Productivity: A Homemade Recipe? - WHITE PAPER November 2013 | Final Release
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Productivity: A Homemade Recipe? WHITE PAPER November 2013 | Final Release
PRODUCTIVITY
A HOMEMADE RECIPE
5
ACCENTURE REMOTE WORK
LEARNING FROM A BENEFITING FIRMS &
GLOBAL LEADER FAMILIES
14 16
AUTHORS: Nicola Gillen, Hilary Jeffery and Sayyam Sahni
with special thanks to the Accenture and AECOM teams: Daniel Johnson, Joanne Dolman,
Jane Flynn-Royko, Paul Ellwood and Francesca Jack, Axel Praus, Elvira Munoz, Amelia Tucker
and The Universities of Chicago and Cornell: Ariel Kalil and Rachel Dunifon
© Copyright 2013
herewith
Introduction
Recently, Marissa Mayer, CEO at Yahoo, sent out a memo The series started in Munich, Germany in June 2013 with a
banning working from home. Soon, the memo hit the Web. large event attended by multinational organisations, public
‘Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from sector bodies, academics and central government, including
home. We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically the key politicians behind Germany’s upcoming 'Home Office
being together.’ it said. Moments later, the internet exploded Day', scheduled for November 2013. This inaugural event
with reactions, as it invoked the ire of working parents, remote was followed by an event in London, UK and Madrid, Spain.
workers, and even Richard Branson! Clearly an emotional topic. Participants included BMW, Credit Suisse, Pfizer, Rolls-Royce,
But why? UBS, Unilever, Cisco, Microsoft, Philips, GSK and Telefonica.
To explore this further, world leaders in remote working came Following the European events, AECOM undertook some
together to run a series of round table events internationally, research in Asia and North America, to broaden insights
to explore the topic of home working and its connection with into homeworking internationally. The second release of
morale and productivity. The series offers a unique snapshot this paper introduces the topic, provides an extensive case
of live experiences from corporates around the world, at a time study from Accenture alongside the academic research, and
when the topic is receiving much media attention. includes a write-up from each of the countries and regions
studied, concluding with findings from the events and research
The format of the events was a series of short presentations
activities internationally.
which outlined the key issues and challenges as well as best
practice, thought leadership and research on the topic. The
sessions then focused on sharing lessons learned and exploring
how remote working influences productivity and satisfaction.
These events probed some of the sensitive questions raised
around the issue, and how they affect the way we might work in
the future.
“
nearly half of all US-based
companies currently have
employees who work from
home, or an alternative
location outside the office, at
”
least part of the time
6 Productivity: A homemade recipe
PRODUCTIVITY
A HOMEMADE
RECIPE?
The changing workplace reported using social networking sites for work-related
The world of work has changed. From technology which fixed activities that are not supported by their IT department, whilst
people to a physical space to a world where we can work 54% said they use a mobile phone or blackberry for work which
anywhere anytime, this transformation means we are more is not supported by their IT department. The same study also
mobile, we work in increasingly global teams and we don’t found that there’s a gap between how organisations enable
expect to work from 9-5. The result? The ‘workplace’ is no employees to communicate with clients and customers and
longer confined to the office. Work happens in coffee shops, how younger employees would prefer to communicate with
airport lounges, aeroplanes… and our homes. To use an them. For example, only 6% of respondents reported that their
old phrase, the city has become the office. A team which is organisation uses Instant Messaging to communicate with
dispersed, to some degree, is a reality of the modern, working clients, compared with 21% of respondents who believe their
world. organisation should be leveraging this kind of tool for customer
interaction (Accenture Research Report – Millennials at the
Technology is offering various opportunities to connect with Gates, 2008).
colleagues, in ways that used to not be possible. For many
knowledge workers, working virtually is already part of their However, perhaps most telling is that the abovementioned PwC
everyday work experience. We are all working with and report found that Millennials do not believe that productivity
through distributed networks of information technology and should be measured by the number of hours worked at the
datastreams, which connect individuals and teams both within office, but by the output of the work performed. They view
office buildings and across numerous time zones and places. work as a “thing” and not a “place”. (PwC’s NextGen: A global
All of our working tools have been shifting to smaller, more generational study, 2013).
lightweight, voice-integrated mobile devices and platforms On paper, then, we are fully equipped with the ability and the
that allow us to connect, in multiple ways, from many different desire to work anywhere, anytime, and respond to the changing
kinds of private and public settings. These tools, softwares, needs of life and society. But is this really a reality for the
and applications certainly question the logic of “being there” in majority of employees or does it remain the reserve of senior
the office, on a full-time basis. leaders and the self-employed?
The role of the workplace as seen by the incoming workforce
is changing too. The generation born between 1980 and 1995
(also known as Millennials) has entered the workforce in a big
“
way. According to the recent NextGen Study conducted by PwC,
Millennials now represent a majority of their employees e.g.
two out of three of PwC’s staff are in their 20s and early 30s.
