Published: June 23rd 2020
Is the office dead?
Chris Corlett is head of business development with MBS, a technology services business with over 300 clients in 40 countries, including many in Jersey. He writes:
I know, it’s a ridiculous idea – or is it? When the Economist recently ran a story entitled ‘Death of the office’, it makes you stop and think.
More food for thought. Global data provider Dynata recently surveyed over 11,000 people who normally work in an office. Seventy-five per cent expected to spend more time working from home after the crisis than they did before it– and most are keen to do so. Another recent survey by Gartner of business leaders found nearly 75% will move at least 5% of their previously on-site workforce to permanently remote positions post-Covid 19. It is striking how closely aligned the views of workers and business leaders appear to be on this issue.
So coronavirus has not killed the office – but it has dramatically accelerated the decline in its importance for ever.
This has massive implications for how organisations manage and engage their staff. As an insightful article this week by MIT Sloan business school states: ‘The critical challenge in the current environment centres on how senior leaders can engage virtually in key decision-making processes with stakeholders and internal team members in ways that enhance trust, transparency and teamwork.’ For many, this is a huge task.
Productivity and performance management of remote workers are major concerns for business leaders – and rightly so. I have spoken with many leaders and participated in several webinars on this topic and the general consensus is productivity is running at 60 to 70% of pre-Covid 19 levels.
This is not innate to home working – analysis published in January showed experienced remote workers were 10 to 15% more productive than their office-based peers. Current poor productivity is obviously adversely affected by childcare and other responsibilities, but that is only a part.
A recent survey by Fortune of business leaders found 53% said getting their employees to effectively communicate with one another is the biggest challenge of remote work; only 20% said hardware and 21% tech tools. The lesson from this is giving people tools is not enough: you need to train them how to use them and act as positive role models.
Not all tools are equal. In a recent report on web and video conferencing, Aragon (a not-for-profit association) found meetings are 40% more effective when conducted by video as opposed to voice alone. In a voice-only call, the first few minutes are usually spent trying to figure out who’s on the call and people often lose focus. On a video call, co-workers can instantly see not only who’s on the call but also how they react. In addition, people can better remember what they see rather than what they simply hear.
The offices of old were temples to paper first and people second. Many businesses are now paperless or working to become paperless as quickly as possible. And with good reason. Historically processes were highly paper-based. As a result, they were, slow, costly to operate, error prone, hard to show compliance affordably as well as costly and slow to change. Clients want more. They want information and services NOW, 24 hours a day, increasingly on their mobile phone. The current crisis has added enormous impetus to these trends.
So, in a paperless environment with many staff working from home, how can leaders control the flow of information and ensure the productivity of their staff? Managers have always wrestled with how to assess the relative performance of individuals, teams and business units. This challenge now feels greater than ever for many managers. So what do you do?
First define what you need, starting with the need to efficiently direct the right information and tasks to the right people rapidly – ideally automatically. Right now this typically involves too many videoconferences, emails and phone calls; it can feel like you and your staff are spending more time talking about what needs to be done than doing it. Next, you need real-time information on what activities each individual, team and business unit are working. This should give you a full audit trail of who did what when and clear warnings before things go wrong. It should identify issues that you improve. Plus it should do all of this using simple graphical tools that do not require a PhD in computing to use.
Good Document and Records Management plus Workflow software can do all of the above, which are the key components of leading Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems. The ECM I know best is Laserfiche. Independent analyst Gartner recently stated: ‘Laserfiche is the leading global provider of intelligent content management and business process automation.’ So it is worth considering if you need to manage your staff more effectively and raise your organisation’s productivity.
We are seeing clients – including financial services providers and government bodies – use Laserfiche to simplify and automate internal business processes, improving efficiency, reducing risk and slashing elapsed times.
Others are going further, using it to deliver online portals that allow clients and other third parties to access the information and services they require 24 hours a day. All with a full audit trail that enables more comprehensive and affordable regulatory compliance than they could ever achieve with their previous, often manual processes.
This approach works. The consultancy and research firm McKinsey recently published analysis that shows the businesses which have implemented a ‘bold, integrated digital strategy’ have delivered annual growth rates 50% higher than their peers. As a result, many organisations are investing more in technology: EY has just published a survey of business leaders where over 40% said they now intend to accelerate their digital transformation strategy as the best response to the ‘new normal’.
I know it is tempting to wait for ‘normality’ to return before making any investment decisions. But I strongly recommend you think hard about what your customers and staff will expect from you in future and how you can use technology to meet these expectations. How can you speed up client service? How can you enable staff to work effectively from home? The longer you leave it, the more customers and staff will move to your competitors who do meet their expectations.
