4: Policy considerations

Overview There are a number of policy issues to consider at the beginning of the process (i.e.for the short,medium and long-term) when employing people who are given more flexibility, whether it be working from a home base, or otherwise not in daily,face to face contact with a manager.These relate to the organisation’s policies on a diverse range of issues, for example, health and safety, contracts of employment,recruitment criteria,compensation for home working,and other issues which need to be considered carefully when requiring staff to work in non-traditional ways. Experience suggests that the success of remote working arrangements is dependent on the effectiveness of the manager and the suitability, training and support for the flexible worker.Thus the policies, which support these, as well as the legal and other contractual issues,play a critical role in ensuring the success of flexible, remote or location independent working.

Job characteristics to consider Suitability of job for remote working If a job has some of the following characteristics, it is probably possible for it to be performed remotely: •

involves degree of autonomy (if the job is not really autonomous, then there needs to be an easy way to monitor performance)

•

brings intrinsic satisfaction, so that the reliance on external feedback for recognition and reward is lessened

•

involves routine communications which can be met by existing (or soon to be in place), universal communications systems – there should not be different systems for different groups of staff

•

work programmes and time scales are agreed and defined quantitatively and qualitatively

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•

does not require any large business equipment which could not easily be fitted into the home

•

career development prospects in the job depend as much on the development of the individual’s skills as on a good knowledge of organisation culture

•

the work requires periods of quiet concentration

•

may involves substantial travelling.

‘At work’ processes and interactions In order to ensure that a job is suitable,consider the ‘at work’processes and interactions,the relationship between different jobs and roles.It may be necessary to consider the redesigning of different jobs. Sometimes to achieve economies of scale in support staff it is necessary to consider job enrichment,job enlargement or even multi-skilling through job rotation.Also consideration of the interactions can highlight blurring of responsibilities which could cause confusion when the staff concerned are operating at a distance from one another.

Management responsibilities Managers need to understand the impact of home working on home-based staff, mobile staff and the jobs of others. It is advisable to consider the following: •

regular review of home-based staff’s home, to ensure that the home is safe and secure

•

review carefully as part of the introduction of flexible working the impact on the jobs of others

•

brief all staff on the nature of flexible working

•

establish a good working relationship with flexible staff,including regular communications and reporting arrangements between staff – preferably on a daily basis

•

arrangements for contacts if there is an emergency

•

how sickness and accidents will be reported

•

how expenses will be claimed

•

how faults with the equipment are reported

•

ways to ensure that the flexible worker does not become isolated from the organisation or colleagues

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•

follow-up for any sudden personality changes

•

monitoring performance of flexible staff against common standards for all staff performing same role

•

ensuring flexible staff have equality of treatment in terms of training, information,formal and informal communications,and career development counselling

•

overall commitment by management to review jointly the efficiency of flexible working arrangements six months after implementation to ensure that business goals are being met.

Recruitment and induction Recruiting for organisation fit Recruitment is a vital stage in the employment relationship, whether recruiting internally or from outside the organisation. It is important to have a clear idea of the requirements of the job,the outputs,competencies and person specifications. Generally, an office-based environment can accommodate a number of personality profiles,attitudes and work styles which may not be appropriate for home-based or remote working. New recruits do need to demonstrate a good ‘fit’ with the organisation’s culture and match the job and person requirements.They should in addition demonstrate qualities and characteristics that help them meet the challenges of remote working.

Personal requirements for flexible staff The literature suggests the following criteria for staff who wish to be considered suitable candidates for remote working or teleworking,namely that the staff should demonstrate that they are: •

self-motivated

•

self-disciplined

•

committed to remote working

•

capable of working with minimal supervision

•

safety-conscious

•

adaptable and resourceful (able to learn new computer skills, or solve logistical problems if they arise)

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highly organised

•

good communicator, assertive

•

able to cope with minimal social contact

•

able to balance work with domestic responsibilities

•

not a ‘workaholic’(i.e.has clear boundaries between work and non-work life) or the opposite!

•

willing and able to travel to attend meetings and courses when required.

Suitable home environment? For all staff who wish to work from home it is important that the home environment is a suitable workplace.Where the home is going to be used more than on a very occasional basis, it is appropriate for the employer (i.e. the manager) to consider whether or not the home environment is suitable. The relevant factors to consider are: •

noise levels

•

likelihood of being disturbed by other occupants

•

security (the home, work and equipment if any need to be secure)

•

the home must meet any statutory office health and safety requirements

•

there needs to be sufficient suitable storage space for equipment

•

if appropriate, is there sufficient space for an office (this is important for a permanently home-based staff member)

•

it is important that managers are satisfied that the relevant issues have been considered, although in the case of a permanent or substantial home office it may be necessary to inspect the relevant area in the home.

Telecentres Where the home environment is not suitable,for whatever reason,it may be appropriate to consider other office facilities, such as telecentres.These can provide office facilities locally to the home.This type of provision will be particularly significant when a local office is being closed or moved, and provides an alternative to relocation or large amounts of travel.

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Induction for existing staff new to flexible working It is important that the staff member understands the implications of home working, has appropriate awareness training and meets the relevant criteria (i.e.they have the appropriate personality profile, suitable workspace and a suitable job). The benefits to the individual of flexible working include: •

saving in travelling time and expenses

•

more free time (less travelling to and from the office on a daily basis)

•

can improve productivity and job satisfaction

•

greater flexibility in working hours.

The potential disadvantages include: •

missing the social contact at work

•

difficulty balancing work and domestic commitments

•

visibility within organisation may require more conscious, assertive communications.

Induction for flexible staff new to the organisation Where employing someone from outside the organisation into a flexible post, it is important for the new member of staff to spend some time during the early months learning the way in which the organisation functions,i.e.how the processes, people and systems (formal and informal) actually work.This could amount to two/three days a week at existing offices,for a period of say six weeks,to be agreed and reviewed by the member of staff and their manager. As well-supported flexible working becomes more established throughout working life,the organisation could invest in distance learning modules and other interactive,computer-based self-learning tools,delivered on the desktop at home. Prior to this phase, however, any newly-appointed flexible staff member needs to display strongly the ‘teleworker’personality profile,i.e.they must be very selfreliant and adaptable, assertive in communications, organised, and capable of meeting management targets monitored remotely.

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Training and development Technical training This is the training in specific skills which are generally required for working with greater flexibility (i.e.not just for home working) and involves skills in the following areas: •

E-mail use and etiquette

•

Word processing

•

Self typing

•

Use of telephone forwarding/messaging

•

Diary management, diary sharing

•

Workload planning, time management

•

Effective communication, assertiveness

•

Ability to meet deadlines and deal with external contacts/colleagues effectively.

There are ‘baseline’ teleworker skills, involving all of the above, which should be the baseline for all staff to achieve.

Awareness training This is a different kind of training, which is aimed at orienting the staff to new roles, new ways of interacting with one another, reviewing roles and processes and establishing new,agreed protocols for communicating.It is essential to bring an awareness of different roles and demands on others where staff are involved in new ways of working.

Personal and career development Personal and career development often depends on ‘visibility’ within an organisation – certainly promotion usually corresponds with this.Therefore to avoid disadvantaging staff who work away from a base office (either at home or at a touchdown centre),management needs to take active steps to disaggregate physical presence in an office and promotion prospects. One way of doing this is to create alternative ways of being ‘visible’ within an organisation. For example, making an intranet, with interactive communication forums,the universal communications vehicle within the organisation creates an

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alternative platform for contact on which people who are more frequently in an office and those who are home-based have equal standing. Also,it is advisable to review all promotion,reward and evaluation tools to ensure that there is no hidden bias in favour of people who will be more often located within base offices or touchdown centres. It is important that all staff with the same jobs have the same evaluation criteria,so as to avoid the appearance of treating similar staff differently.

