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Work 3.0
Flexibility, agility and the demise of the 9-to-5
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01 EE cover.final.indd 15
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FACTS & FIGURES
Flexible working: adoption
Percentage of organisations already implementing flexible working by country
UK
Germany
Netherlands
Belgium
64%
57%
48%
37.5%
Deloitte Mobile Maturity Index by industry
0.6
Mobility index
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
il
ta
“Presenteeism” still
exists, discouraging
flexible working...
60%
of employees say
Sources: 1 Deloitte, Opinion Matters Upwardly Mobile Survey UK, May 2013; 2 BakkerElkhuizen, International Flexible Working Survey 2013;
3 Deloitte, Upwardly Mobile Redefining Business Mobility in Britain, 2013
GRAPHICS BY VAIDA KLIMAVICIUTE
4 in 5 employees in large business are still ill-equipped to work away from their desk
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CONTENTS
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4
6
Q&A: flexible working rights
10
Case study
Security and freedom
Your flexible friend
Flexible working provides
“an opportunity for employers
and employees to ﬁnd a working
pattern that suits both parties
and improves productivity
and the success of the business
or organisation”. So writes
Jo Swinson, minister for
employment relations, on page
ﬁve of this supplement.
It’s quite a claim. Yet Swinson
is not alone in making it.
New rights were introduced in
June this year which allow more
people to apply to work outside
the usual nine-to-ﬁve than ever
before. The ﬂexible working rights
regulations (explained overleaf )
are a potential boon to workers –
and to employers who may in the
ﬁrst instance see this as another
bureaucratic hurdle. Employee
loyalty, retention and productivity
are all potential counterweights.
The government’s policy
dovetails with changes in
technology that allow us all to be
more mobile. Smart devices, cloud
computing and faster network
connection speeds have combined
to make remote working a
reality. Flexibility and agility are
operating in tandem.
According to ﬁgures from
Deloitte (see facing page), 64 per
cent of UK companies are already
implementing ﬂexible working
and 63 per cent of us (see page 15)
use our smartphones to carry out
work while we are commuting.
But it’s not all about technology.
As Microsoft’s Dave Coplin
points out (page six), this is as
much about cultural change,
overcoming middle-management
resistance and a misguided
devotion to “presenteeism”.
Regardless, new employees are
expecting something different.
In a challenge to employers
who hope to attract the best
talent, a survey of the so-called
Generation Y – those born in the
1980s and early 1990s – found that
78 per cent would value greater
use of mobile technology at work.
Generation Y? Olaf Swantee,
EE’s chief executive, prefers “the
Martini generation: any time, any
place, anywhere”. l
COVER: SHUTTERSTOCK. DESIGN BY VAIDA KLIMAVICIUTE
This supplement, and other policy reports, can be downloaded from the
NS website at newstatesman.com/page/supplements
First published as
a supplement to
the New Statesman
of 17-23 October 2014.
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2 Facts and Figures
9 View from EE
Flexible working: adoption
Why mobile-first is no passing fad
An infographic guide
By Olaf Swantee, EE chief executive
4 The Lowdown
10 Observations
Rights now?
“You’ve got to embrace change”
Understanding the new legislation
How to balance control with choice
5 View from Westminster
11 Andy McCue talks to Jim Ginsburgh about BYOD
Transforming the workplace
Jo Swinson, minister for employment relations, says
that ﬂexible working is good news for all
13 Tony Hallett wonders if the future is post-PC
14 Fiona Cannon on the beneﬁts of agile working
6 Case Study
Right time, right place, right now
15 Facts and Figures
David Coplin of Microsoft, London Air Ambulance
and others tell their stories
Flexible working: benefits
An infographic guide
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THE LOWDOWN
anticipated burden of additional bureaucracy, fear of an increasing number of discrimination cases and the likelihood of
bad feeling as and when applications for
ﬂexible working are turned down.
So, what’s in it for business?
Flexible working can bring a number of
beneﬁts, proponents say. For example, an
organisation that embraces these kinds of
working patterns is likely to be a more attractive place for would-be employees,
making it easier to hire and retain staff.
Furthermore, a business that adopts ﬂexible working can re-imagine its ofﬁce setup, saving money on rental and real estate.
Moreover, ﬂexible working can improve
productivity. A 2012 impact assessment,
commissioned by the government, calculated that the policy could be worth £475m
to the UK economy in its ﬁrst ten years.
Rights now?
Earlier this year the government extended its flexible
working policy. This is how it works in practice
If an employer agrees to the request,
what happens next?
After a member of staff has made an application, the employer has up to three
months to respond and another 28 days
to implement the change if agreed. The
change should also be reﬂected in the employee’s contract.
On what grounds can a request
be rejected?
An employer can turn down a request for
any one of these seven reasons:
l extra costs which will damage the
Who has the right to apply?
Since 30 June 2014 any UK employee
who has worked for their employer for at
least 26 weeks can make what is known
as a statutory application. This is a legal right. Previously, such requests were
available only to parents of children under the age of 16 and carers of both children and adults. Employees can make one
application for ﬂexible working within a
12-month period.
Why has the government introduced
the changes?
When he announced the changes in June,
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said:
“Modern businesses know that ﬂexible
working boosts productivity and staff
morale, and helps them keep their top talent so that they can grow. It’s about time
we brought working practices bang up to
date with the needs and choices of our
modern families. Today is a crucial milestone in how we can help people balance
their family life with work and caring
responsibilities.”
