Jacob Morgan's Blog, page 28
October 31, 2014
How AirBnB Creates Amazing Workspaces
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http://traffic.libsyn.com/futureofworkpodcast/aron_taylor_harvey_podcast_DONE.mp3
What this episode is about and why you should care
With the first tech boom in the late 90’s there was a mentality among startups that sent a clear message – We are never going to work in cubicles. Designers of workspaces followed that mentality and big open spaces emerged, ideally providing collaboration and communication between employees and helping “flatten” out their organizations. But, people didn’t just need collaboration, they needed focus, engagement, and an environment that represents who they are and how they want to work.
Culture, workflow, the physical environment, and engagement all became essential for workplace designers to focus on. This emphasis on the workspace creates an employee experience which in turn helps attract and retain top talent; a business imperative for any organization.
To explore this in more detail my guest for this week was Aaron Taylor Harvey who is the environments design lead at Air BnB who is responsible for creating their workspaces. We explored themes such as the impact that workspaces have on engagement and culture and how Aaron and AirBnB go about creating amazing workspaces for employees.
What you will learn in this episode
What impact does the physical space have on how the employees work?
How can you get people working intensely, collaboratively without creating walls?
What are the cultural symbols of privacy?
What are the components that people need for their work?
What is the office of Air BnB in Portland like?
What does an ideal office space look like and how do you create one?
Do cubicles have a place in the modern day organization?
What is it like to work at Air BnB?
Examples of different types of office setups and how they reflect a unique culture
The importance of creating a work experience
Links from the episode:
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October 29, 2014
Ten Things You Need to Know About the Internet of Things
The internet of things is a big topic that consumers and companies alike are exploring. This idea of connecting billions of devices to each other and to ourselves is a fascinating thing to think about. Imagine your alarm clock telling your coffee maker to when to brew our favorite roast or your outlook calendar syncing with your car to notify you when you need to head out, what the traffic will be like, and what route to take. What about a jet engine that self diagnosis itself and sends a report to an engineer. We already see this connectivity with wearable fitness devices that connect to our scales or smartphones that connect to our home appliances and light bulbs. This is just the beginning!
I wrote about this in much more depth over on my Forbes column which I definitely recommend you read.
Over at the FOWCommunity (where we explore all things related to the future of work) we decided to put together a little infographic to help add some clarity to this rapidly changing and growing area. Hope you find it to be a valuable and informative resource, fee free to share it around!
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October 23, 2014
How The Motley Fool Became the #1 Company in America to Work For
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http://traffic.libsyn.com/futureofworkpodcast/Podcast_Todd_Done.mp3
The one stat you need to know
“According to a new report by the Conference Board, the New York-based nonprofit research group, some 54.6% liked their physical environment in 1987 versus 56.4% today, and 54.7% liked their equipment in 1987, compared to less than a percentage point more today, 55.2%. The report’s authors speculate that the increase in telecommuting offers a partial explanation, as people prefer working at home to being in the office and employers are responding by rethinking and improving equipment and workspaces.” – Forbes by Susan Adams
What this episode is about and why you should care
Imagine if you walked into a financial firm looking for investment advice, and suddenly, you see this person, wearing shorts coming to greet you. Would you be interested in working with him/her? I’m sure a lot of people would find this a bit shocking. Financial firms are seen as conservative, buttoned up, and suit-and-tie organizations.
On the other end of the spectrum, as an employee, have you ever thought of going to an office whenever you just feel like it with your casual clothes on, doing on-site yoga or meditation, getting a haircut or a massage, or playing with Nerf guns? Many people would think that these are silly things that can’t really make an impact on employee engagement or culture.
To learn more about how an organization is challenging convention and traditional stereotypes of having a conservative workplace I talked to Todd Etter, Chief Collaboration Officer of The Motley Fool. The Motley Fool is a web-based company designed to help people manage their financial life. In 2014 The Motley Fool was ranked by Glass Door as the #1 company in America to work for based on their size.
What you will learn in this episode
In depth look at The Motley Fool’s core values – collaborative, innovative, fun, honest, competitive, and motley.
How these core values are ingrained in how employees work.
What it’s like to work at The Motley Fool
Perks and incentives working in a very unique organization. How these benefits were created.
Schedules of employees – Do they have to come to the office, or can they work anytime, anywhere?
How the company uses games for business activities like meetings and annual reports.
Privacy and security – How open is The Motley Fool with information within the organization?
Tangible results of working “the Motley way” - Are these things meaningful or silly?
What can medium-sized or larger organizations learn from what The Motley Fool is doing?
Advice for other companies wanting to change their corporate culture, or to be able to do what The Motley Fool is doing.
Role of management in creating this kind of desirable place to work
How Motley Fool balances and structures its organizational chart.