Impact of new ways of working on communications Liaison with support staff Support staff have a more proactive role which may seem challenging to professional staff,who may find it difficult to share sufficient information for the support staff to do their job. Hence the importance of conducting structured sessions to ensure that this interaction works well, that both sides understand the role and needs of the other. For example,where support staff are physically remote from the professional staff they support, they will need to have mutually agreed and clear procedures for dealing with a whole range of communications which arise.Where calls can be forwarded automatically to a remote member of staff by support staff receiving an incoming call, it is essential for the support staff to know that the call will be answered, so if the remote worker is going to be away from their desk they need to tell the support staff. In fact all the office-based rules apply,but where there is increased distance between support staff and remote worker,the relationship,procedures and outcomes need to be more formalised.

Liaison with colleagues Teamworking and support of colleagues will require more thought and conscious effort when working remotely. It may be easy to ‘forget’ about other colleagues and just concentrate on one’s own work.However,the individual member of staff will lose out by missing out on the support of colleagues, and this works both ways.

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Colleagues can give and receive support about a number of surprisingly useful matters e.g: •

Inside track information about the organisation

•

Useful tips about a particular (difficult) client, difficult problem, ways of solving problems including how to access information within the organisation and externally too

•

Advice about processes or procedures

•

External information and information from external colleagues.

It is therefore essential for the remote staff members to develop and sustain ways of accessing this kind of ‘soft’ information and know how, which can prove very valuable for the organisation as well as for the individual.This type of collegiate interaction – partly personal, partly professional – is often overlooked by organisations wishing to introduce ‘teleworking’solutions.Without extensive peer group liaison, remote workers soon become isolated professionally and lose a sense of belonging to an organisation.The importance of this cannot be over emphasised.

Sharing information Remote working involves sharing information and managing time more formally than before. It also requires staff to share this information according to mutually agreed protocols.For example,maintaining a shared electronic diary requires selfdiscipline and consistency.The realisation that others are relying on you to conform to the standards laid down for diary management should provide some motivation to maintain the system. Some people find it very difficult to share information, particularly about their own work plans and habits.

‘Netiquette’ Staff need to be made aware of some of the good practice emerging around email communication. E-mail can be misused and cause offence so it is important that staff learn to recognise some of the parameters of the etiquette of e-mail.

Seamless links with external contacts and colleagues External e-mail provides a valuable opportunity to link electronically with external colleagues and contacts.However, it is important for all links between the customer or external colleague and the member of staff to work seamlessly – i.e.the external person should not be aware that they are talking to someone who is not based

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in a base office.This means that the procedures and understanding about call forwarding needs to be carefully thought through and agreed.

Avoiding customer problems Good practice at following up calls with a short note on e-mail, or a note to the file, electronic file of course, is helpful to ensure that there is a record of a call or conversation made.When away from the office, staff will need to take active steps to keep others informed of developments which have taken place when they are working from a home base or touchdown centre or client site.

Enhancing relationships with external colleagues and contacts Anticipating the needs of contacts and colleagues and delivering those needs should be the aspiration of all staff.‘Delighting the customer’ is a slightly corny phrase, yet it has a powerful impact on an organisation when individuals within an organisation truly believe it. It is also the only way in which there will be continuing improvements in processes and quality.

Meetings and venues Meetings with external colleagues and contacts should not take place at a home or other environment which is inappropriate to a business context. It is good practice to avoid internal meetings taking place at a home environment too, and instead a local hotel or café could be used.

Health and Safety issues This is a general checklist to ensure that managers take into account all the aspects that affect Health and Safety. More detailed procedures of some aspects of this checklist are contained in the appendix on Health and Safety (p.100).

Checklist for managers •

Does the arrangement comply with statutory Health and Safety legislation?

•

Is furniture and equipment suitable?

•

Is there suitable storage for equipment when not in use?

•

Set up a method for reporting accidents and hazards

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•

Establish the position on insurance (this will vary from policy to policy and the employee needs to consult their home insurance policy)

•

Check the safety at the home of the workstation in a similar way to the way office-based workstations are inspected

•

Inform the home worker about Health and Safety legislation as it affects them

•

The importance of rest breaks

•

Advising other occupants about the equipment

•

Keeping children, pets etc. (as appropriate) away from the equipment

•

Inspections and risk assessments should be conducted as far as possible as if the work location was in a regional office, i.e. using the same procedures, standards, etc. adapted for third party ownership.

Legal/contractual issues Employment contract Generally,for new employment contracts there are no special terms required for home-based working,provided that the agreement is explicit and understood on both sides.Where a new contract is being developed,it is sufficient for the written document to refer to organisation policies on the subject of new working practices, provided these are understood by both parties.Where the standard contract used currently conflicts with the new ways of working,the conflicting clauses should be removed. The main purpose is to avoid misunderstandings between parties,or any unanticipated expenses by either side.Some organisations suggest having a specific home working agreement, others rely on trust.The important thing is to ensure that all issues are considered and clear. Factors to consider for flexible staff contracts relate specifically to the unusual features of flexible working, i.e. to include: •

Any commitment to work from home rather than an office base

•

Regular joint review of arrangement

•

That the home working arrangement may be terminated by the employer or employee at any time, given appropriate notice

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•

Any change to employment conditions (e.g.pay,hours of work,holiday entitlement etc.) or a statement to the effect that these arrangements will be unchanged

•

A statement about the provision and use (or non-use) of organisationowned equipment (some organisations require strict non-use of equipment by staff or family for personal use, others are content for computing equipment to be used for personal use,and indeed for other family members to use it – it is a matter for the organisation to consider and decide)

•

A commitment from the home-based worker to return organisation owned equipment when the home-based working arrangement ceases

•

Details of any requirements relating to the organisation’s insurances

•

A commitment from the home-based worker that they understand the safety responsibilities (which are the same responsibilities as they have at the employer’s place of work)

•

A statement about how (if at all) compensation for home expenses are to be reimbursed.

Insurance The employer must meet statutory obligations and therefore needs to ensure that the organisation’s insurance covers staff working at home as well as in other locations of work.The insurance policy may require certain procedural or other compliance issues to take place – but it is essential to check this with the policy. This is required by European legislation, which states that the employee should have the same rights at a home base as at an office. It is important for staff who work from home to inform their insurance company that this is the case, and that the organisation provides and insures some normal office equipment, such as a PC.This will avoid any insurance disputes becoming the direct concern of the member of staff (they will be handled between the organisation and home insurers). It is also important that staff never have any work-related visitors,either colleagues or others, at home, unless there is an explicit insurance provided by the organisation for that purpose. If this rule is breached, the member of staff may become personally liable for accidents to that visitor.

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Taxation The Inland Revenue has issued guidelines on the treatment of different compensation or equipment supplied for home-based working.Given the guidelines,the way to avoid tax problems is to observe the following rules *: •

No expenses to be paid for heat, light etc.There is evidence that the extra cost is not significant since houses stay warmer longer than one intuitively would expect. (The employee is benefiting from not having to commute into an office). The Inland Revenue will permit a tax free allowance to be paid to staff who make substantial use of their homes for work (suggested minimum of 60% of working time per week) by agreement with the local office (normally between £200 and £300 per annum). Alternatively,compensation can be paid as an expense on a basis which is acceptable to the employee’s local tax office and at a rate which can be set using a number of different base cases (NB this is complicated to administer).Note that if there are no additional expenses (for example, if there is another occupant in the house during the day) then there can be no compensation. Alternatively,staff may claim a personal allowance directly from the Inland Revenue against their additional expenses by submitting a detailed claim against each item and for the exact amount of time spent at home working (NB staff must not both claim this directly from the Inland Revenue and receive it from the organisation).

•

Employer provides a dedicated phone line and computer equipment for exclusive business use – bill for telephone goes straight to the organisation’s accounts.

•

No meetings or meeting facilities expected in ‘home office’, purely workspace.

