Recalibrating the enterprise for workplace mobility

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In the very early days of telework, a large well known company decided to close its regional sales offices and have staff work from their homes. One day they sent a package to the home of each individual containing a shiny new laptop, a modem setup and a note that in essence said: “You are now working from home. Have a great day!” Then they closed the offices.

As you can imagine, the regional staff felt they were left hanging. They had no warning their daily routines would be disrupted. They were provided with no guidance for setting up their home office, how to deal with family, even how to make copies of presentations (back then, they were using first generation private email, no laser printers, no copy centers, no internet, no cloud), and in retrospect the plan was a disaster.

Many lessonscan belearned from past mistakes

That company has since developed a highly successful distributed work program where a large percentage of employees work without an assigned desk.

How was that change executed? Executive management put together a plan that:

Drove a cultural recalibration through a deliberate,well-designed workplacechange process

Shifted manager and employee work perceptions through internal messaging

Prepared the workforce throughtraining to establish new processes, accountabilities and protocols

Today, mobile employees working intheir distributed workplace is ‘just the way we do things here.’

Best practice guidance is now readily available: Since those early days, experience-based best practices – including the avoidance of mistakes – have beendeveloped, published, tested, and fine-tuned, offering any organization a blueprint for success. Among the best distributed work programs of large and small enterprises, a pattern of proven success has emerged in a three-phased workplace change implementation process:

Phase 1: Individuals are prepared through Work Practice Change
Phase 2: Teams adapt to new experiences through Work Place Orientation
Phase 3: The enterprise becomes one inmission through Work Force Synergy

The momentum of history is on your side

There’s never been a more compelling time for an organization to leap straight into the 21^st Century by recalibratingthe enterprise as a distributed workplace. If you are formalizing distributed work with an activity-based workplace, preparing knowledge workers for teleworking, or if you’ve already launched a program that’s a bit out of control, you have an excellent opportunity to learn from the 25 years of mistakes others have made.

With this information, you can be sure that individuals are prepared for the experience, that mobile work is effective, consistent, healthy, safe, and secure, that remote workers remain accountable and productive no matter where they work, and that teams can maximize technology to benefit the enterprise.

Now you canbe sure that when yousay to your mobile teams”Have a great day!” theyactuallywill!

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See the Evolving Workplace e-Learning Series: Technology-enabled workplace change can only be successful if the people change too. The e-work.com Evolving Workplace e-Learning Series modules accelerate workplace change through a deliberate mindshift in individuals, teams and the enterprise to work together in new ways.

For some additional tips see the Does your workplace change plan include a people change plan? blog post.

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Does your workplace change plan include a people change plan?

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As part of a workplace change team, you’ve probably already thought about the enormous challenges of transitioning your organization from an office full of desks and cubicles to a shared work environment.

You’ve got a planning and execution team to help manage all the moving parts. You’ve got help from experts on the design, architecture, buildout, the space design and amenities, the furniture, and even the technology. But what’s missing? Do you have a ‘people transition plan?’

You say you want a revolution? Team members must be on board

At some point in every organization’s history, there comes a time for a revolution. Whether there are 200 or 20,000 team members faced with change, you can bet that most of them are saying the same thing: “There better be a really good reason for me to go through this painful process, so give it your best shot.”

So, when your plans involve radical personal change like taking someone’s personal desk away, you can’t just send out a note that says “After June 1st, you’ll no longer have your own desk, and you’ll be able to work wherever you want.”

What does it take to convince the enterprise to accept a shared work environment – and like it? You need to engage in a three-phase change process:

Phase 1: Individuals are prepared through Work Practice Change: In the first phase, each team member learns how and why the decision to change was made and who made it. They are then given rational, convincing arguments for accepting the change, learning to appreciate the benefits the new workplace has to offer. In order to work and manage effectively in this new work environment, team members and their managers are provided training to update their communication and collaboration skills, to be accountable and productive, to earn trust while working in a distributed team, and guidance for adopting digital workplace routines.