What do employers make of the changes?
Some business groups have expressed
concerns. Among those concerns are the
business
l the work can’t be reorganised among
other staff
l people can’t be recruited to do the work
l ﬂexible working will affect quality and
performance
l the business won’t be able to meet
customer demand
l there’s a lack of work to do during the
proposed working times
l the business is planning changes to
the workforce
Does an employee have a right of appeal?
Businesses are not obliged to grant appeals
but are encouraged to do so. If they do, the
employee will have to follow the company’s appeals procedure. If no right to appeal is granted, a member of staff can take
a dispute to an employment tribunal. l
For more on ﬂexible working visit:
gov.uk/ﬂexible-working
SHUTTERSTOCK
What is flexible working?
The government deﬁnes it as “a way of
working that suits the employee’s needs”
and identiﬁes eight patterns: job sharing;
working from home; part time; compressed hours (that’s full time hours over
fewer days); ﬂexitime; annualised hours
(where an employee commits to a certain
number of hours each year but has some
freedom about when they work); staggered hours; and phased retirement.
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VIEW FROM WESTMINSTER
This will transform
the workplace
By Jo Swinson
Ignore the myths and misunderstandings – extending the right to request flexible
working is good news for employees and businesses alike
T
echnology, changes in society and
new ways of doing business have
revolutionised the workplace. The
old-fashioned 9am to 5pm working pattern is ingrained in the minds of some
employers as the normal working day but
increasingly, different and more ﬂexible
working patterns can have positive beneﬁts for employers and employees.
Flexible working gives an opportunity
for employers and employees to ﬁnd a
working pattern that suits both parties
and improves productivity and the success
of the business or organisation. Flexible
working can include anything from varying start and ﬁnish times to school termtime working or compressed hours, such
as nine-day fortnights.
In some cases, it can help the employer
offer a service to customers over extended
hours, or simply work more efﬁciently.
This right to request ﬂexible working is no
longer the preserve of parents and carers
but, since 30 June, to all employees. Now
more than 20 million people have the legal
right to request ﬂexible working.
There are huge beneﬁts for employers
who give serious and careful consideration to any requests they receive, which
can still be rejected if they go against the
needs of the business. Most of all it can
help a business retain their best workers,
who are far more likely to remain loyal. It
will boost productivity, help a business attract talent and reduce staff absenteeism.
There have been a number of myths and
misunderstandings about what extending
the right to request ﬂexible working to all
employees means in practice. For instance,
it does not mean that if one person has a
successful request, others will miss out.
Many employers will consider requests
on a ﬁrst-come, ﬁrst-served basis, but it’s
unlikely that two employees would ask
for exactly the same type of ﬂexible working. Employers faced with more than one
request could ask the employees to talk to
each other and consider how their working
patterns might reﬂect each other’s needs.
Flexible working doesn’t necessarily
mean employees wanting to reduce their
This is the first step in
driving a change in our
working culture
working hours, although this is one option. I’ve heard of ﬁrms with employees
who requested to work Tuesday to Saturday instead of Monday to Friday, not
only helping the employee manage their
responsibilities outside of work but allowing the business to stay open for an extra
day in the week.
It is expected the new right will be
of particular interest to older workers
who want to reduce their hours as they
approach retirement, and to young people
entering the labour market who may want
to take up additional training or learning
while they work. It might be of interest
to people who want to do community
activities, or to pursue their hobbies. And,
of course, it will continue to be invaluable
to those responsible for caring for children
or adults.
We’ve changed the way that employers are required to respond to requests for
ﬂexible working. The new system is far
simpler than the previous one. We’ve reduced the paperwork and now employers
simply need to consider requests in a reasonable manner. There is a statutory code
of practice to help employers understand
what a “reasonable manner” means, and
guidance on good practice.
An employer may still refuse a request
to work ﬂexibly if they have one of eight
speciﬁed business reasons to do so. If a request is rejected and the employee feels it
was done so unfairly, they should discuss
this with their employer. An employee
cannot go to a tribunal simply because
their request was rejected, although they
will be able to complain if they do not believe their employer has considered the
request in a reasonable manner.
The right to request ﬂexible working is
the ﬁrst step towards driving a change in
our working culture.
Flexible working is good for UK plc as it
creates a greater pool of talent and skills. It
is good for society as it enables individuals to remain in employment when they
are unable to maintain standard working
hours and keeps people off beneﬁts. It is
good for individuals who can get more involved in community projects when they
adapt their working patterns, or enjoy a
better work-life balance that might allow
them to care for a relative or take up a
valuable training course.
The ﬂexible world is already a reality and will transform the workplace of
the future. l
Jo Swinson is the minister for employment
relations and the MP for East
Dunbartonshire (Liberal Democrat)
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CASE STUDY
Right time, right
place, right now
What do a software company, an NHS foundation, an engineering firm and a medical
response team have in common? A need for speed, convenience and flexibility
employee, I am empowered to choose the
most appropriate location for the work
I’m about to do. It means that I don’t have
to write to my boss (or get a letter from
my mum). It means that I’m trusted to
be a professional. For example, if I’ve got
cognitive work to do – writing an article
or doing some research – then maybe I
shouldn’t be in the ofﬁce and, more signiﬁcantly, maybe I shouldn’t be at home.