•

Office can be used for private purposes as well, space should not be exclusively dedicated for work purposes.

* Please refer to the Preface of this document, and be sure to take professional tax advice.

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Family/work balance Employer’s perspective It is generally agreed that employers benefit from their staff enjoying a better balance between work and family, especially: •

fewer sick days due to lower levels of stress

•

less time off for family reasons (due to ability to work from home)

•

employer flexibility viewed as a valuable ‘in work’benefit,thus helping to retain valuable staff

•

employees may find it easier to participate in outside activities e.g.further education, hobbies, public duties etc.

Employee’s perspective Working flexibly – including home working – can bring benefits and disadvantages including: •

less commuting/travelling on a daily basis to place of work

•

opportunity to vary work setting, to familiar and comfortable home surroundings (if appropriate)

•

possible conflicts relating to other household members/spouses and partners who may not want the interference of an employee’s work at home

•

if neighbours object or there are difficulties with policies of insurance, it could be difficult to resolve

•

requires more self-discipline than working full-time in an office

•

can be isolating if support and career development issues are not addressed well at the corporate and managerial level.

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General guidelines for flexible working C O M M U N I C AT I O N DOCUMENT HANDLING W O R K PAT T E R N S JOB PLANNING COPING WITH STRESS

appendix

1

Appendix 1: General guidelines for flexible working ‘Office space’is the dedicated work area of an individual employee where personal work materials and equipment are located and where ‘thinking work’ functions are performed, such as: •

Electronic mail

•

Telephone calls

•

Writing reports, proposals etc.

•

Meeting preparation and documentation

•

Work on networked databases and applications

•

Conceptual analysis and problem-solving

•

Creative thinking and innovation

•

Teaming.

For the vast majority of employees, the distraction and noise of an open office actively inhibit the most important part of their job:thinking.With the right environment, employees can rapidly attain and maintain a state of mental concentration in which they accomplish thinking tasks in a small fraction of the time it would take to do the same work in a traditional office set-up. Flexible working provides the opportunity to choose how,when and where these job functions could be better accomplished leading to an increase in personal productivity through: •

Better mental concentration

•

Fewer interruptions

•

Vastly reduced commuting time

•

Fewer long lunches

•

Leveraging peak performance times

•

Enhanced creativity

•

Greater flexibility

•

Faster turn around on thinking tasks

•

Better performance planning

•

Broader use of telecommunications

•

Easier work across the county

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However, flexible working places greater demands on other aspects of work management,particularly in keeping others informed of availability,work in progress and difficulties.Flexible working,by its very nature,relies on far greater self-sufficiency in all aspects of the work task and requires the individual to acquire a new level of self-discipline. In practice this equates to: •

Adherence to well defined communications practice

•

Dependence on keyboard skills and standalone applications

•

Reliance on others for remote support (contracting)

•

Development of time management skills and use of appropriate tools

•

An ability to recognise personal difficulties related to work

•

Need to clearly define the work and home boundaries.

Communication A flexible worker will have to rely on some forms of communication more than others.This section highlights considerations to bear in mind, which may affect communication skills if staff are not consciously aware of them.

The telephone Reliance on the telephone as a communication medium may double when working flexibly.The telephone does not allow you to see the person you are speaking to and hence you loose that face to face contact which contributes so much to the actual communication. It is vital therefore that: •

You establish a primary answering point for telephone calls.This may be a personal telephone number in the office or telecentre (which can be diverted to support staff based there) or a group support staff number at another location. Alternatively, you could divert your personal telephone number across the telephone network to your support staff at another location.This will have the benefit of maintaining a perceived local presence. You should never use mobile, home or answerphone/voicemail as primary answering points.When answering a business phone (particularly at home), identify the organisation and yourself by name immediately.

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Work out a phone handling procedure between yourself,your support staff and other work colleagues and adhere to it.The best approach is whenever possible to take calls directly yourself.This is possible if you have a ‘phantom’ or ‘virtual’ telephone number that can be diverted to extensions, home and mobile numbers.When operating remotely you may have to ask the support staff to set up the diverts if the system does not support external diversion. Remember to divert back before leaving a remote location.If you are a mobile phone user then set it up to route calls to either the messenger or back to the primary answering point when it is switched off or engaged. Where this facility is not available it will be vital to inform your support staff regularly of your location and telephone number and also whether you wish to take calls.They may then be transferred to other extensions and in some cases home or mobile numbers. Check when in another office that the phone is not already diverted for someone else.Try and find a touchdown area,where phones are not permanently allocated to individuals.If this is not possible,consult with the support staff looking after that extension.

•

Decide on a message handling system and ensure your support staff and work colleagues understand how to use it.This will be vital for those occasions when you are unavailable or do not wish to receive phone calls. The electronic mail system can be used to pass telephone messages, or you can use a voicemail service (mobile messenger, Call Minder etc.) that the support staff can connect to. (If you do use an answerphone at home make sure it is one which allows you to retrieve messages remotely.Always connect it to your business line and check it regularly to ensure the tape does not become full.) It is also recommended that you use an electronic diary facility,that your support staff and colleagues can easily access.This will enable up-todate information to be given to the caller prior to taking a message.

•

The telephone can eat away useful time for other activities.Try to make all your calls in a specified ‘block’ period; avoiding later interruptions (good for doing thinking activities). If your work for the day is routine, then distributing your calls throughout the day can help your motivation, particularly when you need to concentrate on a specific piece of work. However,be far more proactive about using the phone to contact your manager and colleagues. Establish a routine to call your support staff at the beginning and end of each day and your manager at the same time each week.

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•

Before making a call, prepare for it by ensuring you have to hand all the information you might need. Get a pencil and paper to take notes. Determine the purpose of the call and, if the issue is complicated, list the questions you want to ask, leaving space after each question to jot down the answer.

•

During a call listen and take notes. Do not rely on your memory. If you are speaking to an anonymous phone answerer or clerk and he or she has given you information regarding policy,find out the person’s name and write it down. Don’t be afraid to perform comprehension checks and summaries as needed.

•

After making a call it may be useful practice to write a letter or mail verifying the phone conversation.By doing this,you have documentation and something to refer back to in the future.

Mobile phones If you use a mobile phone: •

Have it on whenever possible, especially if this provides a key link between you and your support staff/colleagues.

•

Don’t use it when driving unless you have a hands free facility (it’s illegal).

•

Use access codes to call internally.These require you to prefix the full code with a network access number.

Facsimile Flexible working requires a greater dependence on the use of fax for fast communications of hard copy information. However, it is important that a fax can be delivered reliably, first time and is consistent with quality standards. It is vital therefore that: •

All information faxed to a customer or external contact should be sent via the electronic mail fax service.If this is not possible then documents should be sent via the support staff.This is important in order that you adhere to quality systems and to ensure a proper audit trail is in place. It is also more secure. All written external communication must be stored within the organisation’s own record systems (see also section on document handling p.72).

•

Faxing directly to internal contacts should be for information only (e.g. hard copy literature,customer copies etc.).Use e-mail wherever possible. Ensure that any header/cover sheets have your primary answering point fax number on it for reply.

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•

External faxes should not be sent direct to homes.This means that home numbers should not be given to customers etc.Ideally only arrange for faxes to be sent to your home when you are actually there.This avoids difficulties such as the fax running out of paper or children tampering with it.

•

You will need to agree a fax handling procedure with your support staff such that faxes received are notified (by e-mail, phone message or voicemail) and then forwarded to a home system (or other convenient location, such as another office).The voicemail system may support a fax mail facility which allows faxes to be stored and then retrieved from wherever you are working.Alternatively,faxes may arrive transparently in your e-mail.

•

You may also be able to arrange with your support staff for urgent correspondence to be sorted and faxed to a home or other location. Non-critical post should not be faxed on a regular basis.If needs be make arrangements for post to be forwarded on a regular basis to your home address. Alternatively, plan a visit to the office one day a week when you can collect your post.

