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The Evolving WorkplaceProfessor Glenn Lyons

Centre for Transport & SocietyUniversity of the West of England, Bristol, UK

2nd March 2010Where is the Silver Lining? Opportunities from cloud computing9 March 2010

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Overview

Notions of work and communications

Insights from our own research Questions for the BEN

3 of 26Technological

transformations

email document sharing mobile phone and mobile internet

virtual presence, virtual presenteeism appetite for asynchronous communication increasing spatio-temporal flexibility

4 of 26The scope and study of

teleworking Travelling to/from work

– homeworking (home-based; occasional)– telecentre working– CTS study of part-day homeworking

Travelling during the course of work– asynchronous telecommunicating (email)– teleconferencing (audio or video conferencing – one to one or

one to many)– CTS thinkpiece on social practices surrounding

meetings Working while travelling

– telecommunicating (synchronous and asynchronous)– travel time use– CTS study on travel time use in the information age

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Part-day homeworking

Adoption Levels in UK

for further information see“Home-based working using communication technologies”

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Part-day homeworking Could homeworking be displacing commutes as well as

replacing them? Full-day homeworking versus varied spatio-temporal

working (VST):– at least 30 minutes of continuous work takes place at

home and in the usual workplace in any given day Business VST:

– at least 30 minutes of continuous work is undertaken at home as well as work being undertaken at business location(s) which may not include the usual ‘workplace’ (such as offsite visits, external meetings etc)

National 4-wave survey of UK labour force – c1000 respondents

25 in-depth interviews addressingpublic sector (B)VST

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Patterns in daily travel in Great Britain –all trips: 1998/2003

-

50

100

150

200

250

300

0000-0059

0300-0359

0600-0659

0900-0959

1200-1259

1500-1559

1800-1859

2100-2159

Time (24 hours)

Inde

x: A

vera

ge h

our

= 1

00

Monday toFridaySaturday

Sunday

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Findings from national survey

Proportion of full-time employees who VST-work is more than double that for H (14% versus 6%)

Blue collar workers practice more VST than H W-H most common form of VST (Monday is

most popular VST day) Evidence of some commute displacement

associated with VST No appreciable increase detected over three-

year period (2005-2008)

W-H – work at workplace then work at homeH-W – work at home then work at workplace

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Interview findings (1 of 4)

Planning of work– BVST – planned; VST – mainly ad hoc (H likely to be

planned) Work-related motivations for VST:

– Needing to achieve focus on particular work task– Needing to restore lost focus (common reason for ad

hoc W-H) following a mental dip during the afternoon“I need to get away from my desk, a change of scene, but I can't lose any time. So if I was to get away from my desk here and go and talk to somebody for 20 minutes it would be lost time, but walking back to my car, getting home and then going okay let’s tackle the monster, is a lot more effective.” (Female)

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Interview findings (2 of 4)

Domestic/personal motivations for VST:– More common amongst women, especially mothers– Spreading homeworking entitlement across more

days Travel-related motivations for VST:

– Delaying or advancing commute to avoid congestion (tasks such as emailing used to fill-in time with former)

– Not always the main reason but travel-related effects felt“It’s surprising, I only do an hour that morning [working at home prior to attending a weekly private appointment] but it does make a difference, the journey into work is quicker, less traffic, and I just feel a bit more relaxed that day.” (Female)

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Interview findings (3 of 4) BVST working

– More consciously associated with homeworking than VST

– Principally motivated by travel reasons – avoidance of excess driving

– Parking problems encourage BVST (and discourage H-W)

Overworking– Most were clear on a distinction between VST and

overworking– However, email is blurring the distinction– VST can ease the burden of overworking (and still

influence timing of commute)

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Interview findings (4 of 4) Attitudes towards (B)VST

– Perceived attitudes of colleagues impinge upon VST practice:H – “out of sight, out of mind”BVST – “makes sense”W-H – “finishing work early?”H-W – “explain yourself”

– Concerns about presenteeism

– A lot of people preferred H to VST (though liking both)– VST, BVST and H seen to fulfil different needs for

different people at different times

“If you come in the morning and you go in the evening it doesn’t actually matter what you do, as long as you are here.” (Male)

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Observations Granularity of flexibility is what distinguishes VST from H –

finer granularity means:easier assignment of tasks to locations/environments; easier accommodation of spatio-temporal constraints; andmore job roles suitable for occasional homeworking