I should be in an environment more conducive to that kind of work.
“Where the technology comes in is that
it provides access to all of the information
you need, in the appropriate time, in that
appropriate location.”
“The underlying principle
is that speed defines the
user experience”
And this is how technology ﬁts in for
the Microsoft corporation. Collaboration
and communication are key tools for its
large sales force and, naturally, the team
uses company software – Lync, a realtime video, voice and web conferencing
and messaging service; Yammer, a social
networking tool; and SharePoint, a document management, collaboration and
publishing platform.
The nature of a salesperson’s day means
short but regular gaps between off-site
meetings. Historically, the problem for
Microsoft was speed of access; trying to
upload documents and communicate in
real time using the 3G mobile network
proved unworkable. The solution? According to Microsoft, a move to fourth
generation (4G) mobile networking, provided by EE. Now 3,000 UK employees
can access those collaboration tools on the
road. The business claims it has saved 30
minutes per employee per day and, globally, $250m (£155m) a year on infrastructure and travel. “The underlying principle
is that speed deﬁnes and drives the user
experience,” notes Microsoft UK’s IT
director, Andy Gitsham.
It’s not just technology companies that
are moving in this direction. Take Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
More than a quarter of its 4,400-strong
staff work predominantly in the community – at GP surgeries, local clinics and patients’ homes. A 4G trial meant all 1,200
community-based workers were armed
with lightweight laptops and fast mobile
access to the same clinical and business
systems they would expect over ﬁxed
broadband services. A virtual private
network provides security. “We’ve seen
huge beneﬁts, including a 20 per cent increase in activity, in turn supporting our
patients to be able to remain in the community but also to speed up admissions
where required,” says Bill Johnson, technology lead at the foundation trust. In
t
“I
have a bag that is my life. In that
bag is a laptop, a mobile phone,
a headset and a bunch of cables.”
Dave Coplin is warming to one of his favourite subjects. As a man with one of
those enigmatic, Silicon Valley-inspired
job titles – chief envisioning ofﬁcer for
Microsoft UK – and as the author of Business Reimagined: Why Work Isn’t Working and What You Can Do About It, it is
perhaps no surprise to discover that he is
evangelical about ﬂexible working.
“I’ve got the tools so I can be anywhere.
As long as I’ve got an internet connection,
I can be as efﬁcient as if I’m sitting at my
desk in the ofﬁce. I can be in Starbucks, or
on the train, or with my client and be able
not just to see people, not just to speak
to people but actually collaborate in real
time on the documents that we are working
with. That’s transformational when you
combine it with the right kind of culture.”
Coplin believes moving away from the
rigid, ofﬁce-based nine-to-ﬁve is a boon
for employee and employer alike. He also
welcomes the extension of ﬂexible working rights legislation, introduced in June
(see pages four and ﬁve). It might be a surprise, however, to discover that the man
from one of the largest software companies in the world says that there’s more to
this transformation than technology.
“Flexible working for Microsoft is interestingly, less about technology and more
about culture,” he says. “It means, as an
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Survival of the fastest: the London Air Ambulance service uses technology to cut journey times, which in turn can save lives
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t
CASE STUDY
one practical example, patient records
– once written in longhand before being
transcribed back at base – are now typed
and uploaded on to the system in the ﬁeld.
Or how about Ipswich-based Jackson
Civil Engineering, involved in up to 50
construction projects at any one time?
Transferring technical drawings, including large, 70MB-plus Cad ﬁles, is a persistent need – and a persistent headache.
“A ﬁxed broadband installation would
have delayed projects and been extremely
expensive, while using 3G would have
meant on occasion we might have had
to burn large ﬁles to CD and take them
round the M25 by car,” explains Justin
Corneby, an IT manager. “That’s a costly
and time-consuming exercise.”
As before, a move to 4G has helped
solve these issues. Using routers located
in site cabins, engineers can connect via
wiﬁ to collaboration tools hosted at the
company’s headquarters. This results, the
company says, in speeds that are ten times
faster than the old 3G network.
Speed is also a major factor for London’s
Air Ambulance (LAA), a charity that
scrambles helicopters and rapid response
cars to deliver advanced trauma teams to
the critically injured. The service, based
in east London, can reach the extremities
of the M25 in 15 minutes and the average
ﬂight time is seven minutes. A bespoke
mapping application for the cars, developed in partnership with EE, is part of a
mission to cut travel time further, reducing the reliance on paper-based processes.
“The quicker you can begin treating a patient, the greater their chances are of survival, therefore everything we do is about
delivering the fastest and most effective
response possible for our patients,” says
Gareth Davies, medical director at LAA.
“Trauma is unpredictable. The time,
place, cause and consequence varies. It’s
our job to react and adapt quickly to the
circumstances. Any technologies or applications we use need to do the same. It can
literally be a matter of life or death for our
patients. We’ve treated more than 31,000
patients to date. The system works, but it
can always be better, especially when the
technology exists so you don’t have to
worry about grid references and you can
concentrate more on the job in hand – the
medicine and treatment of the patient.”