By 2016, PwC expect that almost 80% of their workforce will
be Millennials. The report goes on to state that a significant
number of employees feel strongly enough about wanting a
communication plays a
flexible work schedule that they would be willing to give up pay
and delay promotions in order to get it.
critical role in building
Technology is also increasingly important to employees - a
successful teams…patterns
recent study by Cisco found that one in three college students
said they would prioritise social media freedom and device
of communication are the
flexibility over salary. Furthermore, research conducted by most important predictor
”
Accenture, has found that there is a disconnect between
Millennials expectations and technology use patterns, and the of a team’s success
corporate IT strategy. 59% of Accenture’s survey respondents
Productivity: A homemade recipe 7
Home working: the theory makes sense To give more autonomy to employees:
The inclusion of home as one of many potential work settings • helps them arrange their working lives more easily, reducing
has its complexities, but has been implemented in one way or stress
another by most modern organisations. An organisation may • more autonomous staff are believed to be more productive
have dedicated home workers, whose primary place of work
• more relaxed staff are likely to be more creative
is their home, or ad-hoc home workers, who work from home
as and when suitable. Whether home working is written in • flexible working arrangements give working parents the
policy and implemented on an ad-hoc basis by managers or is option to return to the workforce, enabling them to balance
practiced on a much wider scale within a company, almost all childcare responsibilities and costs
knowledge workers will have come into contact with the idea
and will have a personal view on how home working impacts To support staff satisfaction and foster a culture which
their own productivity and wellbeing. attracts and retains talent:
• reduced sick leave time
The rise in remote working is significant and is a growing
political agenda in many western countries. According to • reduced staff turnover, recruitment costs and ‘brain drain’
Fortune Magazine, nearly half of all US-based companies of expertise and knowledge
currently have employees who work from home, or an • an organisation is likely to attract higher-quality staff if it
alternative location outside the office, at least part of the offers such a policy
time. President Obama has signed into law the 2010 Telework
Enhancement Act, which gave government agencies six months To increase efficiency:
to establish a policy on working outside the office, and create • reduce time wasted commuting, particularly where
training programmes for teleworkers and their managers. It work doesn’t demand colleague interaction e.g. a day of
was estimated that the bill affected approximately 1.2 million teleconferences
government workers.
• avoid the stress, cost and carbon-footprint of commuting
The business case • reported increments in individual productivity
Against the backdrop of the changing nature of society and • reduce space (real estate) costs for the organisation
work, the concept of home working reflects a change in
1 Work without Walls white paper, Microsoft, 2011
priorities for both employers and employees. The key drivers
and benefits of implementing such a strategy are summarised
as follows1.
ROUND TABLE
MUNICH
The Munich Round Table was a The participants agreed that
very successful event, with 11 home working can only be
experts from politics, economy successful if clear rules and
and science, and more than 60 policies are agreed in advance,
guests. The event was the start for instance: working hours,
to a global lecture series by availability of the employees,
AECOM on this subject. home office equipment, legal
requirements. Clear and regular
Attendees included leading
communication regarding
companies and institutions
objectives, rules of conduct
including German Telekom, ver.
etc. are a must.
di, BMW, national government
as well as representatives By the time the event
from the universities of Luzern, concluded, all speakers agreed
Gröningen and North-Western that managers have to rethink
Switzerland. the implementation of home
working, with the aspiration to
Axel Praus (Managing Director
be "leading by objective and
and Country Manager for
not by presence". To realise
AECOM) and Michael Stiegler
the full potential of flexible
(Head of Competence Center
working concepts, it was also
Change Management), began
felt that it was important
the discussion with their
to have the implementation
experiences in flexible working
guided by Change Management
models, including working from
specialists.
home.
8 Productivity: A homemade recipe
No one size fits all As such, a formalised, actively-implemented remote working
Whilst there does seem to be an emerging series of benefits to policy is likely only to work for very specific working styles and
remote working (Does working from home work? Evidence from functions, but can be very successful for those for whom it is
a Chinese experiment; 2013; Nicholas Bloom, James Liang, John appropriate.
Roberts and Zhichun Jenny Ying; Stanford University), the role
For example, global Management Consultancy firm Accen-
that home working plays can differ significantly, depending on
ture offer a variety of flexible working arrangements to their
the type of organisation.
employees, and suggest that any hurdles can be overcome
Perhaps one of the reasons for the reaction to the Yahoo by careful integration of functional strategies around human
memo was that it seems to go against the brand and ethos capital, real estate, and technology. According to Accenture, it
of a company founded in the virtual world, and is counter to takes work to integrate all the pieces, but the value to employ-
the general trends in the technology sector as a whole. In ee happiness and productivity far outweighs the effort needed
computer, engineering, and science fields, home-based work to introduce the programme and coach managers
has risen 69% between 2000 and 2010 in the US, which make
As a further example, about a month after Yahoo! Inc. told
these the fastest growing telecommuting industries in the
employees to end work-from-home arrangements, a working
country, according to the US Census Bureau.
paper was released by the National Bureau of Economic
However, there is no single approach or solution to Research in the US, which concluded that there are measurable
implementing home working - one size will never fit all. The benefits for companies that allow staff to work from home.
best outcomes of remote working are likely to be when it can be
They studied a 16,000-employee travel agency, listed on the
combined with working from the office or other collaborative
Nasdaq Composite Index - the results showed that home-
work environments, at least some of the time. It is usually not
working led to a 13% increase in performance and a large
an “either/or” but a “both and” solution. For many workers, the
reduction in sick days. The company reacted by allowing the
best work solutions are those that enable them to blend their
whole firm to choose whether to work from home, and the
work lives and their home lives, and to take advantage of both
performance gains almost doubled. Full details of the study
the home and office (or other places) as settings for different
can be found on page 14.
kinds of work, at different times of the day and week.
