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Toshiba and its partners - the
Institute of Management, HOP Associates and the
National Society for Clean
Air have launched a "Flexibility Manifesto".
Subtitled "Guidelines for Businesses in the Wireless World",
the Manifesto urges businesses of all sizes to develop strategies
to adapt to a wireless, flexible world with changing models of work.
The Flexibility Manifesto
outlines 8 areas for organisations to develop their thinking and take
action:
| 1.
Establish a Wireless Task Force |
Establish a
cross-departmental task force to look at the holistic issues that a
wireless world poses. Recognise that this technological change touches
every area of the business from human resources to operations |
| 2.
Re-evaluate Training Programmes |
Re-evaluate
company training programmes to look at skilling the workforce on the
technology itself but also on managing the technology. Consider training
workers on increasing productivity, lifestyle management, stress
management etc. Also managers need to change working practices to monitor
and evaluate distributed teams. |
| 3.
Encourage technology ownership schemes. |
Empower your
workforce with the latest mobile wireless technology by offering portable
PCs, networking equipment and other peripherals as part of a flexible, tax
free benefits package. |
| 4. Assess
staff transportation needs |
Evaluate the time
wasted by your employees in commuting to the office, particularly in light
of recent transport problems. Fewer car journeys means less expense and
greater environmental benefit. |
| 5.
Introduce space/audit strategies and assess facilities management
requirements. |
Conduct space and
workflow audit to improve systems and cut costs. Redundant desk space is a
drain on resources and costs can be significantly reduced by evaluating
the office environment and then making changes accordingly. |
| 6. Review
health and safety procedures |
New wireless
technologies pose new questions about how employees use and interact with
technology. |
| 7.
Restructure HR policies |
Move towards
changing the nine-to-five culture wherever possible so that productivity
is more important than office attendance |
| 8.
Introduce strategies for Work/Life Balance |
Evaluate the
lifestyle needs of your workforce and balance those with the needs of the
company. |
The Manifesto provides
a good starting point for organisations wanting to maximise the benefits
from technology investment and new ways of working. It recognises that
simply investing in new technology or introducing practices like "hot
desking" on their own will fail to deliver the benefits.
What is needed is a
comprehensive strategy that brings together facilities managers, HR
managers and IT managers with the people responsible for service delivery.
Only then can a dynamic culture of flexibility, adaptability and
technological awareness be established. With this in place, organisations
can reap the benefits of working in the Information Age.
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Download the whole document
To see the full text of the
document (in MS Word format) - click
here |
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