The Changing World of Work

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The Changing World of Work
Andy LakeEditor, Flexibility
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About Flexibility.co.uk

• Flexibility the online journal of flexible work
• Founded 1993
• Shares knowledge on flexible work
• Through publishing, conferences, in-house
  seminars, policy advice

www.flexibility.co.uk
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Key sources for case study data

• SUSTEL project
• 6 cases and at least 1 survey per countrye.g.
  BT, City of Bradford MDC, BAA, BMW, Telecom
  Italia
• www.sustel.org
• DfT Project Measuring the impact of Virtual
  Mobility
• www.virtual-mobility.com

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Why do we work where we work?

• Economies of scale
• Factory model of organisation
• Moving people to work, rather than work to people

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21st Century Flexible Work

• Information Age working using technology to
  overcome distance
• Location-independence - home office/home as
  base - touch-down centres - satellite
  office/local office - on the move - client
  sites
• Online collaboration
• Videoconferencing
• Remote diagnostics and monitoring
• Electronic service delivery/customer service

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And now in the UK

• 3.1 million work from home regularly
• Up from 2.1 million in 2001
• Why the increase?
• Changes in technology (i.e. because we can)
• Desire for Work-life Balance
• Employment Act 2002(Government now likes it)
• Business benefits

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Smart benefits

• Business benefits
• Being closer to customers/clients
• Greater productivity
• Reducing costs property, business travel, staff
  absence and staff turnover
• Maximising benefit from ICT investment

• Improved work-life balance
• More diverse workforce
• Reducing commute travel

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Smart v. dumb working 1
Administration and support
Professional and technical
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Smart v. dumb working 2
Consider impacts on time, space, people,
environment and productivity
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Demand Do employees want flexibility?

• Would you value greater flexibility in when you
  work?

• Would you value greater flexibility in where you
  work?

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Examples of achievements from Smart Working

• Ofsted
• 60 of staff home-based
• Bringing staff and work closer together
• Expanding staff numbers while reducing property
• AA virtual call centre
• Productivity home-based workers answering 35
  more calls
• Transport impacts 3680 miles per year saved per
  employee
• Property reduction closing call centres

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More achievements

• Social care financial assessments (Project Nomad)
• process time saving of 29
• average office-based time reduced by 47
• phone calls querying assessments dropped from c
  80 to c 1
• Fife Council Social Services
• Reduced short-term absence - between 25 and 70
  down
• Reduced recruitment costs - 75 down
• Reduced turnover - 10 down

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Case Study data

• BT Options 93 miles reduction per week for car
  users, 143 miles per week for rail users
• Teleworkers at the Dutch Ministry of Transport
  made 17 per cent fewer trips and cut peak-hour
  car travel by 26 per cent. Household members also
  appeared to travel less than before
• Unisys average daily net reduction 20 miles
  (average commute distance 26 miles)
• California Neighborhood Telecenters Project 17
  reduction in vehicle miles per week
• A study in Munich showed telecommuters cut their
  total trips by 19, their work trips by 43

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Videoconferencing/business travel

• Swedish survey 64 of videoconferencing users
  experienced substitution of own business travel
  (45) or travel for someone else (19), while 33
  of respondents experienced little or no change,
  and on average 3 found that videoconferencing
  had generated more business travel
• Tetra Pak 10 reduction of travel costs in 1998
• BT teleconferencing replaces 50 million road
  miles per year. This is 11.1 of business
  mileage and a saving to the company of 6 million

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Travel reduction - Commuting

• Consistent evidence of mileage reduction, even
  allowing for compensatory trips
• Average range 20-50 miles per person per
  teleworking occasion
• Range 1300-3500 miles per teleworker per year
• Calculations typically based on teleworking for
  1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 days per week
• Macro-scale studies attempt to aggregate effect
• Many experts expect other trips or time-shift to
  chip away at least 50 of saving ( - but little
  evidence)

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Activity spaces

• When commuting

Workplace
Home
When teleworking (at home)
Home/Work
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Remote working impacts on the office

• What kind of spaces do remote workers need?
• Meeting rooms, quiet spaces, informal areas
• Making systems and storage flexible
• Becoming paper-free?

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Where can people work now?
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Homeworking and live/work developments

• Live/work is property specifically built for dual
  work and employment use
• Mixed use in a real way
• Many advantages for small businesses
• Very effective in London for economic development
• Focus on key sectors
• It worries the planners

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Different approaches

• London
• Enthusiastic London Plan
• Supportive policy e.g. Tower Hamlets
• Half-supportive e.g. Hillingdon (no kids
  please!)
• Restrictive e.g. Hackney
• Government (kind of) supportive
• Outside London
• Variable decisions
• Supportive policy e.g. S Cambs, Carrick

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Concluding observations

• There is high demand for flexible working options
• Key factors affecting bottom line are
  under-utilisation of property and unnecessary
  travel
• Work can be smarter and more sustainable
• Planning policy has a long way to go to catch up

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Now over to you.
Andy LakeFlexibility andy.lake_at_flexibility.co.uk
www.flexibility.co.uk
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Levels of rebound effects
Direct trip reduction Teleworking E-commerce E
-services
Rebound 1 Replacement trips by beneficiary New
trips from time saved New trips by
producers/distributors
Rebound 2 New trips by colleagues/clients New
or replacement trips by household
Rebound 3 New trips by strangers Cumulative
effects on modes
Rebound X Cumulative spatial effects Effects of
other uses of ICT Transport impacts of economic
growth from efficiencies
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Alston Moor Wired-up Community

• One of 7 government pilots sharing 10m
• Wiring up homes in Alston and 2 adjacent
  villages (population 1220)
• 670 of 940 homes take up offer of free PC and
  dial-up Internet
• Pioneer wireless broadband service 350
  connections
• Aims primarily social benefits
• Evaluation Oct 2003 Jan 2004

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Alston Cybermoor - Economic impacts

• One model of teleworking primarily
  self-employed
• 25 of homes have someone at home working with a
  computer
• 32 of adults use a computer to work from home
• 61 of businesses home-based
• Mostly traditional industries, not high tech/new
  economy
• 3 relocations of micro-businesses into the area
  attributable to its being wired-up

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Alston Cybermoor Travel impacts

• Through use of computing
• 20 of residents believe they are reducing their
  travel around 1 round-trip per week.
• 27 of businesses report reducing business travel
• 15 of businesses report reducing number of
  home-to-work trips
• 52 of businesses believe they are reducing the
  amount of mail they send (using online processes
  instead)

• Regular Internet users 25 reducing