Optimise IT

I had the pleasure of presenting at EACS's Optimise IT event yesterday at a wet Rushden & Diamonds FC ground in Northampton. This annual event gathers around 300 customers of EACS to hear about a range of products, technologies and solutions from companies like Orange, SurfControl and Microsoft. I presented a new deck (aka Powerpoint slide set) on on Flexilble Working. Unlike my presentation last year on mobility, I focused much more on the business aspects of Flexible Working such as the ability to improve customer service through being more responsive and driving down costs by optimising exisitng (largely paper based) processes. Technology is a fantastic enabled but I argued that it's probably irrelevant unless the organisations supports and trusts their employees to work flexibly. It's no surprise that many of the organisations that rank highly in last weeks Sunday Times. WL Gore who came top for the second year running for example noted:

"Flexible working allows staff to balance responsibilities at home and work. Few feel they are taken advantage of; the 80% positive score here is the highest, as is the 91% score for health not suffering because of work"

What do you think though - does Flexible Working make you a more loyal empoyee? Does it concern you that it gives people the opportunity to do less work, or perhaps as an employee you're more concerned about being always contactable?

I did have one great questions from the audience that stumped me for a moment: as Microsoft may benefit from the reduced floor space needed by flexibly working staff, do they pay staff for use of their home floor space. The answer is no but for me that's more than balanced out by my free broadband WiFi at home and the trust bestowed to me to work where it makes sense. Besides, my home office is so small it would only cost about £2.50 a year if I did charge :)