“office employees can now compare the working conditions of their contemporaries in a way they could never compare salaries.”
“Now that flexible work has also become publicly known, it has suddenly become a bargaining chip for employees”
{Employers can} “find new, inventive forms of remuneration and recognition. If you have motivated staff whom you trust, this is not a trade-off, but a mutual win.”
Snippets from the latest “Wiki Man” article by Rory Sutherland in The Spectator: “Working from home could have been the reset we needed“
One key idea here and noted in-depth in the article is the empowerment of employees to make comparisons around working hours and environments in a way that is not available to them when it comes to salaries and other forms of remuneration and benefits. Fascinating, as me thinking more, as everything Rory writes does!
I am, as you can imagine, excited that Rory will be the guest next week on #WhatComesNextLive on the special date and time of Monday 13th June at 5pm UK. You can see us live and direct at that time here or catch up later on the site page or any podcast channel.
As to this topic of flexible working, just a few days ago I also wrote something related: “Smashing Paradigms – the Five Day working week” which mused on creative ideas around flexible working environments, including one idea of a four-day working week with one of those days working from home, noting:
The example I give is, however, almost alchemical. it would come at zero cost (the hours worked are the same) to the employer, but employees would be happier as this gives them more time to themselves, plus the working patterns with happier people will result in higher productivity.
As to that word Alchemy, Rory is the author of a book called “Alchemy – The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense”. Love the book, and highly recommend listening to him narrate it (and ad-lib!) as an audiobook.
Hmm. I wonder, might he and I take our half-hour conversation on Monday to muse on flexible working ideas that actually do make sense, plus consider how to communicate them with an alchemy of language in order to gain widespread adoption?