ROUND TABLE
LONDON
This Round Table, held in and this must be considered,
London, was attended by but the employer is under no
representatives from Rolls- obligation to grant it.
Royce, Pfizer, Credit Suisse,
The participant organisations
Unilever, Cornell University and
currently have a range of
University of Chicago. Accenture
approaches, from formalised
teams also joined from San
home working quotas, in the
Francisco and Chicago.
minority, to tools created to
Short presentations followed by work with the challenges of
lively debate including recent implementing home working in
academic research into home developing economies, where
working and work/life balance. broadband, power and domestic
There was agreement that arrangements may not always
home working is one response enable it.
in a suite of solutions to Clear themes emerged - such
accommodate the increasingly as home working not being
mobile nature of work. Many felt stand-alone solution and the
that working from home and a importance of training senior
wide range of other locations is managers so that they are
simply a reality, that businesses prepared and equipped to
need respond to in terms of manage people that they cannot
their approach and policies. This see. Finally, many attendees
is especially relevant in the UK, noted that their next-generation
given the lack of government staff increasingly felt that home
policy pertaining to working working was ‘a right’, rather
from home. Employees have the than ‘a benefit’.
right to request flexible working
Productivity: A homemade recipe 9
“
The relevance of the physical workplace
However, despite examples like the ones described above, the
office maintains its hold on workers. If technology allows us to
work anytime and the patterns of life and work mean we want
increased flexibility to work anywhere, why is it that anyone
despite the massive shifts in
comes to the office anymore? technology and work patterns
There are a wide range of reasons why the office is still vital for
business success. Perhaps one of the most pertinent reasons
the way an organisation is
surrounding the Yahoo debate is that bringing people physically managed has often remained
together can help develop or adopt a new corporate culture,
unchanged
”
something that is potentially critical to Yahoo currently as they
struggle financially. To re-establish organisational culture
there is a need to forge new teams and build relationships
which produce trust, loyalty and commitment to the company
vision, which can arguably be more difficult to cultivate via
virtual means.
Mayer’s previous experience at Google is important here.
Google, as a company, strongly stresses inter-person
collaboration and encourages day-to-day life revolving around
their campus, so staff tend to spend a significantly larger
amount of time in the workplace than their contemporaries.
Google knows that incentives are crucial if people are to keep
coming to the office, so the company invests heavily in their
campus environments, creating a ‘home from home’ with
everything from free food to free haircuts and fully equipped
healthcare/gym facilities.
However, investment isn’t limited to the office space. The
company has additional policies in place which ensure they
continue to attract and retain talent - Google’s famous 20%
program has enabled employees to spend 20% of their week
pursuing special projects. The strategy does seem to be
working - Google’s 53,861 employees generate $931,657 in
revenue per worker, 170% higher than Yahoo’s $344,758 worth
of revenue per employee. Google value face-to-face interaction
so highly that they do everything they can to get people into
the office, and are demonstrating how to do this successfully
without sacrificing staff morale.
Following on from this, we shouldn’t be afraid to admit
that there is a difference between face-to-face and virtual
interaction. For Yahoo, it appears that the announcement is
based on the assumption that people working from the same
location can positively impact on business performance
through increased opportunity for ad-hoc interaction.
Research seems to back this up, for example, a large study
of R&D teams found that groups with denser, more frequent,
and more diverse interaction patterns were found to be
more productive as a whole (R. Reagans, E. W. Zuckerman,
“Networks, Diversity, and Productivity: The Social Capital of
Corporate R&D Teams.” Organization Science, Vol. 12, No. 4). In
addition, a recently published article by MIT about the ‘science
of high-performing teams’ collected data on communication
patterns from 2,500 participants across a range of industries.
The article concludes that communication plays a critical
role in building successful teams, and that patterns of
communication are the most important predictor of a team’s
success. Amongst the findings, the article states that the most
valuable form of communicating is face-to-face whilst the least
is email and texting.
10 Productivity: A homemade recipe
“
Furthermore, 35% of the variation in a team’s performance can
be accounted for by the number of face-to-face interactions.
(Alex Pentland, Harvard Business Review; The New Science of
Work/life conflicts tend to Building Great Teams, April 2012).
However, bringing people together is only one part of a
arise when employees reach very complex story in driving innovation and productivity.
their peak-productive years
”
Individual, concentrated work is an equally important part of
the innovation process and sometimes home might be the best
possible place to do this.
Ariel Kalil, University of Chicago, Furthermore, factors such as management structure, culture,
speaking at the London Round Table skills and expertise all play their part in creating the right
conditions for innovation. Whilst organisations see that co-
locating people is a factor in improving business performance
they also need to make sure they take a holistic view of all other
contributing factors. Bringing people together is not enough.
So why does home working not always work in reality?
Aside from the delicate balance between working at home, in
the office and across the wider, distributed workplace, home
working in general has received bad press over the years and
often produces cynicism amongst managers and employees.
Perhaps one of the biggest reasons for this is that, whilst
home working is policy in many organisations, it is not actively
implemented or supported. AECOM regularly hears from
employees, during our research, who don’t feel they have the
freedom to work from home or indeed any location away from
their base office.
