With over 30 years in the technology industry, he’s been mapping and predicting the trends we now find ourselves implementing in weeks, rather than years. This article takes a look at how our workstyles are influencing our interaction with technology and what this means for us all.

During this period of accelerated remote working, video conferencing has become the key collaboration tool for many. But more than simply connecting us for a virtual face to face has inadvertently enabled a mini social experiment. As people have begun to play with the editable background in some collaboration tools, it has become a window into where the person on the call would like to be.

But how much does the choice of these backgrounds reveal about our personalities and, more than that, how much do they reveal about our human desires? Our urge to connect with people in places we dream of being. Perhaps this is a glimpse into the future of work? One where we have the opportunity to work together, anywhere?

History shows us the potential, multiplied.

Historically speaking, the industrial revolution provided new ways of mechanising and organising work at scale, something which could never have imagined pre-1760. Then, in the 1950s, businesses started on the journey to the digital revolution which fundamentally changed working practices again. Soon the laptop unshackled a lucky few from their desks and remote working was born. In 1995 the first smartphone appeared and, before long, we were at home sitting on our couches replying to messages from colleagues on the other side of the world.

Now, due to circumstances beyond our control, the mobile revolution is being driven forward at a pace we could never have expected. Yes, we could all see the potential, and, to some extent, we’re moving towards a more agile way of working. But today’s situation has forced us to accelerate our approach, pushing us far beyond our comfort zone, and into the relative unknown.

The result? A testbed for how things will be in the future. So, today we are witnessing the exploration of the visual possibilities offered by the video conference backgrounds. But are we, in fact, seeing, first hand, an early vision of what the future of work could look like? Technology is fast enabling all of us to be part of a work together anywhere revolution. It is giving people control to do what they need, where they need to do it.

The future workplace

The future of work will provide us with collaboration spaces more akin to the Holodeck on the Starship Enterprise. A fully immersive and interactive personal space where we can create or replicate our favourite working environment. Having different creative environments dependent on the type of work we are choosing to do. And at the same time, satisfying the human need to interact with others by providing an ability to invite participants into this personal space. Giving the opportunity to engage and interact with others, whether that be colleagues, associates, or simply like-minded people.

From video conferencing to augmented reality

These ideas may seem far fetched. But are they? View them against the technology we have now, and what will be soon available and you may reconsider. Augmented reality such as Microsoft Hololens and Oculus Rift virtual reality meeting spaces are already available. These bring a sense of physical engagement regardless of the distance between participants.

Cloud has enabled software, teams, and service providers to work and access systems remotely, wherever they are. Robotic Process Automation streamlines and rapidly enhances processes. The digitisation of all manner of devices from Interactive whiteboards to smart lockers enables them to connect to the web for greater sharing of data. With near-zero latency, everyone will have a much greater capacity for working together, anywhere.

This work together anywhere approach, underpinned by technology, will create workspaces where you feel confident and comfortable. Able to discuss freely and bring focus to both your work and interactions with others. They will be adaptable to support every personality, from backgrounds or environments which are for the more reserved to plain bonkers to ignite the creative juices of others. And these technologies will be open for everyone, wherever and however they work.

A new era of communications and collaboration

Gone will be the blocky conference call and in will come a new era of communications. With pixel sharp resolution enabling us to better see facial expressions and greater immersiveness, enhancing the emotional connection. Where everyone feels more connected and able to carry out their tasks without interruption. Organisations now have the opportunity to fully embrace this change. Taking their business effectiveness and productivity to the next level, as well as empowering employees to choose how and when they work.

People, empowered by technology, will be the most important asset

Technology will be the enabler, but organisations will recognise the true value their people add. Whilst technology can process at speed, and scale to accelerate output, it cannot replicate the ingenuity and infinite flexibility of the human brain. People will remain the most important asset for all organisations and this will become central to workplace culture. How they choose to work will adapt to their physical, emotional, and well-being needs as humans.

We’ve had a taste of the future.

We have all stopped apologising on conference calls when the kids make a noise or the wind unexpectedly slams a door. We have become open to working together anywhere. And the outcome has the potential to be as wondrous as the backdrop you select for your next conference call.

