Soft Skills

The death of distance

The dark and light sides of flexible working. By Sudhir Narang

Across the globe, white collar and service industry workers are abandoning their offices. They are working, instead, from their homes, their cars, coffee shops and public spaces. Thanks to technology, work has become something we do, and not a place we go.

This shift amounts to a historical reconfiguration of our working and social spheres. In pre-industrial times, humans did not separate the physical space devoted to work, family and play. Blacksmiths, for example, worked from their homes, with family and village life all around. Industrialization and mass production changed this; workers needing to be ‘co-located’ in order to work effectively and—crucially, as capitalism took over—cost-efficiently.

Now, however, the different spheres of life are merging again, the ubiquitous term ‘work-life balance’ establishing itself as the label by which this process is understood. But this leads to more pressure. The difference between balancing ‘work’ with ‘family,’ or ‘life,’ in pre-industrial times, compared to today, is that in the former there were clear limits on personal productivity. The inescapable downside of technology as an ‘enabler’ is that in ‘enabling’ you to do things quicker, it enables you to do more. And if people can do more, they inevitably feel under pressure to actually do more.

The flexibility, freedom and productivity of mobile work thus has a cost. Workers are constantly juggling the infinite demands on their finite hours from colleagues, friends, family and their own need for personal ‘me time.’

This issue is particularly prevalent in countries such as the US, the Netherlands and the UK, which all replaced high levels of 1970s unemployment with a new economy based on professional services, where well-paid employees are increasingly ‘enabled’ by technology, to respond to and serve clients ‘anytime, anywhere’ and deal with the culture of ‘now.’ But the technology that makes this possible is now saturating rapidly developing markets such as China and India, and these countries—the current global slowdown notwithstanding—are watching how the mobility revolution affects the societies of their more mature economic peers, keen to learn lessons for their future.

A double-edged sword

The benefits of this revolution have been widely praised around the world, regardless of market or business culture. Examples include better work-life balance for employees, lower property and energy costs for employers, less commuting and a smaller carbon footprint per worker. But in the rush to embrace the glories of the flexible workforce we are forgetting something which is very important. Management’s job just got a lot harder.

So, while mobile working has been around for years, there remain many unknowns. Thus, a new set of observers have joined the usual futurologists and technologists in studying the consequences of the mobility revolution.

Anthropologists and psychologists are investigating how mobile and virtual collaboration affects ‘people chemistry’—a vital component in business, as well as personal life, relationships—and whether it makes young workers more autonomous. Linguists are debating how mobile communication changes language, and thus, thought itself. And, in particular, sociologists are questioning how mobile working is changing interactions between people, and what the implications might be for collaboration, business, performance management—and for society at large.

The debate and dilemma

The truth is that there are potential problems in the abandonment of the office. While an array of “-ologists” debate the more complex consequences, there are plenty of more obvious ones already emerging in business, including isolation, loss of team spirit, difficulty building motivation, loss of networking opportunities and lack of feeling a part of the culture.

In the rush towards flexible working, organizations often fall into the trap of seeing it as a technology issue—a conceptual ‘system’ that only requires appropriate ICT investment to it make a reality. This shiny, happy picture of mobility, with which we are typically presented, is insulting in its simplicity. It implies that flexible working is about technology. That you plug something in and you are then magically flexible.

It isn’t. You don’t.

The imperative is clear: senior management must make some significant cultural changes if they are to avoid the dark side of flexible working. But as well as needing a culture of trust, managers will have to trust their new culture. Mobility means the death of more things than distance: it brings with it profound changes.

Mobility is just the starting point. Changing corporate culture is the goal. Success is not about putting in place a strategy to achieve flexible working; it’s about putting in place flexible working to achieve a new, better way of running your business.

Lessons from the dark side…

Mobile or flexible working is still, historically, a new form of ‘labour.’ Companies—even those such as BT, which has been at the forefront of flexible working arrangements and systems for the last ten years—are still feeling their way. But some clear lessons are already emerging.

A new business infrastructure

When you don’t share an office with your team, a task-based performance assessment environment is critical. You must judge employees not by hours in the office but by how and what they achieve. This will, however, require different evaluation methods for different roles, which means complex changes to company policy, from the human resources department outwards.

Internal communications

You may need to reassess the internal communication challenges. It can be difficult to assert influence on and detect emotional issues with the staff if you are communicating only by email. Practical solutions might include arranging regular meetings in a hotel or using multi-media technologies for more sophisticated remote meetings.

What is certain is that you will need to articulate—more clearly than ever before—your vision for a project. Set more detailed objectives and goals. And give your team the freedom to get on with it.

Re-skill management

Working closely with line managers to re-skill them is as important as providing the technology. It is crucial that they have the tools to handle both the strategic and practical implications of this change in working style. You’ll need to train them to address the fundamental issues of trust in a remote management situation, long-distance team building and better communication skills over multiple media. But they’ll need help on practical, administrative issues as well, such as health and safety in the home office environment, furniture provision, or an organized process for booking meetings.

Prepare for the hidden costs

On the surface, flexible working saves lots of money as companies need less office space. The more expensive the space is in a given city, the greater the savings are. But home and flexible workers incur other costs. It’s important you consider these in your planning so you can get the full picture.

You’ll incur travel expenses for home workers traveling to meetings and an increase in communication costs. There will be initial start-up costs when each home worker sets up his new office. You’ll have to fund a department (or outsource) to manage your home workers. You may need to consider rebuilding costs in your offices, as the demand for meeting rooms will increase proportionately to the number of remote workers you have. You may want to invest more in internal communications, and sophisticated media such as on-line document sharing, conferencing, social networking and blogs to engage the disparate locations. You’ll still save money overall, but proper planning will prevent surprises.

Sudhir Narang is Managing Director, BT India