IT is key to implementing flexible working. Your input is vital,
but IT directors should not have to make policy decisions
Disruptions such as this month's tube strikes have led more
employees and business departments to knock on the IT department's
door demanding that IT makes flexible working happen.
However, it is not the IT department's responsibility to develop
the strategy and policies required, but purely to implement the
technology that makes it a reality. For flexible working to truly
succeed, the culture needs to be embraced by senior management, and
should ultimately be led by the human resources department.
Flexible working is about changing working practices to suit the
business landscape. It is also driven in part by changes to
employment laws, not IT.
HR should develop the formal stance and policies, but in
conjunction with others across the business such as property
managers and IT.
To ensure that the IT department is delivering the most appropriate
technology and the investment made is maximised, it needs to have
input at each stage of strategy development.
IT managers should work closely with HR to ensure that regulatory
issues are carefully considered in the development of the flexible
working policy. For example, the increased use of mobile devices
may lead to data being uncontrolled, so it is important that the
overall policy is compliant with relevant security and data
management laws and regulations.
Once the broad policy is defined, the best approach to defining how
to introduce flexible working is to categorise the types of
employees. From this it is then possible to scope out the demand
for flexible working. It is essential for IT to have input at this
stage of the process, as this dictates employees' IT requirements.
At BT, we categorise our workers into seven groups. These include
full-time office-based workers, those that are predominantly
office-based but are out and about from time to time, those that
are on the move all the time such as sales staff, and those that
are full-time home-workers.
Each of these groups will have specific network, hardware and
software requirements, and therefore have a different impact on a
business' IT infrastructure.
Once those with flexible working requirements are identified, the
policy can be formalised and agreed, and the IT department can step
in to facilitate.
By working closely with the HR team, the IT department can ensure
that a concrete and appropriate strategy is put in place on which
to base IT management and make flexible working a practical
reality. And as IT continues to have a greater impact on the
individual workstyles of staff, the IT department should keep an
active dialogue with HR.
Mark Hughes is director of BT's Workstyle
Group