Future Of Work Agenda Julaug 2009
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FUTURE OF WORK AGENDA A Free Monthly Newsletter July/August 2009 www.thefutureofwork.net **************************************************************************************************** “Summer time and the livin’ is easy.” Huh? That may be true for Porgy and Bess, but not for most of us still trying to put food on the table and pay the rent. The economy is still in the doldrums, and the “recovery” seems more elusive than ever right now. Oh, but wait, the “good news” is that things are declining more slowly now. Big deal! We continue to believe this is not a “normal” recession and that the world on the other side of the “Valley of Despair” will look and feel very different than the one we left behind last September. So, as those of us in the northern hemisphere enter the dog days of summer, we offer up yet another analysis of how to think about the future – first of your local community and then of your own organization. Our feature article focuses on what makes communities attractive to talented residents, and includes a “quick-check” set of questions we suggest you ask your friends and neighbors to assess whether the community has a viable future, and to determine what you have to do to make the future more compelling. The Compass article narrows the focus to your own organization and argues passionately that there are incredibly powerful economic reasons for embracing flexible, mobile work. You ignore those realities at your peril. Finally, in the Notes from the Field article, our colleague Larry Barkley offers some thoughts on why so many organizations are essentially ignoring the business case for change. We hope and pray that you’ll absorb these perspectives and be prepared to hit the ground running as a bona fide change agent come September—or sooner. Enjoy. Charlie and Jim PS: Don’t forget that we won’t publish another newsletter until September. We’re not taking the month of August off by any means, but we do need some time to catch our breath. Click on any Headline below to access the full story.
1. FEATURE ARTICLE: IS THIS A NICE PLACE TO LIVE, OR WHAT? This is the last in a series of three articles about transformation. We know that what is happening right now across the planet is historic, permanent, and unstoppable. The changes will be felt in all aspects of life; work, learning, and play. Our conversation this month focuses on your local community. We offer you a set of questions to ask your neighbors in order to sense where your community is going: will it become a better place to live and work, or will it sink into obsolescence?
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
Page 2
2. COMPASS: WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Brace yourself: here we go again. This is a flat-out rant about why your organization is really off-base, and potentially in trouble, if you’re not actively promoting flexible/mobile work for as many of your knowledge worker employees as possible.
3. NOTES FROM THE FIELD: WHY IS ADOPTING MOBILITY TAKING SO LONG? Much has been written in these pages over the past several years on mobility, Alternative Workplace Strategies, and all the issues surrounding the implementation of new ways of working. Yet, despite all of this impressive work and study, it appears that adoption by the end user business community has not risen to anywhere near the level of our theory and beliefs. So, we’ve had to ask: “Why is that?”
4. WHAT'S HAPPENED/HAPPENING? A short note about where Jim and Charlie have been, are, and will be, holding forth in public conversations and other activities.
THE FULL STORIES As usual, your comments and reactions to any of these articles are more than welcome. Please send your thoughts to us at any time. RETURN TO HEADLINES **************************************************************************************************** 1) FEATURE: IS THIS A NICE PLACE TO LIVE, OR WHAT? **************************************************************************************************** Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware
This is the last in our three-part series on the transformation of the workplace. Our first article (“Someone Hit the Reset Button” in May) looked at the basic characteristics of transformation; our second (“Scotty, Take It Up To Warp Factor 5.6!” in June) focused on the specific impacts of transformation on societal institutions like education, government, and the economy. Now we have come full circle; this concluding piece is going to give you an idea of what we believe communities of the future will look like. To start, we’ll go back to our old rant about the need for communities to become places that attract talent—talent of all ages, we might add. We wrote extensively about this issue during our West Michigan days a few years ago. See, for example, our white paper “What Attracts Knowledge Workers?” (available on our website). In addition, Ron Willett wrote a “Notes from the Field” piece for us a year ago titled “Assessing the Potential for a Telework Center” that focused partially on what makes a community a desirable place to telecommute from. If, as we suspect, the wants and needs of local residents become the central features of a region that drives economic development, then public officials and volunteers must consider carefully which attributes are most attractive to the people they want to live and work in their cities and neighborhoods.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
Page 3
Without those attractors, the talent won’t come; and, as the economy becomes evermore dependent on innovation and ever-more location-independent, regions that are less attractive will wither, and, in many cases, die. The short answer to what attracts most people is community (in its broadest, most socially-focused sense). Although the physical attributes of a region (weather, recreational opportunities, cleanliness, livability) are important, the equation is far more complicated than that. For those of you with a geography bent we suggest visiting the “patron saint” of urban areas, Joel Kotkin, at http://www.joelkotkin.com/. Following our logic, the economy is clearly transforming, and so are communities. We believe that the “psychology of regions” is changing in a very deep and fundamental way. In fact, we’re convinced that you can have all the roads, schools, airports, business services, Internet access, and hospitals you want, but if your area doesn’t have a meaningful sense of community your city or town won’t experience much in-migration or wealth generation in the post-industrial global economy. But how can you tell if your community has what it needs? We don’t know of a fullyformed, statistically supported answer yet, but we are actively investigating the development of a widely agreed-upon set of community-based “health” metrics. It’s a tough challenge. But we have to start somewhere. We have also been particularly drawn to the work