Re-Visiting Working From Home

Those who read my posts regularly will know that I am not a believer in any positive productivity effects of working from home.  It van help but only if the organisation is able to save substantial accommodation costs on workspaces that are no longer needed - and this applies to very few companies who normally 'hedge their bets' by maintaining their properties snd only saving on lower energy costs.

I have been reflecting on this and though I have not changed my opinion, I do feel that perhaps I have been over-critical of those who have allowed employees to work from hime.  It may be that there is nothing inherently or philosophically wrong with home working.  The problem is that most organisations have management teams - and management training processes - which assume 'normal' in-the-workplace environments and systems and processes.  In practice, they need to adjust workflows - and perhaps working methods, communication processes and reporting processes to fit the new environment

Otherwise, processes fail, become inefficient or error-prone.  This is clearly not a recipe for productivity improvement.

So, by all means let employees work from home - if you think it has benefits in employee well-being or in cost-saving.  But ensure your working and communication processes are adjusted to suit the new arrangement. 

Counter-Intuitive Improvement

 Some (but thankfully fewer) managers believe that you increase the productivity of employees by driving them harder. increasing their workload and punishing mistakes.   Nowadays, most managers know that getting results is more of a balance between 'driving' and 'caring', ensuring that hard-working staff are not overworked, burnt-out or increasingly anxious about their work.

We need to increase output and productivity without damaging - or indeed, breaking - our employees.

Simple 'time and motion' or work-study men (for they were almost exclusively men) from 50 years ago built 'rest and recovery' periods into the times allocated for specific tasks.  The 'harder' (more demanding) the work, the greater the recovery time allowed.  The advantage of this approach is that the recovery time was built in - it wasn't given on the whim of the supervisor.

Employees should be encouraged to take 'mini' or even 'micro' breaks during the day - taking a few deep breaths, walking, taking a 'water cooler' moment, etc.

We should also make sure employees have time for focused work - free of (formal or informal) meetings, perhaps with a 'ban' on phone calls.Some organisations provide 'focus rooms' or spaces where people can get sway from their own desk and local environment.

Such small changes mean we give staff the opportunity to recover from their hard work, to feel better about themselves, their work - and the organisation.

They become more productive.

Keep Your Warm Layers?

 There has been a trend over recent years to strip out management layers - searching for the great productivity boom said to result from flattened organisations.  Delayering is said to improve communications, increase transparency  and lead to faster and better decision-making.  The streamlined organisation has higher productivity.

Like many productivity approaches, there is an inherent logic to this - but - again as with many approaches - the reality can be different.  There is some evidence to suggest that it leads to disengaged, overworked management team where mistakes van be made and errors not spotted.

Those at lower levels can feel unguided and unsupervised.  Although some may welcome this 'freedom', it is not necessarily a route to better performance.  We have spent 50 years developing management approaches and management education.  Now we seem to be dismantling much that we built.

If this is a problem - and I think the jury is still out - the problem will be exacerbated as AI eats into supervisory and managerial roles.

Don't say you haven't been warned!

DIY (with a little help)

 Some lucky employees have healthcare benefits as part of their remuneration package.

The rest of us have to juggle healthcare with our other priorities and are subject to the vagaries of the healthcare system and any associated costs.

As knowledge grows of health-related issues, including contextual and environmental factors, we are constantly urged to change our diet, stop smoking, reduce our alcohol intake and so on.

This is as it should be.  It is our responsibility to look after ourselves … to make healthcare, self-care.

Its helps, though, if our work - and our workplace - are not harmful to our health and well-being - either our physical or mental well-being.

This is where we need a supportive employer who creates a workplace - and working roles - that are designed to be 'health-positive'.

For us, this clearly makes sense- our health is of major importance - if not the most important factor in our overall, long-term, well-being and satisfaction.

For the employer, too, there are benefits - fewer days lost to sickness and a more positive attitude to work and to the organisation.  A healthy workforce has higher productive capacity.

The health and well-being of the workforce is a significant productivity factor.

What Can AI Do For My Business?

Most business owners and managers are taking a keen interest in AI  They have heard the hype and are now excited to learn the reality - to hear of the successful case studies of AI introduction and also the occasional failures (though failures can be under-reported as few want to advertise their failures).

But of course, the real winners are those who have read about the potential of AI to assist with, or replace, business processes and tasks - and have then explored within their own business how that potential might be realised and translated into lower costs, higher productivity, better quality or whatever.

Learning by doing, snd learning by failing, are often the most valuable - if sometimes the most painful - lessons.

So, if you wait to read about a successful introduction of AI to an organisation like yours or to a process like one of yours, you might have the chance to repeat that success. 

But if the successful organisation is one of your competitors, you might be too late.

Take the risk of being a leader.  Leaders often win.  Fewer followers do! 

The Essential Business Quality

 Is there one? One quality which is more valuable (and therefore more necessary) than others.

Well, that is not a simple question.   All businesses need a variety and a numb er of qualities to go successful through their start-up phase and then perhaps a different (though overlapping) set of qualities for their 'stablisation' phase, their growth phase - and so on

However, through each of these phases, perhaps one specific quality is more valuable than others.  

Then, we get the situation where the external context (the business environment) makes a particular quality more important.

As of now, all businesses are facing threats from technology (and specifically AI).  Ironically the threat posed by AI is even applicable to AI companies themselves. (The biggest threat is faced by those whg don't think they are facing a threat.)

In situations where there is a generic, external threat (and especially where that threat is only partially understood) all businesses need the essential quality of remaining flexible.  This can be called flexibility, agility, resilience or ….. but it is the ability to 'read' the situation and take appropriate action.  This will depend on the market the business is in - but act it must.  

So, all businesses should currently be reading their own situation snd the external factors that are in play (and how these relate to the business and the way it operates).  They should be getting ready to act - even if they are not yet quite ready to act.

Is your business agile enough to survive?

Just Work a Bit Harder

 That’s what many of us think we have to do to make ourselves more productive, more effective.

But it’s not true!

I’ve repeated many times in this blog that you are not productive if you are not doing the right things.

The simplest way to illustrate this is if you have a product in your portfolio that is loosing money - for whatever reason.  If you increase the output of that product you lose more money.  Is this a smart thing to do?  Of course not.

You have to have a sound and secure strategy - designed to meet your long-term goals, achieve your mission.  Then you have to translate that strategy into a series of action plans designed to reach agreed targets along that route to success.  

This is really what’s meant by ‘Work smarter, not harder’.

There are all sorts of intermediary and ancillary issues to think about - staff training, development  and deployment, staff well-being, your own well-being,  looking past current priorities through improved marketing snd productivity innovation ….. I could go on but I guess you get the picture.

Think about why you are running a business (or a department, a machine, a process, etc.  Then think about what success means. Start to plan how to get there.  

Then work hard!