ROUND TABLE
MADRID
The Spanish Round Table was footage, and as a consequence
held in the Madrid AECOM a cost reduction.
office and was attended
Representatives agreed on
by representatives from
the importance of defining a
fifteen companies including
workplace strategy adapted
Accenture, Microsoft, Nokia
to the specific nature of every
Siemens Network, Cisco,
company and even department.
Philips, Pfizer, GSK, Telefónica,
It should be regularly monitored
Evobanco, Asefa, Sanitas, GMP
to validate its adaptation to
and Elzaburu Abogados.
the changeable nature of the
Every participant contributed companies and modify it in
to the debate with their own case it is necessary.
experiences, at both a national
Due to the traditional
and international level. Not
workplace culture in Spain, it
only the current status of the
can be difficult to implement
companies was analysed,
a remote working system,
but also the possible future
particularly due to managers
application of remote working
who feel they are losing control
schemes and management.
over employees. It can be
Spain is undergoing a major especially hard for companies
economic crisis and, as in traditional sectors and
everyone agreed, flexible work lack of the tools, processes
and telecommuting imply a and technology required for
reduction on the office square telecommuting programs.Productivity: A homemade recipe 11
The reality is that, despite the massive shifts in technology Why the emotional reaction?
and work patterns described at the beginning of this article, As well as the debate about the benefits and challenges of
the way an organisation is managed has often remained home working, the emotional reactions that the debate has
unchanged. Value is still placed on seeing employees in the ignited are interesting in a much broader sense, and shed light
office, and managing performance through presenteeism on the topic as a whole. A number of potential reasons for the
rather than results. passionate responses to the Yahoo memo can be explored as
Another reason why home working can receive bad press follows.
is that it is so often managed poorly during the process of
implementation. Like the age-old open-plan office debate, A loss of control
there exist good home working practices and bad home working From a psychological standpoint, it’s well documented that
practices. Where home working succeeds, it is because it has autonomy is important for satisfaction and morale. Whatever
been defined clearly by the organisation, is understood and form it takes, providing a degree of control and choice is
accepted by senior leaders and managers, who are equipped important.
to manage those who they cannot see every day. Where there
This is perhaps taking on an increased significance due to the
is no active management, home working can be abused by both
higher value which younger members of the workforce place
managers and employees.
on flexibility and technology. Technology has heightened the
Ultimately, whilst organisations may be enabled from sense of freedom and control we all have over our lives – both
a technological and workstyle perspective to shift to a work and personal – and we are observing the psychological
distributed model of working, they may not be supported by the contract between employee and employer changing. Where
culture and management approach that is required to make it flexibility and freedom were once seen as perks, they are now
work. seen as an employee’s right. Where people feel this is being
taken away, emotions will run high.
RESEARCH
NORTH AMERICA
There are some federal pol- organisations tend to provide other regions, it is notable that physical social network, offering
icies in the US that support very little help to employees domestic houses tend to be individuals a 'third space'
home working, but currently no setting up a home office, larger in North America, and between home and the office.
legal requirement to offer it to other than with bandwidth/ often include a home office, The We Work environments
employees. President Obama connectivity. making it easier for people to provide a range of spaces that
recently instigated a high-per- work from home. In contrast to people can rent on a flexible
Marriot and Steelcase undertook
formance building specifica- feedback from other regions, basis; they also provide training
some research in the US looking
tion, which encouraged flexible managerial style did not emerge and a range of amenities, and
at flexible working, in particular
working as a way of getting as a significant barrier to home now include locations across the
working from hotels. According
the most out of buildings, but working in North America - US which people can access as
to Weston, 75% of workers in the
there are very few formal home perhaps because mobility in part of their membership. It’s an
US are on the move, ie. at least
working programmes in the US, general has been a reality of interesting model, and growing
one day per week they have no
as organisations tend to take a work there for so long. fast, so much so that We Work
office. Worldwide, the number
more ad hoc approach to mobil- is now one of the biggest space
of mobile workers has been The scale of the country
ity. Home working is largely still occupiers in New York City.
estimated at 1.3 billion. drives geographical dispersal,
seen as a benefit; very few US
such that travel and video Liquidspace is another option
workers are true Tele-Commut- The biggest issue that US com-
or teleconferencing is for organisations that want
ers who have their home working panies now face is to think more
commonplace. There is a strong to provide workspace to their
arrangements specified in their broadly about a spectrum of
tradition of people working mobile workforce but do not
contract. workspaces for these employ-
in a mobile way using their want to rent office space on
ees. Telecommuting makes up
Some US banks have gone own technology, making daily a longer-term basis. With this
a very small proportion of work
down the route of implementing decisions as to when and where model you can book space in
for most companies and is just
formal programmes, such as they undertake their work. another firm's offices when
part of the solution - they need
Bank of America, but a lot of The term ‘Road Warrior’ was required, or release surplus
to think about mobility in a wider
organisations are only just coined in the US to describe the space when appropriate. This
sense rather than pigeonholing
taking in the fact that, with the thousands of workers who travel offering has been developed
people or spatial solutions.