•

Fax/modem packages are an alternative to a standalone fax or fax/phone. Unless you have a scanning facility you will be unable to send hard copy information this way and will have to rely on post or a local service outlet.

•

If you deal with confidential material ensure that it is secure at all times and always dispose of them in a confidential bin at the office.

Document handling Flexible working demands careful consideration of document handling and the use of standalone applications such as Microsoft Office and fax/modems. It is a good example of where flexible working will require you to become more selfsufficient. Learning the skills to draft your own documents and create your own presentations will also go some way to redressing the new demands on your support staff to manage your telephone, office filing and post. It is vital therefore to: •

Make the content of all your writing understandable to the recipient. This is important,like the telephone,due to less accessible face to face communication. Adopt off-line drafting techniques and aim to keep the content brief and to the point.This will also save on connect time for upload/download.

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If you are new to PC’s there are several videos available to introduce you to PC packages.The videos provide an excellent beginners guide to the software. Please also remember that there are a large number of training courses available for PCs; please consult your manager.

•

You can create documents on PC based systems using applications such as Microsoft Word, however you should ensure that these are carefully transferred and stored on the Network and not archived on your PC alone.All written external communication must be stored within the organisation’s own record systems.Working in this manner reduces the security risks for the organisation. Furthermore documents should be ‘cleaned up’ and presented to the customer in a quality fashion.Your support staff are the best people to do this and also ensure that your work is suitably stored/archived.

•

Refrain from downloading e-mail for local printing. Use the screen for reading and processing. Beware graphic attachments; they will cause a long delay due to the size of the file.

•

If you are going to be involved in some heavy processing and cannot work off-line,or need to regularly print out a large number of pages,use the office.

•

Packages such as Microsoft PowerPoint may be used locally to prepare presentation material for internal or informal customer meetings. However, the same practices apply as for documents where such a presentation forms part of a customer proposal.You should be prepared to learn new skills that will enable you to create your own presentation material.

•

If you use a laptop or home PC take specific security measures by enabling the password facility on boot up.Take regular backups of all off-line work,keeping one copy handy and the other in the office.Ensure that your virus software is up-to-date and enabled in accordance with security procedures.

Storage Flexible working discourages paper-based filing. Personal storage, particularly at home,of hard copy documents should be limited to just those items that are relevant to current work.The need to keep transporting such papers will be an incentive to review regularly what is being held. It is recommended that you make greater use of shared filing with other members of your work group, or project team.

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Ensure that any documents that may be subject to audit and are part of a documented quality system are stored centrally in the office and not in a personal storage area.

Work patterns Flexible working changes the relationship between individual work and teamwork.You need to be conscious of your patterns of work in order to help gain: •

Achievement of goals while maintaining personal life

•

Ability to move and choose work locations while maintaining teamwork and a corporate view

•

Professional co-operation while maintaining personal contact

•

Task-oriented leadership while maintaining social and emotional leadership.

What is basically needed from managers are ‘task-oriented management’ personalities:those who are able to lead their employees co-operatively without needing continuous personal communication.

Time management With flexible working you will need to be particularly aware of the time allocated to personal and work activities.There is a wide choice of both paper and PC ‘systems’ which can help with time planning.You may wish to budget your time with a schedule by: •

Filling in the committed and mandatory activities,like eating,meetings, travelling, etc. with a red pencil.

•

Filling in other activities by their priorities. Put those with high utility and low time requirement into your ‘prime’ time.

•

Put in some ‘want to’ items to make your life more interesting.

•

Leave some contingency time for underestimated work schedules, emergencies, and change in priorities.

•

The time targets should be reasonable so that you can usually achieve them.

•

Scheduling an ‘office day’, a day in the week when you will generally visit the normal offices and others will know you are there. Use it to

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block the number of meetings. •

Allocate a particular day or days to work in your home office. Other members of your group and those scheduling your diary will learn to keep clear of these days.

•

Be flexible.Re-plan when circumstances change.However,special flexible working considerations need to be taken – casually re-arranged one-hour meetings could equal three hours or more to you due to the extra travel.

You will need to find out which type of schedule suits your purposes best.There are daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly schedules to be considered, either individually or in combination;this will normally depend on the nature of the work you do. Things to consider when allocating time to activities: •

First of all is the activity necessary?

•

Are you getting good value for the time you allocate to it e.g. report reading?

•

Can you just scan it for major errors?

•

It may be best to over estimate the time needed for important activities – those needing a high quality outcome.

Meetings Some meetings are obviously necessary in order to carry out ones role within the organisation but they can be costly in terms of time and money, if one is not carefully managing time. Ask yourself the following questions: •

Do I really have to be at this meeting?

•

How can I best utilise my time travelling? e.g. schedule meetings that are at the same location and time.

Do not hold meetings at your home;use the office or a business centre or telecentre or hotel or café.

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Delineating home and work By its nature, flexible working will inevitably lead to a reduction in the distinction between work and home life.So it is important to understand the processes that influence changes to work-home boundaries, and the implications of such changes for both social well-being and task effectiveness. It is argued that the blurring of the interface occurs because each member of a family influences all other members,the aim of the system (in this case the family) being to maintain equilibrium.Thus it is likely that the relationship between work and home is circular – problems of stress at work may increase family strain that may then affect performance and interactions at work, and so on. On the other hand, family interactions may help to deal with problems at work that, in turn, may improve satisfaction in both work and home life, and reduce role conflict. An example of role conflict could be that a flexible worker takes on more responsibility which overlaps the responsibility of his/her subordinate, hence causing problems. Role ambiguity can also be a problem. It is normally caused by the lack of communication or a misunderstanding, which can result in an overlap of responsibility. It is not the intention of this text to give a concise set of information on how to prepare staff for dealing with such events.The most important advice is to ensure that personal experiences are reviewed, good or bad, with family and manager on a regular basis.

Job planning It is vital when involved in job appraisal, goaling and career planning, that the way flexible working may help or hinder be discussed as part of the review process, not assumed to be ‘right’.Changes in career,development planning or objectives may benefit from a flexible working approach or not. These issues should be discussed openly with your manager,and where appropriate documented in your job plan.

Career effectiveness check Flexible working is a dramatic change from the usual working practice: one that can affect work performance.It is necessary to measure your work effectiveness in order to assess whether you have the intellectual and psychological make-up with which to be a successful flexible worker.

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Effectiveness can be gauged in terms of the outcomes of given activities or services. Tasks,information,communications,time,social network and values are all factors that must be properly managed to maximise effectiveness. Effectiveness is the relation between outputs and outcomes i.e.doing the right things not doing things right. To measure these outcomes you will first have to set yourself goals based on the above factors (tasks,information,etc.).Then ask yourself the question ‘What would measure progress on that goal?’and/or ‘What criteria do you think you might use to know whether or not you are moving in the right direction?’ You could measure your effectiveness based on your working environment prior to flexible working. For example: Work effectiveness goal criteria (before/after): •

Percentage of work on time, before 85%, after 93%.

•

Perceived quality of work (1-10), before 6, after 8.

It is also a good idea to check and adjust the balance between home,office,mobile time so that it suits you as an individual.

Coping with stress When working flexibly, personal or emotional difficulties can arise for a range of reasons, particularly a sense of isolation and role conflicts.They will probably manifest themselves in the form of stress. Stress can be beneficial as well as detrimental in terms of health and performance. Unfortunately it’s normally the latter that occurs most often. It will help to identify particular stressors by understanding not only what they are but also how you react. Identification of stressors leads to solving them. For our purposes there are two broad categories of stressors: personal and background.Personal stressors can really challenge a person’s adaptive or coping abilities.These events can include death of a family member or a change in your working environment. The second category,background stressors,consists of the persistent,repetitive, almost routine events that are part of our daily lives – daily hassles.They have in and of themselves much less impact and power than personal stressors,but over time the cumulative effects may be as serious and threatening to physical and psychological well being.

