WorkSnug blog

Flexible working: "You've gotta roll with it"

sansharma — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:00:00 +0100

About six months ago, I wrote a post for this blog on Work-Life Balance vs. Work-Life Blur. In it, I shared two definitions of flexible workers: as ‘Integrators’ and ‘Boundary Keepers’. Boundary Keepers “keep things separate,” I wrote. Integrators “mix things up”.

San Sharma (@WorkSnugSan) is community manager at WorkSnug

I was a Boundary Keeper, I said. I’d established a ‘traditional’ working pattern and hours, and I was pretty disciplined about sticking to it. My work didn’t really spill into my evenings and weekends, and I tried hard to fight distractions (sometimes friends and family!) in the day.

Six months on, and I’m done fighting. That’s not to say that I’ve let distractions into my working life, but that I see my working life in a different light - and it’s not always daylight.

I’m starting to embrace a more Integrator-like work-style. It sometimes finds me working in the evenings and on the weekends (like now!), but it also means that instead of fighting distractions in the day I can roll with them.

That’s the advice I’d like to share with you today: if you’re taking up flexible working, you’ve got to roll with it.

As a former Boundary Keeper - and a strict one at that - a personal call in the middle of the day was one of the worst things to happen to me. The phone would ring, and the ringtone might as well have announced “game over!”.

It’s perfectly normal, of course, to announce your working hours as roughly between 9am and 5pm, but what’s the point of flexible working, if you can’t be flexible? When the phone rings now, I pick up - and if I need to work a tiny bit later, I will.

For example, one day last week, I had lots on my to-do list and in my diary, including a couple of meetings. In between, I had to get some stuff done, so I popped into a coffee shop with my laptop. As soon as I did, I recognised someone I knew. Dang, I thought. Maybe he didn’t see me? But it was too late. He waved and came over.

In the past, I would have really struggled with the awkwardness of having to explain that although I was in the coffee shop I had a lot of work to do and I couldn’t really talk. But, that day, I thought, I could actually shuffle some things around. I could talk to this guy now, and catch up with my to-do list after my next meeting. Sure, that would eat into my evening, but I was only planning to watch TV anyway. This way, I could have a fortuitous coffee with a friend, get to my meeting on time and do all the work I wanted to do as well.

Of course, this isn’t always possible. Sometimes deadlines can’t be shifted. But for everything else, I don’t see 5pm as a ‘deadline’ any more. It’s more like a good time to stop, but it’s not a deadline: it’s a blurry line, if anything :-)

I think, at heart, I’m still a bit of a Boundary Keeper, but I’m a bit of an Integrator too, when the day calls for it. And that’s how I roll.

Lots more people, here in London, will be taking up flexible working for the Olympics. If you’d like more flexible working tips & guides (and no spam!) sign up for our occasional newsletter.

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Photo credit: kbaird

Take our quick survey, win a Plantronics headset

sansharma — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:33:58 +0100

Help us make WorkSnug better.

We’re working to make WorkSnug work better. And we really need your help! So, please take 5 minutes to complete our short survey. To say ‘thanks’, we’re giving you the chance to win one of 10 Plantronics Discovery 975 Bluetooth headsets.

Get started below.

Take our short survey

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Flexible working: Not just for London 2012

sansharma — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:39:19 +0100

WorkSnug is based here in London, though our users are spread all over the world. We’re also pretty agile - we’re a small team of flexible workers, splitting our work days (and sometimes nights!) between the office, our homes and third-places, like laptop-friendly coffee shops.

That’s why, when it snowed here in London last year, on what became ‘Snow Day’ for stranded employees and ‘Snowmageddon’ for employers (and slow-news day journalists), we weren’t massively affected. But we did notice the meltdown in the city around us (excuse the pun!): buses and underground trains didn’t run, commuters were stuck at home, employers freaked out.

Now London’s workforce is facing an even bigger challenge: the 2012 Olympic Games.

In training

Some businesses are preparing for a meltdown on the scale of 100 ‘Snow Days’. Others are taking a ‘wait and see approach’, thinking the expected disruption will be less like Snow Day and more like the Millennium Bug.

The authorities propose a solution that is two fold: 1) that London’s transport network has to increase its capacity, and 2) that commuters have to decrease their usage - by 30% to avoid severe disruptions.

