Internal communications - it's not rocket science

Working from home - it's not all rosy

I came across an interesting fact when looking at the latest bulletin from the Involvement and Participation Association.

Apparently "36% of employees would like to work remotely on a regular basis, according to a new study by the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP), with 43% claiming that they are currently able to request to so, but only on an ad hoc basis."

Writing this from the comfort of my garden shed I can see why.  I find that any work requiring concentration or reflection gets done some much quicker when I'm away from the office.

But as a manager I just don't know how I'd deliver my responsibilities if I was out of the office for protracted periods. I know that when I have been heavily engrossed in projects in client's offices I have neglected a lot of the human relationships that I need to maintain just to be effective in my organisation.

When we are constantly told that employees get so much from face to face contact with each other and thier leaders I wonder how far the drift to home working will go?

Liam

Can we be progressive in a recession?

Thanks to @ResEuropa for his updates on EU matters I noticed that there is a move afoot to improve maternity rights.  Votes in the European Parliament have led to the adoption of proposals that would see maternity leave increased across the Union to 20 weeks - a measure that the European Federation of Small Businesses estimate will cost €121bn between now and 2030 (far more than the recently approved increased in the EU budget).

To be clear, I'm a fan of the EU and its socially progressive agenda.  I might be well past the age when I could benefit personally from a mandatory two week paternity leave but I believe it has to be a good thing.

However, the times in which we live pose some challenging questions for all of us about what we can afford.

When in the UK half a million public sector jobs are at risk it can seem inappropriate to demand things like pay rises, changes to working hours or additional benefits.  This week sees UK firefighters and London Underground workers strike and doubtless they will be criticised for being out of touch with reality.

But my question is simple.  Should a progressive agenda for things like parental leave, better conditions of employment or basic decency at work suffer because of the current economic situation?  

Or just because a combination of poor oversight of the global banking industry and a gamble on state borrowing have created a crisis should that justify a backward shift in employment rights for ordinary people?  

Just a thought....

Liam

 

What does trust mean?

I was running some focus groups this week and the 'T' word came up quite a bit. 

So I went home and dug out some of my old notebooks and looked up how often people talk about 'Trust' in the workplace.  

Is there some massive issue with trust between managers and workers?  Has the world got to the stage when all our workplace relationships are tinged with suspicion?

My take, looking back over about 30 focus groups from about 9 organisations is that the sky isn't about to fall in.

From what I can tell, when people talk about a breakdown of trust at work they are talking about two things.

One is predictability of management - do we understand the bosses well enough that we can rely on them to act in certain ways?

And the other is whether we think there is fairness in their decisions?

As both have highly subjective elements I wonder if the answer is always going to be in large part about getting managers out and having genuine conversations with their staff.  After all It's hard to say nasty things about someone you have empathy for and you are more likely to be understanding of someone you know rather than someone who is remote.

Liam

Twittering pests

I’ve been off Twitter lately – mainly because I’ve been quite busy.  And also because I never know how happy my clients are when I give away my location and a description of what I’m up to.

It seems though that people do seem to lose all sense of discretion when they go on Twitter.

We’ve had trade unionists twittering in the middle of labour negotiations, politicians saying what they really think of their voters and heavens knows what else.

In fact, I can’t help wondering what the point of it all is anymore.  The bulk of the follows I get are from people hoping that I’ll follow them and buy stuff or from PR’s plugging stuff on behalf of clients.

Eighteen months ago I couldn’t see what Twitter was for.  Then I went through a phase when I quite enjoyed seeing what mates and some competitors were up to.  Now I’m swinging back the other way.

The problem with communications is that the minute you find a channel that works everyone wants to stuff it full of noise.  So whatever the NEXT BEST THING is going to be I won’t get too attached as it’s bound to be broken within two years (or a few weeks after I get around to discovering it).

Liam

Liam FitzPatrick Bell Pottinger Change and Internal Communications

Finding the cause for pride

I've mentioned that we've been doing some research into what makes people publicly praise or attack their employers.  It's been prompted by a recent spate of postings that I've noticed of people using Facebook or other channels to talk about the organisations they work for.

And the reaction of employers has been making the news.  For example British Airways recent took action against a couple of staff said to have been intimidating colleagues on-line.

What the research seems to be suggesting is that employees are most likely to be supportive when they feel that their organisation is doing some good in the world.  That could be because of a great CSR programme, a brilliant product or service or even excellent performance.

The crucial thing seems to be having some cause of pride, somewhere.