of the late John Gardner, former head of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and then a professor at Stanford University (see in particular http://www.pbs.org/johngardner/chapters/7.html for more details on his work). Professor Gardner was fascinated with leadership: what is it, and how do you grow it? Later in life he turned to the study of communities, and in particular how to promote and develop that “sense of community” we’re also interested in. He believed that the contemporary breakdown of community was a root cause of many social ills and a significant contributor to a general decrease in the quality of life in America—prescient observations from thirty years ago, in our humble opinion. As a result of his interest and concern about communities Gardner developed a framework for measuring the ingredients of community (see “The New Leadership Agenda,” in Community Building: Renewing Spirit and Learning in Business, Kazimierz Gozdz, editor, New Leaders Press 1995 – link is to a description of the book on Amazon.com). . Gardner’s categories describing the ingredients of community, which are similar to Rebecca Ryan’s but go well beyond the obvious, include: • • • • • •
Wholeness incorporating diversity Reasonable sense of shared values Caring, trust, and teamwork Effective internal communication Participation Affirmation
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
• • •
Page 4
Links beyond the community Development of young people A forward view
Okay, so much for theory. What can you do to help your community become a net attractor of knowledge worker talent? We have synthesized our ideas and Gardner’s into a few simple questions you can use in community development workshops. Please bear in mind that this list is research in progress and doesn’t yet exist as a formal diagnostic instrument; but we believe it gives us a good basis for working with serious community leaders to start the conversation. 1.
Do the people in our community share a similar purpose for living here?
2.
Is our community highly diverse in its cultural and ethnic makeup? Do we practice an openness that allows all of us to question all of our assumptions?
3.
Is teamwork among our community members very important and valued?
4.
Are people in our community recognized publicly for their contributions?
5.
Does everyone in our community communicate well with each other?
6.
Does our community have a distinct and unique identity? Is there local pride in what we do and represent?
7.
Is our community connected economically and politically with others in our region? Do we play an active leadership role in developing the region politically, economically, and environmentally?
8.
Do we welcome new members to our community, even when they come from different backgrounds and have different lifestyles?
9.
Do we believe in the “equal rights” of all our residents to transportation, education, clean air, and public spaces?
10.
How easily does our community resolve conflicts among our members?
11.
Do our residents invest time and energy to develop the community? To improve our schools? To ensure a sustainable environment?
12.
Do we have adequate resources in our community to help it thrive?
13.
Are we constantly seeking to “push the envelope” and striving to become a better, more interesting place?
14.
Do we support and encourage innovation in both our public and our commercial enterprises?
That’s it. Short and sweet. The world changes, and your community changes or dies. Give this quick-check diagnostic a try. Go out into your community and ask people these simple questions (and ask yourself, too). You may be surprised at the answers—or you may decide to rent a moving van the next day. Please send your comments directly to us, or post a comment on the blog version of the newsletter. We look forward to learning from you.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
Page 5
RETURN TO HEADLINES **************************************************************************************************** 2) COMPASS: WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? **************************************************************************************************** Jim Ware and Charlie Grantham
Brace yourself: here we go again. This is a flat-out rant about why your organization is really off-base and potentially in deep doo-doo if you’re not actively promoting flexible/mobile work for as many of your knowledge worker employees as possible. Last September, when the economy hit the proverbial fan, we fully expected to see a genuine rush to implement flexible work programs. We naively thought that this time the pressure to cut costs would finally be so great that senior executives would give up their long-time resistance to change in the way they get things done. Well, there’s been a rush all right—to cut staff, to cut travel, to cut every “discretionary” expense imaginable. Same old, same old: don’t change anything, just squeeze the few employees who are left to do more with less. In Our Humble Opinion, that’s not the way to get to the future, let alone survive. We’ve actually said a lot of this before (“How Come Distributed Work is Still the Next Big Thing?”). But we’re not going to spend any time at all discoursing about all the reasons why executives resist change. And we’re not going to harp on all the logical reasons for supporting mobile work. No, this time we’re just going to tell you what you’re missing by continuing to manage in old-fashioned (“So twentieth century!”) ways. Frankly, we’ve run out of patience. There are actually lots of reasons why you should be transforming the way your organization gets work done: • • • • • •
You can save a whole boatload of money You can increase productivity and agility, and reduce business continuity risk Your employees want to do it You can attract (and retain) better talent You’ll help save the planet Sooner or later (probably sooner) you’re going to be legally required to do it
But we’re going to be really, really brief and assume you actually know most of that already. In fact, we’re only going to address one thing here, because it seems to be the only thing that really matters: saving money.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
Page 6
