Where is Here?
October 25, 2007
Erik’s note: We’re happy to present this guest post by Chris Lozaga a Research Analyst in SuccessFactors Global Research team
I once taught a class designed to introduce senior citizens to computers. By far, the internet was the most difficult concept to explain. Teaching file systems was fairly easy - it is not much of a stretch to visualize files in folders. Start up a web browser and the analogy breaks down. All sorts of questions come up, “this file is on my screen, is it in my computer?” “Is this file on their computer?” The complex amalgam that is a webpage, some bits cached locally, others served up from different data centers around the globe, took some time and effort to explain.
Some of the questions raised by my students were eerily prescient, like “Where is here?” Data made the move into the “ether” a decade ago. In many ways, work is woefully behind - still physically tethered to offices, desks, and phone lines.
Recently, Jim Ware and Charles Grantham, principal founders of The Future of Work, and authors of the recently published book Corporate Agility, joined SuccessFactors Research as thought leader partners for a webinar discussing remote work and productivity. The revelations were profound:
- Work will be spread throughout the day and week (24×7), no more 8 to 5 work schedules
- Work will be divided into smaller chunks with cycle times down from months to weeks
- Work will be accomplished in a wide range of locations, 35% home, 35% office, and 30% in-between
As we me make the transition to knowledge work, “here” is no longer a physical place. “Here” is the where the data is, “here” is where the project is. Virtual meetings take place alongside the data, in the ether, not tethered to the physical office.
This is just one example of several, coming, dramatic shifts in attitudes, demographics and the global economy. In the paper Talent Management 2017, Erik Berggren and Jason Corsello examine these changes and show how talent and performance management will actually drive strategy in the future. From this session, one question really sticks out - How can we better collaborate? With a distributed workforce, how can we even find each other when we need to? Software vendors are just starting to answer these questions. One successful innovation that we have brought to market is our employee profile module. It is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, in encouraging collaboration. An early adopter of this tool reported that 94% of their employees started using it immediately after deployment, indicating that interest in connecting people is strong. At the end of the day, how could you drive people performance if people can’t even find each other? Where is here? What are your ideas for bringing people together in a distributed world?
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