Flexible working: Going for gold

Is this interesting to our readers outside of London? Well, yes. Studies suggest that problems with London’s transport network aren’t just to do with the Olympics. The Games are an inflection point of a much larger issue, and an opportunity for businesses to consider the broader challenges of work in the 21st century.

White paper: 2012 Olympic Games Roundtable

This white paper (1.4 MB) by workplace consultants AOS Studley is the result of a roundtable discussion with senior HR professionals in London. It presents conclusions drawn from research and resources that suggest that flexible working is the solution to London’s 2012 woes, but also to the challenges of modern work elsewhere.

It also does a good job of clearing up some confusion around flexible working as a term and as a workstyle, and shares case studies of its benefits and successes.

The white paper also makes an interesting point about one of flexible working’s biggest challenges - and it’s one we talked about with Cisco’s Bas Boorsma on our podcast: and that’s the shift in culture and understanding required to make flexible working a success.

Downloads

Download AOS Studley’s white paper on the challenges of the 2012 Olympic Games and flexible working in general here here (1.4 MB), and listen to our podcast on the evolution of work here.

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Photo credit: paulcoxphotography

Infographic: The Mobile Employee

sansharma — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:33:13 +0100

Mobile app developers [x]cube LABS put together this infographical snapshot of mobility adoption in the enterprise workforce.

It gives a good global overview of the types of mobile workers, their devices and preferences.

Apparently, younger employees prefer the Apple and Android smartphones, while older employees prefer BlackBerrys. True?

Check out the infographic below, and let us know what you think.

The Mobile Employee

Discover other mobile workers with WorkSnug's new app

sansharma — Fri, 04 May 2012 09:33:00 +0100

We’re very excited about the latest release of our iPhone app, which does some really cool things with LinkedIn.

WorkSnug connects mobile workers to the nearest and best laptop friendly places around the world - and now, for the first time, you can connect your LinkedIn account and see other WorkSnug users near you.

It’s a bit like sharing a virtual business card with other laptop workers. It’s completely optional, of course, and you can switch the LinkedIn feature on or off at any time.

Anyway, it’s best to see it in action! So, make sure you check out the video above.

Download

If you’re an existing WorkSnug iPhone user, look for the update in the App Store. New users can download the app here. It’s totally free, by the way.

Press Release

WorkSnug Connects Coffee Shop Workers

Fast-growing app for finding laptop-friendly workspaces integrates LinkedIn profiles and helps connect likeminded mobile workers in coffee shops.

London, May 3rd, 2012

We’ve all seen them. Laptop-toting mobile workers, phone in hand, conducting their daily business from a coffee shop table. In the hyper-mobile business world, the office can be anywhere. But as we’ve sat working in coffee shops we’ve always been intrigued. Who are these people? What do they do?

WorkSnug today launches an innovative new feature on our iPhone app that helps our users to answer these questions, by integrating and sharing a user’s LinkedIn profile. Users simply authorize a connection with LinkedIn, and they’ll share their location and the key details from their LinkedIn profile with other WorkSnug users, for one hour. See it like sharing a virtual business card with other members of the WorkSnug community.

WorkSnug has long been the go-to guide to laptop friendly workspaces around the world. This new evolution begins the process of bringing coffee shop workers together, according to their professional interests. It’s completely optional of course, users can switch the LinkedIn feature on or off at any time.

WorkSnug connects mobile workers to the nearest and best laptop friendly locations around the world. We use augmented reality to share user reviews of local cafes, hotel lounges, train stations and co-working spaces. Our rapidly growing user community reviews WiFi, noise levels, power provision and even the quality of the coffee. WorkSnug’s Managing Director Richard Leyland said: “What we’d really love is to see WorkSnug fuelling ad-hoc connections between mobile workers in the real world. This LinkedIn integration is a first step in that direction, and if it’s successful we’ll roll it out from iPhone to our other platforms and we’ll build the richness of this people to people connection. Coffee shop working is associated with freedom and self-determination, but equally you can see a certain isolation in those people hunched over their laptops. Perhaps we can stimulate some community here, or unlock valuable connections between people.”

