The office parties are over, the leftovers are dealt with and everyone’s had a much-needed break.
Before the detail of the daily grind dispels any notions of strategic thought, however, the beginning of the year offers a chance to consider what is changing in the workplace, what new opportunities are presenting themselves and, indeed, what new threats and challenges are emerging to how we go about our business.
When it comes to technology, traditionally trends have been talked about from a top-down perspective, as in the case of large software packages or computer architectures that are intended to enable new ways of working.
But interestingly, the current wave of change is more of a groundswell and is occurring on the shop floor, on the road or in the office.
The trends
Whether we like it or not, employees at all levels are making more use of technology on their own terms. The buzzword is ‘consumerisation’ – that is, rather than being told what systems to use to what end, people are taking matters more and more into their own hands.
A number of factors are driving this trend, not least mobility, social networking and cloud computing.
Mobility is a catch-all term covering any technology that enables staff to work outside of the office. So mobile phones (which are becoming increasingly smart), affordable desktop and laptop computers and the general availability of broadband communications make it possible for employees to become home workers, teleworkers and/or connected road warriors.
While these trends may have been with us for some time, the balance has now tipped in terms of what people can afford to buy for themselves versus what the company chooses to provide them.
The second area is social networking. Again, while it is true that the internet has long been a place in which a minority of people have interacted, the balance has now tipped. Using web sites such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn has now become a majority sport.
Enterprise social tools such as Yammer and Salesforce.com’s Chatter also exist now, while web sites and online applications are increasingly becoming ‘socially enabled’, for example by bloggers including Facebook comments in their work.
Third, we have cloud computing – or more specifically to most workers, Software-as-a-Service-based applications. Salesforce.com has already been mentioned in a sales force automation and customer relationship management context, but similar line-of-business tools exist for project managers, developers and accountants.
Two significant differences exist between the SaaS delivery model and traditional, in-house software, however. Firstly, the former applications are easy to start using as they require very little configuration, while secondly, the de facto charging model is pay-as-you-go, using a credit card.
Finally, there are growing numbers of mobile apps available for smart phones from marketplaces such as Apple’s App Store or the Android Market. While many of these are standalone, some also enable access to web sites such as the Trainline.com, which shows train times and enables users to purchase tickets.
Such apps tend to be cheap enough to be considered as discretionary purchases by many – which means that people buy them from time to time and install them on their own and/or company kit.
The impact
This move towards consumerisation is not just frustrating for IT and other operational staff who are suddenly expected to support users with non-standard equipment. It also creates HR headaches in terms of devising policies covering everything from employee privacy and working hours to conditions of employment.
HR consultant Nigel Cox explains: “If an employee has been provided with a smart phone and so can access email at any time, how can an employer monitor (record) working hours, let alone control them? Intellectual property and confidentiality issues around online tools add new challenges, not least how to enforce restrictive covenants in employment contracts.”
And because the web has no boundaries, such challenges can take on an international dimension. “Employment laws, data protection and employer responsibilities will be different in other countries – who has jurisdiction and how will it be controlled?” queries Cox.
But the advent of new technologies also brings with it the law of unintended consequences, a pertinent example of which is the current court case over who ‘owns’ Twitter followers when a staff member leaves their employer.
Because of such issues, it is easy to get into a state of mind which dictates that ‘consumerisation’ is a bad thing – or at least should be shackled or restricted in some way. The trouble with such an approach is that everyone from the janitor to the chief executive is at it – and in any case, ‘it’ is less a thing and more of a very human desire to employ useful tools and facilities.
So you can get IT to install restrictive firewalls on corporate computers and secure virtual desktops for home workers, before defining no end of HR policies and practices and doing your best to enforce them. But something new will inevitably come along and the whole process will have to start again.
What this means, in essence, is that we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Genuine business benefits can be derived from enabling staff to become more mobile, collaborative and able to access information more easily.
A more flexible workforce can lead to innovation in working practices, for example, around job-sharing. And the results can be measured in hard-nosed business terms by applying productivity metrics and evaluating travel costs as well as using equally tangible but softer measures such as employee wellbeing.
Meanwhile, the technologies themselves are a work in progress. Mobile communications, social tools, SaaS and smartphone apps are currently being worked on to make them more suitable for business use – not least by making things more measurable here too.
Angela Ashenden, a collaboration specialist at industry analyst firm MWD Advisors, explains: “As adoption of social technologies grows, organisations will increasingly demand tools which help them quantify the return on investment on their social media and social collaboration investments.”
The advice
The implications of these trends are difficult to predict because, as more businesses adopt mobile, social and cloud-based technologies, control moves further into the hands of technology users rather than the IT department. But if trying to introduce more control is not the answer, then what is?
The key is to think about how the organisation can harness – rather than stamp out – individual initiative and innovation. It is not simply about letting staff do their own thing, but rather about directing their activities in such a way as to benefit the business.
For example, by using their own social media accounts, individual employees can help support corporate marketing activities, while the introduction of a secure, business-specific mobile ‘app’ could improve productivity by delivering pertinent information to the device of a line manager’s choice.
Undoubtedly, opportunities to reward ‘good’ behaviours will present themselves, while new policies will be required to draw clear lines in the sand in relation to acceptable or non-acceptable activity. But there are also other things that HR can do to stay on the front foot. First and foremost is the idea that forewarned is forearmed.
Cox explains: “Book a two hour meeting with your IT colleagues and run a SWOT on how these issues affect your organisation. Then review your contracts of employment – specifically how you handle working time – and take a fresh look at your induction programme – what it says and how you run it. Does it acknowledge, or indeed take advantage of new technologies?”
As a final thought, the changing nature of the workplace and the people in it will have a knock-on effect on the skills base and profiles of people that the organisation employs.
Much has been talked about the next generation of employees who have been brought up with very different expectations to their predecessors in terms of the tools they use and the way they communicate. No doubt this debate will continue but, in the meantime, there is scope to consider whether organisations have the right balance of ‘communicators’ and ‘doers’ in place.
Business in future will be built by empowering employees at all levels via the salient use of technology. We can look to embrace it, exploit its potential in certain areas and minimise its effects in others. The one thing we can’t do, however, is ignore it.
John Collins is director at technology research and consultancy house, Inter Orbis.
