HOW IS THE WORKPLACE CHANGING?

Technology has changed the nature of work and provided opportunities to work from multiple locations, including the home.

Many organizations now offer their employees a number of different ways of working, including flexible working, agile working, and remote e-working.

Flexible working:

Flexible working is not a new concept and can consist of many different types of working patterns. Based on real-world scenarios I can give the following examples of how they define flexible working. And you can try out the following flexible working strategies according to your business context.

1. Job sharing: Two people do one job and split the hours.
2. Working from home: It might be possible to do some or all of the work from home or anywhere else other than the normal place of work.
3. Part-time: Working less than full-time hours (usually by working fewer days).
4. Compressed hours: Working full-time hours but over fewer days.
5. Flexitime: The employee chooses when to start and end work (within agreed limits) but works certain ‘core hours’, for example, 10 am to 4 pm every day.
6. Annualized hours: The employee has to work a certain number of hours over the year but they have some flexibility about when they work. There are sometimes ‘core hours’ which the employee regularly works each week, and they work the rest of their hours flexibly or when there’s extra demand at work.
7. Staggered hours: The employee has different start, finish and break times from other workers.

Agile working:

Agile working is a way of working in which an organization empowers its people to work where, when, and how they choose. Agile working combines maximum flexibility and minimum constraints to optimize performance and deliver best-in-class value and customer service. Using communications and information technology to enable people to work in ways that best suit their needs, agile working overcomes the traditional limitations of where and when tasks must be performed.

The Benefits of Agile Working:

In addition, the Agile Organisation (2020) highlights four dimensions of agile working practice to consider:

• Time: when do people work?
• Location: where do people work?
• Role: what do people do?
• Source: who carries out the work?

Remote e-working:

The term ‘remote working’ can be used to describe an employee who works from home, or who works beyond the office. E-working relates to work being completed anywhere and at any time regardless of location, and also to the widening use of technology to aid flexible working

Either way, it’s important to choose the environment you’ll be most successful in. After all, each person has their own unique experience with remote working and finding what works and doesn't work. One person’s productivity booster can be another’s a distracting disaster. As you begin to work longer and build more experience, learning to focus in any surroundings is a valuable life skill, and will only help your professional career in the long run especially as remote-first companies are gaining traction. If you’re still newer to the remote workforce, start by simply finding out where you do your best work and why.

Some important things to consider are what environment you stay focused in the longest, how long it takes you to get back on track, and how you best communicate. If you’re self-motivated, adhere to a routine well, and enjoy minimal distractions, then working from home is the right choice for you.

If you thrive on social interactions, feel inspired by seeing others working, and stay on track best if others see you, then working from the office is the way to go.

Occasionally there are projects that require more quiet time or more collaboration and resource planning. It’s important to be able to mix it up, depending on where you think you’ll be most productive!