Download WorkSnug for iPhone from the App Store

- ends-

About WorkSnug

WorkSnug is a mobile and web-based tool that connects mobile workers to the nearest and best places to work in the major cities of the world.

Using a mix of paid reviewers, ambassadors and user-generated reviews, WorkSnug has visited and reviewed thousands of laptop friendly locations around the world, offering a vital human perspective on the range of connected spaces in cities.

WorkSnug was founded in London in late 2009 and since that time has grown rapidly, having successfully partnered with technology providers such as Plantronics, Skype, HP and Cisco. WorkSnug’s founder is Richard Leyland, an expert commentator on the future of work who has provided insight into the future for many of the world’s largest technology firms, broadcasters, professional services organizations and others.

WorkSnug is available on Android, iPhone and Nokia. For more information visit WorkSnug.com. To get the app, search for WorkSnug in the relevant app store or visit WorkSnug.com/apps

Media Contact

Richard Leyland
WorkSnug Ltd
+44 7515 394567
richard.leyland@worksnug.com

Images

On Flickr

Use Skype to add context to your teleworking experience

sansharma — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:24:00 +0100

If you’ve decided to ditch the office and work remotely, whether that’s from home or on the road, it’s really important to start your flexible working journey off on the right foot. And if you’ve got stakeholders involved, like a boss, a manager or other team members, it’s really important to keep them on board too.

Cora (@corasauras) wrote some excellent tips on that for our blog, as well as some solid advice for making your teleworking experience a success. But I’d like to add some of my own tips - and they’re to do with using Skype to add context to your teleworking experience.

San Sharma (@WorkSnugSan) is community manager at WorkSnug

Off on the wrong foot

I’ve heard horror stories of people starting a flexible working arrangement off on the wrong foot. Some are afraid to leave their laptops and risk being accused of ‘slacking off’. I knew one flexible worker who would turn the volume up high on his computer, so he could hear Skype notifications when he wandered away from his desk. And another, who won’t be named, who would take his desk phone with him into the bathroom, in case his boss rang when nature called!

But the truth is flexible working isn’t the same as being in the office: coworkers don’t see you come in in the morning, or pop out for lunch. They don’t know when you’re away from your desk or when you’re in a meeting.

That is, unless you let your coworkers know where you are and what you’re doing.

It’s really important to do that - not only to manage expectations of your availability - but also to add contextual information about where you are and what’s happening around you, and to invite your coworkers to imagine your work situation for themselves.

Adding context with Skype

Skype is a part of almost all of our work lives - so it’s a great tool to use for this purpose, as it doesn’t involve introducing a new system to the rest of your team.

Change your Skype status to truly reflect your availability. If the thought of someone Skyping you via IM, voice or video, doesn’t fill you with dread, then set your status to ‘Online’.
If that would be a bad idea, like if you’re right in the middle of something, like a document or a meeting, and don’t want to be disturbed - you’ve guessed it! - set it to ‘Do Not Disturb’. And if you’re nipping away from your computer for a bit, set it to ‘Away’.
You can actually set how many minutes the computer must be inactive for for it to automatically set your status to ‘Away’ in Skype’s preferences, but don’t switch that option off altogether. There’s something quite annoying about thinking someone’s there when they’re not. Oh, and the ‘Invisible’ status seems like a cop out to me. What do you think?
Use your ‘mood message’ to display your whereabouts. Skype wants your ‘mood message’ to be like your Facebook updates, for some reason, but I find it far more useful to use it to display my whereabouts. I pretty much change it from ‘At Snug Office’, to ‘Working from home’, ‘At the Hub Kings Cross’, which is a coworking space, to ‘Working in a coffee shop’ - to give some context to my coworkers, wherever they are.

So, by using your Skype status and mood message, you can let your coworkers and stakeholders know where you are and what you’re doing, and start to paint a picture for them about what your day is really like.

Unified Communications

If your team is really serious about flexible working, and has a big enough mobile workforce to support it, it may want to look into a unified communications solution, like Microsoft Lync. UC software, like Lync, combines IM, conferencing, voice chat, Office integration and mobile apps, as well as a more robust way to manage and broadcast your status to the rest of your team.

Do you use UC software, like Lync? Is it worth bringing it up with your IT manager, do you think? Or does Skype work just fine for you guys?