So is speed of access a game-changer
for the out-of-ofﬁce worker? Microsoft’s
Dave Coplin thinks it’s part of the an-
Rapid response: technology can tilt the balance
swer. “We couldn’t do this without 4G,”
he says. “But it’s also about appropriate
functionality for appropriate devices. I’m
not going to edit a 473-column spreadsheet on a small mobile phone. But there
are elements of that information which
would still be applicable if I can surface
“This is about culture
and people supported
by technology”
them in the right way. So if you are sitting with your 27-inch monitor looking
at your 473-column spreadsheet, brilliant.
But if I have my tiny Nokia 930 I can still
use the data – I can see it, I can access it,
and I can do stuff with it in ways that are
appropriate for that device.”
This is the short-to-medium-term
vision, according to Coplin, and it proves
that ﬂexibility and agility – being able to do
your job regardless of location – go hand
in hand. Further ahead, Coplin sees a time
where he can “project information on any
surface and the device in my pocket is
the super-computer that gives me everything that I need”.
Which all sounds great, unless you
happen to work on a production line or
in a shop, to name two roles where ﬁxed
location matters. “We are not going to
change the reality of the production line
schedule, nor of the customer-facing retail hours,” Coplin concedes.
However, he does believe that workplace changes are not “all or nothing”.
Rather, “It’s about looking for ways in
and around those roles that may give additional ﬂexibility.”
If that’s one challenge to the ﬂexible
working nirvana, another is management
resistance. This manifests itself in at least
two ways. Consider, Coplin says, how
this year’s ﬂexible working rights’ changes were greeted by many businesses as another bureaucratic hurdle to overcome; an
“employee perk” rather than an organisational beneﬁt. Consider, too, how many
middle managers mistake “presenteeism”
for productivity. “What happens to most
individuals when they are less conﬁdent
is that they want to control more: they
send memos, they want people at their
desks. And this is a big part of the cultural
change we’ve got to address: we’ve got
to help people to understand that being
controlling to that extent doesn’t lead to
greater outcomes.”
What’s required is an implicit contract between company and worker. “At
the simplest level, it’s about a change in
how you measure people and the work
that they do. Typically in organisations,
people are measured by process more
than they are measured by the outcome of
the work. Yes, there’s huge potential for
people to take the mickey [when working
away from the ofﬁce]. But the gift as an
individual is really compelling – it means
I’ve got this level of control that I’ve never
had before. I’ve become a richer individual both in terms of my contribution to my
family and my contribution to my work.
I’m grateful for the trust that Microsoft
places in me. I will be ﬁred or paid handsomely for my outcomes. And I get that.”
So, are we entering the ﬁnal days of the
nine-to-ﬁve? “We are, but not in a dramatic way. We are blurring the edges,”
Coplin says. “And it’s appropriate that we
blur the edges. There is sense in the natural rhythm in our working lives that gravitates around Monday to Friday, though
not necessarily nine to ﬁve. That makes
sense. But giving individuals a choice
to bleed around the edges is the bit that
makes it special.
“If we can get to the place that we can
self-regulate, that we can do an appropriate amount of work regardless of time
and location, then actually you would bin
nine to ﬁve completely. But human beings
don’t work like that: we need an element
of structure. We need some sense of
gravity to help us deal with the random
nature of life. This is about culture, this
is about human beings and it’s supported
by technology.” l
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VIEW FROM EE
Why mobile-first is
no passing fad
By Olaf Swantee
The tech industry is well known for hype, but computing on the go
will truly redefine the working environment
I
f you didn’t already know, this is the
era of the Martini generation – any
time, any place, anywhere.
These digital savvy tech natives – so
called Generation M - want and expect
the fast, seamless and easy-to-use mobile technology experience they have in
their personal lives to be replicated when
they go to work. We’ve reached a digital
tipping point and there’s no going back.
Personal computer sales suffered their
worst decline in history last year and this
is already being called the “post-PC” era,
as mobile devices account for a greater
proportion of our screen time. In fact,
technology industry research analyst IDC
predicts tablets will outstrip both laptop
and PC sales as soon as next year.
Mobile technology-led change is transforming the traditional workplace. Smartphones, tablets and laptops – along with
almost ubiquitous online connectivity
across cellular, wiﬁ and ﬁxed broadband
networks – are freeing employees from
the shackles of their desk. This ﬂexibility
is allowing them to be far more productive than ever before.
Mobile devices are now more than just
consumer gadgets. They are genuine business tools, capable of far more than making
calls or checking email. Then add the power
of cloud computing and the rise of mobile
business apps that cater for every conceivable work task, from sharing documents
and tracking expense receipts to accounting
and accessing vital business data.
Armed with the speed and bandwidth
of 4G, for example, an employee can use
a smartphone or tablet to access apps and
carry out data-intensive work tasks on the
go that previously would not have been
possible unless they were sitting at a PC in
the ofﬁce.
It means sales reps on the road can access client data and upload information to
back-end business systems in real time. It
means architects can download complex
plans while on a site visit. It means team
members can use video-conferencing to
join a meeting and collaborate on presentations virtually.
These productivity and efﬁciency gains
are tangible. In EE’s Mobile Living Index
survey, 60 per cent of people say they save
time with 4G with 13 per cent gaining an
Deloitte warns of a “lost
decade” of opportunity for
those slow to adapt
hour’s leisure time every day as a result.
And 77 per cent of people say their work
productivity has grown because of 4G,
with 16 per cent saying it has doubled.