How a technology partner will help your organisation today

For many, the shift to working remotely may feel new, even awkward, or difficult. And relying on technology to connect with colleagues or adapt our established processes is a challenge. But these ideas have been slowly forming in the minds of forward-thinking organisations for many years. But even this time last year they were considered by many as ‘a nice to have’. Not a permanent way of working for the masses. Now they are essential to an organisation’s operational continuity.

To react to this fast-approaching future, and ensure your organisation capitalises by working together anywhere, you need an experienced technology partner at your side. Ricoh has long been supporting how people use technology in the workplace, with solutions ready for the next-generation of mobile workers. Firmly taking a people-centric approach, Ricoh designs organisation-wide technology solutions to transform how your people, processes, and workspaces perform; ensuring security runs throughout the proposition from edge to core.

Whilst we can’t promise you a Holodeck just yet, we can support you on your journey there. For more information download our latest insight report.

Click to read Work Together, Anywhere

And if you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with me on LinkedIn.

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Businesses from all industries are adopting and benefiting from a flexible working policy. This allows their people to get work done where and when they want. Flexible working often improves engagement, happiness and efficiency.  As more businesses implement flexible working policies, these policies are often referred to as an “agile working policy”. But why? What has changed aside from employees working hours and possible locations?

Often, not a lot. The organisation is still the same organisation floating along, not improving, not being proactive to change. Departments still work in silos and any change is slow to happen. Realistically, the new “agile working policy” has just meant fewer people are in the office (especially on a Friday!).

What is flexible working?

Flexible working is the idea of giving the people in the business the choices as to where they work and when they work. Types of work can be broken down into 4 categories (concentration, collaboration, contemplation and communication). A flexible working policy (FWP) allows employees to work in a way which is best suited to the type of work being conducted.

When Ricoh UK implemented an FWP it showed improvements in engagement, employee well-being and work output. An FWP requires good change management, buy-in from the senior leadership team to the team leaders and each and every employee. Flexible working requires trust (across the organisation) that people are working in their own way to achieve their objectives. People will find themselves working from different offices and other locations such as at home. Collaboration and communication must be made available through other means than just face to face meetings. Therefore it needs the right technology hardware and software to succeed.

What is agile working?

Agile working, while it tends to incorporate an FWP is not wholly the same thing. While flexible working allows people to work where and when they want, and agile way of working is embedded in everything the organisation does (and doesn’t) do.

Creating an agile workforce often means a whole shift in the way the organisation operates day-to-day. While agile working (AW) is different from Agile project management, AW takes the principles from the Agile PM manifesto and incorporates them into the everyday running of the business. Agile ceremonies such as stand-ups and retrospectives are encouraged, silos are destroyed and the company works towards a common goal (continually delivering value to the customer).  People are open, honest and welcome feedback. An agile workforce realises changes to products, projects and services will happen, they are prepared for these changes and adapt to them accordingly.

The differences

Aside from the obvious differences, you can deduce yourself, there are some more subtle ones between agile working and an FWP.

1. A FWP does not make the organisation more agile, an agile workforce does

The organisation has just rolled out its new FWP. People are now working from coffee shops, home, libraries and some are still sitting at “their desk” (they’ve been sitting there for the last 20 years). But what else has changed? Is the company more effective at dealing with change? Is the board still demanding more sales in a dying market?

An FWP does not combat these issues, but an agile workforce will. Having AW changes the mind-set of the employees and the organisation. Change is prepared for and accepted, adaption and adoption are quick and innovation is encouraged.

2. Difference by design

An FWP is designed to give the people a better work-life balance, (I certainly don’t want to commute every day). It has also shown to improve employee engagement and well-being, reduces staff sickness, increases productivity and increases talent retention. These are of course also beneficial to the organisation, but an FWP is employee-centric. Creating an AW however is organisation-centric, or should I say, customer-centric. Either way, the benefits of having an AW is based around the organisation’s goals and objectives or how they can achieve them.

