THE FUTURE OF WORK AND
COMMUNICATIONS —AN EMPLOYEE
RELATIONS CHALLENGE
Jill Podolsky
May 19, 2010
www.linkedin.com/pub/jill-podolsky/0/115/b83
COMMUNICATIONS GAME
A problem needs to be solved
 No talking--only communication is through postit notes (email)
 Time bound and urgent—10 minutes to solve
 What gets communicated? By whom? To whom?
How to ensure effective communication?
 Who do the rows represent?
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A=top leader; corporate office; headquarters
 B=mid-level manager; matrixed manager; crossfunctional project lead
 C, D, E=individual contributors; remote workers;
customers; suppliers;
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COMMUNICATIONS GAME
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Key learnings:
FUTURE OF WORK/COMMUNICATIONS
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Old Workforce Environment
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Most employees in one location with several
buildings
Clumps of field offices
Some sales people work from home
New/Future Workforce Environment
One smaller “headquarters” location
 Technology—texting, emailing, etc.
 Fewer field offices
 Employees work from home (distributed workforce)—
any time, any place
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Results Only Work Environment (ROWE)
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Manage to results, not to time in “office”
FUTURE OF WORK/COMMUNICATIONS
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Benefits:
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Hire the best skilled employees wherever they are
People get work/life flexibility
People are measured on actual results, rather than time
Less facilities costs for company
Diversity (in the broadest sense)—better reflection of customers
Challenges:
Learning curve and need for observation (by employee and manager)
Small group brainstorming/spur of the moment
“Hallway/drive by” conversations/decisions
Manager “trust” that results are achieved; performance management
Letting go of old thinking about how/when work gets done
Engaging distributed workers—(how do you keep the “human”/caring
element; career development; events)
 Building teams with remote workers
 Meeting management
 Training
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