AGILE WORKING CHANGE MANAGEMENT Supported by Advanced Workplace Associates Published by the British Institute of Facilities Management April 2017
What is agile working? Agile working describes a range of work arrangements that allow people and organisations to make new choices about when, where and how they work. It is underpinned by mobile technology and applies to people working in and away from the traditional office, either at home, on the road or in other locations. Agile Working Change Management Agile Working Change Management is the process associated with transitioning an organisation and its people to agile working and embraces space, services, location, technology, working practices and behavioural change. Benefits of agile working: Improved staff productivity who have the right tools and work settings for the task at hand and have been given the correct training to know when and how to use them. Improved space efficiency office spaces see increased utilisation, allowing staff to work some of the time away from the office, which in turn reduces the daily demand upon the office space. As a result of this you require less space to accommodate the same number of people, making for a more productive and efficient space. Improved intra and inter team working and cohesion by encouraging team members to work in different places in their team zone and by blurring the boundaries of team zones people get to know more people, endorsing a culture of trust which helps to improve knowledge sharing, innovation and collaboration. Improving business continuity by enabling people to work effectively anywhere they are less dependent on being in the office to undertake their tasks. The ability to re-organise the workplace at nil cost and disruption by moving people and not desks. Enabling the organisation to retain and attract staff allowing people to live well away from the office is advantageous to new staff who are looking to join an organisation. If the employer provides an agile working policy, this helps to maintain a work life balance. Sustainability well used offices only use marginally more energy than poorly used offices so carbon emissions per head decline. Organisational agility you can increase and decrease headcount without having to add or reduce the amount of space and fixed cost infrastructure you commit to. 1
What s different about the change to agile working? FM leadership opportunity Unlike traditional workplace changes, which have typically involved one person per desk and projects that were largely under the direct control of the FM, the introduction of agile working requires a highly integrated choreography involving close working between IT, telephony, security, FM, interior design, HR, risk, communications, working together within an integrated programme to design, deliver and manage an integrated infrastructure and deliver a concurrent and sustainable change in behaviour. Almost all agile working projects are triggered by a space necessity, i.e. running out of space, the end of a lease, the move to a new building, or a desire for cost reduction. FM leaders should be in the vanguard of the agile working movement supporting the transition, and working with senior leaders to articulate benefits and methods. There are opportunities for FM s to increase their standing in their organisations and enhance their personal capabilities by leading the transition to agile working. Agile Organisation Diagram 1 AGILE ORGANISATION 2 AGILE CULTURE 3 AGILE WORKING PRACTICES 4 AGILE WORKPLACE 1. Processes and infrastructure that are designed to optimnise space and enable rapid change to adapt to changing demands 2. Attitudes, behaviours, workplace rituals that recognise team cohesion, sharing and collaboration as key productivity enablers 3. Working practices that support social team cohesion enabled by mobility and provide the settings to work when and where it is appropriate for them 4. IT, telephony, policies and infrastructures that are designed to enable people to have their best day at work every day wherever they are Source: Advanced Workplace Associates Ltd 2
Behavioural change The transition to agile working is first and foremost a mass behavioural change that is usually triggered by a property change and underpinned by an agile infrastructure that gives people and teams the tools to deliver their best work in the most appropriate work setting and economical way possible. Behavioural transformation is as much a science or discipline as interior design or architecture and you should have a behavioural change specialist within your team. 1. Draw together an Organisation for change This sort of change requires authority and a joined up team. The first thing to do is establish an organisation for change i.e. the people with the technical competence and power whose services and support you ll need to make the change happen and clarity of terms of reference for each. These include: The sponsor: a senior business leader whose organisation is to adopt agile working who has overall accountability for the transition. It is vital all organisational change is lead from the top down. The Steering Group: a group led by the sponsor with overall responsibility for the programme. The Project Delivery Team: a group of technical specialists responsible for creating the workplace infrastructure. The Occupier Leadership Team: a group of senior leaders that represent the interests of every organisational unit involved in the change. Programme co-ordinator or Change manager: an experienced programme manager that has experience of technical and behavioural change programmes that will develop an integrated programme plan and work with all parties to a joined up transition. 2. Be clear about what you re trying to achieve Through discussions with senior leaders, work out how you can use the transition to new mobile models for work (agile working/activity based working/flexible working) to help the people and the business to be at their best. Then answer the key question Why are we doing this? Is it to reduce cost?; recruit from outside your typical geographical areas?; or are you trying to improve organisational effectiveness? And, what is the this? Are we talking home working, remote working, or just mobility in the office or something else? The answers need to be credible and honest. Treat agility as a business tool to be used to increase performance. 