Saving Money We’ve suggested for years that it’s a whole lot cheaper to support a mobile workforce than to provide (mostly unused) office or cubicle space for everyone. Yes you’ll spend a little more on technology in a mobile world. But you can shave your real estate costs by 30% or 40% or more, and you’ll probably reduce your Human Resources Management and overall administrative costs too. SCAN Health, a company we’ve been working with for over three years, is realizing a return on investment of over 40% by enabling approximately 15% of its workforce to work at home 2-4 days a week. We’ve told this story publicly several times in the last few months; you can dig into it in more detail at this post on our blog (which also includes the full presentation deck we delivered at an IFMA Industries Forum back in March in partnership with Diane Coles, SCAN’s Director of Workplace Services). And PC World recently carried a story that Cisco Systems is claiming $277 million in annual productivity savings as a result of enabling work-at-home employees (“Cisco Promotes Telecommuting”). And, by the way, Cisco employees are much happier too. Here’s another assessment: Kate Lister and Tom Harnish, authors of the recent bestseller Undress4Success (link is to Amazon.com), have estimated that United States corporations could drop $260 Billion (that’s Billion, with a “B”) to the bottom line every year if they just enabled people to work at home one day a week Commuters themselves would save another $228 Billion (not to mention the annual savings in gasoline consumption; that change alone could almost make us independent of foreign oil). Our analysis of the economics of mobile work is unequivocal; we’ve seen one case after another where the savings in total workforce support operating costs run between 27 and 45 percent. That’s including all the benefits that stem from reduced real estate and facilities, reduced travel, a higher management span of control (believe it or not, mobile workers need less, not more, “supervision”), and more efficient use of technology. And we’ve seen consistent improvements in remote workforce productivity of between 15 and 18 percent beyond office-bound colleagues—across many industries and over many years. Are you beginning to understand why we find the reluctance to embrace mobile work so frustrating? But it’s not just an emotional issue. We believe corporate reluctance to do the right thing isn’t just a case of being blind to opportunity. It’s also downright irresponsible. Corporate executives who insist on living in the past aren’t just missing out on major cost savings and productivity gains. They’re also squandering stockholder value.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
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Creating Value Think about it this way. Consider a corporation that is spending about 35% of its operating budget on workforce support (that’s fairly typical; workforce support includes facilities, technology, and HR and admin costs; contact us for a more detailed definition). For an organization achieving a 7% profit margin, reducing workforce support costs by just 20% (while also improving employee productivity) could just about double its before-tax profit. If that isn’t impressive enough in its own right, now think about what a doubling of your profit could do for your stock price. All other things being equal (yes, we know they never are, but bear with us), you could be looking at a doubling of your stock price—and, of course, your market capitalization. If your company has a market cap of $500 million, we’re now looking at a mobile work program being worth $500 million to your shareholders. Now our frustration at the lack of imagination and courage on the part of senior executives should be extremely clear. If your CEO isn’t creating the future of work in your company, your shareholders ought to be calling for his/her termination. And if you’re not broadcasting this very simple message to every senior executive you know, maybe someone should ask why you’re not doing your job. And now for a closing prediction: within a year at least three Fortune 500 companies will announce formal plans to cut their workforce support costs by 40% or more. Watch what happens to their stock prices relative to their peers/competitors. We then expect to see a typical “the first sheep turns and then whole herd follows” reaction. Those who don’t follow the herd will drift into decline and eventual demise. And even the followers won’t get the same benefits the leaders will. Fair warning: waiting may be dangerous to your health and well-being. And of course, the longer you wait, the longer it will be before you start realizing the huge cost savings and productivity gains that we guarantee are out there. Every month you don’t act is a month you paid more for workforce support than you needed to. So: what are you waiting for? It’s past time to stop talking and start doing. Please send your comments directly to us, or post a comment on the blog version of the newsletter. We look forward to learning from you. RETURN TO HEADLINES
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
Page 8
**************************************************************************************************** 3) NOTES FROM THE FIELD: WHY IS ADOPTING MOBILITY TAKING SO LONG?
**************************************************************************************************** Larry Barkley Our Compass article this month (just above) is focused entirely on the economics of embracing flexible/mobile work as a way to reduce costs and improve operating efficiencies. We explored the business case for mobile work with the participants at our Realcomm Future of Work/Mobile Workforce Summit in Chicago in mid-June. But they really wanted to talk much more about the question we keep asking: given how economically compelling mobile work is, how come it isn’t sweeping the economy—especially this year when improving business performance is at the top of every CEO’s To-Do list? Well, that conversation inspired our friend and colleague leader Larry Barkley to write down and send us his own thoughts about that question, drawing on his many years of work as a real estate/facilities consultant and thought leader. Here’s his take:
Much has been written in these pages over the past several years on mobility, Alternative Workplace Strategies, and all the issues surrounding the implementation of new ways of working. That discussion has also extended into the public domain with articles and case studies being described recently in The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Business Week, and Fortune, among others. The conversation has been further augmented by a remarkable body of work generated from the CoreNet Global Workplace Community over the past two years. Yet, despite all of this impressive work and study, it appears that adoption by the end user business community has not risen to anywhere near the level of our theory and beliefs. So, we’ve had to ask: “Why is that?” The answer to that question continues to elude many of us who are invested in these ideas. Faced with that perplexing question we decided to dig deeply into this apparent paradox. In doing so we chose to speak directly with the Corporate Real Estate (CRE) end-user community, intentionally avoiding discussions with other consultants and service providers. In doing so, we learned quite a lot. Our findings seem to group themselves into three broad categories, with three sub-categories within each area: Financial •
CAPEX/OPEX constraints: Many, if not most, companies have recently placed extreme constraints upon both CAPEX and OPEX budgets. Management views focus on, and protection of, the Balance Sheet as paramount.
