One the best attended sessions at last week’s CIPD Conference was the one on Future Working. It was presented by Peter Thomson, who has co-authored the book Future Work: How Businesses Can Adapt and Thrive In The New World Of Work and provided a lot of food for thought.

The central theme of the book is that a revolution in work will see many employees decide when, where and how they do their jobs – and the authors believe that this could become the norm within a decade.

Watching the presentation there were three messages that stood out:

Corporate structures and management styles are not keeping up with technological advances. Are we still clinging to a rigid model of fixed working times and locations? During the writing of the book the authors found overwhelming evidence that employees are more productive if they have greater autonomy over where, when and how they work – at Google, for example, engineers can work whatever hours they like, assuming that they have co-ordinated with colleagues and deliver results. As Peter Thomson put it in the presentation ‘Society has moved on, demographics have moved on, now HR and business structures have to move on’

Measure and reward on outputs. This is seen as the key to implementing a ‘future work’ culture. By agreeing what needs to be achieved managers can set employees free from presenteeism and allow them to work more productively. Holding people accountable for what they achieve rather than how much time they spend on a particular project can improve productivity and can result in cost savings on property, employee turnover and absenteeism. ‘Treat like adults and they will behave like adults…but instead we treat them like children that cannot manage their own time’ said Peter Thomson.

Culture change takes time to embed and is ongoing. There is no ‘one size fits all’ rapid solution but instead this will require a gradual shift in attitudes and structures towards smarter working practices. There are some impressive examples – Microsoft, Gap, IBM, Macquarie Group and Google are all companies benefitting from a move towards flexible and smarter working – but perhaps the most enlightening was from the Programmes Director at Hertfordshire County Council who had successfully transformed support services, relocating 4,500 staff from 52 locations to 3. The challenges had been securing senior management commitment, managing staff expectations and concerns and facilitating a move to management by outputs and trust.

One of the key statistics was that companies adopting smarter working practices are three times more likely to outperform their peers and, maybe not entirely coincidentally, IBM had found that staff on flexible working patterns could work an extra 19 hours a week before experiencing the same levels of stress and health issues as those without them.

In the book, Thomson and his co-author draw the conclusion - It takes bold leadership to break with old habits, but todays workforce wants a new deal and it makes business sense to do it. Organisations that have discovered this are already reaping the rewards. Those that have not are in danger of being overtaken by events

We’re really keen to hear from companies who are looking to embrace smarter working practices or have already started…let us know about your challenges and successes.

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