rise of BYOD, (Bring Your Own daily as a regular part of their as an application that you can
Device), people now have the The speed, scale of network jobs. As a consequence of this, use as-and-when, and supports
option to work anywhere. In and quality of broadbrand in the the US has seen a dramatic rise organisations that need a more
response, some organisations US is probably more developed in the use of co-working spaces. flexible real estate model; it
are creating new policies to than most other countries. is particularly popular with
One of the more popular co-
manage the security issues There is almost ubiquitous consulting organisations who
working solutions is ‘We Work’,
arising from home working access to wireless LAN across need a flexible real estate
who describe themselves as a
arrangements. However, cities. In response to data from model.12 Productivity: A homemade recipe
It’s personal: It jars with the realities of society and family life As a parallel, AECOM often finds that when an organisation
Working from home follows the significant changes in society moves to a more open, collaborative working environment,
and family life. The Office for National Statistics has revealed senior leaders find that their individual productivity reduces
that the number of full time working mothers in the UK has due to increased distractions, but team productivity increases
risen from less than a quarter to almost a third in the last 15 because decisions get made faster. Another example can be
years. Flexible working arrangements give working families taken from a controlled lab study, where groups were given a
broader options when returning to the workforce, enabling problem to solve. Those that had a high degree of interaction
them to balance childcare responsibilities and costs. felt they couldn’t concentrate and didn’t have enough time
to do a good job, but judges said they produced significantly
Anything which seemingly clashes with the demands of family more and better solutions to the problem than low-interacting
life will always draw a strong reaction. Yahoo’s decision to groups, who reported being able to concentrate and felt they’d
clamp down on remote working met especially strong criticism done a good job. (Jessup L. M. & Connolly T. (1993) The effects
from advocates of a more flexible workplace to improve work- of interaction frequency on the productivity and satisfaction
life balance and keep women at work. of automated problem-solving groups, Proceeding of the 26th
A positive example of where work and family commitments Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Vol. 4,
are well-balanced can be seen in Britain's BT Group, one of 142-151).
the first UK companies to adopt teleworking. Approximately In the case of home working, whilst individuals may feel more
69,000 of its 89,000 staff (78%) are equipped to work flexibly, productive and satisfied this needs to be balanced with the
of which about 9,400 are home workers. The company reports impact on overall organisational productivity. Returning to the
that this has led to benefits including accommodation savings, Yahoo example, perhaps Mayer’s strategy is rooted in this view.
increased productivity and reduced sick absence, adding that In a time of crisis, Mayer needs ‘all hands on deck’ to steer the
99 percent of women return to work at BT after maternity leave. company back to success, but this is about a strategy for ‘now’
"Our flexible working policies can achieve a better balance and shouldn’t be confused with the end of remote working in
between work and family commitments, which can be the long term.
especially important for those with young families or caring
responsibilities," a BT spokesman said.
Challenging ideologies: re-awakening the old debate about
management style
Much of the debate so far has been underpinned by ideologies
about what constitutes a modern and relevant management
style. Protagonists suggest home working is about embracing
freedom, throwing off the shackles of 19th Century work
patterns and the tyranny of heavy-handed management.
Supporters of this argument would say that a company which
forces people to come to work in one place every day is
counterproductive, in terms of morale and stress levels, and
that it indicates management is old-fashioned and insecure,
needing to oversee in order to feel in control.
Conversely, antagonists have reacted by suggesting that people
working at home are likely to be exploiting the organisation,
and that there is such a thing as giving an employee too much
freedom. Furthermore, they are likely to support the view
that the workplace ensures people aren’t isolated and that
“
communication and collaboration is well supported.
Regardless of which side of the argument we fall on, the topic
of home working is being used as a yardstick with which to
measure and assess the management of a company. Trust is important to staff,
Tipping the balance between the individual and the
organisation
and lack of home working
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, one of the challenges implies that there is not much
this debate raises is the balance between investing in what is
good for individuals versus making decisions that are needed
trust between employer and
for the greater good of the organisation (whilst recognising
employee
”
that these two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive). In
the case of Yahoo, it could be perceived that the balance has
been tipped too far and that employee satisfaction has been
sacrificed in favour of ‘the machine’. London Round Table ParticipantProductivity: A homemade recipe 13
14 Productivity: A homemade recipe
RESEARCH/CASE STUDY
ASIA
Similar to those in other Asian for working from home success- home. Among the volunteers, the main concern being isolation
countries, office workers in fully, with concerns for working 249 met the minimum tenure at home. All in all, over half of
China are notorious for long from home often including being requirement of 6 months. Among the employees who were eligible
work hours. Working from home isolated and having less chance the 249 eligible volunteers, half to work at home decided to work
is common, but usually means of being promoted. were randomly chosen to work in the office, despite having
working from home outside of from home, the other half con- to incur the financial and time
Currently, Chinese central
normal office hours, in the eve- tinues working from the office costs of commuting (Source:
government does not promote
nings and at weekends. and served as the control group. http://www.stanford.edu/~n-
any working from home ini-
bloom/WFH.pdf).