Let us know what you think about that, and about using Skype to add context to your teleworking experience, in the comments.

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Photo credit: Justin Shearer

Mobile Workforce Briefing: April 2012

sansharma — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:07:40 +0100

A roundup of the month’s best links for mobile workers and digital nomads

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Here’s what we’ve been reading this month. Let us know, in the comments, if there are any posts that you’ve been reading that you’d like to share with our mobile working readers.

Modern Workspaces

Tech & Connectivity

Enterprise

Travel

Coffee

Photo credit: marchorowitz

Infographic: The Year of the Enterprise Tablet

sansharma — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:46:48 +0100

This is what tablet adoption looks like - to me, at least: it starts with fanboys, queueing outside in the rain; it gets handed down to parents (who bug its original owners with support queries!); we want to take ours into work; the IT department resists, then finally caves in.

We’re not quite there yet. We’re stuck at stage 2, helping our parents with their iPad-me-downs. But, don’t get me wrong, the tablet is making its way into the workplace, whether enterprise-issued or as part of a “Bring your own device” policy.

This infographic shows what’s happened so far and the trends that’ll encourage tablet adoption in enterprise in the coming years.

The Year of the Enterprise Tablet

Infographic by Vertic via Techi.com

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Escaping the distractions of working from home

sansharma — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:33:39 +0100

In recent years, there’s been an explosion of coworking spaces, coffee shops and libraries offering free wifi, as well casual coworking ‘Jelly’ events.

The bemused home working onlooker might well be asking why all this is necessary, when they already have a perfectly good place to work at home that costs nothing.

The fact is that while living and working in the same place has many advantages, such as allowing more time with family and the ability to juggle work and home commitments, it’s also a double-edged sword.

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

In a survey I carried out on my website recently, distraction came out as one of the major challenges for people working from home.

The top three distractions they identified were as follows:

Family members you never saw when you were at the office all day may not be quite as aware as you of the concept of working from home - the fact you are around means they want to talk to you or expect you to do the lion’s share of the jobs. As one of my Twitter followers told me - ‘My wife came home and asked why the house was a mess when I’d been at home all day’.
Neighbours were mentioned surprisingly often in the survey as a source of distraction. They know you’re at home so they pop round for a chat or to ask for a favour. And suddenly you find yourself becoming the neighbourhood sorting office for parcels delivered during the day.
Housework. There’s nothing more depressing than facing a dirty, cluttered house every time you leave your workspace, but too much time spent on the house means lost working hours. To work from home successfully you have to find your own level of acceptable cleanliness and tidiness.

Many home workers find that leaving behind the actual and potential distractions of working in their home allows them to focus in a different way.

Most people are amazed by their productivity in third spaces or at Jelly events, even allowing for chats with fellow attendees, and a friend says her productivity ‘has shot up’ since she signed up with a coworking space.

To paraphrase a well-known quotation, home workers have never had it so good! We can mix and match the benefits of working at home and in other places in combinations to suit ourselves and our lifestyles, and so neatly avoid many of the challenges of home working.

Judy Heminsley (@judyheminsley) is a homeworking expert and believer in mobile & flexible working, coworking, coffee & cake.

Photo credit: joybot

Do you work from home? What are some of the distractions you face? And how do you deal with them?

Infographic: The Power of In-Person Communication

sansharma — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:45:00 +0100

Do you need to ‘be there’ to be in business? That’s the question The Economist Intelligence Unit asked 862 business leaders in its survey, sponsored by Cisco.

And it’s a prescient question, as distributed teams, like our own, are fundamentally changing how organisations deal with colleagues, partners and customers, separated by long distances.

Long distance relationships

Is in-person communication as powerful as we think it is? Or can we make it work over the airwaves?

Find out the results of The Economist and Cisco’s survey in the infographic below - and let us know what you think in the comments.

The Power of In-Person Communication

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Snug Sound Podcast #9: Evolution of Work

sansharma — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:06:00 +0100

We were delighted to speak to Head of Work Life Innovations at Cisco Bas Boorsma (@BasBoorsma) for the latest episode of our podcast.

Bas and I spoke about how technology is helping - or rather, has helped - work evolve, and how the next big shift will be a change in culture. We also get into a discussion on semantics: what’s the difference between smart working, teleworking and remote working?

