Take a controversial example from these parts:
OPEN-PLAN:
The District Council is spending £10million plus on relocating to open offices:
Futures Forum: Knowle relocation project: Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure.
NUMBER OF JOBS:
Instead it could look at who will actually be populating these open offices - as it is not actually very clear:
Futures Forum: Knowle relocation project: a net loss of hundreds of jobs
Futures Forum: Knowle relocation project: and increasing staff numbers
MOBILE WORKING:
Meanwhile, there has been the trumpeting of the so-called 'Worksmart' way of doing things - which is also not very clear:
The council’s Worksmart approach will help it to move away from traditional ways of desk-bound working. New ways of working mean that increasingly work will take place at the most effective locations respecting the needs of the task, the customer, the individual and the team. Properly equipped mobile officers will be able to operate more efficiently; the use of surgeries across the district will continue to manage local demand; and an improving website, plus other applications, will offer a greater number of online transactional services.
News - East Devon
Futures Forum: Knowle relocation project: 'modern working practices' >>> Of Worksmart, Hubs and Hot-desking
FOUR DAY WEEK:
Perhaps they should also consider rejigging their staff's hours - as more 'visionary' setups seem to be doing these days:
Futures Forum: The four-hour working week, the sharing economy and going beyond the master-servant relationship
Futures Forum: "A shorter working week would make us healthier, give us more fulfilling and sustainable lives and be better for the environment..."
For example:
Work less, get more: New Zealand firm's four-day week an 'unmitigated success'
Reduced hours for same pay increased successful work-life balance management, cutting stress levels and boosting commitment
Eleanor Ainge Roy in Dunedin
@EleanorAingeRoy
Thu 19 Jul 2018 00.54 BST
The four-day working week trial was designed to give employees more time to manage their family commitments and focus on their work in the office.
Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
The New Zealand company behind a landmark trial of a four-day working week has concluded it an unmitigated success, with 78% of employees feeling they were able to successfully manage their work-life balance, an increase of 24 percentage points.
Two-hundred-and-forty staff at Perpetual Guardian, a company which manages trusts, wills and estate planning, trialled a four-day working week over March and April, working four, eight-hour days but getting paid for five.
Academics studied the trial before, during and after its implementation, collecting qualitative and quantitative data.
Perpetual Guardian founder Andrew Barnes came up with the idea in an attempt to give his employees better work-life balance, and help them focus on the business while in the office on company time, and manage life and home commitments on their extra day off.
Jarrod Haar, professor of human resource management at Auckland University of Technology, found job and life satisfaction increased on all levels across the home and work front, with employees performing better in their jobs and enjoying them more than before the experiment.
Work-life balance, which reflected how well respondents felt they could successfully manage their work and non-work roles, increased by 24 percentage points.
In November last year just over half (54%) of staff felt they could effectively balance their work and home commitments, while after the trial this number jumped to 78%.
Staff stress levels decreased by 7 percentage points across the board as a result of the trial, while stimulation, commitment and a sense of empowerment at work all improved significantly, with overall life satisfaction increasing by 5 percentage points.
Helen Delaney, a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland Business School, said employees’ motivation and commitment to work increased because they were included in the planning of the experiment, and played a key role in designing how the four-day week would be managed so as not to negatively impact productivity.
“Employees designed a number of innovations and initiatives to work in a more productive and efficient manner, from automating manual processes to reducing or eliminating non-work-related internet usage,” said Delaney.
Andrew Barnes said he would take the results of the trial to the board to open up a discussion on how a four-day work week could be implemented long-term in his company.
“If you can have parents spending more time with their children, how is that a bad thing?” asked Barnes, who believes the new work model has the potential to profoundly impact society for the better. Are you likely to get fewer mental health issues when you have more time to take care of yourself and your personal interests? Probably ... if you have fewer people in the office at any one time, can we make smaller offices?”
New Zealand’s workplace relations minister, Iain Lees-Galloway, said the results of the trial were “very interesting” and he was keen to encourage businesses to trial new and improved work models.
“I’m really keen to work with any businesses that are looking at how they can be more flexible for their staff and how they can look to improve productivity whilst working alongside their staff and protecting terms and conditions,” Less-Galloway said.
Perpetual Guardian founder Andrew Barnes came up with the idea in an attempt to give his employees better work-life balance, and help them focus on the business while in the office on company time, and manage life and home commitments on their extra day off.
Jarrod Haar, professor of human resource management at Auckland University of Technology, found job and life satisfaction increased on all levels across the home and work front, with employees performing better in their jobs and enjoying them more than before the experiment.
Work-life balance, which reflected how well respondents felt they could successfully manage their work and non-work roles, increased by 24 percentage points.
In November last year just over half (54%) of staff felt they could effectively balance their work and home commitments, while after the trial this number jumped to 78%.
Staff stress levels decreased by 7 percentage points across the board as a result of the trial, while stimulation, commitment and a sense of empowerment at work all improved significantly, with overall life satisfaction increasing by 5 percentage points.
Work less, get more: New Zealand firm's four-day week an 'unmitigated success' | World news | The Guardian
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