This mobile-ﬁrst mindset also changes
how many of us think about the worklife balance. While a few critics might say
this constant connectivity intrudes into
our personal lives, for many employees it
enables them to work more ﬂexibly.
Take the daily commute, for example.
Not only are people using that time to
catch up with the latest TV shows, download ﬁlms and play games, they are also
using it to take care of work tasks. That
can mean a clean start to a busy day in the
ofﬁce or the ability to ﬁnish off work on
the journey home and keep the evening
free for relaxation and leisure time.
Worryingly, however, there are signs
that many businesses are lagging dangerously behind the curve. A survey by Deloitte reveals just a ﬁfth of workers in the
UK consider themselves mobile and more
than two-thirds (68 per cent) note a difference between their mobile experience
at home and work, where they often ﬁnd
older and slower devices.
Deloitte calls it a “lost decade” of opportunity for British organisations that
have been slow to adapt and embed
mobile-enabled processes and practices
into the fabric of their business.
The technology industry is well known
for hype, but this is no passing fad. Take
the recent Communications Market Report by the UK telecoms regulator Ofcom.
It shows the average six-year-old child has
the same understanding of digital technology as a 45-year-old adult. As anyone
with young children will know, this mobile generation knows how to access and
use the apps on your smartphone before
they can even talk. They are developing
fundamentally different communication
habits, not only from older generations,
but even teenagers and young adults.
If you think we are leaving traditional
ways of working behind today, in less
than two decades these kids will completely redeﬁne the future of communications in the working environment. The
future is Generation M. l
Olaf Swantee is the chief executive
ofﬁcer of EE
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OBSERVATIONS
“You’ve got
to embrace
change with
confidence”
Balancing control with choice is the key to managing
mobility at work, says Jeremy Spencer, head of corporate
propositions at EE
Why is security a different issue
when it comes to mobile?
Because we are now dealing with end
points that by their very nature are outside the organisation and outside the
infrastructure that most organisations
put in place. You now have workers moving around and you’ve got the multiplicity of devices, too.
Why so many different devices?
This is largely driven by personal choice
and technology change brought about
by the manufacturers. If we look at the
evolution of mobile devices used within
organisations, ﬁve or ten years ago it was
dominated by BlackBerry. This was the
device of choice, because it was the ﬁrst to
offer secure email and it made email easy
to use on the go.
Since then we’ve seen the rise of the
iPhone as a desirable device particularly
among senior executives and now we
have seen the emergence of lower-cost
smartphones with the Android operating
systems.
Are employees getting to choose which of
those devices they bring in to work?
The consumerisation of IT means many
employees have invested in their own
smartphone – invariably more powerful
and more desirable than something provided by their employer. So, yes, people
are bringing their own device to work
and ﬁnding it very easy to connect to the
organisation’s email service; sometimes
using it without the knowledge of the
IT department.
Where else does potential risk lie?
As well as the information that sits on
those devices – through email attachments – and the risk of those devices being
lost and stolen, you’ve also got the risk of
unsecure and untrusted networks, particularly unsecure public wiﬁ services.
How do you know if you are using
unsecure public wifi?
If it’s not prompting you for a password
when you try to connect to it, then by
deﬁnition it is unsecured.
And would you recommend avoiding
unsecured networks at all costs?
Yes.
Tell me more about the risk of using
email and accessing attachments
It’s potentially the biggest route for data
leakage. With most company laptops these
days, you can’t even plug in a USB memory stick. However, the mobile device is a
big chink in the armour. When you go to
open an application on a smartphone such
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that’s most attractive for the particular
job in hand. You are providing the business with the control that’s needed while
allowing choice over the device used.
Finally, what one piece of advice would
you give to someone in a senior business
role wrestling with the idea of giving
employees more mobility?
It’s the way forward for all organisations.
You can’t ﬁght the trend of mobility; it is
the expectation of consumers, customers
and employees. You’ve got to be ﬂexible
and agile going forward. You’ve got to go
and embrace it; and embrace it with conﬁdence. That’s what these sorts of management tools provide. l
Interview by Jon Bernstein
MANAGEMENT
Five ways to
manage a mobile
workforce
By Jon Bernstein
SHUTTERSTOCK
as the iPhone, for example, it gives you a
button to press that lets you open the attachment using any public cloud storage
service that you are subscribed to. This
makes it very easy to save the attachment
to your own personal storage. And once
it’s there, you could do anything you want
with it. If you are a sales person moving to
the competition you can take all that account information with you and nobody
would know.
How do you mitigate against those risks?
The good news is that there are lowcost, automated tools that let you manage this mobile environment. Collectively they are referred to as “enterprise
mobility management”, which has three
main components.
First, there is the ability to manage the
device. Typically we are talking about
forcing a particular password policy so
you have something more secure than a
four-digit pin. It’s also about enforcing
what types of networks you will allow
people to connect to; so you can stop
people connecting across unsecure wiﬁ
networks.
Second, you have content management
which provides the ability to lock down
email attachments or stop them being
opened. It can stop those attachments
being forwarded, as well. And third,
you’ve got application management. This
enables agile working by managing and
distributing the applications you want to
make available to your users.
How do you ensure these restrictions
don’t make mobile working inefficient
and unattractive to the user?
