The bigger they are, the harder they toil.

That’s the finding of a recent study into workplace practices by Microsoft UK’s ‘Hybrid Organisation’ initiative.

“The study revealed that even though the majority of office workers want to work more flexibly, the larger the organisation, the less likely its employees are enabled to do so. Half of the people participating in the study said they lacked access to the most basic technology tools that would enable them to work away from the office.”

I found in my year working on Dynamic Work Ltd that the sweet-spot was organisations around 1,000 staff. Upper middle market. As the Vanson Bourne study highlights, the smaller companies do a pretty good job themselves of incorporating new and flexible ways of working. On the other hand, I found that large enterprises (ie. thousands of staff) simply had too much bureaucracy, legacy, complexity and inertia to get substantive innovations in the workplace moving.

Ironically, at the same time that Microsoft announced the advantages to changing business practices, especially when enabled by IT, it also announced that it was retiring the ‘Business Value Productivity’ service. When I left Microsoft to start ‘Dynamic Work Limited’, my biggest impetus was the opportunity that these BVPS services (provided by partners such as I was setting Dynamic Work Ltd to be) presented. Not only did I feel strongly about the ‘New World of Work’ principles, but I felt that the Business Value coupons would really motivate and help companies to make bold steps in these directions. Conversely, one of the big reasons I chose to discontinue with Dynamic Work Limited commercially (though I continue to do writing and activism like I am doing right here and now), was the eventual realisation that Microsoft was neither supporting the New World of Work initiative nor the Business Value services. These initiatives were brochureware to adorn their websites and and keynotes.

The report has some valid research that provides helpful data points for people trying to make a business case for more dynamic working. Some fine case studies of the likes of Macquarie Bank, Nuffield Health and GlaxoSmithKline. It also features some useful models such as the ‘Follow Me Organisation’ and the ‘Bump Organisation’. Unfortunately, given Microsoft’s erratic track record in this area, the piece itself smacks of being little more than a PR exercise for Microsoft rather than heartfelt or inspired innovation.

Yesterday, I met with fellow Microsoft alum Andrew Munro with whom I had endured extensive trench warfare on the frontlines at Microsoft. He has set up a consultancy, Burning Pine, which helps organisations to “navigate the future; exploring the unmapped” which parallels much of the mission and vision of Dynamic Work. I especially applaud his white paper ‘All Gone Home’ which highlights a number of central Dynamic Work themes.

“The prospect of creating a firm which is unfettered by the boundaries of geography, time or organisation is now a practical reality. Imagine people working together but in different parts of the world; covering different time-zones and also different working patterns (your best work is done as the sun rises, mine gets done somewhere around midnight); employees, partner firms and freelance professionals sharing information securely across time and space. Why bother with a physical office at all?”

From my ‘Leadership and Management’ perspective, I also enjoy his ‘Burning Pine’ name and logo which represents the ‘burning’ flash of upside (literally from the sky) of Leadership coupled with the (again, literally) grounded wisdom (limiting downside) of Management. Sweet metaphor.

Fellow UK work innovation evangelist Katie Ledger forwarded me another gem, this time a piece on ‘The Future of Offices’ by Paul Warner, Chair of the British Council for Offices Urban Affairs Committee and Research Director at 3D Reid. A well composed and authoritative piece supporting pretty much all of the tenets and principles of Dynamic Work. Here are a few choice excerpts…

“The future workplace will be the opposite [of] the ‘city as office’. Companies will downsize their property footprints and make use of city-centre facilities that are publicly available – coffee shops, restaurants, pubs, city parks, library reading rooms. Why add millions to the cost of your office scheme to build a boardroom used once a month when you can simply book a private room in a grand hotel every month two years in advance? Why worry about the limits of technology when the city is itself covered by a wireless network? The most amenable, attractive and convenient place for people to meet is usually the centre of the city, so we can look forward to an urban consolidation of office property after decades of out-of-town developments and suburban hubs.”

“Flexibility is the key to future office development and a move away from the tailor-made shell to a more robust and generous building type that can sit within a ‘spatial plan’ (that includes transport, density and mix parameters). As people work in patterns that are more flexible and fluid, serendipity within the city and the chance encounter seem hopeful and exciting.”