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Chronic background stressors include features like commuting,crowding,noise, job dissatisfaction,and particular to flexible working home interference e.g.children, domestic noises,having the same work/home area,increased role ambiguity and reduced time structuring. Coping with stress falls into two broad categories: •

Problem-focused coping.This comprises efforts to deal with the threat of the stressors themselves,including such strategies as exerting effort to remove or circumvent the stressors,and suppressing other activities in order to concentrate e.g.asking a family member to turn down their music.

•

Emotion-focused coping. This refers to efforts to control or regulate emotional responses to the stressful situation,including strategies such as getting sympathy from someone, attempting to deny the reality of the event and daydreaming.e.g.controlling your annoyance by ‘shutting it out’.

General guidelines 1. Identify the stressor Some stressors are more apparent than others. It will help to step back from the situation and think analytically of what it is that is actually causing the stress.A few examples:feeling of isolation from organisational environment,role ambiguity/ conflict, uncertainty in general, and domestic nuisances. You may identify the stressor to be something completely different from what it actually is. Domestic nuisances may be blamed but it may actually be a result of job dissatisfaction. 2. List its characteristics By listing the stressor’s characteristics it will help to identify ways to solve them. Ask questions like: ‘Is the stressor within my control?’e.g.was it an outcome due to you not reaching your personal expectations or project targets. Use stress factors previously discussed to base your questions on. 3. Identify possible solutions Once you’ve listed the characteristics of the stressor you can begin to identify ways to combat it.

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Usually those stressors that are out of your control, to a large degree, will have to be dealt with by an emotionally focused approach and vice-versa for stressors within your control. Emotional denial (emotion focused) should not take precedence over problem focused approach,if the stressor is within your control and hence can be solved. It will be very much up to you how you tackle stressors. For instance say that you are feeling some stress because you are not reaching your personal expectations.You’ve already identified the stressor. List some characteristics: If it’s in your control,it could be solved by adopting a problem focused approach,although depending on its importance (another characteristic) you may adopt the emotion focused approach,whereby you ignore the outcome – view it with little importance. Most organisations offer counselling with regard to stress.However,you are always best advised to discuss these issues with your manager first.

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Working from a telecentre OVERVIEW TIPS FOR WORKING FROM A TELECENTRE

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Appendix 2: Working from a telecentre

Overview Flexible working combines the provision of telecentres, and other office locations, with home and mobile based working.Telecentres benefit employees in being a focal point for project work, team meetings and social interaction as well as a local support facility for access to shared information, printing, photocopying, post etc. The telecentre is not a smaller version of the standard office: •

Telecentres act as a hub for flexible workers to connect for network access to the rest of the organisation.

•

In general there are no personal desks,except for support staff.Flexible workers will have access touchdown facilities.

•

The layout is designed to be multi-functional, with employees from different groups sharing the same facilities together.

•

If a telecentre is corporately provided,as opposed to run by a third party, be aware that it may be run by a host department mainly for the benefit of staff in their own department. Please be sensitive to the goodwill being offered you when you use this type of telecentre.

The support/administrative team at the telecentres will have developed a complete infrastructure support for flexible workers covering all aspects of telephony management and support services.Any exceptional issues should be escalated to the telecentre team leader, who will deal with them.

Telecentre access In general, an access security system operates at the telecentres, allowing access 24 hours a day,7 days a week.Outside normal office hours,a PIN number and/or card will be required, e.g. from 6pm till 8.30am. Please do not try to enter a telecentre if you do not have the correct security access, as there will be an intruder alarm, which is set in the evenings, but is overridden by the security access system.

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Work areas Telecentres provide touchdown desks, with a mix of PC’s and docking stations. Generally the PC’s will include Microsoft Office or similar and will be networked giving access to printers and remote servers etc. Touchdowns will only be available on a first come,first served basis.If you arrive to find nothing available, you need to: •

find out who might be leaving shortly

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use a soft seat area with a telephone until a desk is free

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use the seating in the canteen or rest area

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find out if any of the permanent staff are absent for you to use their desk temporarily

•

arrange to come back later (there may be the option of using a meeting room, if available).

It is vital that on leaving a touchdown you tidy away all your personal belongings.You should do this if you are going to a meeting or to lunch,as well as when you leave, in other words whenever you leave the touchdown for more than a few minutes. A clear desk policy will operate throughout the telecentres,and desks not cleared by you may be cleared for you! In general there are no bookable desks in telecentres except occasionally for staff who are members of the host department.There may be meeting rooms that the host department will allow you to book and use. Please contact the telecentre support staff to enquire.

Telephones In corporate telecentres, individual telephone extension numbers will operate as virtual extensions,and can be allocated to the physical number at a touchdown desk.To do this key the allocation code (e.g.*5) followed by your personal extension number at the phone on the desk.This has the effect of pulling your number to that handset and is known as follow-me. It is vital that when you leave a telecentre this process is reversed by either keying the de-allocation code (e.g.#5),or preferably diverting your number to your primary answering point, or asking your normal support staff to pull your number back for you.A group pick up system will allow any of the support group to pick up any unanswered phone.They will also be on a hunt system that will divert engaged phones according to individual’s support staff grouping.

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Support staff will pull all the personal numbers in their ‘grouping’ at the beginning of each day.There is also a facility which allows calls to be forwarded across the network. Anyone who relies on remote support staff could permanently divert their calls to a remote number.This should be set-up by arrangement with one of the support staff at the telecentre so that it is cleared and set up at the start of each day, or when you finish using a touchdown. Telephone calls received in the telecentre by one of the support group may be transferred across the network,or to a home or mobile.This needs to be by arrangement (refer to the previous section on communication p.69).

Fax and post Telecentres have a fax machine looked after by the support staff.The support group is also responsible for all post and will usually have a rota to sort, frank and distribute mail.You should make personal arrangements with your support staff to either: •

Re-direct all post on a regular basis to a home address.

•

Arrange to collect from the telecentre on a regular basis.

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Re-direct all post to another office.

•

Arrange important correspondence to be faxed to you.

Facilities In general,telecentres will have both a colour printer and a high-speed monochrome printer, both on the local network.There is also access to print queues at other sites, which can be found on the list of printer queues. There will also be photocopying facilities.Small stocks of paper will be kept near the photocopiers for home use. There will either be a vending machine and/or a separate kitchen facility,equipped with a sink, microwave, kettle and fridge. A 24-hour facilities helpline operates to support telecentre facilities management. This is available to the support group for building maintenance,ordering of supplies, cleaning problems etc.A number is displayed for out of hours needs. Remember to sign-in with your name and car registration number when you arrive and sign out when you leave.

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Storage and stationery There is no personal storage space available at a telecentre unless you have made special arrangements.This should be accommodated either in your home office, car or alternative office.The support staff at a telecentre will have access to storage space for: •

Project files and customer documentation designated to that telecentre. This is available via your support staff. If you don’t have support staff, then you must make arrangements with your remote work group.

•

A stationery cupboard. Stationery will be available with the telecentre address for those who require it.

•

Personnel stationery (expense forms etc.).

Administrative support staff Infrastructure support is the most vital component of any flexible working solution. Without the correct support in place working in a mobile fashion is extremely difficult. The support staff in the telecentres will receive the necessary training and have access to the communication technologies. All expense administration, telephone handling, and other support and administrative services will be provided by your designated support staff.You should contact your support staff as soon as possible and make arrangements in line with your desired working practice. Don’t forget to review them regularly to ensure that they are working both for you and for the support staff.

Formalities •

All visitors must sign in.

•

All deliveries are made to telecentres via the support group. If you are expecting a delivery please let them know and provide details in advance.

•

A Health and Safety committee operates for each centre,with first aiders displayed on the notice board.The H&S officer will be in the support group, and fire drills will take place in accordance with normal procedures.

