Future Work:

I'll be doing a session talking about the book at the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development's annual conference in Manchester on November 8th. My presentation is included in the "Future Fit for Business" section, which is appropriate, since Future Work is first and foremost about meeting business goals, not about special benefits or perks for employees. What's needed is a change in working culture and management practices to provide a much more effective workforce with increased productivity and lower costs.

Michel Landel, CEO of Sodexo, the global services company, says that our book "lays out a compelling business case for flexibility that offers essential guidance for leaders...", while Stephen Leonard, chief executive of IBM UK and Ireland, describes it as "an invaluable resource for anyone who needs to increase employee productivity and reduce costs, and wants to do so in a way which is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable." You can read this and 14 other recommendations here.

We're receiving warm recommendations for our book from experts and business leaders who've had a preview. Richard Donkin, author of The Future of Work and a former FT columnist, describes it as a "robust and readable analysis of work transformation that deserves to become a classic in its field", while Professor Stewart Friedman of Wharton says it "provides timely insight on the kind of culture organizations need to meet the expectations of today's workforce".

It is one year until the London Olympic Games and preparation is well under way. But there is one big worry. How will the thousands of competitors, officials and spectators reach the venues without getting snarled up in traffic? The Department for Transport wants a 30% reduction in commuters during the games. This is an ideal opportunity for businesses to review the travel patterns of their workforce.

The results of an interesting survey have just been published in HR Magazine. The study of 1,000 office workers was commissioned to mark the 10th anniversary of TV series 'The Office', which first aired in the UK on 9 July 2001.

83% of workers said they felt they were more productive now than in 2001, with innovations such as smartphones, Tablet PCs and cloud computing making it much easier to work without needing to be in the office. 56% of workers expected to see a clear reduction in the amount of time that they spent travelling to and from work or to meetings.

How can big organisations become more agile about work? A European study just published by Microsoft shows that only 9 per cent of employees in larger companies are able to work regularly away from the office, even though most people want greater freedom over where and when they work. Half the 1,500 respondents said they had no access to even basic technology to enable them to work remotely.

At a well-attended Working Families conference on fathers and flexibility in London this week, Judy Greevy, head of HR and sustainability at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, pointed out that managers in tough economic times tend to want to revert to how we worked in the past. This shows that flexibility is just an “accommodation” and that the work culture hasn’t truly changed. What will persuade managers to change their thinking?

The UK could enjoy a big advance in flexible workplaces if the government presses ahead with new proposals to extend the ‘right to request’ flexible working to all employees. This right is currently open only to certain parents and carers. Extending it to everyone would begin to make flexibility the norm, as it needs to be in today’s interconnected, fast-paced business world, rather than an accommodation of particular groups of employee.

There is an interesting item in the Telegraph today about companies banning the use of social media (see http://bit.ly/jfFIew) . In a survey carried out for HCL Technologies 48% of employees reported that they are banned from using Twitter and Facebook at work. We feature HCL in the book and agree with their CEO Vineet Nayar who is quoted in the Telegraph as saying ''It is quite remarkable that in this day and age, many employers are still putting their employees' interests as a low priority by not allowing them to use sites like Facebook."

Interesting piece in the Financial Times (2 April) about how the terrible earthquake has forced a change in culture at some Japanese companies, which are now giving employees remote access to computer systems or letting them work from home via personal emails and mobile phones. A big change from traditionally rigid office hours, and just what we're arguing in the book needs to happen worldwide to benefit businesses and individuals, as well as the environment. So sad, though, that it takes a disaster of this magnitude to make change happen.