TECHNOLOGY
Work recalibrated SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION IN AN EMAIL THREAD CAN TAKE AGES, TRYING TO INTERPRET NUANCES OVER THE PHONE IS NO REPLACEMENT FOR BEING ABLE TO SEE TEAM MEMBERS, AND SITTING ON YOUR OWN FOR DAYS ON END IS ISOLATING. CAN TEAMS REALLY WORK EFFECTIVELY FROM AFAR, ASKS HEATHER GREIG-SMITH
A
n employee arrives at work
chat, file sharing, collaboration tools
remote workers either. Jon Mell, social
a little bleary-eyed in the
and enterprise social networking, it
business leader for the UK & Ireland at
morning, gets a coffee
can be hard to untangle the benefits
tech giant IBM, points out that working
and chats to co-workers about the
and work out which to use and when.
in the same place as your whole team
weekend, sharing some perspectives
But we need to. Donald McLaughlin,
is becoming rarer. “Even if you’re
on a new project and asking for their
director of collaboration sales for
in the office, in some ways you are
input. It’s a great start to the day. But
the UK & Ireland at technology
working remotely,” he says. “It’s not
the characters in this scenario are
multinational Cisco, says that by next
just a working from home thing – it’s
not necessarily in an office together.
year the number of mobile workers is
a global trend in terms of not being
One could be in a coffee shop near
expected to reach 1bn across the globe
physically located together.”
her home, two of her colleagues 300
– nearly 40% of the workforce.
miles away in a co-working space, and
He adds that getting collaboration
David Dunbar, head of Advise Anywhere, BT Advise UK, agrees,
another could be in San Francisco and
right is key to competitiveness. “If
noting that individuals who are
about to go to bed. Idealism or reality?
people feel they can work in their
working as a single unit in a large
It depends who you ask.
own way, you get a much higher level
office often feel more left out. “What
of performance and productivity out
we have to try and do with a disparate
of them.”
team is nail down those coffee
The options for businesses to communicate are expanding. From audio conferencing to video versions,
18
Flexible Boss: October 2014
Disparate teams are not just about
machine moments and spontaneity.”
www.flexibleboss.com