What you are doing with these controls
is setting a common denominator that
then frees the employee to use the device
1. Use the technology
Senior members of management across
a range of business functions – from HR
to ﬁnance, from marketing to operations
– need to start using the very pieces of
t
Left to your own devices: security must be matched by freedom and flexibility
This piece is not – in the ﬁrst instance, at
least – about mobile technology. Rather
it’s about the cultural shifts that need to
take place in your organisation that mean
you get the most out of your mobile workforce. It is about the cultural shifts that inform the management of your employees.
Why? Because mobile is not a minority
sport any more. Even if it’s simply taking
a work-related call, text or email on the
morning commute, nearly 90 per cent
of professionals spend at least some time
working off-site.
Nor is mobile working any longer just
about a clunky laptop and unreliable virtual private network (VPN) access. It’s
about smart devices, often employeeowned, cloud computing and about the
consumerisation of business technology.
All of which means you need to change
the way you think about and apply management so that it works for a 21st, not
20th, century mobile workforce.
Here are ﬁve tips to kick things off:
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OBSERVATIONS
kit their workforce is using. Understanding the beneﬁts and shortcomings of
mobile hardware and software is key to
understanding how to manage expectations – both yours and theirs. Remember,
technology decisions are no longer the
preserve of the IT department alone. Empathy breeds good outcomes.
3. Create a mobility team
Writing for CIOInsight, Scott Archibald
suggests putting in place a cross-company
team which deals with the facilities, HR
and legal issues that arise from having an
increasing number of employees spending an increasing number of hours away
from base. Use that team to inform policy
changes and decision-making.
Archibald writes: “Some companies are
ﬁnding that, between telecommuting and
shared workplaces, not every employee
needs a dedicated cube. Understand the
HR and legal ramiﬁcations of employees
who plan to use their own devices to access corporate data.”
4. Build an in-house app store
There are a number of beneﬁts to building
a bespoke software repository, sometimes
referred to as a corporate or enterprise app
The bring-your-own-device generation: workers are becoming ever more capable
store. First, most users understand how
the process works, reducing or removing
the need for training.
Second, it means an organisation can
restrict access by presenting a range of
company-sanctioned software. Third,
organisations can control which version
of a software package is being used and
update it “over-the-air”. Finally, organisations can monitor active usage, which
in turn means they can improve and upgrade popular apps while decommissioning those that are hardly used.
is wasting time at work, then it’s a management problem, not an IT issue. He
writes: “Crippling the personal aspects of
a smartphone for the 15 to 16 hours a day
they’re not working is simply wrong.” l
5. Remember, time-wasting
is a management issue
In other words, resist the enduring temptation to ban things. Restricting access to
Facebook, WhatsApp or a personal email
account on a worker’s smartphone or tablet will make that person more efﬁcient,
less likely to be sidetracked – so the argument goes.
It’s an understandable attitude, but entirely counterproductive. An organisation
that treats its employees as adults and lets
them know what is expected of them will
foster an environment of mutual trust –
inside and outside the ofﬁce.
Those cultural expectations come
from the top, not from petty restrictions.
Galen Gruman of InfoWorld talks of a
“prison-guard mentality that has turned
IT into – at best – a necessary evil”, and
argues convincingly that if an employee
By Andy McCue
INTERVIEW
Jim Ginsburgh,
father of BYOD
We live in an age of information where
data, and especially our personal data,
is a highly prized commodity. Whether
it’s via search engines, social media, loyalty cards, apps, surveys or shopping,
we are constantly divulging our private
information.
Many of us input it without thinking,
unaware why, or for what reasons, our details are being taken.
Back in a pre-iPhone and tablet 2005, in
what could be argued to be an early version of today’s bring your own device
(BYOD) programmes, BP pioneered a
digital consumer initiative that gave some
staff an allowance of about $1,000 to buy
their own IT equipment for work use,
albeit in what was still a PC and laptopdominated workplace.
SHUTTERSTOCK
2. Provide good practice guidelines
Communicate, communicate, communicate. Talk to your employees about your
mobile device policy, about the level of
network access and support they can expect, about good practice and about some
basic dos and don’ts. Let them know about
acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.
Incorporate a session on mobile device
use in the induction presentations you
run for new employees and hold regular
updates for all staff, especially if the policy is about to change or if you are about
to introduce new devices on to the list of
permitted hardware.
Ensure those sessions are interactive,
giving staff the opportunity to ask seemingly dumb questions. Have someone on
hand who can explain how to get the most
out of any device. Why? Because an employee who doesn’t know how to access a
work email account from their Apple iPhone 5s or Samsung Galaxy S4 (and is too
afraid to ask) is less productive than they
might otherwise be.
Finally, make all those guidelines – written clearly and in plain English – available
on and ofﬂine.
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What was the driver for starting
such a project back then?
When we did BYOD in 2005 we saw it
as a PC-oriented opportunity. As it turns
out it’s primarily a mobility thing. But
back in 2005 who could see the tablet besides maybe Steve Jobs and just how disruptive that has become for IT?
It was a very different mobile world
back then, with BlackBerry, Symbian and
Windows the dominant platforms.
Look at all the companies that missed
consumerisation and there’s a whole debris trail like BlackBerry that kept going
back to the CIO and saying, “What do you
want in the next release of BlackBerry?”
And they would say more security, more
reliability. They would never say “I want
a gold BlackBerry.” BlackBerry may have
been asking the right questions but it was
asking the wrong people.