•
Payback period: Despite powerful business case Models, discounted cash flow projections, and qualifying internal rates of return, the business case cannot be made in the current environment. Protection of the balance sheet now requires payback in less than 12 months—and, like it or not, most mobile work programs don’t produce returns that quickly.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
•
Page 9
No consulting budgets: Discretionary spending for outside expertise is virtually non-existent. CRE staffs generally lack internal resources to plan and manage a mobility program, and they don’t have the funds to hire external resources.
Culture/Organization •
Perceived threats: The presence of this factor has been widely reported in the published success stories. Whether real or not, various stakeholders, and perhaps various management layers as well, see mobility as putting their positions at serious risk. Opposition to mobility can be overt or covert, or both.
•
Multiple Business Units: We often view organizations as a single monolithic culture, when in fact Divisions often vary widely in both culture and financial management. Therefore, mobility programs must be customized for each division, usually resulting in much slower adoption. You just can’t do it once for an entire complex organization.
•
Corporate-Level Downsizing: Many CRE organizations are feeling the brunt of the current cost reduction requirements. Corporate staff in general, and CRE in particular, are common targets for downsizing while leaving the operating business units intact. The resulting resource shortages produce a leadership gap.
Risk •
Unfamiliar ground: Mobility and Alternative Workplace Strategies represent unfamiliar ground for most CRE staff. Their inexperience with these approaches results in a lack of confidence in the ultimate success of such programs.
•
Uncertainty of outcomes: Stepping into the uncertain nature of a mobility program seems to be a challenging step, particularly at this time our economic history. Uncertainty of individual survival in the organization has been raised to a daily discussion topic.
•
Heightened aversion to risk: In times such as these, individuals tend to revert to what they know and focus almost exclusively on doing that better. Staying within their comfort zone and “weathering the storm” seems to be a wise course of action to people who feel deeply threatened by an uncertain future.
So What? When we step back and review these findings, what should we take away? Let me be quick to say that I am not making any judgments about whether or not this summary of the reasons for resistance to change is valid, or even whether these perspectives are real. I am simply giving the weather report. This is what people told us; it is real for them. And that’s good enough for me.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
Page 10
There appears to be a disconnect between our customers’ concerns and our stories and value propositions. Simple logic does not work here—there is both logic and emotion at play. Gaining a better understanding of end-user concerns should actually be our first responsibility. Bridging that disconnect seems to be the path to greater adoption and a future in which our end-user clients will enjoy the benefits that consultants and service providers have been touting for years. What’s your take? I would love to hear more from you. Mr. Barkley is currently is the Managing Partner for The Barkley Advisory Group, LLC, a real estate consulting services company that provides technology and management advisory services to the real estate, workplace, and facility management professionals of Global 2000 companies, higher education, healthcare, and other large portfolio occupiers. He possesses over 25 years of experience in the real estate industry and currently serves as Senior Advisor to the 1400-member CoreNet Global Workplace Community. You can reach him at [email protected].
Please send your comments directly to us, or post a comment on the blog version of the newsletter. We look forward to learning from you, and we’ll be happy to share your thoughts with Larry as well. RETURN TO HEADLINES **************************************************************************************************** 5) WHAT’S HAPPENED/HAPPENING? **************************************************************************************************** Looking Back Special Future of Work/Mobile Workforce Summit We’re very pleased that we were invited by Realcomm to lead a pre-conference track at the Realcomm 2009 Summit Conference in Chicago next June. We certainly enjoyed engaging with over 35 active and articulate participants in an afternoon filled with very lively conversation. We are also very pleased that Citrix Online, Herman Miller, ProgressiveAE, and Spenser Communications sponsored the Future of Work Summit. Please join us in thanking them once again for their support. Looking Ahead Here’s what’s on our summer calendars right now: We’ve been invited to work with the IFMA Foundation and a world-class team of authors and thought leaders to produce a practical action guide for facilities managers that will help them contribute to corporate cost-reductions and efficiency improvements right now, when the need is so high. The book is currently being developed; we are committed publishing it in advance of the October World Workplace 2009 conference in Orlando, Florida, where we and the other chapter authors will be presenting our research and tips for surviving the current economy.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
Page 11
We also continue to travel regularly on private business with individual clients. But our July/August plans are still up in the air (which of course is where we find ourselves on almost every business trip). Candidly, the summer is hard to predict. You never know where we might end up (and neither do we). Stay tuned for last-minute plans that depend completely on our beloved clients and future clients. If we’re in your area and have a few minutes, we’d love to see you for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or “refreshments” any time after 5 PM local time (and you know what that means). And please follow us on Twitter for more current updates on the future of work and our travel plans: http://www.twitter.com/thefutureofwork Give us a shout or send us a note, and if we can squeeze out some time, we’d love to say hello and share some good ideas the old-fashioned way: face-to-face, glass in hand. **************************************************************************************************** This issue of Future of Work Agenda was produced by Jim Ware and Charlie Grantham of the Work Design Collaborative, LLC, We encourage your comments, suggestions, and submission of materials for possible future publication. Please contact us anytime: Charlie Grantham or Jim Ware. To subscribe to Future of Work Agenda, click here and register on our web site. Please pass this newsletter on to other interested individuals and encourage them to subscribe as well. The newsletter is free, and will remain free as long as possible. To end your subscription, send a message to [email protected] and write Unsubscribe in the Subject line. For republication rights, contact Jim Ware.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
1. FEATURE ARTICLE: IS THIS A NICE PLACE TO LIVE, OR WHAT? This is the last in a series of three articles about transformation. We know that what is happening right now across the planet is historic, permanent, and unstoppable. The changes will be felt in all aspects of life; work, learning, and play. Our conversation this month focuses on your local community. We offer you a set of questions to ask your neighbors in order to sense where your community is going: will it become a better place to live and work, or will it sink into obsolescence?
