Too flexible? Yes, so stop it

Too flexible? Yes, so stop it!

Of course in office space flexibility, as in other areas of employee engagement, things can, and do, go wrong. The senior management at advertising agency Chiat/Day mandated ˜hot desking' for its employees, thinking that making any desk available to anyone on a first-come, first- served basis would generate a climate of creative energy. Employees hated the plan from day one, particularly as groups who needed to work together couldn't achieve what they wanted from randomly chosen desks. So members of teams came to the office early to claim desks that couldn't be reserved. When new managers took over, they quickly scrapped the practice.

Another foolish example was the check-in staff wildcat strike at British Airways: a great example of how to turn a happy, friendly group of workers into resentful militants overnight. British Airways wanted to introduce a computerised staffing system. What existed was a bizarre, yet efficient, system run by the staff themselves . Not well paid, but loyal, the staff had created an arbitrage system where if they needed extra time off or to move a schedule they would call each other until they found someone to take over their shift. The system worked, but British airways felt that it had lost control of the workforce. Poor communication and lack of understanding as to what this group of employees would lose in work flexibility led to deadlock and employees going on a wildcat strike. ˜These people worked in relatively poorly paid jobs because they had one great advantage - flexibility,' said a manager who witnessed the strike.' British Airways removed that flexibility, with their plan, and that triggered the strike.'

As British Airways quickly discovered , flexibility is valued highly in our life/work world. Take it away, and you've got trouble.