What were the key lessons learned from
that consumer IT programme at BP?
We thought big but we probably needed
to think bigger; and we also needed to
think of ways to really cement the value proposition. For example how you
charge out for this stuff, that turns out to
be important.
The magnitude of change involved
in doing this was far greater than we
thought. You are touching every employee, how they work, how they get their job
done, their productivity, the choices that
they have or don’t have about using technology, when they use it, where they use
it, how they use it, why they use it.
Looking to the future, what are your
predictions around the consumerisation
of technology in the enterprise, and the
disruptions you think we’ll see?
Power will continue to move to the consumer, the customer. And the real power
they have is around choice. So where they
have choice today that will become more
powerful over time but the real disrup-
tions will occur where they don’t have
choice today and they will demand choice
going forward and how that will occur
will be, I predict, highly disruptive.
Let’s think about a situation today where
people don’t have a choice or have a limited choice. You might be called a patient,
a client, a student, a citizen. All of these
things will be subject to consumerisation and people will demand choice. So in
health care people are demanding choice,
right? They’re much more informed about
what’s going on and they actually want to
have some options and make some decisions about their health as opposed to just
having a doctor do it for you. Look at those
relationships today where you’re not a
customer and you have limited choice –
those are the ones that I think will get disrupted signiﬁcantly going forward.
We are in the early stages of a post-PC
technology era where handheld consumer devices are becoming the primary
interface to all manner of systems, while
also functioning as servers that support
the rapidly emerging “internet of things”.
As employees and individual consumers become ever more capable and empowered, many traditional industry value
chains will be transformed. l
FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
Are we now
heading for a
post-PC world?
By Tony Hallett
There is no question that sales of personal
computers have been hit as tablets have
entered homes and workplaces – sometimes under the radar or through bring
your own device (BYOD) schemes – and
smartphones have become more popular
and capable. Analyst IDC revised down
its PC forecasts for 2014 – from declining
4 per cent compared to 2013, to declining 6 per cent, down to 296 million new
units worldwide.
That sounds like a steady decline. However, 2013 saw a 10 per cent decline relative
to 2012 and analysts think there will come
a point where the market stabilises. There
is also a difference between sales and usage – read any post about the end of support for Windows XP earlier this year to
see that many people work on older machines and will do for a while.
To some, this might sound like a slow
death for the PC – but a death all the same.
Maybe that’s the wrong way to think
about it.
PCs come in desktop and laptop form
factors. It sounds obvious – and maybe
our default thinking is about the mobile
type, given laptop sales long ago overtook
desktops – but there are various laptop
sizes and the smallest are as portable as
some tablets. In fact, now a good few even
split to become tablets.
Devices such as smartphones and tablets are great for short tasks and browsing
or consuming what others have created. A
keyboard is rarely required, with the exception of email, and other services such
as social media updates or adding details
for a registration or purchase. Even then,
soft keyboards on touchscreen devices are
now very user-friendly.
And the future isn’t just about the absence of hard or soft keyboards. Consider how much can now be done with
powerful voice recognition software (a
great vision of this is the user interface
in the Oscar-winning ﬁlm Her) or how
the stylus has made a comeback for some
applications, even on larger-screen smartphones and phablets.
But how do we feel about manipulating
a spreadsheet with a stylus or sketching
a ﬂowchart through voice recognition?
How about if everyone sitting together in
a department was simultaneously using
voice to command devices?
The PC clearly isn’t just about word
processing. It remains one of the most
versatile tools we have. We might not use
them as much, but there are times when
they are the preferred device and there is
still more software available for the personal computer than any other device.
For businesses and other organisations,
thought must be given to exactly what
staff need to do with hardware. For some,
a responsive tool is ﬁne – for sales people
roaming a shop ﬂoor in retail, for example. For others, a device that is all about
creating something new is a must.
Recently Microsoft put its Ofﬁce productivity suite on the Apple app store.
Does that mean everyone can ditch a PC
for an iPad, connected to a keyboard or
not? No.
Trends such as cloud computing and the
growing capabilities of mobile devices
t
That initiative was led by Jim Ginsburgh, then vice president of enterprise
architecture at BP and now research associate at CSC’s Leading Edge Forum.
Here, Ginsburgh reﬂects on the lessons that came out of the BP project, talks
about how consumerisation of technology is impacting organisations today and
predicts areas of future disruption.
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and networks mean there are more
choices than ever for businesses to make.
So how does any organisation make the
right ones?
One answer is to start with employees.
Why? Because they will ultimately make
some of these decisions, whatever IT departments advise or try to lock down.
Some older employees might be happier with physical keyboards and devices
that are familiar. Generation Y employees,
now reaching the ripe old age of 30 and
entering more senior positions, might be
comfortable doing the same things with
tablets and accessories.
All these people have choices, just like
organisations. The future is not about organisations just choosing the right tool
for a job, whether PC or other – it’s about
making a decision about the right tool for
the individual doing a particular task.
That means the PC might decline in popularity and one day we might even start to
call it something else. It’s unlikely to disappear completely. After all, we haven’t
moved beyond pen and paper yet. l
The preceding three articles ﬁrst appeared
on the EE Future Thinking website.