3. Flexible working is a habit change, agile working is a mindset change

Implementing a FWP is more of a habit change for the organisation’s people. People now have the option to work from where they feel they will achieve the most, instead of their old routine of going to the office from Monday to Friday 9-5. Projects can still run way over time, over budget and have the scope doubled, but all of this can happen from inside the office and while enjoying a latte at a coffee shop.

Having an agile workforce, however, creates a fluid business in which its people continually deliver value to the customer. Failures happen, but they are accepted and celebrated. They happen often, they happen fast, but they are small failures that create more successful outcomes in the long term.

4. An FWP may lead to less face-to-face meetings, something that agile working encourages

The 6^th principle of Agile is “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is a face-to-face conversation.” We often see an FWP countering this as more and more people work from different locations it is not viable for them to have face-to-face conversations with others on a project team or department team. In my experience, ad hoc conversations with others in a project team can lead to those light bulb moments we all need during some of the more tricky projects. (Not to mention people multitasking or writing emails while they’re on the phone).

The era of the flexible workforce is here, for both failing companies and ones on the rise. However, only the ones with a truly agile workforce will succeed in this ever-changing, fast-paced, on-demand world we find ourselves in.

Discover more about Agile and Remote Working, the opportunities, challenges and how to implement an effective strategy.

Read ‘Your Guide to Agile and Remote Working’.

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If you cut through the jargon, what we’re really saying is that we’re giving people the ability to work and be productive anytime, anywhere and from any device. Employees are no longer tied to the computer in the office.

The changing world of work and digitalisation has fundamentally changed the landscape and this has driven the need to adapt across many businesses and markets. An interesting statistic I read recently claims that 75% of the workforce will be millennials by 2025 – that’s only seven years away*. (Millennials are those born, roughly, between 1980 and 2000).

As Generation Z starts to enter the world of work (those born after 2000), there is going to be even further disruption. They’re the most connected generation of all, having grown up only knowing the technological world. They have an insatiable hunger to keep up with information and trends, to set the rules and use technology to get things done.

The revolution gives rise to a new breed of organisation

The industrial revolution provided mass production on a grand scale by creating the ability to produce through giant physical infrastructures, supported by equally large workforces. The work carried out by the workforce was integrated into the manufacturing process and so manual work was enhanced by machine and automation. At this time, because machine intelligence and supporting technology didn’t exist, people filled in these gaps.

Today we are seeing a new breed of organisation born with technology, that’s more dynamic and fast paced and has the agility to change at an unprecedented rate when compared to traditional business processes.

“When I sat down to write The World is Flat: Facebook didn’t exist, Twitter was still a sound, the cloud was still in the sky, 4G was a parking place, LinkedIn was a prison, applications were what you sent to college, and Skype was a typo.” Thomas Friedman, American Journalist and Editor

Have office environments kept up with the change?

We talk of how people and technology have changed, but how much has office space changed to offer employees what they are looking for? If we look at the workplace of the future [LINK to Driving Innovation Article 1], we predict holograms, robots and wearable devices. There is a drive for more remote and flexible working, that enables employees around the world to collaborate, work in a shared digital workspace and seamlessly communicate virtually.

But what do I see? I see that new internet businesses are overtaking large corporates, disrupting decades of predictable growth and comfortable trading. This is forcing organisations to change and to re-evaluate whether their workplace is fit for the future. We are at a critical time where organisations need to radically change to compete transparently in a marketplace with is not just supported by technology, but fundamentally driven by technology.

The advantage of agility

The disruption is driving huge change in culture, systems, processes and, fundamentally, in the way of working across so many large businesses. The fear of changing has now been replaced by the fear of not changing.

There is a distinct advantage for businesses created in the post-IT revolutionised world. Their internal processes, the systems and methods by which they trade have been designed to be more automated and efficient, with technology at the very core of their infrastructure. Typically, they grow faster than traditional ones because agility is inherent in the systems they create.

Now, compare this to the traditional business that have been trading for decades in the same marketplace. These traditional businesses have grown slowly, organically into huge businesses. During the growth, they typically run on the same processes and infrastructure they have always done, introducing new technology in isolated. Often the fundamental method by which they do business hasn’t changed because it hasn’t needed to – ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

Large corporates are now fundamentally challenging themselves to change and adapt to the new world. Does your working environment match what your employees are looking for or are you trying make the best of an old office environment? 

