Dave MayerEVP Solution Delivery, Aristeia800.706.2896 x801720.490.1205 mobile720.221.0877 FAXdavid.mayer@aristeia-corp.comSkype: aristeia_denver

The Reification of Results

People are not results. Time is not results. Space is not results.

Cubicles are not results.Computers are not results. Telephones are not results.

The datacenter is not results.Thick clients, thin clients, smartphones, and tablets: not results.

Work output is work output – and results are results.

They’re visible in market share, revenues, profits, EPS.

Let’s Define Results.

One Simple QuestionIf you knew that tomorrow, your

employees could be happier, your productivity level would be higher, and your expenses lower by taking

one key action, would you take it?1

One Simple QuestionIf you knew that tomorrow, your

employees could be happier, your productivity level would be higher, and your expenses lower by taking one key

action, would you take it?

Knowing that that action is worksite virtualization, now how

do you feel?

1

Who’s Enforcing the Centralized Model?

Check the nearest mirror.

Despite the advances made in technology in the past decade, we remain tethered to the traditional work concept:

particular atoms in a defined space for a specific duration of time.

There’s a strong historical basis for this model, but over time, limitations on our definition of work have been removed faster than we have embraced the resulting freedom.

Unless an employee has to touch the customer – internists, surgeons, massage therapists, hair stylists, etc – or work hands-on with customer property, the constraints we place on remote work are largely our own.

Let’s rethink how we approach remote and centralized work.

The boundary for remote work has been reduced to the human fingertip.

What Does Virtualization Do?

• Reduces the capital expense load by eliminating costly real estate investments and capital lease obligations.

• Moves more overhead to the operating expense line and enables greater fiscal freedom in planning for growth and evolution

• Eliminates the need to manage premise-based equipment and ‘zeroes’ the task load in areas from data backup and software licensing to data-center environmental management.

• Reduces employee attrition by enabling remote work and, in many cases, time-shifted work

• Enables organizations to hire staff with particular skillsets from anywhere in the world – not just around existing BaM sites

• Provides a jump-start on ‘green operations’ and even puts firms on the road to ISO 14000 certification

rā-ə-fə-ˈkā-shəntr.v. re•i•fied, re•i•fy•ing, re•i•fies:

To regard or treat (an abstraction)

as if it had concrete or material existence.

Aren’t results already material?

Not the way we treat them.

We confine atoms in a defined space for a specific period of time and expect work product as if the confinement and the space and the clock were real factors in producing

results.

They’re not.

We mandate the work environment. We hope for results.

Results have become an abstraction.

So, we move to reification.

The Space-Time Confinement Fallacy

The primary objection we hear at this point is ‘the confinement and the space and the time ensure productivity.’

No, they don’t. They ensure attrition and burnout and web-surfing and everything we’ve seen in episodes of The Office.

What if, instead, we simply paid people for producing results? What if we took a much closer look at organizational positions that don’t produce results? Many of those positions are designed to supervise individuals in the ‘confined atoms’ model.

Buy what you need from employees to achieve your organizational goals. If they don’t sell what you need…don’t buy it!

2030Everyone’s a Supplier

We tend to greatly overestimate the minimum size of the

traditional organization and underestimate how much can be

placed in the supply chain.

We’re unlikely to even recognize the new resource planning,

supply chain management, and human capital staffing models

that will be in place at successful organizations by 2030.

Suppliers Customers‘The Organization’ 2010

2020

2030

If Not Now, When?Millennials comprise the first generation to grow up

fully aware of the incredible power of broadband connectivity, social networking, and workflow

enablement toolsets.

Whereas remote work looked like a novelty to the Baby Boom generation and an occasional or

alternative work lifestyle to Gen X’ers, Millennials will ultimately see remote work as the norm.

For this generation, the concepts of centralized work and remote work will be reversed – remote work will

become the rule and visits to ‘corporate HQ’ the exception.

Is your organization prepared to recruit and hire workers with these expectations?

The Map is Not the Terrain.

Start by setting up a results-oriented job description for everyone in your company.

Including yourself.

Don’t do this from a distance.

Go out and look. The map is not the terrain.

If you can’t define a specific work result for a specific employee, that’s a first-order danger sign –

but be careful that you’ve identified work output.

Prioritization of work is an output in its own right. Interpretation and dissemination of work assignments is an

output in its own right.

It’s too easy to circle middle management under this model and cut too far into the valuable process of operationalizing the

company vision.

LED Meter

Identify the Result Model

Once you’ve got your results delineated by position, ask yourself how you can institute pay for performance for those results.

Some associates produce volume; some produce accuracy; some produce speed;

some produce all three in different percentages.

Don’t pay an accuracy producer for speed, etc.

Put a 40% band around the desired result range. Put 20% at risk on the low end and 20% as a reward on the high end. Moving out beyond those 20% zones should trigger another behavior – either performance management planning,

‘back to HQ’ corrective action on the low end or ‘next step’ career path motion on the high end.

Career Development

You can’t relocate employees – either to remote worksites or up the supply chain – without the right tracking and development systems.

Make sure employees understand that there are multiple options – centralized work, mixed centralized/remote work, and full-time remote work

– to accomplishing the same goal: organizational results.There are benefits to be realized from staying within the traditional envelope

of a corporate employee and from moving into the supply chain. Build performance tracking and human capital management tools that

create incentives to work remotely or move into the supply chain.

DAVE MAYER //

ARISTEIA EVP SOLUTION DELIVERY

1.800.706.2896 x801