Working Diversely

Posted on 7th March 201430th November -0001 by DWAdmin

International Women’s Day today. A day to celebrate the distinctive gifts and challenges women around the world share across all facets of life including the workplace. One of my favourite pieces marking the day is the video posted on my other blog, Maldives Complete. So inspired were we that my wife Lori and I bought the art piece Dhaalu Girl featured in the video from the artist Aishath Aima Mustafa (her first art sale).

The BNET piece ‘Why Men and Women Work Differently’ highlights a few of the differences women present and face. The kind of differences that a Dynamic Working organisation can accommodate so readily. Unfortunately, I find that well-meaning pieces like this simply reinforce cultural and sexist stereotypes. I endorse the article for raising insights as to how people can differ in approaches, but I disapprove of the gender pigeonholing. It is not about respecting “women’s” multi-taking and nurturing. It is about respecting anyone’s multi-tasking and nurturing (I’m actually a pretty accomplished multi-tasker, eg. I exercise, listen to podcasts and organise the garage simultaneously each Saturday).

Respect for ‘diversity’ (and Dynamic Work) is less about ‘men and women’ working differently, and more about how *everybody* works differently. Gender is just one prominent and conventional variable. Diversity programmes which slap on a few female-specific accommodations do a disservice to women in the end as well as to the rest of the staff and the business itself.

I recommend Cash Justin Miller’s “The Advantages of Cultural Diversity in Business” (thank Eileen). ‘Cultural diversity’, as well is not merely ethnic nor geographical differences, but any difference in upbringing, experience, tradition or background. When this level of diversity is respected, the consideration of gender will be a non-issue..

Dynamic Employment

Posted on 5th November 201230th November -0001 by DWAdmin

What is Obama’s Achilles Heel in the current election? What is the one issue and statistic that Romney keeps returning to with the most effectiveness? Employment. It’s an equally big issue weighing over just about every world leader from Greece to Egypt. People want jobs. And young people – with energy, vigour and dreams – are disproportionately anxious for them.

Dynamic Work holds great promise as a tool for increasing employment. By allowing companies to make more productive use of workers, their ROI and business case justification becomes easier. By introducing greater flexibility in commercial terms, companies can take o more workers at less longer term risk.

These assertions were underscored by a recent statistics released by the UK’s Office for National Statistics. Kevin Green, CEO of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation commented…

“More people in work than ever before and the lowest unemployment in over a year is another significant step on the road to recovery. The truly amazing thing is that during the past year of a technical recession, and in spite of austerity and public sector cuts, the UK has created half a million jobs. The job numbers are being driven by flexible working – the number of full time posts has grown but the increase in temps and part-time workers has been even greater. Too many people talk down the value of part-time work, but it’s here in black and white – over 80 per cent of part-time employees chose to work that way.

The counter claim to these promising numbers is that such ‘part time’ work is really offers less pay and less security. But, the higher pay and higher quality may come in the total ‘portfolio’ of employment rather than in a specific job. The bartending actor whose glass washing enables his dream pursuing.

A US Census Bureau report “Higher-income workers have more work-at-home flexibility” provided further evidence of standard of living quality for flexible workers in both monetary and non-monetary terms…

“’Mixed’ workers who work both at home and in an office are generally affluent, with median household income of $96,300, according to census data. That compares with median household income of $74,000 for people who always work at home and $65,600 for people who always work onsite, the researchers reported. Nearly half of the people who worked at home exclusively were self-employed, but experts say there are other explanations for why those who work from home make less. Some employers are finding that especially among younger workers, the ability to work at home and forgo a gruelling commute is such a beneficial perk that they are willing to accept a lower starting salary in exchange for it.”

The morale of the story is that countries need ‘Dynamic’ leadership now more than ever before.

World Cup Time Out

Posted on 23rd June 201030th November -0001 by DWAdmin

Not all time is created equal.

This reality is the problem with conventional time-motion productivity analysis. Perhaps in the 20th century Industrial Age of the assembly line manufacturing plant and paperwork factories and even a simpler, more routine home life, hours were more consistent. But the hour one spends getting married, watching a child win their first sports game or watching your favourite team in an international competition is not the same as 60 minutes sitting in traffic, sitting in a routine meeting or ploughing through administrative chores.

In a truly ‘free market’ of hours, staff and employers would have the ability to trade hours according to their value. A staffer might trade 2 hours of conventional work for 1 hour off to watch the World Cup. A company might trade 2 hours of conventional work for 1 hour of crisis handling on the weekend. In fact, the employer sort of has this kind of ‘marketplace’ in wage workplace where they can pay time-and-a-half and double-time for highly valued time periods.

Unfortunately, most workers usually do not have a corresponding ability to bid for time off. The problem is more difficult with exempt workers. They are paid a fixed salary and can be almost an implicit assumption that ‘all time’ is the company’s time (depending on the culture).