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
Page 2
2. COMPASS: WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Brace yourself: here we go again. This is a flat-out rant about why your organization is really off-base, and potentially in trouble, if you’re not actively promoting flexible/mobile work for as many of your knowledge worker employees as possible.
3. NOTES FROM THE FIELD: WHY IS ADOPTING MOBILITY TAKING SO LONG? Much has been written in these pages over the past several years on mobility, Alternative Workplace Strategies, and all the issues surrounding the implementation of new ways of working. Yet, despite all of this impressive work and study, it appears that adoption by the end user business community has not risen to anywhere near the level of our theory and beliefs. So, we’ve had to ask: “Why is that?”
4. WHAT'S HAPPENED/HAPPENING? A short note about where Jim and Charlie have been, are, and will be, holding forth in public conversations and other activities.
THE FULL STORIES As usual, your comments and reactions to any of these articles are more than welcome. Please send your thoughts to us at any time. RETURN TO HEADLINES **************************************************************************************************** 1) FEATURE: IS THIS A NICE PLACE TO LIVE, OR WHAT? **************************************************************************************************** Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware
This is the last in our three-part series on the transformation of the workplace. Our first article (“Someone Hit the Reset Button” in May) looked at the basic characteristics of transformation; our second (“Scotty, Take It Up To Warp Factor 5.6!” in June) focused on the specific impacts of transformation on societal institutions like education, government, and the economy. Now we have come full circle; this concluding piece is going to give you an idea of what we believe communities of the future will look like. To start, we’ll go back to our old rant about the need for communities to become places that attract talent—talent of all ages, we might add. We wrote extensively about this issue during our West Michigan days a few years ago. See, for example, our white paper “What Attracts Knowledge Workers?” (available on our website). In addition, Ron Willett wrote a “Notes from the Field” piece for us a year ago titled “Assessing the Potential for a Telework Center” that focused partially on what makes a community a desirable place to telecommute from. If, as we suspect, the wants and needs of local residents become the central features of a region that drives economic development, then public officials and volunteers must consider carefully which attributes are most attractive to the people they want to live and work in their cities and neighborhoods.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
Page 3
Without those attractors, the talent won’t come; and, as the economy becomes evermore dependent on innovation and ever-more location-independent, regions that are less attractive will wither, and, in many cases, die. The short answer to what attracts most people is community (in its broadest, most socially-focused sense). Although the physical attributes of a region (weather, recreational opportunities, cleanliness, livability) are important, the equation is far more complicated than that. For those of you with a geography bent we suggest visiting the “patron saint” of urban areas, Joel Kotkin, at http://www.joelkotkin.com/. Following our logic, the economy is clearly transforming, and so are communities. We believe that the “psychology of regions” is changing in a very deep and fundamental way. In fact, we’re convinced that you can have all the roads, schools, airports, business services, Internet access, and hospitals you want, but if your area doesn’t have a meaningful sense of community your city or town won’t experience much in-migration or wealth generation in the post-industrial global economy. But how can you tell if your community has what it needs? We don’t know of a fullyformed, statistically supported answer yet, but we are actively investigating the development of a widely agreed-upon set of community-based “health” metrics. It’s a tough challenge. But we have to start somewhere. We have also been particularly drawn to the work of the late John Gardner, former head of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and then a professor at Stanford University (see in particular http://www.pbs.org/johngardner/chapters/7.html for more details on his work). Professor Gardner was fascinated with leadership: what is it, and how do you grow it? Later in life he turned to the study of communities, and in particular how to promote and develop that “sense of community” we’re also interested in. He believed that the contemporary breakdown of community was a root cause of many social ills and a significant contributor to a general decrease in the quality of life in America—prescient observations from thirty years ago, in our humble opinion. As a result of his interest and concern about communities Gardner developed a framework for measuring the ingredients of community (see “The New Leadership Agenda,” in Community Building: Renewing Spirit and Learning in Business, Kazimierz Gozdz, editor, New Leaders Press 1995 – link is to a description of the book on Amazon.com). . Gardner’s categories describing the ingredients of community, which are similar to Rebecca Ryan’s but go well beyond the obvious, include: • • • • • •
Wholeness incorporating diversity Reasonable sense of shared values Caring, trust, and teamwork Effective internal communication Participation Affirmation
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
• • •
Page 4
Links beyond the community Development of young people A forward view
Okay, so much for theory. What can you do to help your community become a net attractor of knowledge worker talent? We have synthesized our ideas and Gardner’s into a few simple questions you can use in community development workshops. Please bear in mind that this list is research in progress and doesn’t yet exist as a formal diagnostic instrument; but we believe it gives us a good basis for working with serious community leaders to start the conversation. 1.
