Mobile devices and DVRs have made a profound impact on our culture and in a bizarre way is impacting our workplaces. Before you want to escort me to a facility for a mental lube and tune, let’s examine some facts.
It is a standard in web design that you need to display the first page in a website within 3 seconds or you will lose the visitor. Apparently, we have a shorter timespan than a mosquito. Unless the page pops up virtually instantly, we are off to the next website. We demand instant access.
Our schedules are another area impacted by technology. Not too many years ago, we had to change our schedule to view a favorite TV show. If we weren’t in front of our TV at the time it was broadcast, we had to wait months before we could see it again in reruns.
Now, virtually every television show is available on demand by recording it on a DVR, the cable company archive, or on YouTube. No longer do we need to arrange our schedule around the show. Record it and then view it in leisure and a more appropriate time.
We have been freed! Let the peasants rejoice! The time link to our TVs has been broken and workers want the time link to their job to be broken. DO NOT BE CONFUSED, THIS IS HUGE!
It is a gigantic breakthrough because our lives become more efficient because we are not waiting around for the TV show. We can see any video anytime which gives us more control over our schedule. Now we can see our favorite mental midget sitcom without waiting around.
We can go online to make an appointment with our doctor rather than sit on the phone listening to silicon singers and a grating voice please wait until a grumpy employee answers your call. We pay our bills anytime with a website access rather than writing out a check and putting it in the mail. Our lives have been made so much easier with technology. Long Live Technology!
Work Schedule Crashed
This time shifting has been such a boon, it now becomes a problem for the workplace. Time shifting of other areas of life have been such a great benefit, we now look to our job for the same relief.
To executives and managers everywhere…be aware that you will need to implement time shifting for workers if you want to get the best and the brightest. The flexibility they find in their mobile devices and cable systems is desired for their workplace.
Moving Day
Not only time shifting but location shifting is important to these workers. It is going to be hard to lure an employee to an office by spending 3 or 4 hours a day in commuter traffic to reach a downtown location by being stuck in the linear parking lot sometimes known as a freeway. In the past, there was no choice but to suffer the commute. Now, with Internet access for knowledge workers, remote work from home or a remote office is possible. This is a very attractive benefit to many workers. With remote work, they can buy a cabin in the Colorado mountains and still put in a full work day. I will discuss remote work in further detail in another post. There are so many benefits and a few drawbacks.
Cultural Crash
While time and place shifting may be wonderful for the younger employees, it is a disaster for most management. It is a fact that most senior management officers are older and set in their ways of work. Their management skills have been honed over the last several decades and any major shifts are hard to handle on top of the other business pressures.
It seems hard for some management to understand this new desire by employees. Why would their employees not want to come into the office each day? The answer is that some would and some wouldn’t.
I can fully understand the paradox that management face. They want to meet the needs of the employees but they don’t want to move from the model (e.g., 8-5 work days) that has worked so well for them. Having your employees around each day where you can watch them is a powerful reminder of the team and level of activity. Having your employees remote is tough because they cannot be seen and it not possible to walk over and talk with them.
Maybe it will take a new generation of managers to really take advantage of this new work culture. Until then, employees will be frustrated as they won’t have flexibility in their time and location. In the end, the company will lose their chance to snare top talented employees until they embrace the new work world.