Rarely do companies in China tiative, however, some local The result was a success.
have formal working from home governments have started Home working lead to 13% The internet infrastructure in
policy, but managers, senior experimenting with this model of increase in performance, China is not always as fast or
leaders and staff in supporting working. At the end of 2011, the mainly due to fewer breaks reliable as in more developed
functions such as HR sometimes local government of Chang-ning and sick days and more calls countries; however, it is probably
have more flexibility to choose district in Shanghai collaborat- per minute (attributed to fewer not much worse than how it was
to work from home occasion- ed with C-trip, a Chinese travel distractions). Compared to the in the U.S. 5 -10 years ago, when
ally. Senior leaders often cite agency, to roll out a new home control group, the turnover the concept of working from
challenges to allowing staff working model. rate among the home working home started to gain traction.
to work from home as includ- employees was 50% lower. Home
The initial purpose was to help The availability of a quiet and
ing confidentiality concerns, workers also reported improved
new mothers find job opportu- distraction-free space for work-
managerial difficulties, the need work satisfaction.
nities, but they discovered that ing from home can also some-
for training, and performance
many young people in general In August 2011, employees in the times be a problem. Those who
management.
were interested in this flexible airfare and hotels department have young children at home
Especially in tier-one cities such way of work. The local govern- were notified that the experi- typically have either grandpar-
as Shanghai and Beijing, the ment now plans to promote this ment had been a success and ents or nannies living with them,
commute time for office workers working from home model to that C-trip would roll out the and kids often stay at home until
can be long. Through employee more companies in the region, work from home programme to they are 2.5 or 3 years old. Fam-
surveys, we often hear that over enabling the practice with those who were qualified, and ilies with kids typically continue
half of employees spend more policies and providing support to whowanted to work from home, to have a domestic staff living
than 45 minutes each way on participating companies. in the airfare and hotels depart- with them even after their kids
commuting to work. ments. have started school.
The C-trip working from home
Most of the employees who Only 35% of the control group Similar challenges around living
participated in our surveys ex- experiment eventually decided to work from with extended families, and
pressed interest in working from C-trip, a 16,000 employee, home, although they were all therefore avoiding distractions
home a few days per month or NASDAQ-listed Chinese travel interested initially. The main at home, have been cited as a
week, with reasons given includ- agency, commenced a nine- reason giving for changing their challenge for other parts of Asia,
ing better work and life balance month-long working from home mind was the possibility of being including India.
and improving their ability to experiment in December 2010. isolated at home.
However, the key barrier in China
concentrate. Employees also About half of the approximately
After the experiment, 50% of the for working from home is mana-
reported that better technology 1,000 employees in the airfare
treatment group immediately gerial style.
and an understanding and trust- and hotels department ex-
decided to return to the office,
ing boss were the main enablers pressed interest in working from
"If it is encouraged and better enabled, how often would you want to work
from home? " - response by percentage of employees
Percentage of employees who have an average one-way commute by durationProductivity: A homemade recipe 15
Conclusions
The rise in home working can be seen as a response to the regions studied. While geographical variations occur,
significant changes in society and technology, which have particularly around IT infrastructure for example, there is
created new patterns of working and living. However, it is clear no doubt that some countries are at the forefront of flexible
that home working and the broader topic of flexibility in the working and others, whilst currently further behind, are on the
workplace is not a black and white issue and is impacted by same trajectory. The single biggest barrier to homeworking
a wide range of factors. On paper, home working makes a lot across the regions studied was consistently shown to be
of sense and offers a significant number of benefits to both managerial style.
the individual and the organisation. For the individual, the
Finally, we don’t know the details of how the change has been
concept is tied up in feeling valued by the organisation, having
managed in Yahoo. But we do know that such a change needs
a sense of control and the ability to balance work with personal
to be handled carefully, particularly when it affects people’s
life. The outcomes can include a happier and more satisfied
established working patterns. The earlier point, that flexibility
workforce.
is no longer seen as a perk of the job but an employee’s right,
At an organisational level, home working has to be aligned is important here. Where this right is perceived to be removed,
with work patterns and the type of work being conducted. For people are likely to react negatively. They need to be able
knowledge workers, being physically co-located is still an to weigh up the pros and cons of making the change and
important part of developing an organisational culture and understand how it impacts them as individuals. They need to
catalysing interaction amongst co-workers. As such, home be given the time to work through these ideas, and be listened
working is likely to remain one ingredient in a complicated to if they have questions or concerns.
recipe for creating productive and innovative organisations.
In summary, home working has its place and is here to stay,
Furthermore, an organisation embarking on any home working
as we adjust to a world where the boundaries between living
strategy needs to be prepared to rethink its approach to
and working are increasingly blurred. It has a valid role to play
performance management and be ready to measure by
in improving individual morale, satisfaction and productivity
results. The initiative itself will need to be backed by a strong
but doesn’t invalidate the need for the physical workplace or
communications strategy and a clearly-defined management
indeed any other location. It is not an all-or-nothing concept
approach.
and needs to be tailored according to the organisation and
Our research internationally has shown that there is a its culture. However, a home working strategy which doesn’t
continued growth in homeworking across most sectors. A correspond with the broader values and management style
key enabler, given across geographies, is suitable IT support. across the organisation will likely fail. In order to really make
Homeworking is seen as a benefit across geographies in terms home working work, the company will need to adapt, to ensure
of more flexible working patterns enabling a better and more that the way home working is managed is a reflection of the
productive work life balance. This particular aspect of work organisation’s broader values and philosophies about what
is increasingly demanded by the younger generations across constitutes work, and how and where it gets done.16 Accenture: Learning from a glocal leader
ACCENTURE
LEARNING FROM
A GLOBAL LEADER
As world leaders in the design and implementation of remote
working strategies, Accenture are an excellent case study.