A Google search of "I'm proud of my job" yields 310 results. Whilst there are 692 hits on "I hate my job" and according to Google Insights, searches for haters had significant peaks in January and April 2009 and April 2004.  The sudden peaking would suggest that external events are also a significant trigger in making people feel bad at work.

My colleague Nicholine Hayward tells me that people tend to search "Employment Rights" mostly during very cold snaps or very hot spells.

And what seems significant is that Google searches for "Doing Good" (and derivatives thereof) seem to be rising consistently.

My working hypothesis is that we live in a world where people want to make a difference. Give your staff a cause they can believe in and you're on route to workplace harmony....

Liam

The end of week one

Well I think I survived it.

A week back working in an office and it was not quite as scary as I feared.

The IT worked (as long as you ignore the challenge of getting a Mac and a PC to play nice together) and I managed to get through most of the things I wanted to do.

My only gripe is the hassle of the commute from the suburbs.  Last week my working day began at around 7.30 when I got back from walking Sid and I sat down in the garden office and it ended at 6.30 when I'd ploughed through 10 hours of stuff.  This week things don't really kick off until 9 am and after finishing at 6pm I've still got an 90 minute trek home.

I'd forgotten how productive I am at home - but only on tasks that don't require much collaboration.

I'd also forgotten how many emails fly around about missing mugs, birthday cake and lost copies of the Financial Times! Just the act of stepping into a company of 1,000 people seems to add 25% more traffic to your email in-tray.

Biggest challenge of the week was deciding my new job title.  Biggest shock of the week - how long people stare at the tiny selection of sandwiches in Pret before making a choice. Missing the dog snoring in the corner of the office. 

Liam

Summertime blues

Seeing this news story got me all nostalgic - apparently summer jobs for students are getting scarce.  Which is a real shame.

Working through the summer used to be an essential part of the student experience.

In my time (amongst other jobs) I worked as a greengrocer, a building labourer, a hospital theatre cleaner, a waiter and barman, a kitchen porter in a hospital canteen and a holiday campsite representative.  I can't say any of the jobs generated all that much money but I do have some amazing memories.

I still smile about the teasing I used to get from all the gay waiting staff at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester and I still have a fondness for the wines of the Loire Valley after a summer cleaning tents south of Tours.

I also learnt a lot.  As a student I was a tourist in some of these places - paying less tax than the people who did these jobs permanently and knowing that I had an escape after a few weeks.  And I wasn't the main breadwinner in my family - after I'd given my mum money for my keep I could spend as much as I liked on Youngs Special at the Crooked Billet in Wimbledon Village.

But most of all, I experienced workplace culture in way that is much less obvious in 'professional' jobs.  As a graduate in graduate jobs you tend to be treated as someone with a brain, perhaps someone who needs an explanation of why a task needs doing.  By contrast, in these manual jobs I saw supervisors drive their teams through bullying, HR departments that assumed everyone was trying to fiddle and colleagues who talked to us as if we were beneath contempt - the class system was alive and well in the NHS!

And I learn a lot about swearing.  I'll never forget the guy who worked the dishwashing machine at Roehampton hospital who had read all the works of James Joyce and who managed to use the F-word as a verb, adverb, noun and adjective in the same sentence ("the f***ing f***er's f***ing f***ed" he explained one day day when I asked why his machine wasn't working).  I still shudder at his reprimand when he saw me swat a wasp that "hadn't done anything to you.." (I've edited it).

So, I think the decline of the summer job shouldn't just concern bank managers.  Most graduates will go on to have careers in roles that don't teach them what life is like at the sharp end - having at least exposure in a few brief months has to make the world of employment a more understanding place...

Liam 

Taking the laptop on holiday

Last week I sneaked off on the bike for a few days to France and finally got to ride some of the great mountains of the Pyrennees.  I managed to get up Tourmalet and Hautacam and did some work on my tan (OK just my knees really).

As a self-employed consultant I really didn't have much choice except to tale my trusty MacBook - a move which I'd expected to raise some eyebrows at the B&B.  Maybe Hazel and Peter were too polite to say anything when I got back from my rides and scampered into my room to work on some things.

But it did strike me that nowadays we're always expected to be close to our communications - the fact that you're out of range of a wifi signal or even have bad phone reception is in itself a reason for panic.

Funnily enough I actually found that Twitter via my phone was the ideal way to tell my family how I was doing - but I bet the evening phone call was probably enough for them.  

This urge to communicate is a bit like the urge for humans to move around - road planners have said for years that new roads don't reduce congestion, they simply encourage us to drive more.  It seems to be the case with technology that the more kit we have the more noise we make... not that many people are all that interested.

Liam