Do the people in our community share a similar purpose for living here?
2.
Is our community highly diverse in its cultural and ethnic makeup? Do we practice an openness that allows all of us to question all of our assumptions?
3.
Is teamwork among our community members very important and valued?
4.
Are people in our community recognized publicly for their contributions?
5.
Does everyone in our community communicate well with each other?
6.
Does our community have a distinct and unique identity? Is there local pride in what we do and represent?
7.
Is our community connected economically and politically with others in our region? Do we play an active leadership role in developing the region politically, economically, and environmentally?
8.
Do we welcome new members to our community, even when they come from different backgrounds and have different lifestyles?
9.
Do we believe in the “equal rights” of all our residents to transportation, education, clean air, and public spaces?
10.
How easily does our community resolve conflicts among our members?
11.
Do our residents invest time and energy to develop the community? To improve our schools? To ensure a sustainable environment?
12.
Do we have adequate resources in our community to help it thrive?
13.
Are we constantly seeking to “push the envelope” and striving to become a better, more interesting place?
14.
Do we support and encourage innovation in both our public and our commercial enterprises?
That’s it. Short and sweet. The world changes, and your community changes or dies. Give this quick-check diagnostic a try. Go out into your community and ask people these simple questions (and ask yourself, too). You may be surprised at the answers—or you may decide to rent a moving van the next day. Please send your comments directly to us, or post a comment on the blog version of the newsletter. We look forward to learning from you.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
Page 5
RETURN TO HEADLINES **************************************************************************************************** 2) COMPASS: WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? **************************************************************************************************** Jim Ware and Charlie Grantham
Brace yourself: here we go again. This is a flat-out rant about why your organization is really off-base and potentially in deep doo-doo if you’re not actively promoting flexible/mobile work for as many of your knowledge worker employees as possible. Last September, when the economy hit the proverbial fan, we fully expected to see a genuine rush to implement flexible work programs. We naively thought that this time the pressure to cut costs would finally be so great that senior executives would give up their long-time resistance to change in the way they get things done. Well, there’s been a rush all right—to cut staff, to cut travel, to cut every “discretionary” expense imaginable. Same old, same old: don’t change anything, just squeeze the few employees who are left to do more with less. In Our Humble Opinion, that’s not the way to get to the future, let alone survive. We’ve actually said a lot of this before (“How Come Distributed Work is Still the Next Big Thing?”). But we’re not going to spend any time at all discoursing about all the reasons why executives resist change. And we’re not going to harp on all the logical reasons for supporting mobile work. No, this time we’re just going to tell you what you’re missing by continuing to manage in old-fashioned (“So twentieth century!”) ways. Frankly, we’ve run out of patience. There are actually lots of reasons why you should be transforming the way your organization gets work done: • • • • • •
You can save a whole boatload of money You can increase productivity and agility, and reduce business continuity risk Your employees want to do it You can attract (and retain) better talent You’ll help save the planet Sooner or later (probably sooner) you’re going to be legally required to do it
But we’re going to be really, really brief and assume you actually know most of that already. In fact, we’re only going to address one thing here, because it seems to be the only thing that really matters: saving money.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
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Saving Money We’ve suggested for years that it’s a whole lot cheaper to support a mobile workforce than to provide (mostly unused) office or cubicle space for everyone. Yes you’ll spend a little more on technology in a mobile world. But you can shave your real estate costs by 30% or 40% or more, and you’ll probably reduce your Human Resources Management and overall administrative costs too. SCAN Health, a company we’ve been working with for over three years, is realizing a return on investment of over 40% by enabling approximately 15% of its workforce to work at home 2-4 days a week. We’ve told this story publicly several times in the last few months; you can dig into it in more detail at this post on our blog (which also includes the full presentation deck we delivered at an IFMA Industries Forum back in March in partnership with Diane Coles, SCAN’s Director of Workplace Services). And PC World recently carried a story that Cisco Systems is claiming $277 million in annual productivity savings as a result of enabling work-at-home employees (“Cisco Promotes Telecommuting”). And, by the way, Cisco employees are much happier too. Here’s another assessment: Kate Lister and Tom Harnish, authors of the recent bestseller Undress4Success (link is to Amazon.com), have estimated that United States corporations could drop $260 Billion (that’s Billion, with a “B”) to the bottom line every year if they just enabled people to work at home one day a week Commuters themselves would save another $228 Billion (not to mention the annual savings in gasoline consumption; that change alone could almost make us independent of foreign oil). Our analysis of the economics of mobile work is unequivocal; we’ve seen one case after another where the savings in total workforce support operating costs run between 27 and 45 percent. That’s including all the benefits that stem from reduced real estate and facilities, reduced travel, a higher management span of control (believe it or not, mobile workers need less, not more, “supervision”), and more efficient use of technology. And we’ve seen consistent improvements in remote workforce productivity of between 15 and 18 percent beyond office-bound colleagues—across many industries and over many years. Are you beginning to understand why we find the reluctance to embrace mobile work so frustrating? But it’s not just an emotional issue. We believe corporate reluctance to do the right thing isn’t just a case of being blind to opportunity. It’s also downright irresponsible. Corporate executives who insist on living in the past aren’t just missing out on major cost savings and productivity gains. They’re also squandering stockholder value.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
