Alison Maitland

Turning convention on its head

Which of the following two companies sounds more like yours? FlexCo offers its employees a range of ‘sflexible work arrangements’s. Reduced hours, flexible start and finish times and compressed weeks (four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour days) are all available. The HR department encourages individuals to talk about their personal situation so that the management and the individual can find a response that suits both. Employees can have paid time off for personal needs and can take it in one-hour slots, for example to attend a school event or have a longer lunch. Chair massages are available when peak work demands push up the stress levels. ‘sOur employees tell us how grateful they are that we offer these arrangements,’s says the head of HR.

Culture is critical

We have talked about leadership and culture change as being essential if organizations are to seize the competitive advantages offered by new ways of working. The findings of our specially designed survey, described below, reveal the type of organizational culture that will adapt most easily to the forces transforming work. However, the managers we questioned reported a big gap between current organizational cultures and what they view as the ideal culture for the new world of work.

Making it happen as an organization

We have shown the wide-ranging benefits of future work practices. The most successful examples grow from the values of the business founders or from strong leadership. For a manager lucky enough to work in such an environment, introducing a new work model will be relatively straightforward. For others it will be more of a challenge, pushing back against deeply ingrained habits. Based on our experience of working with, and talking to, hundreds of managers in organizations undergoing such change, this chapter sets out the practical steps to implement and sustain effective twenty-first century work.

Leaders for the new world of work

This chapter is about the type of leadership that organizations need to thrive in the new world of work, illustrated by the stories of women and men we have encountered who practice such leadership in their daily lives.

Strategies for change

The main difference between the work experiences of Laura and her friend is the presence or absence of a trusting culture. It is not difficult to see which of these environments is more likely to encourage initiative, creativity and a willingness to put in extra effort, rather than simply counting down the hours to going-home time. Nor is it difficult to see which environment is more likely to attract and keep good employees. Laura lists the benefits of having a trusting manager and working in a progressive company. ‘There is flexibility that allows you to work in your most productive way,’ she says. ‘You may work better late at night or be working with business partners in another time zone. In my experience, more work gets done in a flexible workspace environment because I can take care of things like getting my car registered. I can work hours at home when I would normally be traveling to and from work. I can do focused work without the distractions that come with sitting at my cube, and I can be completely accessible for tasks that can be handled over email.’

Making it happen yourself

Future work represents a significant change in working practices for many organizations. In previous chapters we have given the business arguments for implementing future work as a strategic initiative. In this chapter we provide practical advice for individual managers and employees in bringing future work to their jobs and teams.

Putting it into practice

We have shown the wide-ranging benefits of future work practices. The most successful examples grow from the values of the business founders or from strong leadership. For a manager lucky enough to work in such an environment, introducing a new work model will be relatively straightforward. For others it will be more of a challenge, pushing back against deeply ingrained habits. Based on our experience of working with, and talking to, hundreds of managers in organizations undergoing such change, this chapter sets out the practical steps to implement and sustain effective twenty-first century work.

Time for change

This publication is designed to increase awareness of the value of late-glacial landforms in the study of early settlement patterns in southwest coastal British Columbia. Knowing local paleoenvironmental events, such as glacial advances, relative sealevel changes and paraglacial landscape modifications, is critical to understanding potential early site locations. A lack of systematic surveys, poor site visibility, deep alluvial burial, and site locations away from modern shorelines have been identified in this work as main reasons for the lack of evidence for late Pleistocene human occupational sites. Field research of raised landforms, such as paleo-deltas, provided data on local late Pleistocene and early Holocene paleoenvironmental history. I conclude that a comparison to other research projects along the Pacific Northwest might highlight new ideas and techniques, applicable for the study of a hypothesized early marine/estuarine oriented human population.

How to break free of the old model

The main difference between the work experiences of these two young women is trust. Laura works in a trusting culture, where she is expected to meet objectives without needing to be micro-managed. Essentially, she is treated as an adult. Her friend works in a low-trust environment where people are assumed to be inherently unreliable and prone to abuse ‘the system’ unless the boss keeps a close eye on their every move. She is managed as if she were a troublesome toddler.

Leaders of the future

At his home in California’s Santa Cruz mountains, nearly two hours’ drive up winding roads from San Francisco, Slade Fester is living proof that people can hold down a senior job regardless of where, when and how they do their work.