Growth potential is unclear (82% of UK workforce consider it impossible for them to work at home at all) but:point of saturation may be moving upwards; andlikely to be higher for (B)VST than H

(B)VST desirable for employers: easier commutes; addressing productivity dips; rejuvenative role of commute; changing working environments;staff wellbeing increased productivity

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Social practicessurrounding meetings

“Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything ”

John Kenneth Galbraith

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Observations Briefcase travel can have huge economic significance The paucity of empirical insight and understanding is

remarkable Government ‘solution’: speeding up journeys Other options:

– reducing opportunity cost through productive travel time use

– diminishing the (relative) incidence of co-present encounters in business

Greater attention must be given to understanding the social practices that comprise the construction of business encounters and their associated travel

An assessment of the extent to which face-to-face meetings are necessary or ‘travel dependent’

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Shedding more light

Degree of location dependence (and determinants of location – tradition, boundedly rational optimal, seniority, constraints)

Importance of co-presence (beyond functional thinking, gift of travel time)

Travel-time ratio (a ratio threshold?, conscious consideration?)

Clustering of meetings (anchor meeting, reduced necessity of attendance threshold?)

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An individual’s considerations

Consideration Potential motivation / benefit

Potential disincentive / disbenefit

Business norm Time away from ‘the office’ Time away from home Information sharing – knowledge exchange Influencing decisions Status and recognition Networking Sociability Experiencing new places Monetary cost

Overriding justificatio

n? Opportunity

cost/benefit

Assumingco-present meeting proceedsPresenteeis

mA dominant

factor?

Relative importanceOpportunity to influence

Ex-ante and ex-postA learning process?

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Travel time use

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Mixed-method approach

National Rail Passengers Survey – Nov 2004; 26,221 responses

Focus groups Travel ethnography

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NRPS – business travellers

Activity

Spent most time (%)

Spent some time (%)

I made very

worthwhile use of my time

(%)

I made some use of

my time (%)

My time was

wasted time (%)

Working/studying 31 51 42 54 2

Reading for leisure 25 47 23 63 12

Window gazing/people watching 13 53 12 58 28

Talking to other passengers 5 13 24 56 19

Sleeping/snoozing 3 13 15 57 27

Text messages/phone calls - work 2 22 39 58 2

Text messages/phone calls - personal

115 26 50 12

Eating/drinking 1 21 19 80 1

% of ‘most time’ respondents

Employer’s time or my time?

Time well spent – hardly wasted

Don’t judge a book by its cover

Activity mixtures

Horses for courses

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NRPS – business travellers

“in terms of your paid employment is there some work that could easily be undertaken on the train?”YES – 86%

Equipped for travel:Laptop – 20%; Mobile phone – 78%; PDA – 12%Less than half with these devices used themUsing laptops/PDAs makes journeys better/quicker

Those passengers [all journey purposes] who consider their travel time to have been wasted are more than twice as likely to have done no advance planning of their time use than those who consider their time use to have been very worthwhile

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Taking a closer look…

The importance of reflection

Ideal commute is about 20 minutes

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Taking a closer look

transition time - a need for experiencing distance and the opportunity for gearing up to the destination’s demands; and

time out - escape from the obligations created through co-presence or fixed space that enable time for a ‘back-stage’ timeto be oneself or a specific activity (e.g. reading)

Connected time or infected time?

Diagram – Jain and Holley

25 of 26Life roles – blurring

boundaries ICTs are blurring boundaries – working at home;

personal activities at work Part-time working mums: the mobile phone

enables home life to ‘bleed into’ work life A ‘constantly available’ parenting role is created as

the apron strings of parenthood are extended Fragmentation:

“a process whereby a certain activity is divided into several smaller pieces which are performed at different times and/or locations” (Hubers et al, 2008)

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Questions for the BEN

How much of a bearing does a look at the evolving nature of work and workplace communication have a bearing on developments in cloud computing?

Should we be in the business of trying to reduce work-related travel or support or exploit it?

Crackberry syndrome – is quantity and pace of communication suffocating the quality of information, knowledge and exchange?

What role for Government – should it be inactive, reactive or proactive in terms of how ICTs are impacting upon business practices and work-related travel?