A Hybrid approach to flexible working

On June 6, 2011 · Leave a Comment

At Microsoft Netherlands, staff have no fixed workspace

Hybrid Organisation is a business approach driven by an understanding of the people within a company. A focus on people – and an understanding of the tools and resources they need to be productive and engaged – is central to any Hybrid strategy.

Naturally, this will mean different things to different businesses. However, for many organisations, this will mean allowing employees to engage in ‘flexible working’ – a term that has been a staple of business parlance for many years now.

Within the past decade, flexible working has meant a variety of things. It has meant working from home (sometimes uncharitably nicknamed ‘shirking from home’); it has meant flexi-time to accommodate other commitments; and it has also meant remote working – using the right technologies to be able to access resources out of the office.

A Hybrid vision of flexible working, however, avoids these reductive definitions. Flexibility should be defined by the business needs of the organisation in question, not simply by remote access or flexi-time or working from home.

At Microsoft’s Amsterdam facility, for example, workers are in charge of their own routines. They have no fixed working area: rather, they can work when and where they need. The technology reflects more open, flexible values. There are no fixed phones, as every worker has a number of communications technologies available on their laptops, including Voice-over IP (VoIP). As a result, productivity has increased exponentially – and employees regularly say: “There is no typical working day.”

In many ways, the Microsoft Netherlands facility encapsulates a number of traditional flexible working values in one place. But it proves is that flexibility isn’t just about working hours, or the death of 9 to 5 – or even about technology. It is about understanding an organisation’s people and giving them as much flexibility as possible within the context of your business. This is a Hybrid approach to flexibility.

 

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