Flexible Working

Do you want your people to be productive or do you prefer them to be creative? In a perfect world, of course, they'd be both. But the modern workplace - and short-sighted management - can make that an almost impossible goal.

It's pretty clear that remote working and collaboration can deliver significant cost savings. But top-line savings aren't the best way to assess whether something is working or not.

The millennial generation are less interested in how much a job pays than they are in having workplace flexibility and a sensible work-life balance, a new study has found.

After a new study found that your chances of promotion are halved if you work remotely, how can ambitious remote workers boost their chances of career progression?

Let's set aside the hyseria about Yahoo's announcement that it wants more people to come into the office and quit working from home and make an educated guess at some of the challenges that led to this decision and its associated drama.

Far from marking the end of telecommuting, Marissa Mayer's demand that Yahoo's employees stop working remotely and get back into the office speaks volumes about the culture of the troubled Internet giant.

Google's Chief Financial Officer ruffled a few feather recently when he said that he believed working from home is not the best way to generate ideas and innovation. But is he right?

What do your remote team members and a lovesick football player have in common? They may both be guilty of seeing more in online relationships than is actually really there.

The new year is a great time to ask some fundamental questions about how your project team works together and what needs to change. So here are five "new year's resolutions" you should at least consider for your remote team.

Leadership is a rare enough at the best of times. Leading people when you aren't in close contact with them is even harder. But it's not impossible. You simply have to understand the dynamics of working remotely and adjust.

How can managers get the same commitment and hard work from a contractor or remote worker as they'd expect from someone with their eye on the corner office? The key is to help them grow.

An increasing number of us work for bosses who are not located in the same physical place as us. This means that we need to think about how to manage a virtual boss. Even if you don't have to do it now, odds are that you will in the future.

Building long-term relationships with remote workers is tough, but vitally important. Because when people feel unappreciated they become less engaged. And people who are less engaged quickly become less productive.

BYOD - Bring Your Own Device – is the latest bone of contention between IT departments and the rest of us who just want to able to use the tools we like best and allow us to be most productive. So here are some of the issues that need to be addressed to have peace in the kingdom.

One of the biggest innovations to come out of the US Space program was the development of a way to manage information across teams that were scattered geographically as well as by discipline and function.

Many people who work remotely feel that those who work under the bosses' noses receive preferential treatment - as if they are viewed more as tolerated stepchildren than members of the "real" family.

What separates great remote teams from those that are merely functional? Here are five differentiators that really mark out great remote teams.

Not everyone is cut out to work in a remote team. So how can you find people who are prepared - and suitable - to work in a virtual environment? Here are some key things to ask prospective team members.

Do you think you're more productive when you work somewhere other than the office? Do you think your boss would agree? The findings of a new survey on remote working make for interesting reading.

March 5-9 is Telework Week 2012 in the US, so we thought we'd share some insights about it from the folks at the Telework Exchange who are, along with Cisco, behind the concept.

Remember last year when a snow storm shut down the US for two days? Or are you already working out how you'll get to work in London during the upcoming Olympics? With a good communication plan, you don't need to worry about either eventuality.

Whether to have a completely virtual or a completely physical workplace seems to be the question a lot of companies are asking themselves. But it's the wrong question. This shouldn't be an either-or proposition.

Most of the rules companies work under are badly outdated. And that's particularly true when it comes to remote working, where most HR departments are scrambling to make sense of what's happened.

Flexible workplace initiatives aren't just window-dressing. Flexibility brings with it improvements in employees' health and well-being, reduces absenteeism rates and boosts employee commitment.

Many employers might claim they support work-life balance initiatives but a new report suggests that much of this is just so much hot air, with a yawning gap between what managers say and how they behave in practice.

What are the things a new leader of a remote team can do to get started on the right foot? Here are four tips to make sure that your management is as effective virtually as face-to-face.

Trust is one of the biggest challenges to working remotely. Trusting the people your work with (and for) has never been easy. When you work remotely it's even tougher. But it can be done if you remember eight key factors.

Australia's government thinks that remote working is the way of the future and is encouraging employers to get with the telework program. But what about other countries?

Asking for what you want from your colleagues or in-house resources isn't easy. And it's even harder when you aren't looking someone in the eye as you push for what you need. So here's how to increase the odds of getting what you want while maintaining great virtual relationships.

Do you lead a remote team or a virtual team? Or is it both? The words get used interchangeably, but they are different animals. And when it comes to managing one, that difference matters.