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Tips for working from a telecentre Dos •

Make use of the centre

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Let someone know you are there

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Show consideration for others

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Be flexible in the use of space and facilities

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Remember to pull through your phone

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Remember to de-hash your phone when leaving

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Always leave a clear desk

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Observe car parking rules

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Use the sign in facility to let people know you are there

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Let the support group know if you are expecting deliveries.

Don’ts •

Work there on a regular basis

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Remove any equipment without an approved pass

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Leave any personal belongings in the telecentre

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Park where a hazard may be caused

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Take quantities of office sundries and supplies without first informing the support staff

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Print large manuals and documents during normal working hours.If in an emergency you need to, then please inform the office staff first

•

Leave a mess in the kitchen area.

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Setting up a home office OFFICE EQUIPMENT HOME TELEPHONE SERVICES FORMALITIES INSURANCE TIPS FOR WORKING FROM HOME

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Appendix 3: Setting up a home office The solution implemented for the flexible working community combines the provision of a telecentre with home and mobile based working.The home office should be used interchangeably with the telecentre and other locations, dependent on the type of work to be done and the home environment at the time. For the majority of flexible workers this will involve working at home for one or at the most two days a week.In many cases this may actually mean at the beginning and the end of the week, since one of the objectives of a flexible working environment is to encourage more external contact with customers. If you live alone, you can establish your home office anywhere you like. If you live with others, it is best to set up your home office in a separate room with a lockable closing door.This provides a sound barrier and psychological barrier. It will also provide safeguards against children tampering with equipment and reduce security risks.Carefully observe the traffic patterns and functionality of your home in order to choose a work environment that is safe,comfortable,and convenient. It must suit both you and the others who live in your house. Office lighting strongly affects comfort and performance.Whether you use natural or artificial lighting, it should be directed to the side or behind the line of vision of your work.Bright light bounces off work surfaces to cause a diminished sense of contrast.

Office equipment Furniture The basic combination you need to work at home is a desk,and a chair,with optional filing, such as a two-drawer filing cabinet, if required. The highest desk commonly recommended for computing surfaces is 660mm high.Your desk should be broad enough to spread out your work and sturdy enough to handle the weight of any equipment to be placed upon it. Your chair should be well suited to long periods of sitting.The seat should be adjustable and the distance from the top of the seat to the floor should be 4054mm.The backrest also should be adjustable and should provide support at the back of your waist.

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Computer hardware and software These recommendations are designed to enable you to get started at home.They form a basic starter kit, which can be added to as you have new requirements, i.e. fax cards, internal modems, etc. but you may need to get expert advice. There are two main types of computer hardware available for you to use from home: a desktop PC or laptop PC. These two types of computer hardware are aimed at the following types of people: Desktop User requires text editing and printing, and other office functions, plus editing and printing text documents off-line,access to PC applications (word processing, presentation graphics, spreadsheets and project management tools). Essential if you will be a regular home office user. Laptop The above, but where there is inadequate space for a dedicated home office, or where the use of PC applications needs to take place at other locations as well as at home. Ideal if you will be a highly mobile user.

Advantages/disadvantages of each platform Both the desktop PC and the laptop have extensive hardware/software, require virtually no system management,can work standalone and are of medium power. With both there is a need to perform local backups, some technical support is needed, and some training is required. The specific advantages/disadvantages of each platform are as follows: Desktop PC

Laptop

•

medium footprint

•

small footprint

•

fixed

•

portable

•

small screen, unsuitable for intensive use

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Modems Ensure you use a ‘Hayes compatible’modem with a minimum 28.8Kb,preferably 56Kb and built-in error correction capability. Most of these modems also have a built-in fax capability,which will operate with a PC based fax application package. Intensive users and users needing to transfer large files should consider an ISDN ‘modem’ (64Kb).

Support Your local support group will provide telephone support on corporate environments.They will also provide limited user level support for other PC applications.

Equipment repair The standard service agreement will repair equipment that is used from home providing it is brought into the office.To obtain repairs on computer equipment, a call needs to be logged with the local support centre, who will set up a time for a service engineer to visit the office.You will need to have the serial number of the equipment ready. The support centre will keep a reasonable selection of outdated items of equipment (instead of scrapping, and without paying for maintenance, as they will be scrapped when they fail).These can then be used as swap units whilst your own items are in for repair.

Printing Printing is a major consideration when working from home. Printing needs will be based on a combination of factors such as the amount of printing to be done, the quality of the output,and compatibility between the printer and your software. •

For basic printing,requiring a cheap reliable service with limited graphics for internal documents and occasional customer use,use an inkjet printer.

•

For high-volume printing or printing regularly requiring a customerquality image that cannot be done in an office or over the network,use a laser printer.

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Stationery Office supplies and stationery should be obtained from your designated office site, or telecentre and should be collected during an office visit.Also keep a few items of literature available at home. Material should not normally be sent out directly from home (see document handling p.72).Exceptionally this may be necessary,and stamps should be claimed on expenses with a receipt as proof of purchase. It is also a good idea to keep a post book in which you record all outgoing business post, both as an audit trail for yourself and as a record that the stamps were used on business items for the Inland Revenue. Similarly, any photocopying should normally be saved until the next visit to an office facility with a photocopier. Exceptionally, some may need to be done at a local shop (e.g. one providing TRM service such as a corner shop or post office) or copy centre,and the amount claimed on expenses with a receipt in the normal way.

Business cards Your business card should have the address and telephone numbers of the main support centre that you are associated with (your primary answering point). If you use a telecentre as your primary answering point and for collecting post then use the telecentre address and your direct dial number. You should not include mobile or home telephone, home fax or home address on your business card.

Home telephone services If you use your personal telephone line to double as a business line, you cannot claim any part of the rental or installation costs from the organisation; only the cost of the business calls will be reimbursed (don’t forget to add the VAT). It is therefore necessary to separate personal calls from business calls.There are three ways of doing this: •

The telephone credit card or itemised bills

•

Installation of a separate line for business purposes

•

Subscription to a virtual private network.

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Itemised bills and credit cards The itemised bill only gives a breakdown of calls over a certain minimum charge (currently 50p).You can request your bills from BT to be fully itemised. Refer to the service centre number on your phone bill. Its use is also recommended for the separate business line giving as it does, proof to the Inland Revenue that the line is used for business purposes only. Credit cards may be obtained by calling 151.

Business telephone line The organisation should pay for the installation of the business line and for the use of the line.The costs may be borne by your manager, whose approval must be obtained. Often, you pay for the installation of the line and claim for this as expenses.Thereafter, when you begin to use the line, you submit your quarterly bills as expenses. When ordering, you need to state that you require a business exchange line in the name of the organisation, but billed to your home address. Make sure that BT is aware that the new line is a business line for computer equipment,otherwise they may try and put a ‘splitter’on your existing line which could be inadequate for modem use. Note: Remember to make sure that you have a telephone socket installed in the room you are intending to use for your office.

Virtual private network access to the internal network Subscription to a virtual private network is an excellent solution since it allows you to separate completely all personal and business calls.The consumer service requires the use of a blue button phone, which stores your 10 digit PIN code although you can store this in any memory button, or a special access number. All calls made via the virtual private network are carried transparently over BT to the internal network and are itemised down to the nearest second.The only disadvantage is that virtual private network access is not available in all parts of the country, particularly very rural areas. There is also a corporate package that brings with it certain benefits. It enables you to call direct to any internal extension from home,at only a local call charge. This is because the calls are connected to the organisation’s internal network, from where they are carried to the remote destination.

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For regular home-based working, users of the VPN service can use the PIN code on both their domestic and business lines.This enables simultaneous use of both terminal/PC/fax and phone/fax/answerphone.However,you should also consider other family needs, since this approach can tie up both telephone lines. PC/laptop users who are able to work off-line for most of the time should connect their modem to their domestic line and use the business line for phone and answerphone.The exception to this is if you are using a fax/modem a great deal. If you are a casual home user then all services can operate with either the separate business line, or the standard VPN service.

