Tag Archive for: workforce

Free Webinar on “Leveraging Mobile Work to Engage Your Employees”

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When: Thursday, March 7, at Noon Pacific Standard Time

Register:  https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/476196598

Please join me and my colleague, Pi Wen Looi of Novacrea Research, for a lunch-and-learn session to learn about “Leveraging Mobile Work to Engage Your Employees.” We’ll present our 2012 Mobile Workforce Survey findings and share ideas about how you can use these insights to engage and leverage your mobile workers. [continue reading...]

Does “Yahoo!” now stand for “bureaucratic dinosaur”?

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There’s been quite a buzz building around Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer’s recent proclamation that all employees are now expected to be in their assigned corporate office every day. No more “telecommuting” or working from home.

There is no way I can summarize all the insightful commentary about Ms. Meyer’s edict that is all over the Internets and the mainstream media this week. [continue reading...]

November 2012: What’s Happened/Happening

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Fall in North America is always an incredibly busy time. This year was no exception. Here are a few brief notes about the major activities  that we have been involved in over the last several months, plus a quick look ahead.

Raising the Bar

As you may know, in addition to my leadership of The Future of Work….unlimited, I am also a co-founder of Occupiers Journal Limited (OJL). [continue reading...]

The 2012 Workforce Mobility Survey

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How often do you work outside of your office (e.g., in a café, at home, or at other off-site locations)? Chances are you are not tied to your desk 100% of the time even if you go to a corporate office every day. We all know that the nature of work, including where and when it gets done, is changing dramatically. [continue reading...]

May 2012 Newsletter

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May 2012

Do you think your work is strategic, or could be? Our feature article this month, “Is Operational Strategy an Oxymoron (Part Two)?” continues to explore what it means to have a strategic impact. More importantly, we begin to address what happens to a functional group (like IT, HR, or CRE/FM) once it is recognized as being strategic.

This second article in the current series isn’t the end of the story, by any means. Next month we will offer specific guidelines to executives who want to become more impactful—not just about how to apply your expertise and your professional discipline to enhance the business at large, but we’ll also address what becoming part of the C-Suite might mean for you personally. That is, how could your “arrival” affect the way you spend your time and what obligations it creates for you and your staff?

These thoughts and suggestions are arising for me at this time largely because of my deep involvement in the Occupiers Journal GRID research project, “Raising the Bar,” that I am currently leading. As I wrote last month (click this link for details), we’re studying the “state of the practice” surrounding the organization and the role of the facilities management function in large, global organizations.

And now we need your help. Please complete a brief online survey designed to help us understand how facilities management organizations are structured, managed, and measured. In return we’ll send you a complimentary summary of our findings when the study is completed in late June/early July. There’s more about the survey down below, in the What’s Happened/Happening section of this newsletter.

Finally, of course, we’ve also included our sampling of interesting articles, websites, and workplace/technology futures that we include each month in our “The Future of . . .” section. I do hope you’ll spend a few minutes clicking through to our featured stories. You won’t regret it.

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The Future of . . . (May 2012)

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Here is a small sample of the stories and developments we are paying attention to these days. It’s our way of helping you stay on top of developments in the worlds of technology, workplace and facilities design, the workforce, and work design—any and all of which are going to affect the future of work, often in ways we can’t even imagine. [continue reading...]

What’s Happened/Happening (May 2012)

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Brief announcements and notes about where we’ve been, and will be, holding forth in public conversations and other activities.

Recent Activity

“Raising the Bar”

As you may know, Jim Ware, in addition to his leadership of The Future of Work….unlimited, is also a co-founder of Occupiers Journal Limited (OJL). He serves as Global Research Director for OJL.

And OJL recently announced its first 2012 research project, “Raising the Bar: Enhancing the Strategic Role of Facilities Management.” [continue reading...]

Facility Fusion: April 11-13, 2012

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Jim Ware will be leading and/or participating actively in five separate sessions at IFMA’s Facility Fusion Conference, at the Chicago Sheraton Hotel on April 11-13, 2012:

April 10 [pre-conference]

Roundtable on Managing End-User/Service Provider Relationships

Jim is leading this invitation-only Roundtable for senior facilities professionals representing both the service provider industry and end-user occupiers. The Roundtable is hosted by IFMA and sponsored by CBRE, Sodexo, and Kimball Office. [continue reading...]

February 2012 Newsletter

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February 2012

What are you doing on February 10th? Would you like to spend an hour with me and 14 other smart people thinking out loud about the future of work?

I will be hosting “Talking About Tomorrow,” an “open mike” conference call at 11 AM Pacific Standard Time on Friday, February 10. There’s no charge to participate, but you do have to sign up in advance.

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My Bookshelf: The Agile Workforce and Workplace

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The Agile Workforce and Workplace: Flex Primer for the New Future of Work
By Karol Rose and Lori Sokol, Ph.D.
Working Mother Media, New York, NY (2011)

Reviewed by Jim Ware

There have been thousands of books, articles, speeches, and blog posts in recent years on how to implement flexible work. Some of those sources have even been useful. But The Agile Workforce and Workplace, by Karol Rose and Lori Sokol, is by far the most comprehensive, and the most practical, guide I have found to date.

As readers of this newsletter know, I have spent much of my career campaigning for flexible work. In recent years my focus has been on Alternative Workplace Strategies (AWS) and managing remote workers, but that is only because I believe there are very practical physical, social, and technological challenges that must be addressed to make flexible work a reality.

I have a deep passion about making flexible work a reality for millions of people around the world. Most organizations make terrible use of human talent. All too often they still treat people like interchangeable parts in some grand machine, and fail completely to take individual differences, and personal needs, into account. The result is a tragic waste of human capital and loss of potential productivity, to say nothing of the poor treatment of people and the prevention of work/life integration. It’s simply got to change, both for the good of society and for the health of the economy.

And that is why I recommend this book.

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