Continuous information technology development changed traditional ways of management and business operations. Nowadays there is a high demand for new innovative business solutions and the ways of managing people that enables to fully elicit their potential. Physical boundaries are removed; work is becoming incredibly dispersed around the world enabling growth of 24/7 customer service, home banking, online shopping and other services that were seemed incredible just a few years ago.
In this fast paced environment the companies are seeking for any possibility to increase their competitiveness. Implementing flexible working is considered by most of organizations as a tool to adapt to never-ending changes.
This paper aims to test the hypothesis that flexible working increases organizational productivity from the perspective of the property as well as from the perspective of employees. In current work organizational productivity from the perspective of property is analyzed from economic standpoint when flexible working decreases operational and real estate costs per employee, thus, allowing saving and investing in other business areas that would increases profitability of the company. Productivity from staff perspective is measured by employee’s satisfaction of his working environment, work-life balance, and increased efficiency through team collaboration, flexible hours and telecommuting.
Methodology used is case study and literature review. Case study was performed on-site in Alcatel-Lucent in Singapore. It is limited to six months from planned full year of implementation project. Set of interviews with company managers was conducted to support the case results.
The study suggests the hypothesis, according to the literature review and overview of some cases in different countries, that flexibility in property as well as in working mode increases productivity both in terms of real estate costs savings and in terms of employee’s increased productivity due to better team collaboration in open space, flexible working hours, ability to choose preferred location for work, telecommuting that creates a positive work-life balance. The case study performed for this paper in Alcatel-Lucent Singapore shows that the aforementioned benefits are not there yet due to the project timeline but are highly anticipated by local and global management.
Nevertheless, thorough assessment of business requirements and the needs of employees should be undertaken before deciding on flexible working. It is extremely crucial to secure efficient and open internal communication and employees’ involvement in all stages of the project in order to achieve fast acceptance and adaptation to new environment. Based on the current example, future research suggests investigating in cultural aspect of global strategy deployment by corporate decision in different countries.
Author: Petrova, Natalia
Source: KTH
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