The most common complaint about online meetings is that they are a colossal waste of time. But they shouldn't be. Here are three simple tips for getting a webmeeting off to a great start and ensuring that your time is well-spent.

Today's managers need to be connected - to their teams and organizations, whether they are located, to the outside world and to the technology that makes all this possible. That's a tough call – which is why managers need a little help - and why we're here to provide it.

A big thumbs up to serial entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, founder and chairman of the Virgin Group, who thinks that the pitiful amount of holiday American workers are given "stinks" and believes American business need to be much more open to workforce flexibility.

If employers are serious about wanting to encourage women to return to work after having children, one of the most important things they can do is to offer new mothers greater flexibility about when, where and how they work.

The majority of employees across the world do not believe that they need to be in the office to be productive and are demanding the tools and flexibility to work where, when and how they like.

Economic instability, uncertain energy supplies and climate change will leave organisations no choice but to reform their archaic working practices. But far from being a burden, this offers a unique opportunity to overcome corporate inertia and dismantle the barriers to transforming work.

Flexible working is the most valued benefit for employees, proving far more popular than material perks such as bonuses, according to a new survey carried out in the UK by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The recession has boosted the adoption of new ways of working as companies respond to pressure to reduce overheads such as travel and office costs and encourage their staff to work more flexibly.

Why would somebody choose to do something other than help your team or project to be successful? The answer is hardly ever that they want to sabotage things intentionally, but that they chose to do something else instead.

Here's the million dollar question: "can a flexible boss improve your health?" It seems quite an easy question to answer. Let me count the ways.

Rather than just clipping the wings of older "snow bird" workers, managers should use them as mentors, give them access to learning and be more flexible about how they work

When I talk to managers about how they manage their remote employees, it quickly becomes clear that no-one sees the challenges in the same way. Some raise issues around communication and trust, others are more worried about those who are still office bound.

When we start writing up the review for 2009, the two biggest party-killers for companies will be the economic mess we're in and the swine flu. But being the type to occasionally find the silver lining in a cloud, I believe that these may actually have some positive effects.

Virtual teams are much more prone to relationship breakdowns that can quickly send their performance plummeting unless they are carefully managed.

While Remote Teams might be virtual, and Virtual Teams are almost always remote, there is an important distinction between them. A smart manager needs to know this, because the roots of success or failure lie in this distinction.

The idea that organisations can boost productivity by measuring time is a hangover from a bygone age. What matters isn't time, but creativity, output, outcomes and productivity. So for those organisations still clinging onto the vestiges of a time-based culture, the message is that it's time for a change.

It may still be two months before he is sworn in, but President-elect Barack Obama could prove a transformational leader when it comes to reform of the American workplace.

Companies tend to make five common mistakes when first allowing their staff to work remotely, including forgetting to explain how they can expect to be managed.

Far from being dynamic consensus-seekers who split their time between hot desk and breakout zone, most managers are nowhere near adopting a "smart" approach to their work.

The number of us working from home has risen dramatically in the past four years, suggesting a move away from an "all present and correct" approach to management.

An interesting fact to emerge from the "2008-2009 WorldatWork Salary Budget Survey" is that teleworking has soared in popularity the U.S. and Canada over the past 12 months.

I work from home now and happy to do so. I'm not technically mobile, but I am "gladly out of office" - which makes me a GOOF, an acronym both unfortunate and true. Because having a workplace that ISN'T the same as your abode was not without its charms.

As the price of gas increases, more and more employees are looking for opportunities to work from home. But sadly, there are plenty of operations that are trying to scam people instead of providing them with real work-from-home opportunities.

Who needs an office anyway? That's what an increasing number of organisations are asking as a new survey from the UK reveals that up to half of small businesses don't work from formal business premises.

A four-day work week might seem like a radical way to cut energy consumption, but it is gaining acceptance among state governments across the U.S. and looks set to spread further still.

Soaring fuel prices are precipitating a new workplace revolution that helps connect the United States to the rest of the global workplace.

With fuel prices rocketing, the debate about whether to allow employees to work from home has become as much about how much money it can save as about work-life balance.

A growing number of organizations acknowledge that flexibile working is a critical retention and recruitment tool. But lingering suspicion means that most don't maximize the value that flexibility brings.

A new study has found that flexible working can bring a big boost to the bottom line by reducing absenteeism, improving employee health and even helping to improve employee commitment.

A growing number of U.S workers are now working from home or telecommuting, but employers are still way too laid back about the possible security risks this entails.