The Future of Work - What is a normal job?
Thu, Jun 23rd, 2005
Organisations need to improve performance and get better returns from their financial investments and their investment in people, argued John Blackwell, on the occasion of the June Recruitment Society meeting hosted by Dechert.
The crucial graph which highlights the dilemma facing business is the one relating investment to time, indicating how the business might perform during the economic cycle. If the graph is plotted for different parameters, comparing market demand with investment in other parameters such as use of technology, headcount, and property/working environment, the difference is stark, especially in the area relating to working environment. A glaring example is Cisco, which, by its own admissions, has a property portfolio which is 7 years out of step with market demand.
In the near future, there will be a battle to attract, recruit and retain quality staff. Seven out of every ten organisations now admit to having staff retention problems among key staff. By 2010, only 20% of the UK workforce will be white, able-bodied and under 45. The statistics show that the workforce has grown. However 80% of that growth has come from women, and 25% of managers are now women and the figure is growing. Organisations need to get it right.
However, research indicates that organisations are far from getting it right. They still relate to Taylorism, which advocated increased efficiency by people working together in offices. Looking at the facts,
- work related stress costs absenteeism amounting to 12-16% of payrolls employee aspirations have dipped to a 2 year horizon in any one organisation 5 years ago, less than 30% worked outside a 9-5 working schedule, the figure has now risen to 67%, with 81% feeling pressured to stay after the working day has finished.
The result? In the South East of England productivity is 25% lower than in high performing OECD countries, and salaries are 22% lower, and the discrepancies are even greater in other regions of UK.
The challenge is to increase productivity and to do so one has to identify when people are at their most productive. The CIPD has concluded a survey in which they have identified the most productive 4 hour periods in people's days, including nights. An astonishingly high percentage are most efficient in the evening.
Massive revolutions are not required. What is required is to identify areas where small differences can improve performance. HR should be taking a more proactive approach in asking how investment in facilities and technology can be harnessed to improve people's and hence business performance.
Identifying small differences where improvements can be made: this means recognising "units" of "workstyles", as small as humanly possible, but when connected build a model of a complex work environment which can be analysed and reviewed to optimise performance, which will enable a business to transform itself through "Workplace Effectiveness". Workstyles are at the core of workplace effectiveness as they recognise the way people work and enhance diversity and agility in the organisation. An analysis of workstyles will identify effectiveness in key areas, and at its simplest level can be done by producing a matrix of degree of awareness against essential factors and influences such as people, space and Information and Communciations Technologies (ICT).
Workplace effectiveness mitigates risk: "Work is what you do, not where you go!"
The key is managing change. Companies for the most part do not care about teams: managers care only about status and what they do and will not implement change if it adversely affects them or their status. However, it has to be recognised, however unpalatable it might be, that progress will only be made when people are motivated to do what they do best when they do it best.
Richard Taylor 23.06.05