BT services Whilst these are now widely available (call forward, call waiting, etc.), they are not recommended since it relies on having to publish your home telephone number. If you do not have an answerphone, the BT call minder service can be helpful, as it acts as voicemail on your business line when you are taking a short break (for long breaks and absences,the phone should always be routed to your primary answering point).

Data connection Access to the network can be made direct, with several levels of security available:simple password,CLI (calling line identity),two way encrypted token password, ACB (automatic call back which lets you connect to the network and register your intention to access the system.This initial call is automatically disconnected whilst the security check is made, after which the connection is reinstated with a ‘call back’to your number.).With these options and combinations,high levels of security can be achieved. If you need a higher speed access capability such as ISDN or a leased line, this has to be negotiated.You will not need this capability unless you work at home for a large part of the time and need regularly to transfer CAD, large graphic, or other large files,or need to work on-line to mainframe applications for large amounts of time. Note that you will need approval from your manager and your information service group.

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Answerphone Generally we do not recommend the use of an answerphone from your home office.Voice messaging in the corporate environment is a more appropriate solution. The preferred solution should you need a home voice service is call minder. However, if you already have an answerphone or it is essential, it should be connected to your business line only,so as not to mix business and personal needs. It should also allow you to retrieve messages remotely.

Formalities Working from a home office requires particular attention to be given to a number of formalities.

Health and Safety A suitably qualified person must carry out installation of all electrical equipment. For normal equipment most people will be competent to do so using the manuals provided. All equipment must be positioned so that it gets adequate ventilation; the ventilation grills on the equipment must not be blocked. Care must be taken to avoid creating tripping hazards from cables and equipment. An electrical checklist,available at each location or from the H&S group must be completed. All equipment must be adequately maintained and kept in a good state of repair. Damaged or defective equipment must be brought in for maintenance by a qualified engineer.Periodic safety testing of equipment will be required,in most cases this will only require that the power leads are tested.This process should be incorporated into the arrangements for testing office based equipment. Furniture should be arranged to meet the requirements of an ergonomic workstation.This should meet the same standards as office based layouts. The floor space must be adequate to allow an ergonomic workstation to be established without imposing discomfort or danger on the user or any other members of the household. Suitable storage space such as cupboards should be available. The employee must complete a safety checklist.The H&S group will provide this as part of the welcome pack. Problems should be discussed with your manager and if necessary the H&S group.Where problems are identified corrective measures should be designed and implemented.

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All accidents which occur while working, must be reported in accordance with the accident reporting procedure.Accident report forms are available from the H&S group.

Sickness When you are feeling unwell with a minor ailment such as a cold or headache, it is very often possible for you to work from home. However, even if you were planning to work at home and you are feeling unable to work at all you must contact your manager to let them know that you are off sick.

Child care Working at home is not an alternative to proper child care arrangements, except in emergencies when domestic difficulties can be addressed by working at home. Never let children answer the phone or tamper with equipment provided.

Planning Planning permission is not normally needed for you to use your home for work, unless it is considered to constitute a ‘change of use’, such as those listed below, for domestic premises.It may then also attract higher rates for ‘commercial occupation’. In practice, though, if you adhere to the following guidelines you should have no problem: •

You make use of an existing room and do not convert a garage, shed or add an extension

•

You do not have visitors and meetings at your home

•

You do not have regular deliveries

•

You ensure that you do not use one room exclusively for business

•

Alterations to your home for work are not funded by the organisation.

More important than planning regulations may be any restrictive covenants on your home. Many modern homes have these, preventing for example, caravans in drives,their enforcement though is usually weak.Do nothing out of the ordinary that would alert snoopers or upset the neighbours. If in doubt, seek advice.

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Software licensing All third party software installed on your home PC or laptop must be properly licensed. Ensure you have copies of license agreements to hand and check that they correspond to the version of software installed.Never copy software provided for use at home to give to friends or other work colleagues.There are heavy penalties for breaking license agreements.

Taxation There are three main tax considerations: •

Income tax for ‘benefits in kind’

•

Income tax deductions against business expenses for use of room

•

Capital gains tax on sale of house.

Benefits in kind If you make personal use of items paid for by your employer then unless there is a special arrangement with the tax authorities you are liable for a benefit in kind based in the proportion of personal use. Mobile phones are thus attracting the attention of the tax people. If you subscribe to the VPN service and use it for personal calls, the same rules will apply as to mobile phone bills.This is an ever changing area and something you should seek permission for from your manager (should you wish to use a PC for personal use) and something also to clarify with your financial adviser should permission be granted. Tax deductions If you do not receive the home worker’s allowance you can claim a proportion of your home heating and lighting expenses for business use (it is very important that you do not claim both).For example,you may determine that your study accounts for 10% of the household bills in these areas.There is however, a significant risk associated with this, which may deter you from taking this allowance, namely that of capital gains tax on sale. Capital gains tax If you do claim back an allowance for heating and lighting as a business expense, the sale of your house may incur capital gains tax on that proportion of gain attributable to the room.Thus if you bought your house for £30,000 some 15-20 years ago, and sold it for £150,000 today the gain attributable to your room could be £10,000 which exceeds your tax free allowance. Similarly, any alteration to your home funded by your employer could automatically classify that part of the home as liable for capital gains tax.

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Please note that this information is given for guidance only.The responsibility lies with the individual to consult professional advisers to clarify their personal situation. Income tax queries There are no general tax implications provided that you are a fully contracted employee, and the facilities are not used for personal gain. However, under the terms of the working from home contract you are able to claim travel expenses. In the present climate,these rules are changing frequently.Please consult the appropriate authorities.

Insurance Theft or damage of equipment Damage to or theft of capital equipment owned by the organisation while in use at the home office is covered by the same insurance policy covering property at the office.Assuming that title to the equipment remains with the organisation, it bears the risk of loss or damage to the equipment while in the possession of the employee. You should inform your building and house contents insurers that you are now working from home.Failure to do this could affect the insurance cover.This covers the event of damage caused by employer provided equipment at home,since settlement would be between the various insurance companies involved. However, there is no need to add the office equipment to your home contents insurance. If,as a result of informing the insurers,the premium is raised,then you can claim this extra sum as through expenses, at the discretion of your manager. Precedent shows, in fact, that the greatest risk of damage to equipment occurs not in the employee home but in transporting equipment between the office and the home office. In either case, however, the maximum liability for replacing a PC or workstation and peripherals would be relatively small.

Personal injury Work-related personal injury to employees working from their home office is covered by workers’ compensation.The general framework of liability concerns whether or not the employee is ‘acting within the scope and course of his/her employment’when the injury occurs.This cover does not extend to business visitors

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or meetings in your home.This is another reason for not allowing business visitors or meetings, as it could make you personally liable in the event of an accident. For example, employees would not be covered while taking a shower, carrying out the rubbish, or doing laundry, even if these activities are carried out during their intended work periods (such as performing domestic tasks while a computer program is running).

Damage to employee property If a computer used for business purposes (whether owned by the employee or the organisation) causes a fire in the employee’s home,the employee’s homeowners insurance company might try to collect damaged from the organisation.This is an example showing the reason why it is important for the insurance company to be notified so that the claim is handled between the insurance companies, and not through the employee. However,a fire in the employee home tends to be viewed by the insurance industry as the most unlikely of all potential scenarios for home-related work loss.Today’s computers are low-current, fused devices which rarely overheat to the point of combustion.