Their approach and experiences outlined below provide key
insights into the development of a sustainable programme of
change as well as the benefits that can be achieved at both an
organisational and individual level.
Accenture’s Workplace Vision
Accenture aspires to operate their Workplace division as
a robust business function that fully reflects Accenture’s
business and technology strategies, providing leading edge,
consistent, industrialised space and service support solutions
for all Accenture people and businesses globally.
Accenture’s Workplace Strategy
• Align with Accenture’s business and technology strategies
• Deliver proven, consistent, cost-efficient space and service
solutions globally
• Implement rigorous workplace government and practices
• Operate with excellence and agility
• Innovate with purpose
• Continually renew
Aligning remote work with business strategy
Accenture’s remote working programme is aligned with the
broader business strategy. Specifically, the programme
supports 3 of Accenture’s strategic priorities: Community, What are the benefits remote work has achieved?
competitiveness and talent, as outlined in the diagram below.
Accenture have realised a series of benefits from implementing
Following from that, Accenture Workplace’s Business Mission
remote work over the last decade. These can be summarised
is ‘To Help Drive Accenture’s Growth through Operational
into the following themes:
Excellence and Cost-Efficiency’.
1. Higher Employee Engagement
Accenture remote work program overview Accenture’s employees desire increased flexibility to achieve
• Remote work programs have been in place since 2002 better work/life balance. Research and their own experience
• Remote work is ingrained in Accenture’s DNA clearly indicate that people who participate in flexible work
arrangements, including remote working, have higher levels
• Supported by Accenture’s strong technology platform and
of engagement than those who do not..
tools
• Participation is voluntary 2. Increased Productivity
Accenture studies, including both supervisor and customer
• Recognised and supported by Accenture leadership
feedback, have documented increased productivity from
• Delivers benefits to the organisation and employees remote workers. External research is also beginning to
demonstrate this.Accenture: Learning from a global leader 17
3. More Efficient, Cost Effective Operations Here are key results from the program, according to a February
A dramatically more efficient real estate portfolio that still 2011 survey:
supports revenue and headcount growth
Category Accomplishment
4. Environmental Gains Individual 97% of participants rated their personal
Less commuting and office space help Accenture reduce its Productivity productivity as same or better; their
carbon footprint, a theme which is increasingly important to managers confirmed similar productivity
Accenture’s clients, employees, and potential employees. from participants
Team 92% of the participants rated their team’s
Accenture remote working results from the US Productivity productivity as same or better; managers
The United States implemented the first Accenture remote confirmed similar results
working program in 2002 to improve employees’ work/life Virtual Team 92% maintain a suitable level of
balance, reduce travel and increase flexibility in our real estate Interactions communication with their team when
portfolio. working remotely.
Employee 94% indicate that their level of engagement
Engagement with Accenture has remained the same or
improved.18 Remote work: Benefiting firms & families
REMOTE WORK
BENEFITING FIRMS
& FAMILIES
Ariel Kalil, Ph.D from the University of Chicago and Rachel do more housework and child care than working dads. With
Dunifon, Ph.D from Cornell University are undertaking research men and women both performing nonmarket and market work,
to understand the impact of remote work on organisations and often one or both of them need the ability to attend to family
on families. A summary of Kalil and Dunifon’s findings and responsibilities such as taking children and parents’ to doctors’
conclusions are below. appointments.
As context, Kalil and Dunifon, outline how changes in society In dual-income households with children, average number of
over the last half century have driven demand for flexibility in hours spent each week:
the workplace. Specifically, Kalil and Dunifon point out that
women have entered the labour force in growing numbers and Fathers total: Mothers total:
families have increasingly relied on more than one earner to 58 hours 59 hours
make ends meet. Furthermore, the increasing demand for 7 12
analytical and interactive skills in the workplace means it is Childcare
9
common for individuals to pursue additional education while 16
also working. Because these changes have caused many 42 Housework
workers to face conflicts between their work and their personal
lives, they also inspire a need and desire for more flexibility in 31 Paid work
the workplace.
Kalil and Dunifon go on to explain that whilst flexibility can
benefit employees and their families, it could also create
Fathers Mothers
significant financial return for organisations by reducing
absenteeism, lowering turnover, improving the health of © 2013 PEW Research Center
workers, and increasing productivity. Furthermore, if
employees value flexible arrangements more than the costs to
employers of providing them, flexibility can be a cost-effective
tool for attracting and retaining workers. However, Kalil and Balancing work and family is hard for mums and dads
Dunifon stress that an important limitation to understanding Roughly equal shares of working mums and working dads say it
benefits and costs in more detail is the lack of research which is difficult to balance work and family responsibilities. 40% of
currently exists on the mechanisms through which flexibility working mothers and 34% of working fathers say they “always
influences workers’ job satisfaction (Council of Economic feel rushed”.
Advisors, 2010).
Percentage with children who say it is not difficult / difficult for
The employee perspective them to balance their job and their family:
Citing research and data from the 2013 Pew Research Center
Study, Kalil and Dunifon, outline the employee perspective on
flexibility as summarised below.