Listen now

You can listen to the interview below, subscribe in iTunes and check out past episodes. Let us know what you think in the comments.

About Snug Sound

Snug Sound is an audio podcast, presented by WorkSnug community manager San Sharma (@WorkSnugSan), and produced by WorkSnug in association with Plantronics.

It provides wi-fi hopping, coffee-sipping mobile workers a free slice of news, guides and reviews – and helps digital nomads work their best wherever they work.

How to subscribe

You can subscribe to Snug Sound in iTunes or directly via RSS (http://feeds.feedburner.com/SnugSound). You can also listen to Snug Sound via the AudioBoo website and mobile app. It’s better to subscribe, as you’ll automatically get new episodes as they’re released.

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Music: ‘Wired But Disconnected’ by duckett

5 reasons why Evernote is the (second) best app for mobile workers

sansharma — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:43:18 +0100

We’re fashionably late to the Evernote party. The note-taking suite of apps and services has been around since 2008, and we’ve used it - on and off - since then, but we’re only now beginning to fully understand its potential for workers on the go.

We think it’s the - ahem! - second best app for mobile workers out there, and here’s why…

It’s everywhere. Because Evernote is supported by so many devices, platforms, browsers and third-party apps, it’s always with you - and just a click away when you want to capture something. So, whether you work for an organisation with a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy or not, you can find Evernote on whatever platform you use or are supposed to use.
It makes your devices more useful. Evernote’s mobile and desktop apps use more than just your keyboard to take notes. When at your desk, you can use your webcam to quickly scan handwritten notes (and recognise text), or your mobile device’s camera and microphone to take pictures and audio notes on the move.
It helps you travel light. Empty your rucksack of paper notes and business cards, scan them to Evernote and they’re always on you - in the cloud, rather than on your shoulders. Evernote can also ease the load on your inbox: just forward important email that you’ll need to reference again to your Evernote email address - out of your inbox and into an Evernote notebook.
It’s collaborative. We wrote about our favourite collaboration apps for virtual teams, but shamelessly left off one of Evernote’s unsung features - and that’s its shared notebook feature. You can create notebooks that are shared with one user, the entire world or somewhere in between, and give others rights to create, edit and delete notes. Its great for idea-forming stages of projects, especially when team members can’t be in the same place at the same time.
It makes working anywhere easier. Ever emailed a document to yourself to work on when you got home or at another computer? Email it to Evernote instead, avoid your inbox and focus on the task at hand. It’s secure too, so the IT department won’t have to worry: both the Windows and Mac desktop clients let you encrypt text in notes.

What are your favourites apps for working on the move? Let us know in the comments

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Photo credit: Johan Larsson

BYOD or Bust: Highlights of survey results

sansharma — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:00:56 +0100

Employees using their own devices (smart phones, tablets, PCs) are able to use the technology they’re most comfortable with—which has a positive impact on productivity. But as anyone in IT can tell you, this has risks. To address those, some organizations are creating BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies that establish guidelines for proper use. Last month, Kyle Lagunas of Software Advice launched a survey to get a pulse on what companies are doing to manage employee-owned mobile devices.

Kyle’s share a few highlights with us here. You can find the full report of his findings on his blog.

Fact: Employees Are Already Using Their Own Devices for Work

The question many business leaders are asking their HR partners is: “Do we need a formal policy for managing mobile devices?” This is not an easy question to address, as it requires perspective on what employees are doing with their mobile devices. To that end, we asked a couple of questions around usage.

Figure 1: Ownership of devices employees use for work-related purposes.

The most important question when discussing BYOD, of course, is whether or not people are even using their personal devices for work-related purposes. As shown in Figure 1, the majority of employees (77%) are using their own devices to some extent—either exclusively or in addition to company-issued devices—to do work. Of course, “work-related purposes” could be something as simple as checking their email. So we wanted to gauge what else they’re doing.

Figure 2: Employee uses of mobile devices.

According to our respondents, employees are using mobile devices at a roughly equivalent frequency for personal and business use. As shown in Figure 2 above, 67% of employees are using devices for business correspondence (email, phone calls, etc.), and 44% are using their device—company-owned or not—for professional networking.