3. Build a case for change People don t just change the habits of a life time of work by you just telling them to do it. You ve first got to clarify what the change is all about by developing a case for change that is backed by hard evidence. Then you ve got to work out the nitty gritty of the what, why, how and when of the change. You need solid evidence involving internal research, clarifying leadership priorities and, ultimately, figuring out what work arrangements, workplace and technology arrangements you re going to apply, why you re doing it, how it s going to work and when the change is going to happen. Research may include workplace utilisation studies, staff questionnaires, profiling studies, team interviews, workshops and visioning sessions to review existing/planned infrastructure. 3
Behavioural change (continued) 4. Integrated Project Delivery Team Unlike many other business projects introducing agile working cuts across many disciplines (e.g. IT, FM, Real Estate, Risk, HR, Business Continuity) each of whom need to work together linking their respective contributions to create a seamless infrastructure and transition. The team need to understand the change in depth themselves and get personally comfortable with it, because it s going to require them to change their approach too and work together in a way they ve probably never had to before. 5. Sequencing There s an enormous amount of work to do to nail the details of the new agile working approach so that you can explain it to everyone and answer all their questions. And, of course, in the earlier stages of the project the detail may not be known because the solutions haven t been finalised which means you can t answer peoples questions which can in turn lead to an erosion of your credibility. For that reason you should push the various work-stream leaders in IT, telephony, interior design and FM to sequence the detail of their solutions earlier than they might be used to, in order that you can generate credible answers to the questions from stakeholders and colleagues. 6. Dialogue not Town Halls Whilst mass high level broadcast communication (emails, websites, briefings) might be useful in the early phases of the project to communicate high level messages and information to achieve a sustained large scale behavioural change it s not good enough to do a couple of workshops and the odd Town Hall. Whilst many leaders are dealing with change all the time, it s usually tactically driven, process orientated and doesn t involve mass changes in behaviours generated through a life time of work. So, plan on needing a systematic approach in which colleagues are involved in real dialogue with people they respect so that every individual is engaged in a discussion about the truth of the change and nothing is left to chance. Only by this intensity can people really get it and start to work out how they can benefit and become emotionally comfortable and embrace the change. 4
Behavioural change (continued) 7. The end of the beginning makes the change sustainable In agile working change programmes lots of energy goes in to the preparation for the change but often the project team disbands and leaders start to focus on something else before the change is fully embedded. If you are not careful the behaviour starts to morph back to the old ways. It s a bit like having kids; following the celebration of the birth you realise that there is another 18 years of parenting to turn your child into an adult. So don t just focus on the lead in to the change. Make sure you have plenty of support at hand in the first week to make sure any glitches are fixed quickly. Run a systematic Post Change Evaluation at an appropriate distance after the change. You ll also need to look to embed the new way of working into your organisation to make sure the change doesn t unravel. The sort of things you need to do include making sure the new way is based on your culture, leadership models, recruitment narrative and induction processes. Constant monitoring of space utilisation will also help you understand which parts of the building are getting under and over-used. Watch out for leaders or teams slipping back to old ways, regularly monitor perceptions through surveys and focus groups and make sure champions don t disband. What can go wrong 1. Leaders underestimate the behavioural change challenge and don t allocate enough time and resource to it. 2. Leaders start communicating detail before there is real clarity about what is in scope and how it will work. 3. An evidence backed Case for Change is not generated and leaders don t have the opportunity to make the change that they want leading to inconsistency and perceived unfairness. 4. The FM assumes that just because there is a space and cost saving to the organisation that leaders and their teams will get on board. 5. Lack of clarity about rules, protocols etiquettes and entitlement. 6. Leaders approve the change and assume they don t need to get involved. 7. The programme is treated as a space change project with the designers doing a few workshops to explain how the space should be used. 8. The programme kicks off without clarity of who is doing what and a clear brief for the different parties involved in the change. 9. Organisations think they can do Change Management but do they know how to do Agile Working Change Management? 10. The promises made by leaders about ways of working are not underpinned by investment in technology leading to disappointment. Author: Andrew Mawson, Founder, Advanced Workplace Associates Ltd www.advanced-workplace.com Peer Reviewer: Jackie Furey, Director, Where We Work Ltd *While all due care is taken in writing and producing this guidance note, BIFM does not accept any liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein. 5
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