Tips for working from home Dos •

Establish a workday routine with a clear beginning and end

•

Replace the ritual of going to the office with another ritual such as scanning the news headlines

•

Take work breaks and lunch breaks

•

Stay organised with a daily to-do list

•

Be pro-active in maintaining contact with the office

•

Schedule informal lunches as well as formal meetings with your key colleagues

•

Take the initiative to offer information and assistance to your colleagues

•

Keep your manager closely informed of progress and changes

•

Always maintain good business etiquette

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HOME

•

Stay visible with presentations and reports

•

Refer to your home working employee agreement if you have one

•

Report any accidents to your manager immediately

•

Carefully report sick days and vacation days as usual

•

Keep your office area tidy

•

Avoid the ‘Cyberspace Syndrome’.

OFFICE

Don’ts •

Work on a bed or sofa

•

Be distracted by television or radio

•

Sleep late on home office workdays

•

Allow too many interruptions from family or neighbours

•

Leave teamwork to chance

•

Work in your pyjamas

•

Wear casual dress to the office

•

Create an unprofessional image in phone answering, etc.

•

Try to combine with full-time caring for another person (including children)

•

Schedule regular non-business activities during work hours

•

Give work in your home office as a reason not to attend meetings or take on assignments

•

Be careless in discussing business with family and neighbours

•

Allow your household to expect you to perform domestic tasks during your work hours

•

Forget to stop working

•

Copy third party software.

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Health and Safety checklists WORKING FROM HOME T H E H E A LT H A N D S A F E T Y C H E C K L I S T S E C T I O N 1 : H E A LT H A N D S A F E T Y SECTION 2: FURNITURE AND ENVIRONMENT

appendix

4

Appendix 4: Health and Safety checklists

Working from home What to do with this form This form needs to be filled in and returned.It must be retained on the employee’s file.

Responsibilities The following checklist must be reviewed by both the manager and the employee. If the home working environment is not deemed by the organisation to be safe a remedial action must be taken, or home working should not be permitted.

Format of this appendix It is divided into two sections. Section 1 is the H&S checklist for working from home. Section 2 provides data to the manager for making an informed response to the health and safety review question.

Health and Safety responsibilities There is a legal responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work Act for the organisation to manage the safety of all employees,including those who work from home. Managers must ensure that the employee also maintains a safe place of work.This should be reviewed at least every twelve months.The manager may wish to visit the employee’s home to verify the suitability of working arrangements, but note first that there is no right of entry unless it is specifically reserved in the contract of employment, and second that such a visit is not covered by insurance unless explicitly provided.

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Before a working from home contract will be issued The following points should be checked to ensure there will be a suitable working environment,with particular attention being given to the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations. If there are problems with any of these areas then the matter needs to be remedied to the manager’s satisfaction before a contract is issued. Further advice can be gained from the Environment, Health & Safety Department.

The Health and Safety checklist Please write ‘yes’or ‘no’for each of the questions posed in the checklist.All should be ‘yes’ but should you make a reference to corrective action taken and believe that it will be resolved in the near future,you may choose to sign below to authorise the issue of a working from home contract to the named employee. Once you have completed the checklist overleaf, complete details below:

Health and Safety review Having reviewed the home working environment the view is that it is/is not (delete as applicable) a suitable place to work Name of employee:......................................................Staff number: ................................... Manager’s signature: ....................................................Print ................................................... Employee’s full postal address: ............................................................................................. ..........................................................................................................................................................

Suitability of contract to be reviewed: ...................................................................(date) Effective date: ..............................................................................................................................

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Section 1: Health and Safety 1.

Taking into consideration the size of the employee’s house and the number of residents, including children, will there be adequate space for home working without compromising the safety of the employee or family members?

2.

Will the workplace be a ‘non family’ room e.g. spare bedroom, study?

3.

Does the selected room have adequate lighting,heating and ventilation?

4.

Does the selected room have sufficient 13 amp electrical sockets and a separate telephone point in order to eliminate trailing leads?

5.

Is there a safe means of escape in case of fire even when home equipment is added?

6.

Can the correct ergonomic arrangement be established for Display Screen Equipment use?

7.

Has the rest of the family been considered/consulted in any arrangements?

8.

Is the employee competent to install the equipment provided? If not seek assistance from a competent person in the organisation to ensure equipment is installed safely.

9.

Will all the equipment provided by the organisation (electrical and mechanical) be kept safe and in good order?

10. Have any necessary repair procedures been explained to the employee to ensure equipment is maintained and safety checked by a competent person?

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Section 2: Furniture and environment The following guidelines should be followed when purchasing any office furniture that is not issued directly from the organisation. These guidelines are generic,allowing decisions to be made around the relationship between chair and work surface without fixing a height for either.

Work desk or work surface Work surface dimensions should take adequate account of: •

the range of tasks performed (e.g. screen viewing, keyboard input, use of other input devices, writing on paper, etc.)

•

position and use of hands for each task

•

use and storage of working materials and equipment (documents, telephones, etc.)

Document holders are useful for work with hard copy.They should position working documents at a height, viewing distance and visual plane similar to those of the screen; be of low reflectance; be stable and not reduce the readability of source documents. The height and depth of the work surface should allow a comfortable position for the arms and wrists, if a keyboard is used. The work surface shall be of sufficient strength and rigidity to take the weight of equipment placed upon it.

Work chair The primary requirement here is that the work chair should allow the user to achieve a comfortable position.Seat height adjustments should accommodate the needs of users for the tasks performed. The seat should be adjustable in height (i.e. relative to the ground) and the seat back adjustable in height (also relative to the ground) and tilt. Provided the chair design meets these requirements and allows the user to achieve a comfortable posture, it is not necessary for the height or tilt of the seat back to be adjustable independently of the seat. Footrests may be necessary where individual workers are unable to rest their feet flat on the floor (e.g. where work surfaces cannot be adjusted down).

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Prolonged sitting in a static position can be harmful.When working at home be sure to take sufficient breaks.

Environment In order to reduce glare the display screen should be placed at right angles to a window.The window should also be fitted with blinds or curtains in order to control glare caused by direct sunlight. Can this be achieved? Is there adequate clearance for thighs,knees,lower legs and feet under the work surface and between furniture components?

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References

appendix

5

Appendix 5: References 1

WinterSilks and John Deere, Flexibility, www.flexiblity.co.uk, March 1998, ISSN 1364-498-X

2

Space Allocation, Premises & Facilities Management, 1993, ISSN 0965-4739

3

Digital, 1992

4

Working anywhere, ISI, DTI, DETR, 1998, DTI/Pub 3550/10k/10/98NP. URN 98/985

5

Kanter, R.M. The Change Masters: Corporate Entrepreneurs at Work, Allen & Unwin, 1981

6

Handy, C. The Age of Unreason, Business Books Ltd, 1989

7

Left brain/right brain model, Sperry, 1980

8

Psychological aspects of teleworking in rural areas (PATRA), University of Wales at Swansea for the EC, 1992-1995

9

Social connectivity in the mobile workplace – the Newmarket telecentre, Cornell University, International Workplace Studies Programme, 1995

10

The Daily Telegraph,Work-in-Life survey, 3 October 1996

11

Cornell University, International Workplace Review, September 1996

12

Teleworking in Britain,Analytica for the DoE, 1993

13

Newmarket telecentre evaluation programme, Horack Adler & Associates for Digital Equipment Company Limited, 1994

14

A manager’s guide to Teleworking,Analytica for the Employment Department, 1994, PP3/20561/495/24

15

Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc, 1999

16

Coch & French 1948

17

Cornell University, International Workplace Review, 1996

18

Distance and Propinquity: A New Way to Conceptualise Work, Raghuram Wiesenfeld & Garud, 1996

19

Homeworking, HSE Books, IND(G) 226L (single copies, free) ISBN 0 7176 1204X (5 copies, charged)

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REFERENCES

20

G2,The Guardian, 15 February 1999

21

Assessing the impact of telecommunications on work-related travel, The Home Office Partnership for the Department of the Environment Transport and the Regions (DETR), October 1997

22

Where there is no vision the people perish, Proverbs 29 v 18

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