Whenever employees are using mobile devices to access company data (48%), one would think a policy with guidelines for proper use is a must. However, another survey question revealed that only 30% of respondents’ companies had a policy for managing personal mobile devices in place. Is there a disconnect here? Survey says… Quite possibly.

Will BYOD Become a Higher Priority?

Considering the majority of employees are already using personal devices for work-related purposes, we were surprised that only 12% of organizations without a BYOD policy plan to adopt one in the near future (half of those are currently developing policies). 30% of participants without BYOD policies said that instituting one wasn’t a priority, 33% plan to modify their plans for managing use of personal mobile devices in 2012.

Security risks associated with BYOD policies continue to intimidate some—one respondent said he is “scared to death of security vulnerabilities”—but what would do more to minimize risks than to adopt an official policy? Are organizations better served by addressing issues as they arise? Or should leadership elevate mobile device policy as a priority for 2012?

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

3 ways to improve collaboration for virtual teams

sansharma — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:56:00 +0100

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

In the book Future Work: How Businesses Can Adapt and Thrive in the New World of Work, authors Alison Maitland and Peter Thomson break with the old paradigms of what constitutes work in the digital age. They argue that we now live in a “creative economy” where ideas and innovation are now the make-or-break factors in succeeding in business. The best way to cultivate and encourage innovative thinking is to create workplace environments where people can “take the initiative, make connections, and seize opportunities without waiting for direction.”

While the authors discuss work in the context of large companies, focusing on what management can do to change their organizations to work more efficiently, the central idea of “managing well by managing less” resonates for everyone.

For all kinds of remote or flexible workers, the idea of autonomy as a driver to be more creative and productive isn’t anything new. Many of us take on different projects, or consult and work on different projects because we value that independence.

But even independent professionals sometimes fall into the prevailing patterns of work, putting up boundaries of how, where, and when we work. Drawing from the themes of Future Work, here are three ways to improve the way you collaborate and work with and alongside other location independent colleagues, freelancers and team members:

1. A little faith goes a long way.

Trust. How open-minded and flexible are you when it comes to working with others? When I first started working for myself, I was guilty of being a control freak, micromanaging contractors, vendors, and even fellow editors. Typical command-and-control. I learned, however, that this only stressed me out and alienated other people. Now, I let each person I hire or work with generate his or her own inertia toward meeting a goal. Maybe I give them a little push, but otherwise I leave them alone. People relying on self-direction rather than the proverbial “lash” work harder. Autonomy is a great motivator. If you expect firm results and communicate that expectation well, people usually rise to the occasion and give you results.

Simplify projects by setting down weekly and monthly goals (e.g. “I want to see Chapters 1 and 2 revised by the end of the week”), and then letting your team members do their thing to achieve those goals. Resist the urge to check-in every day. Sometimes no news is good news. That may smack of “bad communication”, but it actually makes a lot of sense. You only want to hear from people during the week if there’s going to be a snag in their timeline to deliver. From a manager’s perspective, it can be liberating to “let go”. Now, I can focus on playing the role of the coordinator and enabler that everyone likes, rather than no-fun, finger-wagging supervisor.

You might think that this kind of trust should be earned over time after people have proven that they are reliable. Well, if you’ve screened well and hired the best people for a job, then you don’t have anything to worry about. The real test is not in what they put in, but what they produce. Results, results, results…which leads me to my next point.

2. Decouple achievement from time.

I’ve written about how corporate clockwork is the bane of our working existence. It’s time we all start rewarding output and results rather than input. Why? The “long-hours” culture rewards face-time and penalizes people that can get a job done in a shorter amount of time. In fact, the more hours spent on a job often leads to a lot of time wasted. When you crunch the numbers, that’s less productivity per hour. Not very efficient, not good for business, and not good for everyone’s morale.

But, if we work by the ‘results only’ philosophy, then we tap into our reserves of ingenuity, thinking of better ways to get work done. Daniel Pink, author of Drive, writes about how motivation plays a crucial role in how much people can achieve. You don’t have to read a ton of books on management practices or implement arcane strategies with strange acronyms. It’s all about harnessing the power of self-drive, self-direction— and empowering and trusting people to make decisions on their own. Let everyone on your team decide what works best for him or her to do the work. “Don’t dictate, delegate” is a useful maxim for managing your team. We’ve all grown up with the prevailing view that time in only matters. With this ingrained view, it’s not easy to see that there are other better ways to handle projects and get work done.