For more on the future of business and
technology visit: futurethinking.ee.co.uk
INDUSTRY VIEW
The benefits of
agile working
are clear
By Fiona Cannon
The way we work – where, when, how
and in what role – has been changing and
the speed of this change is accelerating.
Advanced technology, changing demographics, generational change, changing
customer demands and rapid globalisation have drastically redeﬁned the landscape of work, creating both challenges
and opportunities for businesses. The
business environment now requires companies to create a more agile workforce in
order to leverage fully the opportunities
and manage any threats in order to remain
competitive in today’s global market.
Agile working has been interpreted historically as ﬂexible working, which has
largely been positioned as an employee
beneﬁt, part of the employee proposition
Global trends: can the UK take a lead?
rather than a way organisations can better
meet their business goals in a changing
environment. However, agile working
transcends ﬂexible working, encompassing a range of practices from staged retirement policies through to multiskilling of
roles – as well as providing people with
the opportunity to work the hours and in
the location that allows them to maximise
their productivity.
Agility is more than an employee value proposition; it is a key part of a company’s business strategy. Consequently,
business leaders, rather than HR, need
to lead the implementation of workforce
agility practices.
The beneﬁts of ﬂexible working are
widely recognised. The CBI’s 2013 Employment Trends Survey of businesses
revealed that 97 per cent of UK companies see ﬂexible employment patterns as
vital or important for the UK economy.
However, companies surveyed identiﬁed
a number of obstacles to implementing
ﬂexible working; 62 per cent highlighted
the need to ensure that corporate infrastructure is appropriate to meet the
challenge and 23 per cent highlighted the
need for a robust business case for change.
While the beneﬁts of ﬂexible working
have been well established, it is clear that
the economic and business case for workforce agility is less well known.
New business models will be required
as the need for agility becomes a key focus of the modern competitive company.
To address this, the Agile Future Forum
(AFF) was established in 2012 by 22 companies, all of which have capitalised on
the beneﬁts of implementing agile working practices. The AFF’s aim is to deﬁne
the business value of workforce agility.
In our report Understanding the Economic Beneﬁts of Workforce Agility, the
AFF’s founding members demonstrated
that agility practices saved between 3 to 13
per cent in workforce costs and that these
cost savings could be extended by a further 3 to 7 per cent, in some cases delivering an extra savings uplift of up to 11 per
cent. These practices included examples
such as a head ofﬁce function of Lloyds
Banking Group that generated value
equivalent to 7 per cent of total workforce costs through using freelancers to
meet seasonal demand and locating staff
across multiple sites to lower premises’
costs; Eversheds, the legal ﬁrm, allowed
employees the freedom to choose their
own working model and consequently
28 per cent of staff reported increased
productivity; BT’s use of communications technology contributed to a reduction in its physical accommodation needs
by 48 per cent, yielding global savings of
£100m a year.
Other examples of AFF founding
members’ beneﬁts from agile working
include a Ford Motor Company manufacturing plant saving the equivalent of
approximately 3 per cent of total plant
costs by using outsourcing, ﬂexible absence cover and alternative maintenance
shifts to achieve cover in line with plant
needs. ITV launched a project promoting
agility across its business practices and
workforce, adopting leading technologies
that led to a company-wide refresh of its
workplaces. This project has improved
costs efﬁciencies within ITV’s IT support,
accommodation and travel sections as
well as increased data storage. It has also
resulted in faster decision-making across
the business.
Business leaders must be aware of the
beneﬁts of agility and their importance
to overall business competitiveness, but
they must also accept the need for a cultural shift away from traditional practices
such as “presenteeism”.
Any initial barriers to a company
becoming more agile are surmountable,
as many companies have already proved.
The beneﬁts of agile working are clear.
Our business leaders can, and should,
adopt agile working practices to ensure
the UK takes a lead on capitalising on the
beneﬁts. l
Fiona Cannon OBE is group director,
diversity and inclusion, of Lloyds Banking
Group, and CEO of Agile Future Forum
SHUTTERSTOCK
t
OBSERVATIONS
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FACTS & FIGURES
ŽŵŵƵƚĞƌƟŵĞ
75%
62%
68%
of people use
a phone for work
when commuting
of those who own only
a personal phone
still use it to work
on a commute
of 18-24-year-olds
use their phone for
work when commuting
ĞǇŽŶĚĐĂůůƐĂŶĚƚĞǆƚƐ͗ŵŽďŝůĞĚĞǀŝĐĞƐŝŶĂĐƟŽŶ
100%
- Smartphone
- Tablet
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
1
2
3
4
1 Access/download/upload documents
2 Read/review documents
3 Communicate via a work social network site
4 Input data into a company system
GRAPHICS BY VAIDA KLIMAVICIUTE
^ƚĂīƌĞƚĞŶƟŽŶĂŶĚ'ĞŶĞƌĂƟŽŶz
61%
5
6
7
8
5 Access information via company sources
6 Conduct admin
7 Make/receive phone calls
8 Read/compose email
(”Generation Y” refers to those born in 1980s and early 1990s)
of Generation Y employees want to work for an organisation where they can use the very latest technology
78%
of Generation Y employees would value greater use of mobile technology at work
Sources: [1 and 3] Deloitte, Upwardly Mobile Redefining Business Mobility in Britain, 2013; 2 4GEE Mobile Living Index, 2014 (based on habits of 4G users)
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