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Creating Value Think about it this way. Consider a corporation that is spending about 35% of its operating budget on workforce support (that’s fairly typical; workforce support includes facilities, technology, and HR and admin costs; contact us for a more detailed definition). For an organization achieving a 7% profit margin, reducing workforce support costs by just 20% (while also improving employee productivity) could just about double its before-tax profit. If that isn’t impressive enough in its own right, now think about what a doubling of your profit could do for your stock price. All other things being equal (yes, we know they never are, but bear with us), you could be looking at a doubling of your stock price—and, of course, your market capitalization. If your company has a market cap of $500 million, we’re now looking at a mobile work program being worth $500 million to your shareholders. Now our frustration at the lack of imagination and courage on the part of senior executives should be extremely clear. If your CEO isn’t creating the future of work in your company, your shareholders ought to be calling for his/her termination. And if you’re not broadcasting this very simple message to every senior executive you know, maybe someone should ask why you’re not doing your job. And now for a closing prediction: within a year at least three Fortune 500 companies will announce formal plans to cut their workforce support costs by 40% or more. Watch what happens to their stock prices relative to their peers/competitors. We then expect to see a typical “the first sheep turns and then whole herd follows” reaction. Those who don’t follow the herd will drift into decline and eventual demise. And even the followers won’t get the same benefits the leaders will. Fair warning: waiting may be dangerous to your health and well-being. And of course, the longer you wait, the longer it will be before you start realizing the huge cost savings and productivity gains that we guarantee are out there. Every month you don’t act is a month you paid more for workforce support than you needed to. So: what are you waiting for? It’s past time to stop talking and start doing. Please send your comments directly to us, or post a comment on the blog version of the newsletter. We look forward to learning from you. RETURN TO HEADLINES
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
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**************************************************************************************************** 3) NOTES FROM THE FIELD: WHY IS ADOPTING MOBILITY TAKING SO LONG?
**************************************************************************************************** Larry Barkley Our Compass article this month (just above) is focused entirely on the economics of embracing flexible/mobile work as a way to reduce costs and improve operating efficiencies. We explored the business case for mobile work with the participants at our Realcomm Future of Work/Mobile Workforce Summit in Chicago in mid-June. But they really wanted to talk much more about the question we keep asking: given how economically compelling mobile work is, how come it isn’t sweeping the economy—especially this year when improving business performance is at the top of every CEO’s To-Do list? Well, that conversation inspired our friend and colleague leader Larry Barkley to write down and send us his own thoughts about that question, drawing on his many years of work as a real estate/facilities consultant and thought leader. Here’s his take:
Much has been written in these pages over the past several years on mobility, Alternative Workplace Strategies, and all the issues surrounding the implementation of new ways of working. That discussion has also extended into the public domain with articles and case studies being described recently in The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Business Week, and Fortune, among others. The conversation has been further augmented by a remarkable body of work generated from the CoreNet Global Workplace Community over the past two years. Yet, despite all of this impressive work and study, it appears that adoption by the end user business community has not risen to anywhere near the level of our theory and beliefs. So, we’ve had to ask: “Why is that?” The answer to that question continues to elude many of us who are invested in these ideas. Faced with that perplexing question we decided to dig deeply into this apparent paradox. In doing so we chose to speak directly with the Corporate Real Estate (CRE) end-user community, intentionally avoiding discussions with other consultants and service providers. In doing so, we learned quite a lot. Our findings seem to group themselves into three broad categories, with three sub-categories within each area: Financial •
CAPEX/OPEX constraints: Many, if not most, companies have recently placed extreme constraints upon both CAPEX and OPEX budgets. Management views focus on, and protection of, the Balance Sheet as paramount.
•
Payback period: Despite powerful business case Models, discounted cash flow projections, and qualifying internal rates of return, the business case cannot be made in the current environment. Protection of the balance sheet now requires payback in less than 12 months—and, like it or not, most mobile work programs don’t produce returns that quickly.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
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No consulting budgets: Discretionary spending for outside expertise is virtually non-existent. CRE staffs generally lack internal resources to plan and manage a mobility program, and they don’t have the funds to hire external resources.
