Employees in the alternative workplace tend to devote less time and energy to typical office routines and more to customers. Through an AW program called the Mobility Initiative, IBM is saving more than $100 million annually in its North America sales and distribution unit alone.Īnother reason is the potential to increase productivity.
Since 1991, AT&T has freed up some $550 million in cash flow-a 30 % improvement-by eliminating offices people don’t need, consolidating others, and reducing related overhead costs. What motivates managers to examine how people spend their time at the office and where else they could work? The most obvious reason is cost reduction. Although estimates vary widely, some 30 million to 40 million people in the United States are now either telecommuters or home-based workers. Today AT&T is just one among many organizations pioneering the alternative workplace (AW)-the combination of nontraditional work practices, settings, and locations that is beginning to supplement traditional offices. It’s purpose? To explore how far a vast organization could go in transforming the workplace by moving the work to the worker instead of the worker to work.
Employees ranging from the CEO to phone operators were part of an experiment that involved 100,000 people. On September 20, 1994, some 32,000 AT&T employees stayed home. Give careful thought to what you’ll do to ensure that remote employees still feel “in the loop.”įinally, see to it that managers are given guidance in monitoring remote employees, that employees know what results they’re expected to achieve, and that other stakeholders such as customers are fully informed. Divide the pilot group into the office-bound, travel-driven, and independent-then think through the logistics of how they’ll work with each other after some of them have started working at home. Start with sales, project engineering, and other areas where employees are largely self-directed. If your answers favor the alternative workplace, launch a simple pilot project and then phase in more people over time, tailoring the program with employee feedback as you go. Are you willing to invest in the tools and training needed to make the alternative workplace succeed? Can you overcome external barriers? Have you determined, for example, whether most employees have the room at home to set up a workspace?ħ. Are you prepared for “push-back”? Some managers get uneasy when their direct reports are no longer in close physical proximity.Ħ. Can you establish clear links between staff, functions, and time? What function does the job serve? How is the work performed? Thinking through these issues will help identify jobs that can be filled via alternative workplaces.ĥ. Do you have an open culture and proactive managers? The effort won’t succeed unless managers are enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and ready to leave tradition behind.Ĥ. Is your organization industrial or informational? If your structure and systems are designed for face-to-face interaction, the potential for alternative workplaces may be limited.ģ. Are you committed to new ways of operating? For example, rewarding for results brought in from the alternative workplace rather than effort made in the office?Ģ. How can you sort through the myths and misconceptions to determine if the alternative workplace is right for your organization? Ask yourself these seven questions:ġ. Some managers argue that alternative workplaces hurt employee cohesion, while others say “just give ‘em a laptop and a cell phone, and they’ll be fine.” Others cling to the notion that a company office is still the most productive place to work-water cooler and all. Notable cost savings from alternative-workplace arrangements lead some business decision makers to think that these arrangements are the wave of the future. Like many other business management trends, this one requires careful application. Yet, the alternative workplace is not suitable for every company or every job. Less tangible results, such as increased employee satisfaction that translates to improved attitudes toward customer service, are just as important. Productivity gains are another compelling benefit: in a study of one well-managed office, conversation and other office norms distracted people from work an average 70 minutes in an eight-hour day. Army are saving a bundle in real-estate and infrastructure costs by having workers work from home-even with the added cost of providing these employees computers, software, tech support, etc. Could your organization benefit from the alternative workplace-where employees work off-site, primarily from home?ĪT&T, IBM, and even the U.S.
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