Work Naked: Eight Essential Principles for Peak Performance in the Virtual Workplace

Rating:
Summary: A compendium of virtual work advice, a little one-sided
Review: Do you work naked? If you're one of the millions of people who work away from the corporate office much of the time you might. Or you might follow a strict routine of showering and dressing first thing. As Cynthia Froggatt argues in detail, non-traditional working practices vary tremendously - but eight principles can help employees and managers alike shape those practices for improved satisfaction *and* effectiveness. Making the change from traditional, regimented working practices to "virtual workplace" practices can be difficult but the rewards can be great. Froggatt's principles cover the issues thoroughly.

To ensure that working away from the office (whether at home, a coffee shop or library, a client's office, or elsewhere) increases productivity without causing anxiety on either side, this book recommends these guidelines:
Initiative: Overcoming the fear of change and becoming change agents - Froggatt provides a checklist for uncovering obstacles to peak performance in the virtual workplace.
Trust: Achieving confidence in the management-employee relationship - this requires doing away with the layers of outdated performance measures. A real concern is the "input bias" according to which managers evaluate workers more highly based on what they see rather than on what is actually produced.
Joy: Creating a work environment that is enjoyable in atmosphere and attitude. Even if your company is not considering allowing or encouraging virtual work, the points discussed under this principle could help improve your workforce's motivation and commitment.
Individuality - Creating a culture of autonomy creativity versus conformity. Froggatt outlines three types of solo workstyle, effectively demolishing the idea that virtual work equals working in a home office.
Equality - Flattening the hierarchy so cooperation and teamwork can flourish. Perhaps the principle least specifically tied to virtual work, this one promotes the removal of all forms of hierarchy which, ironically, may be less influential for those who aren't often in the office to experience them.
Dialogue - Providing an honest communication forum to inspire and inform. Even more than for regular workplaces, virtual work relies on open, honest communication.
Connectivity - Optimize technological advantages, including employee locale. This principle is all about equipping your virtual workforce to enable people to take full, productive advantage of increased flexibility.

Workplace Options - Provide comfort /creative setting for all work locations. Here, Froggatt goes some way to redressing the emphasis on virtual work by stating that both the physical infrastructure of workplaces and the technological infrastructure of online work are crucial to the emerging environment of virtual work. Workplaces of the future are being shaped by six trends, argues Froggatt: Access will become more important than ownership; People will commute less but travel more; Individual choice takes precedence over management control; No more captive audience at "the office"; More attention to workplaces in the home; Blurring of leisure and work.

Drawing on companies such as Cisco Systems, Autodesk, Verifone, The Promar Group, and SAS Institute, Froggatt paints a diverse picture of the ways that companies can help balance work and personal life while enabling knowledge workers with differing work styles to become more productive. The illustrations of each principle help to make clear how you might go about implementing the abstractions. The downside - for some readers - is an absence of real theoretical underpinnings and little attention to the validity of studies cited to support the author's contentions.

For example, on p.40, a Nortel employee survey is used to show higher employee satisfaction of teleworkers as compared to the overall Nortel population. We are given no reason to believe that this is a fair or useful comparison. Perhaps the types of workers made virtual were more satisfied to begin with - a before and after survey would be more revealing. Readers may also find that in the author's eagerness to establish the viability and attractiveness of virtual work, the real challenges of virtual work may sometimes have been assumed away too quickly. On the whole, however, Work Naked provides plenty of ideas for those interested in exploring new working styles for 21st century knowledge workers.

Rating:
Summary: Let Go! Create a New Kind of Workplace
Review: Let go. That's the message to corporate leaders who have decades of reinforcement that their job is to control the people who work for them. There's a new game in town-a new way of operating that releases creativity, boosts productivity, and drives more profit to the bottom line.

This new approach involves stripping away the old ways of thinking about managing. It means removing policies that inhibit employees in their self-driven initiatives to do truly amazing things. The new approach suggests that people can work from anywhere without the traditional trappings to achieve results far beyond current reality. In a phrase, the new approach allows people to work naked, without constraints. Froggatt, a consultant specializing in aligning workplace strategies with business plans, describes the process as "shedding the layers" of control, overwork, conformity, hierarchy, poor communication, geography, and unproductive work environments to release the bonds.