“We cannot slow the rate of technological advance or globalization, but we can invest in employees’ skills to increase the resilience of our people and organizations.”
Jonas Prising, Chairman, CEO, ManpowerGroup

Phase 2: Teams adapt to new experiences through Work Place Orientation: Effective, timely workplace orientation is essential when moving to a reinvented workplace. Before they get there, teams are provided a preview of their workplace options, equipment, how to select and reserve a space, and all about workspace features. They’ll learn how to make the most of their new technology, and will receive just-in-time instructions for making the move and settling in. Only then can they begin working as a team in the new workplace putting their Phase 1 skills to work.

Phase 3: The enterprise becomes ‘one in mission’ through Work Force Synergy: In this final phase, traditional barriers are broken down through a new level of enterprise synergy. When executed properly, everyone in the enterprise – including those in the next department, in the next building, or on the next continent – will find themselves experiencing the cultural shift together. Like a school of fish swimming and turning in unison, team members will begin to feel one in mission, having common drivers, missions and mindset. Teams will work closer together even when apart, generations will capitalize on their differences, and everyone will engage in healthy, safe and secure practices, all while cross-functional teams begin to synergize on mission-critical projects.

Transitioning the workforce quickly and confidently

To make workplace change actually happen, you need to first change the individuals, then change the teams, then change the culture…in that sequence. To borrow from the military, this level of change is best begun with a pre-planned “Shock and Awe” process that transitions the workforce quickly and confidently away from the old and toward the new with as little disruption to operations as possible.

Easy? No.

Doable? Absolutely!

Once your organization has reached a tipping point where workplace change is adopted by the majority, the changed state becomes the new normal, then it’s full steam ahead until the next big technology-induced change.

Are you ready for a revolution?

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Once you’ve received approval for the new workplace and developed a great buildout plan, your attention should now focus on gaining enterprise buy-in. Register to see the Making the Case for Change Course Summary.

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Is your workforce ready for the new workplace?

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As emerging technologies find their way in our daily activities, all of us are enabled to work anywhere, any time. As a result, whether sanctioned or not, both the workforce and the workplace continue to become more distributed.

This of course, is not new. Many well-known employers and even the federal government had telecommuting programs in place over 25 years ago. What’s different today is that messaging, video, social media and ‘mega’ collaboration tools are all now available on mobile devices. This makes it perfectly natural for every knowledge worker to take advantage of the unmistakable benefits. This new workplace is called distributed.

The new workplacehas taken on different forms

Record numbers of employers around the globe are now putting these technologies to work by embracing distributed workplace strategies that include:

Activity-Based Work Arrangements: Personal offices and cubicles arereplaced with shared, open-office workspaces that are selected based on the type of work being done that day.

Flexible Work Arrangements: Employee-focused trends are driving increased flexible work arrangements such as compressed work weeks, flextime, telework, part-time work, job sharing, and other options.

CoWorking: Workers are enabled to work in remote work centers convenient to their homes or while traveling to increase performance, promote work &family balance, and to recruit and retain the best and brightest.

Activity-based work arrangements will continue to dominate much of the distributed work activity among employers. The Knoll Workplace Executive Survey revealed that 57 percent of companies foresee introducing more unassigned seating over the next 5 years, and the number of workers in unassigned workspaces is expected to nearly triple, rising to 32 percent of the workforce from the 11 percent today.

“You want me to give up my desk and work where?”

As one might imagine, radically changing the daily routines of thousands of employees in an enterprise can be disruptive for some, traumatic for others. But some of you might be thinking “Hundreds of organizations have already done this, so what’s the big deal? I’ll just Google it!”

In a way, you’d be right. When planning disruptive organizational change, it’s not all that difficult to find examples of how it’s been done by others, or to imagine what the new workplace will look like in its final state. It’s even possible to imagine how the organization will ideally function in the new workplace.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Charles Darwin

How doyou get there from here? Sure you can Google all the information you need to create a great plan to be successful, but the challenge is in the execution. Getting there can be tricky – because it’s personal.See our post Recalibrating your enterprise for workplacemobility for some strategy tips on how to get there.

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See the Evolving Workplace e-Learning Series: Technology-enabled workplace change can only be successful if the people change too. The e-work.com Evolving Workplace e-Learning Series modules accelerate workplace changethrough a deliberate mindshift in individuals, teams and theenterprise to work together in new ways.

Register to see the Making the Case for Workplace Change course outline.

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