Not difficult Difficult
Time use for spouses in dual-income families
Working 43% 56%
In most two-parent households today, both parents work at mothers
least part time. Mothers and fathers in these dual-income
households spend a comparable amount of time working Working 50% 50%
each week, when paid work, child care and housework are fathers
combined, as shown in the graph below. Similar to all mothers
© 2013 PEW Research Center
and fathers, on average, working mums in these householdsRemote work: Benefiting firms & families 19
What working mums and dads want in a job Remote work and family life: A model
Fathers place more importance than mothers on having a high- Building on the research and findings outlined above, Kalil
paying job, while mothers are more concerned than fathers and Dunifon have developed a model for connecting remote
with having a flexible schedule. Both want job security and a job work policies with employee and family outcomes which is
they enjoy. summarised below.
Percentage with children who say the following factors are Workplace policies
(remote work)
extremely important to them:
Working mothers % Working fathers %
Job security 78 80 Reduced work-family
conflict
74 69
• Less commuting time
A job they enjoy • More flexible time
• Less time pressure
A flexible schedule 70 48
A high-paying job 30 40
© 2013 PEW Research Center Improved outcomes
• Productivity, satisfaction
• Employee health
What is work-family conflict? • Marital relationships
Following on from these insights, Kalil and Dunifon outline a • Parent-child relationship
• Caregiving time
definition of ‘work-family conflict’:
• Demands at work and demands at home are incompatible Beyond the worker and the firm: The ‘social benefits’
of remote work
• Demands at work interfere with family life or vice versa
A further justification for promoting work-life balance is that
• One is sacrificed for the other flexible practices may help society in ways that are not taken
into account by either an employer or employee i.e. social
• Feeling of not having enough time to spend with/care for
benefits or ‘positive spillovers’. For several reasons it is
family
possible that these social benefits are larger than the private
• Meals together, exercise, health management ones.
• For children, older parents, or other family members ‘Positive spillovers’
• Among professionals, work-life conflicts tend to arise • Investing in children is investment in the future workforce
when employees reach their peak productive years in their
• Investing in other family members has positive impacts on
30s and 40s
their health and well-being and productivity
With this in mind, it seems that the workers who most need
• Taxpayers and society as a whole benefit from having
work-life balance policies could also be the most productive.
productive individuals in the workforce
• Remote work reduces commuting time for other workers
and eases highway congestion and pollution20 Remote work: Benefiting firms & families
Work place policies: A virtuous cycle • Home working by call-centre employees led to a 13%
Summarising all these ideas, Kalil and Dunifon propose that performance increase
there is a virtuous cycle which provides a framework for • Home workers also reported improved work and life
thinking about the factors involved and the relationships satisfaction and psychological attitude scores and
between them. experienced less turnover
Conclusions
Employee
health and In conclusion, Kalil and Dunifon highlight the following:
well-being
• Embracing more flexible workplace practices can help
workers, firms’ bottom line, and the country as a whole.
Worker Family • Remote work and related policies can play a key role in
satisfaction relationships family life
• Reducing work-family conflict; improving work-life
balance
• Benefiting employees and their families
• Virtually no credible evidence of impact of remote work on
Worker Family well- family life
productivity being
• Innovative organisations can operate as “laboratories”
for study and to develop new strategies for design and
implementation
Flexible work and productivity: New evidence from a
field experiment
Whilst overall there is a lack of research and evidence on this
topic, a 2013 study has provided tangible evidence which
demonstrates a link between remote working and productivity.
A brief summary of the research is below.
• 9-month remote work experiment at large, NASDAQ-listed
Chinese travel agency
• First-ever random assignment experiment on remote work
(Bloom, 2013, Stanford Economics)
• Treatment was work at home 4 days per week with one day
in the office as usual (n=249 employees in the experiment)Productivity: A homemade recipe 21
22 Productivity: A homemade recipe IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE
Productivity: A homemade recipe 23
Implications for the future
There are a number of potential implications and quest
ions for the future of work
and the workplace:
1. Despite the recent Yahoo news, remote working is
here to stay. Technology will
continue to redefine what is possible and the world
of work will see increasing
amounts of people distributed across space and time
zones. Technology
provision and IT solutions in organisations will need
to keep up with the speed
and intensity of change.
2. To really make remote working work, organisatio
nal leadership and culture
needs to be developed to support it. The values of
trust and empowerment will
increasingly become part of the language of business.
Remote working has the
potential to be a catalyst for true cultural change.
3. The next generation of leaders are developing a
‘management by results’ culture
and we will begin to see a move away from presenteei
sm. 'Management by
results’ will demand new behaviours from employers
and employees.
4. Flexible working, and working from home as one
aspect of that, is a global
phenomenon. Organisations must prepare for the challe
nges that this will bring
in terms of people management, leadership style, IT
infrastructure and the role
of the workplace in supporting both individual and
collaborative work.
5. The office will need to find new ways to attract
people to it. Perhaps not every
organisation will take the Google approach but it seem
s likely that organisations
will need to take more of a marketing approach to
their buildings and spaces
in the future. The workplace will become a corporate
community centre in the
future.
6. Providing the right environment is only part of
the story in encouraging face-
to-face interaction. Providing spaces for collaboratio
n will only work if people
know how to collaborate. Teams will need to be equip
ped with the right tools
and knowledge about how to get the most out of the
space and each other.
Workspace design needs to be aligned with employee
and team development
within organisations, to maximise the opportunities
for collaboration.You can also read