While explaining the problems, Froggatt presents the principles that can empower a leadership team to change the way their company does business. Eight simple principles: initiative, trust, joy, individuality, equality, dialogue, connectivity, and workplace options. Some leaders will read this book and stick it on a shelf to gather dust. Others will really "get" the message and will transform their organizations. With the content of this book, and the way it is presented, transformation will not be that difficult . . . for the enlightened leaders. Unfortunately, we have far too few leaders who fit into that category. Hopefully this book will win a few more converts.

Do not expect policies, contracts, procedures, systems, and all that sort of garbage in these pages. No, this book is about people and principles. The pages are rich with concrete examples that will be an inspiration to readers who are inclined to adhere to the concept of working naked. Checklists, bullet-point lists, charts, diagrams, and plenty of chapter subheads make this book superbly readable. Adding to the value of "Work Naked" is an astonishingly detailed 13-page index and a index-like list of the companies profiled in the book. Over ten pages of chapter notes await you at the end of the book and a concise summary awaits you at the end of each chapter.

I read this book with a high degree of interest, from my perspective as co-author of "Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Too Few People." Our book talks about the coming severe labor shortage and how many companies are headed for extinction. "Work Naked" supplies the treasure map for employers who want to avoid extinction and thrive instead.
Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: WORK FLEXIBILITY
Review: The virtual office/organizations have been a concept that has received a lot of attention in the last decade but has had a hard time surfacing as a viable option. According to the author, the reason for this being businesses and management insist on using the same management principles in a changing environment. This leads to frustration and failure of an idea that can be fruitful to so many.

Work Naked simply implies that as individuals, your employees have different personalities and different work methods and to be a successful manager you must take the differences and make them work for you. This can include allowing your employees to work different hours, flexible shifts and from home or a combination of all of these options. To achieve success Froggatt proposes eight principles that must be addressed.

1.Initiative-Overcoming the fear of change and becoming change agents.
2.Trust-Achieving confidence in the management-employee relationship.
3.Joy-Creating a work environment that is enjoyable in atmosphere and attitude.
4.Individuality-Creating a culture of autonomy creativity versus conformity.
5.Equality-Flattening the hierarchy so cooperation and teamwork can flourish.
6.Dialogue-Providing an honest communication forum to inspire and inform.
7.Connectivity-Optimize technological advantages, including employee locale.
8.Workplace Options-Provide comfort /creative setting for all work locations.

I found this book to be a very pokerfaced voice for change. Each principal demands respect from all levels of management and staff.

The eight principles taught in the book can be useful to any work environment, even if virtual workplaces are not incorporated. The most important theme in the book is flexibility. The principles are based in a human resources frame as the goal is employee empowerment. However, with this empowerment or lack thereof can bring success or failure to the businesses.

Most organizations have traditionally been based in a brick and mortar setting where the organization as a structure is valued above all. I see the organizations of tomorrow to be more information centric or knowledge based. Before reading this book, I had not given careful consideration to the implications of this statement. Now I can see that if we wanted to, most service related organization could venture into the virtual workplace if proper facilities like phone, Internet and computers available.

After reading this book I actually made a few informal interviews with colleagues and asked them if they honesty needed to be at work for forty or more hours a week. Most said they spent their time working on proposals and documents on their computers, answering e-mail reference questions and other work that did not require being physically present. I then took it a step farther and asked if they would be open to a FLEXIBLE schedule in which they worked 8 hours shifts on the desk but only worked 2 OR 3 days physically at office with the rest being at home. After a few strange looks and careful consideration most staff said that it would help them be with their kids more, schedule doctor appointments and avoid the commute.

As Work Naked shows, you can accomplish wonders if you provide the initiative, the training and the supports to your staff. Work Naked is not steeped in theory. It is not a book that scholars will debate for years to come, but it will provide interesting conversation. For each principle listed there are case studies of real company situations to show an example of why the principle is important. At the end of the book there are resources listed to help companies get more information on making the switch. Cynthia Foggart believes in taking the bull by the horns and getting the job done. The only fault I have with this is a fairly negative attitude to the workplace environment as a whole. There are some bonuses to corporate culture and there are some individuals that are at their best in that environment. Their needs should not be shunned. Also, the book does not delve into any of the new issues that might come up in a virtual work environment. Managers need to find another book to help them resolve those issues. In a nutshell the book is good read but a lot of cons of a virtual organization could have been presented...