Culture/Organization •
Perceived threats: The presence of this factor has been widely reported in the published success stories. Whether real or not, various stakeholders, and perhaps various management layers as well, see mobility as putting their positions at serious risk. Opposition to mobility can be overt or covert, or both.
•
Multiple Business Units: We often view organizations as a single monolithic culture, when in fact Divisions often vary widely in both culture and financial management. Therefore, mobility programs must be customized for each division, usually resulting in much slower adoption. You just can’t do it once for an entire complex organization.
•
Corporate-Level Downsizing: Many CRE organizations are feeling the brunt of the current cost reduction requirements. Corporate staff in general, and CRE in particular, are common targets for downsizing while leaving the operating business units intact. The resulting resource shortages produce a leadership gap.
Risk •
Unfamiliar ground: Mobility and Alternative Workplace Strategies represent unfamiliar ground for most CRE staff. Their inexperience with these approaches results in a lack of confidence in the ultimate success of such programs.
•
Uncertainty of outcomes: Stepping into the uncertain nature of a mobility program seems to be a challenging step, particularly at this time our economic history. Uncertainty of individual survival in the organization has been raised to a daily discussion topic.
•
Heightened aversion to risk: In times such as these, individuals tend to revert to what they know and focus almost exclusively on doing that better. Staying within their comfort zone and “weathering the storm” seems to be a wise course of action to people who feel deeply threatened by an uncertain future.
So What? When we step back and review these findings, what should we take away? Let me be quick to say that I am not making any judgments about whether or not this summary of the reasons for resistance to change is valid, or even whether these perspectives are real. I am simply giving the weather report. This is what people told us; it is real for them. And that’s good enough for me.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
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There appears to be a disconnect between our customers’ concerns and our stories and value propositions. Simple logic does not work here—there is both logic and emotion at play. Gaining a better understanding of end-user concerns should actually be our first responsibility. Bridging that disconnect seems to be the path to greater adoption and a future in which our end-user clients will enjoy the benefits that consultants and service providers have been touting for years. What’s your take? I would love to hear more from you. Mr. Barkley is currently is the Managing Partner for The Barkley Advisory Group, LLC, a real estate consulting services company that provides technology and management advisory services to the real estate, workplace, and facility management professionals of Global 2000 companies, higher education, healthcare, and other large portfolio occupiers. He possesses over 25 years of experience in the real estate industry and currently serves as Senior Advisor to the 1400-member CoreNet Global Workplace Community. You can reach him at [email protected].
Please send your comments directly to us, or post a comment on the blog version of the newsletter. We look forward to learning from you, and we’ll be happy to share your thoughts with Larry as well. RETURN TO HEADLINES **************************************************************************************************** 5) WHAT’S HAPPENED/HAPPENING? **************************************************************************************************** Looking Back Special Future of Work/Mobile Workforce Summit We’re very pleased that we were invited by Realcomm to lead a pre-conference track at the Realcomm 2009 Summit Conference in Chicago next June. We certainly enjoyed engaging with over 35 active and articulate participants in an afternoon filled with very lively conversation. We are also very pleased that Citrix Online, Herman Miller, ProgressiveAE, and Spenser Communications sponsored the Future of Work Summit. Please join us in thanking them once again for their support. Looking Ahead Here’s what’s on our summer calendars right now: We’ve been invited to work with the IFMA Foundation and a world-class team of authors and thought leaders to produce a practical action guide for facilities managers that will help them contribute to corporate cost-reductions and efficiency improvements right now, when the need is so high. The book is currently being developed; we are committed publishing it in advance of the October World Workplace 2009 conference in Orlando, Florida, where we and the other chapter authors will be presenting our research and tips for surviving the current economy.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Future of Work Agenda July/August 2009
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We also continue to travel regularly on private business with individual clients. But our July/August plans are still up in the air (which of course is where we find ourselves on almost every business trip). Candidly, the summer is hard to predict. You never know where we might end up (and neither do we). Stay tuned for last-minute plans that depend completely on our beloved clients and future clients. If we’re in your area and have a few minutes, we’d love to see you for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or “refreshments” any time after 5 PM local time (and you know what that means). And please follow us on Twitter for more current updates on the future of work and our travel plans: http://www.twitter.com/thefutureofwork Give us a shout or send us a note, and if we can squeeze out some time, we’d love to say hello and share some good ideas the old-fashioned way: face-to-face, glass in hand. **************************************************************************************************** This issue of Future of Work Agenda was produced by Jim Ware and Charlie Grantham of the Work Design Collaborative, LLC, We encourage your comments, suggestions, and submission of materials for possible future publication. Please contact us anytime: Charlie Grantham or Jim Ware. To subscribe to Future of Work Agenda, click here and register on our web site. Please pass this newsletter on to other interested individuals and encourage them to subscribe as well. The newsletter is free, and will remain free as long as possible. To end your subscription, send a message to [email protected] and write Unsubscribe in the Subject line. For republication rights, contact Jim Ware.
© Copyright 2009 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
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