Win the Quest for Talent with a Culture of Flexibility

Aculture of flexibility exists when employees and management work together to decide where, when and how to best perform their work. This new way of working shifts the focus from being directed by management toward being self-directed and emphasizing work outcomes. Flexible work practices play a critical role in the future of work, providing a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining talent.

During our interactive session at the Orlando Summit in October 2012, our moderating team posed one of three problemsolving scenarios to a total of 69 participants seated at tables. Each table was given a similar scenario to role play from the perspective of Human Resources (HR), Information Technology (IT) or Corporate Real Estate (CRE). Exhibit 1 highlights the CRE Scenario as a representative example of these exercises. Each table discussed challenges posed by the scenario and success factors they thought would be critical as HR, IT and CRE work together toward building a culture of flexibility.

The biggest challenge identified by all tables was achieving crossfunctional engagement and communication. Early stakeholder involvement was also critical to creating a successful flex work program. While HR, IT and CRE each have their respective roles and responsibilities, cross-functional engagement more effectively allows these staff functions to set common goals, achieve financial support, establish policies and develop change management strategies.

Workplace innovation that supports flex work cannot be achieved by departmentalized staff functions working in their respective silos. And yet, that’s exactly what is still happening in many organizations today. Innovation requires integrated planning, cross-functional collaboration, aligned business processes and shared measures of success among HR, IT and CRE. During our session we presented a collaborative model for assessing organizational maturity to support flex work in this integrated manner. This Maturity Model is summarized in Exhibit 2.

Beyond Silos

Whenever the delivery services by HR, IT and CRE are not integrated, “silo” behavior of these staff functions falls short of delivering synergistic value to the enterprise. Although the “shared services” approach is more common today, we continue to observe that HR, IT and CRE work independently of each other in most companies. Building organizational capacity to support a culture of flexibility requires alignment on shared objectives and measures.

Human Resources

When implementing a telework or flex work initiative, HR professionals have a number of things to consider and work through in order to be successful. At a minimum, the role of HR is to ensure legal compliance in developing and administering policies. In addition, HR must consider compensation, change management, talent management, recruiting, employee value proposition, training and learning, program branding, communication strategies and stakeholder engagement.

Our HR breakout tables also stressed that having financial support from leadership is key. A business case must demonstrate bottom-line return on investment. No different than CRE and IT, HR is expected to reduce operating costs while creating value. Human Resources is often left out of the loop on IT mobility strategies or CRE occupancy strategies. While HR input is critical to the success of any workplace transformation project, their involvement might be mistakenly viewed as unnecessary. In these cases, technology initiatives and workspace redesign projects could miss opportunities for integration with similar initiatives managed by HR.

Corporate Real Estate

CRE is focused on optimizing a portfolio of properties and buildings to satisfy business needs. An ideal strategy provides the right space, in the right location, at the right time and at the right price. This focus includes the following:

1. Controlling total occupancy cost
2. Reducing process cycle times
3. Improving user satisfaction

Traditionally, CRE has focused on company-controlled premises in owned assets or lease commitments. That made sense in times when the primary location of work was one and the same as the controlled portfolio. In the era of mobility, work takes place as much on company premises as it does off. The scope of CRE becomes much broader in terms of supporting distributed work across a network of locations that increasingly includes “third places” in between employee residences and corporate offices, such as coffee shops, business centers and other connected “hot spots” with wireless service.

Moving toward supporting a highly mobile work culture with flexible work practices, CRE must think beyond spaces to services and policies that keep everyone working together across locations. This interdependence of places, practices and platform relies upon integrating the expertise of IT to provide the appropriate technology and infrastructure and HR to establish policies about work practices, e.g., work anywhere anytime. Such integration clearly goes beyond CRE’s traditional role of focusing on the efficiency of the physical portfolio and shifts the focus to the effectiveness of the workforce.

Information Technology

No matter the size of an organization, the IT function fulfills three primary roles and responsibilities:

1. Strategic Planning and Governance: Defining user needs, developing standards, budgeting, emerging technologies, compliance and risk management
2. Provisioning: Network and desktop provisioning, access and capacity management, data retention and management and data availability
3. Operational Support: Security, device usage, project management, help desk and training services

As CEOs increasingly focus on attracting talent, the CIO’s agenda is being reset by the expectations of a new generation of workers using disruptive technologies including new mobile devices and decentralized social media platforms. Consequently, IT is now critical to the success of a flexible work environment.

Three major influences are challenging the authority of IT and its traditional emphasis on desktop computing:

1. Consumerization of IT: Consumer technology is migrating into enterprise computing environments
2. New Management Models: Technology investment and usage is causing IT organizations to reinvent themselves
3. Risk Management and Security: IT organizations remain hyper-sensitive to exposure of proprietary data and breaches of security

The post-PC era calls for a new IT business model. Disruptive technologies and economic shifts are transforming IT departments. Adopting cloud computing, integrated solutions, smart devices and mobile technologies allow companies to achieve greater flexibility at lower costs. This was not possible just a few short years ago.

Moving Toward Integration

The 11 tables at the workshop each approached their given scenario primarily from one of the above perspectives, i.e., HR, CRE and IT. As the next step, participants were asked to integrate the perspectives of the other two functions by answering the following three questions. Their most common conclusions are summarized as follows:

1. What are the cross-functional challenges on which HR, IT and CRE can collaborate in the next 90 days?
   • Shared goals, common objectives and balanced measures (financial and non-financial)
   • Change management / communication of value proposition, costs and benefits
   • Policies on work practices, tools and resource allocation (space utilization)
2. Identify three shared measures of success for CRE, HR and IT that will be critical for the success of flexible work practices.
   • Quality: Employee engagement / user satisfaction
   • Cost: Overall financial performance based on total costs of provisioning (space, tools, services)
   • Time: Pilot project delivery schedule (speed to market)
3. How will the resulting business case differ from IT, HR or CRE proceeding independently with justification for its pilot?
   • Collaborative process results in support of business case by all staff functions
   • Enabling technologies and work practices benefits employees with choice and flexibility
   • Space savings balanced with investment in tools and business infrastructure

The responses of each table during the workshop reinforced the progressive stages of our Maturity Model. In the ideal end state, a fully institutionalized program has the following characteristics:

• Flex work is a core business operating strategy
• Flex work practices are embedded in the culture
• Employees choose devices, locations and schedules
• Mobile access to ERP data from virtual desktops is secure
• Ongoing communications and training support are provided
• Environmental footprint is reduced

We believe that creating a culture of flexibility will win the quest for talent. In order to do so, more effective means of cross-functional collaboration will be necessary. As session participants agreed, it takes more work upfront in order to reduce downstream conflicts and resistance.

At each stage of the Maturity Model, we recommend that you take the following action steps:

• Engage all parties as early as possible
• Establish common ground with shared objectives
• Agree on how success will be measured from multiple vantage points
• Embrace conflicts as opportunities for constructive problem solving and innovative solutions
• Develop and present a unified business case proposal
• Hold each other jointly accountable for results

While our session lasted only 90 minutes and included a brief presentation, all participants were engaged in active learning in dialogue with each other for the majority of the time. We encourage this effective format to test and apply ideas, stimulate peer-topeer exchange and foster social relations among participants.