If you want to learn more about workplace transformation, fill out the form to the right to download our Decision Maker’s Guide to Workplace Transformation.

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Once we had identified the main challenges we faced, we followed 6 key steps to ensure that business transformation was embedded fully across our culture and laid the foundations for a completely new way of working.

1. Getting real buy-in

The first, and most important stage of transformation is right at the start: buy-in.

Getting real buy-in from your organisation requires honest and open discussion. We made sure that everyone in our organisation understood the journey we were embarking on through regular communication. You can’t just sell change to managers and employees, you need to involve them in the process and give them an opportunity to ask questions.

It’s about recognising that you are going to change the culture and the hard work this entails. It’s about understanding the overall vision and the prize if you get this right. Fundamentally, it’s about recognising that something that needs to change and bringing people on board and helping them to accept the change.

Set the scene, be honest, don’t over commit or oversell. Paint the vision and be clear on the benefits of getting it right.

2. Selecting a core team to lead change

One of our first steps was to create a new core team to drive change across the organisation. This was a group of people who could influence, engage and excite the wider business. We looked for individuals who possess resilience, dedication and passion for what we do. You also need a team who can work together to provide their own support structure but also keep themselves motivated when times are difficult.

This team are effectively the champions of change. They can convince and guide others and provide a healthy amount of challenge in a non-confrontational way, like a river’s unending energy that smooths away the ragged edges.

3. Disrupted and dispersed change

We created a disruptive (but accepted) team of individuals dispersed across our organisation. They worked together as a virtual team to challenge the norm and change some fundamental, embedded processes across our business. The results of this were seen and resulted in tangible change and created a continuous improvement culture.

We asked this team to actively go out into the business and evaluate the processes and look at ways of making things better. But they couldn’t implement the changes alone: they needed to work with the IT department to change the systems that drove the process.

Finally, we asked them to lead people to adopt new ways of working.

4. Tools and methodologies

There are many different approaches to driving change. At Ricoh, we used Lean Six Sigma, which supported structured process improvement. It also ran hand in hand with change management and project management practices we were already using.

As the approach matured and it was embedded within Ricoh, we wanted to expand the toolset to enable our people to address more issues.

Our approach consisted of:

• Structured problem solving
• Designing new processes
• Designing new products and services
• Creating agility

Some tools fixed cultural issues, some practical. When combined together they empowered our workforce to drive transformation by themselves. It gave them new skills and an immediate opportunity to put these into practice.

When the toolset was distributed throughout the organisation, the group mindset changed. Once you’ve reached the point of being able to build new skills within the organisation as a whole, then you begin to tip the balance between sceptics and advocates.

5. Leadership development and training

The development of leaders is the route to sustaining and embedding change on a long-term basis. We developed a new four-layered leadership programme, from spotting talent through to senior managers.

At each layer of leadership development, we encouraged participants to ask “why” and “how” so we could get sustained behavioural change.

In addition, we recognised that the change needed to stop being an initiative. To transform in the way that we envisaged, the things we were asking people to do as part of the change programme needed to become the way we do things.

By embedding this into the Leadership development programme, bringing elements into the induction process, recording achievements in the HR systems and writing it into job descriptions, it starts to become “the way we do things” and fundamentally the culture of the organisation. The leadership team is critical to sustaining the change. By hard wiring this into the future leadership development programme, you ensure it becomes part of your organisation’s DNA.

6. Integration and future development

What does the future hold for organisations and more specifically for organisation capability?

You only need to look at the news or the latest articles on technology, the future of the workplace and the future of commerce to realise there are many conflicting opinions.

I believe it’s possible to build capability despite this new uncertain world.

As the nature of work changes, this capability needs to be woven into the fabric of an organisation. If you successfully combine the other five points in this article and integrate them into the roles of all of your teams, this is where I believe you can flourish in a new world.

If you want to learn more about workplace transformation, fill out the form to the right to download our Decision Maker’s Guide to Workplace Transformation.

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