While the grand spectacle of the World Cup has given rise to a bunch of reports of ‘lost productivity’ fear mongering amongst the chattering fourth estate. “World Cup Could Cost UK £4 Billion” Most of these attention grabbing articles are based on out-dated logic that an hour is an hour. That people will find ways to watch the games, the games are during conventional work hours, ergo time is lost and time is money so money is lost.

More enlightened and innovative companies are using the World Cup to introduce some special work practices and bonuses to its workers like Asda and Screwfix. One of Microsoft’s leading partners and winner of the UK Best Place to Work 2010, Softcat, is showing how it is done by hosting World Cup viewing parties in their offices. No one is skiving off work today at Softcat! (and probably hardly ever do with that kind of enlightened approach).

Businesses should be looking at the World Cup as the least expensive staff morale opportunity to come along. Because fans will highly value their time watching the games above all else, they will value the hour given to them much more than the hour of elapsed clock time actually costs the company.

A classic win-win. Just like the England-USA 1-1 result for me as a UK-USA dual citizen. Perfect.

Technorati Tags: World Cup,Asda,Screwfix,productivity,Softcat

Furlough Fridays

Posted on 13th April 201029th March 2020 by DWAdmin

When you start to talk to people about Dynamic Work, people tend to jump to thinking about it as either ‘home working’ or maybe ‘flexi-time’ which are relatively familiar concepts. But actually, those examples only illustrate 2 of the 4 ‘Flexibility’ dimensions to Dynamic Work, namely Geography and Time. The other two – Role and Commercials are less familiar. The Wall Street Journal’s recent piece on ‘Furlough Fridays’ is a great example of Commercial (ie. terms of remuneration and reward) flexibility that can be a win-win for staff and organisations alike.

“This is ‘Furlough Friday’ and it’s becoming a staple around the country as state governments force workers to take a weekly day off—usually Friday—to help bridge budget gaps. The loss of a day’s work, and as much as 15% of a worker’s pay, is forcing families to tighten their belts. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has put state workers on Friday furloughs since February 2009 and most furloughs are expected to persist as long as July.”

“Friday furloughs are producing an unexpected dividend for many of these workers: Marketers have discovered them. The Boreal ski area near Lake Tahoe offers a ‘Frickin’ Friday’ $15 ticket for furloughed California employees; the normal adult lift price is $47. Don Hutchens, a state highway contractor, said it cost only $30 for him and his wife to snowboard all day while their young son and a friend did so for free. ‘It’s the best deal in town,’ said a smiling Mr. Hutchens, as he toted his board to the parking lot. ‘You can’t beat it.’ “

The danger with ‘Furlough Fridays’ is that when combined with Friday becoming a day of choice for ‘Work From Home’, bosses (and staff themselves) could confuse those with the day truly off and those who are supposed to be getting in productive work. Already many bosses consider ‘Work From Home’ Fridays as ‘Shirk From Home’ and lots of people on the ski slopes could mistakenly reinforce that perception.

Tomorrow’s Work

Posted on 14th November 200930th November -0001 by DWAdmin

I have been supporting the Working Families organisation for a number of years as a ‘Changemaker’ member. The mission of the organisation is so completely aligned with particularly the social benefits of Dynamic Work. The group “helps children, working parents and carers and their employers find a better balance between responsibilities at home and work.” Their latest publication is ‘Tomorrow’s World’ which takes a forward perspective on trends and directions in the industry to help firms prepare and adapt for the changing environment and challenges.

The publication also features a piece which I contributed titled “Top 10 Myths of Flexible Working”. I’ll feature one of the ‘myths’ here as a taster…

“Myth #4 – People abuse it to skive off.” Actually, in the flexible work environment the more pervasive problem that actually transpires is not people doing to little work, but actually doing too much – the ‘crackberry’ syndrome of not knowing when to turn off. While some eager managers might welcome this 24/7 productivity, it does require managing and tempering. It can be a simple problem to moderate with some coaching. One of the key changes to adopting flexible working is having a management-by-objective (MBO) culture. Look at more areas to manage performance based on outcomes and the ‘how’ of the work becomes much more versatile.”

I was discussing this particular myth with a several partners recently and they concurred with the upshot. One noted that there were poor performers who abused the system in the current conventional working environment and they just shift their tactics in a new, flexible environment. Another noted that it is not the environment or even the pretence of supervision or discipline that pre-empts abuse, but rather motivation. In the world of ‘knowledge’ work. At worst, someone can be sat at their desk all day watching YouTube (And if your IT department filters out the obvious websites, then they find others. And if the IT department switches off the Internet entirely, then it really is very difficult to do most professional jobs in this day and age). At best, someone can be staring at a screen and not thinking productive thoughts, but thinking about the footie, last night at the pub or whatever. The point is that just keeping an eye on someone sitting at a desk is a pretty outdated and ineffectual means of optimising productivity and effectiveness. Flexible work can be a catalyst to introducing not just enhancements to work life, but also enhancements to management effectiveness.