3. Finally, find a balance and know the preferences of your team members.

When people are dispersed across borders, working in different locations, or when you don’t have a central office, it’s easy to get complacent and manage by prescription— throwing out old rules only to put in new rules. There’s a comic by Roger Beale of a man complaining to his coworker because his boss told him to be “autonomous, location-independent, and results-driven”. He gripes, “She doesn’t need to see me for six months. It sounds like the sack.”

Remember, flexibility means giving your team members the choice to decide their own schedules. How people produce their best work will always depend on their individual preferences and quirky work habits. One person might be more of a night owl (that’s me!). Another may be an early bird. Some people might want to work longer days, but fewer days during the week; others prefer shorter days but don’t mind working on weekends. I know many people who do their best work when they work alone, enduring long solitary spells in a home office that requires intense concentration. I also know colleagues who can’t handle working at home alone. The silence is deafening. They get distracted by the TV or with doing little errands around the house. If your entire team is highly self-driven, lucky you for scoring the A-Team of workers— but if not, then you’ll need to provide the needed “office hours” to meet with them either in person or over Skype, giving more personal encouragement. Who knows, maybe the 8-hour day, five days a week works for some people, and they don’t want to give that up, no matter how you rail against the corporate clockwork.

In the future of work, that’s OK. The real revolution is not in the actual practices, but in letting people decide for themselves and to take ownership of what they do.

Genevieve DeGuzman is the co-founder and managing editor of Night Owls Press, a San Francisco-based editorial services and digital publishing company for small businesses and nonprofit organizations. For more stories on how to take advantage of collaboration to become more creative and work more productively, check out, Working in the UnOffice: A Guide to Coworking for Indie Workers, Small Businesses, and Nonprofits.

Photo credit: joncandy

Mobile Workforce Briefing: March 2012

sansharma — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:06:56 +0000

A roundup of the month’s best links for mobile workers and digital nomads

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

We’re always posting links to our Facebook and Twitter pages - to posts we’ve found interesting as mobile workers, and we hope you find them interesting too.

We’ve put together some of our favourites finds from the past month, and grouped them here into broad categories.

Let us know, in the comments, if there are posts and articles you’ve found interesting, and please do share them with us.

Workspaces

Work-style & Enterprise 2.0

Tech & connectivity

Coffee & motivation

Photo credit: photographer padawan *(xava du)

Snug Sound Podcast #8: Work Anywhere

sansharma — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:10:00 +0000

We blogged recently about telecom company O2’s ‘off the wall’ idea to suspend local business man Caspar Mason (@caspar01) half-way up a wall in East London to prove that you really can work anywhere.

We tweeted Caspar, whilst he dangled there, and he put us in touch with Gemma Kantecki (@gkantecki_o2uk) at O2, who we’ve interviewed for the latest episode of our podcast. We asked Gemma why she hoisted Caspar, what O2 is doing to support flexible working and her own work-style.

Listen now

You can listen to the interview below, subscribe in iTunes and feast upon past episodes. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Find out more about O2’s Work Anywhere programme for small businesses at o2.co.uk/workanywhere and for Enterprise at o2businessreadiness.co.uk

About Snug Sound

Snug Sound is an audio podcast, presented by WorkSnug community manager San Sharma (@WorkSnugSan), and produced by WorkSnug in association with Plantronics.

It provides wi-fi hopping, coffee-sipping mobile workers a free slice of news, guides and reviews – and helps digital nomads work their best wherever they work.

How to subscribe

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Music: ‘Wired But Disconnected’ by duckett

Infographic: Work is Murder

sansharma — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:45:00 +0000

“Honey, I’m home!” is a phrase seldom heard nowadays, or said with much enthusiasm, when more than 40% of the workforce works from home, and only 20% of all jobs require physical activity - compared to 50% in the 1960s.

This shift to sedentary work has happened without much of a change to exercise rates. As a result, obesity has doubled and, as this infographic demonstrates, your work is probably killing you.

It’s a stark reminder to take frequent breaks, walk around - work mobile, if you can - and try to defend yourself from your own work.

