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Edited by moderator 27 October 2016 19:42:22(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Awithers

In a viable redesign of work in an office or other environment, the decisive constants are the work tasks to be performed according to well-specified standards and within budgets.

Determining the work tasks requires identifying and analysing the goals and subgoals of any department or section;  it's not unusual for this to entail some activities that have become outdated as well as some not formally specified but which have emerged over time to meet reasonable expectations.

The stimulus of introducing flexibility offers an opportunity for such changes. A good, readable description of the kinds of analysis that has worked well in many settings (not simply those explicitly referred to in the title) is provided in 'Human Factors in the Chemical and Process industries', edited by J Edmonds, published by Reed Elsevier this month and available from the Amazon website.

Self-evidently, those leading the changes to flexible working are required to be both smart listeners, speakers and writer and politically aware of sources of barriers to change.  For the issues involve more than 'health and safety' technicalities, in particular they involve leading a coalition dedicated to achieving fair and realistic goals with available resources (which may be a lot more than those allocated initially by senior management).  As research by safety psychologist Cheryl Haslam and safety ergonomist Roger Haslam indicate, effective changes take into account the stage of readiness of an organisation as examined by James O Prochaska and C Diclemente.

What KieranD said was interesting but over verbose. I am just about start a similar sort of project looking at some teaching labs in a university. The science stuff is easy (spent too much time sniffing solvents etc in labs over the past 20 –odd years) but as it is a TEACHING lab I have just realised that it more of an issue of how we are going to organise the space so that example we don’t have too many queues to use the fumecupboards and other specialist equipment.  Managing 100 students with eight to bench in lab designed 50 years ago for half that number.  Then you have to think about how to supervise them, what is the responsibility the various University staff etc. Yeah some of the stuff KieranD mentioned may be relevant.

Not spending £150 on that book though!

We are also 'smart working' - but it has been hadled  very badly.

Its based on an 8 to 10 ratio, in that you get 8 desks for every 10 staff and you hope sickness, leave and other commitments reduces the total so nobody is without a desk.

But my employers forgot that some workers need specialist programmes not availlable on all desks (such as CAD), others genuinely have special needs which require them to sit here, or at that desk, or in that chair so they cannot participate in the Smart working method

Then the mickey takers emerged, requesting urgent and immediate DSE assessments, claiming they are suddenly too tall so need a special desk, the bright light by the window affects their sight or conversely, they need to sit by the window to get sufficient etc etc etc. All requests from these queue pushers were accepted by a management frightened of litigation and too weak to confront/challenge these lies

So when you take the specialist IT users, the needy and the greedy out of the equations, we are actually working less than a 5 to 10 ratio, so its a huge bun fight every day for a desk.

The losers of the bun fight (those who arrive after 8:30) sit at a 'drop down area' with non adjustable chairs, small PC screens and tiny battery hen type spaces.  Despite this area being designed to be used for 2hrs maxium, staff of all sizes are there all day leaning and stretching to accomodate the non adjustable working environment

This trial of hotdesking - sorry smart working - "will be a success" management say and any negative talk from the like of me are stamped on like a Orwellian dictatorship

So take care as a badly managed move to flexible working is the best way to split and demotivate your workforce short of cutting their pay and stealing their pensions

Originally Posted by: mssy

flexible working is the best way to split and demotivate your workforce short of cutting their pay and stealing their pensions

That reflects my experience exactly.