A revolution in management practice within the next decade
A heady claim I'm sure you'll agree, but that is the claim made by two visiting fellows at Cass Business School in a new book: Future Work: How Businesses Can Adapt and Thrive in the New World of Work.
The book suggests that major changes are hitting the workplace that will underpin significant changes to how we work.
“In the 21st century, we still cling to a rigid model of fixed working time and place better suited to the industrial age,” says Maitland, a Senior Visiting Fellow at Cass Business School. “Long hours are often required and rewarded without any measure of the productivity involved.
“However, there is overwhelming evidence that employees are more productive if they have greater autonomy over where, when and how they work. Trusting people to manage their own work lives, individually or in teams, pays off.”
They argue that organisations that have made the shift to judging employees by their output rather than their input achieve superior results compared to those stuck in the past.
The key to implementing ‘future work’ is measuring output, they say. By agreeing what needs to be achieved, managers can set their employees free from the constraints of presenteeism – the belief that they must be present in the workplace, often for long hours, regardless of whether there is work to do – and allow them to work more productively.
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
YouTube
Comments
Wholeheartedly agree with the projections but I always urge caution here - great businesses are as much about inputs and processes as they are outputs.
You can be the most productive organisation in the world but if your people or your processes are flawed or questionable, you will eventually reap what you sow.
I was going to say there's a different kind of leadership required for this 'evolution' but that's not true, actually what we really need to do is get back to the absolute heart of what great leadership is - people need to know what's okay and what's not and that includes productivity; processes; ethics and they need to be aligned to common organisational goals and objectives.
Then managers can get on with measuring and managing; facilitating and functioning.
Alison Maitland has agreed to answer a few questions for us on Tuesday next week, so if you have anything you'd like to ask make sure you post it up below.
I would probably agree in the main with the assertions of Alison and Cass Business School regarding current trajectory (and am trying to anticipate and get ahead of that particular curve in my own professional life) but did they find evidence of ability or inability in the current and anticipated leadership and management?
I think that culture often evolves in an organisation (and this is healthy) but the managersauruses then resist this natural progression because it takes them outside their comfort zone creating conflict between staff and management.
I suspect that many contemporary managers will be ill-equipped to adapt to the changes being predicted in terms of managing; measuring; communicating; organising; planning etc and this may result in UK Plc failing to capitalise on the opportunities these changes will create.
My question for Alison would be "A lot of the knowledge underpinning this supposed shift has been known for many years, and still we have very traditional ways of working. What will change in the next decade to shift us away from Taylorist working practices?"
My question would be around something I have said earlier about working at home/away from the workplace. While flexibility is good and may suit many how do you ensure that these employees don't get forgotten? Particularly with regard to future career moves, information etc.
I also agree with Colin. Judging people on output is all well and good but without processes, procedures and ethics we might be condoning the wrong sort of behaviour.