Work is Killing You Info

Created by: Online University

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Review: Cisco Cius tablet - for business, not Angry Birds

sansharma — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:34:00 +0000

I must be the only person in the world reviewing Cisco’s Cius tablet the day after Apple announced its new iPad.

But comparisons to Apple’s wunderkind are unhelpful when discussing the Cius, which is an Android tablet designed specifically for enterprise.

IT managers, not fanboys, welcomed its arrival last summer. And I’ve had some time to play with it myself. Here’s what I thought,

San Sharma (@WorkSnugSan) is community manager at WorkSnug

Seeing is believing

What’s interesting to me about the Cisco Cius tablet is what is says about the changing nature of enterprise - and different approaches to it.

Its emphasis on visual communication, with its front and back-facing cameras, its video hardware acceleration and seamless video conferencing, acknowledges that today’s workers are scattered and crave face time. Opportunities to launch video calls appear across the core Cisco apps: Unified Inbox, Phone, Chat, Email, Calendar and Contacts.

Unified Communications

These custom apps form part of a unified communications system that allows you to jump quickly from chat to email to phone, and control interruptions; so you can, for example, redirect calls if you’re in a do-not-disturb state.

Security

Other apps are available in the Android Market, but users will have to hope that their IT manager allows them that kind of access: the Cius is designed with security in mind, and by default only allows installs from App HQ, Cisco’s tightly controlled and vetted app store. This isn’t a device to play Angry Birds on in your downtime.

Mobility

When back at the office, the Cius docks into a (sold-separately) base-station, complete with phone handset and ports for a keyboard and mouse. But it won’t replace your desktop - not with its 7-inch screen. The Cius is made for mobile, and with its removable battery it addresses a big concern for mobile workers: and that’s powerless downtime.

Verdict

The Cius is no iPad, and Cisco are fine with that. IT managers are delighted too. It gives them remote control over its usage, including game downloads and web browsing; it allows custom-designed apps, and integrates with an existing Cisco ecosystem and workflow.

But for workers in 2012, in a prosumer age of freedom of choice, of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) - the Cius is a curious and controlling concoction of old-fashioned thinking, new technology, and an IT department’s vision of the future. But for everyone else, is it 10 years too late?

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Video: Mobile Worker Well-Being - Too much of a good thing? We...

sansharma — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:09:00 +0000

Video: Mobile Worker Well-Being - Too much of a good thing?

We spotted this interesting video discussion in response to iPass’s excellent Mobile Workforce Report. We posted our takeaways from that report - here’s what we took away from the video, which asks: can mobile worker well-being be too much of a good thing?

Access to social networking websites, like Facebook and Twitter, is generally a good thing for mobile and flexible workers, as it recreates a kind of virtual ‘water cooler’, not available to people who work remotely
The ability to work anywhere on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, turns dead time into productive time
However, it can go too far the other way: the ability to work anywhere, can lead to working too much, and encroach on personal time and family time

What do you think?

Is access to social media important to you as a mobile worker? Does it help you overcome the isolation of working alone? Or is it more of a distraction?
Does the ability to work anywhere lead to more stress or less?
In the video, Barbara talks about the dramatic consequences mobile workers face when unable to find a connection. How do you feel when this happens to you?

Let us know your reaction in the comments!

Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional

Video: London mobile worker proves you can work anywhere

sansharma — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:30:00 +0000

WorkSnug Richard (@WorkSnugRichard) and I (@WorkSnugSan) were doing a spot of mobile working in East London last week, when we spotted another digital nomad hanging around - and I mean literally hanging!

To prove that you really can work anywhere, telecoms company O2 challenged local business man Caspar Mason (@caspar01) to spend Wednesday morning working half-way up a wall on Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch.

Click the video player thumbnail to see what happened.

Er, why?

Well, Caspar was as connected, half-way up a wall, as you and I are in our offices. He is living proof (thank goodness) that as long as you have the right technology it can be ‘business as usual’ wherever you are.

Flexible workers, claim O2, are happier and more productive.

We’ll be sure to ask Caspar if he’s happier to be down!

What do you think?

Could you work anywhere? Like, anywhere? Are you happier and more productive when you’re working wherever and whenever you like?