An About Face on Flexible Work Arrangements

In my 10 years as a CIO, I've strongly believed that productivity is best when everyone works in close physical proximity, so that you get the benefit of the "over the cubicle" effect of being able to brainstorm with colleagues ad hoc, respond to urgent issues as a group and build trust among team members.

But the world has changed, and new factors need to be considered. First, the commuting needed to bring everyone together has become burdensome and expensive. Commutes can now take two hours or more, and gas prices are causing hardship. At the same time, environmental consciousness about the carbon impact of those long commutes is on the rise. Second, Internet connections are becoming faster, more reliable and cheaper. I have a 20Mbit/sec. fiber connection in my basement for $40 a month.

We also have many more means of communication: e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, wikis, WebEx ,videoconferencing. Face-to-face meetings that take weeks to schedule are no longer sufficient for the pace of IT change and the level of service demands.

How should a CIO react to this changing landscape? I believe we have to explore the entire spectrum of flexible work arrangements.

Are in-person meetings really necessary? I find that a kick-off meeting to initiate a project works best if the team assembles in person. Collaborators can introduce themselves and build a common framework for working together. Thereafter, conference calls, online collaboration tools and e-mail are sufficient.

Is 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. the best way to staff an office? Not if it implies hours on the road each way. If working from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. reduces the commute by an hour each way, it's likely that productivity and staff satisfaction will rise.

Is being in the office even necessary? For some jobs, the interruptions of the office may actually reduce productivity. Some structured time in a home office may be preferable.

Of course, there are issues.

A home office needs infrastructure support - networks, desktops and connection to the corporate phone system. Figuring out the best way to service hundreds of remote locations will require planning and pilots. The technology may not need to be complicated, though. Videoconferencing isn’t always necessary, for example, since phone calls and Web-based remote presentation tools are very efficient.

Accountability for employees with flexible work arrangements is key, so you may need management tools to monitor specific project milestones and productivity goals. But you may be pleasantly surprised. In a recent pilot in Massachusetts, a major health insurer found that productivity for 200 staffers working from home rose 20%; only two participants had performance issues.

Equity is another problem. Some staffers, such as those doing direct desktop service or training, need to be on-site. But you can still offer some flexibility, letting them put in four 10-hour days, say, or giving them every other Friday off.

Security and privacy are other concerns, and they loom especially large for me, since my IT organization is part of a large health care provider. If protected health data is to be accessible in employees’ homes, we will need to investigate biometric devices, re-examine application time-outs, strengthen surveillance of audit logs and ensure end-to-end security from data center to the home.

Over the next year, I'll be piloting the technologies, policies and business processes needed to manage technology professionals in flexible work arrangements. I expect that retention, productivity and employee satisfaction will rise as time spent commuting falls. I'll keep you updated on the progress - from my home office.

A few of my posts will be based on a monthly column I do for Computerworld. For those posts, the legal folks require that I add the following:
Copyright 2007 by Computerworld Inc., One Speen Street, Framingham, Mass. 01701. Reprinted by permission of Computerworld. All rights reserved.