Work Smarter, Not Harder Orginally posted on the BCS Website on 8th Jun 2009
Technology is supposed to make our working lives easier, yet we spend longer at our desks than ever before, and we find ourselves working weekends and late nights as well. What happened to the dream of remote office working, and why do we still drag ourselves to and from the office everyday?
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have been around now for a long time, as has Citrix via a web browser, with several other vendors also having web based secure desktop solutions and laptops when bought in bulk are no more expensive than a standard business desktop. All this should mean that unless your role requires you to meet face to face with other people on daily basis, you should be able to do that majority of your workload from the comfort of your home. We spend most of our working day conversing via email or business instant messaging, so it should not matter if the person you are exchanging information with is on the next or 20 miles away. Presentations can be easily handled via one of the many ‘online meeting’ solutions and with most corporate office workers having fast broadband, accessing documents can be as fast as if they were inside your companies main building.
So with all this, you’d think that the trains (and tubes if you work in London) would empty, and companies would be mothballing the floors in their large buildings and saving money in the process. However the trains are still packed and the office buildings fully lit. Why is that?
In short, although technology has provided the gateway to remote working, most senior managers are reluctant to embrace it. They worry that the workers won't work as hard or even at all. A lot of managers operate in a command and control mindset, and feel that they have to be surrounded by their underlings to feel any amount of self-worth. In most major corporations presenteeism is rife - if you can’t be seen to be working; then you most definitely aren't.
This logic is flawed; all employees are subject to regular performance reviews and a slack worker will be a slack worker whether they are in the office or not. It is just as easy to stand around the water cooler all day gossiping as it is to sit watching television with only one eye on your inbox. If someone underperforms then appropriate action can still be taken.
That said, working from home is not for everyone. It does take a certain amount of discipline - it's very easy to procrastinate around the house and completely waste the day. Conversely, some people just don't know when to log off, and will quite merrily still be sitting at their laptops at 3am wondering why their urgent email to the rest of the team hasn't garnered an instant response.
Technology was supposed to release us from the daily nine to five grind, but all it has done is make us work harder and longer for our pay cheque. As office technology evolves will we just increase our effort and productivity to match?
Maybe disconnecting from the office environment isn't the only answer. A lot of us work on a laptop on daily basis, yet we sit at a desk to use it, defeating the option of mobility the device grants us. With the advent of cheap wireless access points your office could be kitted out with secure Wi-Fi fairly easily. Combine that with large soft areas consisting of low tables and comfortable seating and you will have created a relaxed working environment that promotes communal working, free thinking and open discussion.
Footnote
A few months ago I took up a new contract in an office building that was located in an area of the city I had hitherto never worked in. This area is very commercial but has only been in existence as a financial region for about 20 years. What shocked me was that the actual office was completely sterile with rows and rows of straight desks with no storage, and banks of small lockers for your 'stuff'. I am told that this style of open plan is common in this district but for me it merely emphasises how IT has chained us to our desks, instead of being the release mechanism.
Furthering my exploration of Twitter, I have read that over 40% of new Twitter users abandon the service after one month, and I can see why. Twitter is not a communications medium, it is a broadcast medium. This is something the businesses have worked out and are leveraging to great effect, but individual users have yet to cotton onto. From a personal point of view it seems to me that everyone on Twitter is talking, but no-one on Twitter is actually listening.
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