Overview of two Motley Fool’s programs – Pick Your Own Device (PYOD), and internal recognition and rewards program, You Earned It.
Turnover or retention rate in the company. Are people more productive?
Advice for managers, employees, and companies on what they should be doing, and what they should be thinking about.
Links from the episode:
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October 16, 2014
Why The Sharing Economy is Changing Everything
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http://traffic.libsyn.com/futureofworkpodcast/Jeremiah_podcast.mp3
The one stat you need to know
Forbes estimates “The revenue flowing through the share economy directly into people’s wallets will surpass $3.5 billion this year, with growth exceeding 25%. At that rate, peer-to-peer sharing is moving from an income boost in a stagnant wage market into a disruptive economic force.” – Forbes Jan 2013
What this episode is about and why you should care
The collaborative economy is an economic system based on people sharing their resources including goods to services. The system takes advantage of information technology that enables the sharing of products and services rather than individual ownership. For example instead of buying a car you can user Uber or Lyft to get around. Instead of going to a box retailer to get something you an go to Etsy and get something directly from individuals. Need a wedding dress? No problem you can get that at Rent the Runway. What about a place to stay? No need to go to a hotel when consumers just like you and me are offering up their own places for people to stay in via Air BnB. The collaborative economy is allowing individuals to connect with each other while bypassing the traditional businesses. Clearly this is a major disruption that is impacting the economy, organizations, and individuals as well. For us to fully understand what the collaborative economy is, I talked to Jeremiah Owyang from Crowd Companies.
What you will learn in this episode
The definition of the collaborative economy.
The Importance of the collaborative economy and why it is so distruptive.
What’s going to happen when robots come into play in the collaborative economy
Is the collaborative economy a short term fad that’s eventually going to be replaced? Or is this going to be a long term sustainable thing that’s going to be impacting the world?
Examples of companies in the collaborative economy.
How different generations are taking advantage of the collaborative economy.
What are the driving forces behind the collaborative economy?
The impacts of the collaborative economy on businesses.
The first companies or leading organizations that started the collaborative economy movement.
Is renting the same as the collaborative economy? What’s the distinction between the two?
The impact of collaborative economy on the government – impacts on safety, security, liability, regulation, and taxation.
What are the negative effects or problems that may arise as a result of the collaborative economy?
What is the future of the collaborative economy?
Links from the episode:
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October 15, 2014
The Single Greatest Cause Of Employee Disengagement
We all lead “double lives.” We have our personal lives where we can: control the technologies and devices we want to use, build and shape communities, share and collaborate with who we want where we want, easily access information, take out loans on a house and make purchases, and have the freedom and flexibility to live how we want. Then we have our professional lives where we: commute an hour each way, use company sanctioned technology, sit in cubicles, get 200+ emails a day, are not able to effectively communicate and collaborate, operate under a command and control hierarchy, feel like a cog, and need to get approvals for buying a $100 office chair.
Should we be shocked that synonyms for employee include “cog” or “slave ?” Or that synonyms for managers include “slave-driver” and “zookeeper.” My favorite synonyms are for “work” which include “drudgery” and “daily-grind.” We spend more hours working than doing anything else in our lives so in 2014 and beyond it’s completely unacceptable that we spend the majority of our time on this earth doing things that are beyond our control.
It’s no wonder that the majority of employees around the world don’t like their jobs and there is one key reason for that. Work practices, attitudes, values, strategies, technologies, and ways of working are evolving and changing at a rapid pace, whereas organizations remain stagnant when it comes to adapting to these changes.
We live in 2014 and work in 1970. This gap is what causes employee disengagement.
Many companies still operate as though employees are expendable, assume that managers are powerful leaders who should control all the information and remain stoic, and that there needs to be a bureaucratic “pecking order” to how things get done.
When it comes to the future of work, organizations must focus on closing this gap. Consider an organization such as gaming company Valve which has completely gotten rid of managers altogether in favor of an approach where employees pick what they want to do, who they do it with, and when they do it. Or how about Whirlpool which recently took a unique approach to leadership by stating that everyone at the company should be a leader and created four categories that every employee in the organization can fit into (leaders self, leading others, leading function, and leading enterprise). Then we have organizations like Netflix NFLX which doesn’t have a vacation policy for employees and allows their team members to make their own purchases without having to get approval for everything they need.
Other companies like Unilever are focusing on workplace flexibility; Unilever seeks to have 30% of their 175,000 employee be location independent by 2015. Perhaps one of my favorite examples comes from 1,000+ person company in Canada called Tangerine. Their CEO Peter Aceto has taken a completely unconventional approach to leadership to the point where he actually encourages employees to tell him about their frustrations or what they might not like about working at the company. Peter has also done a tremendous job of embracing vulnerability in the workplace and shedding the traditional robotic manager approach.
We need more companies in the world that acknowledge this gap between how we work how we live. Companies that focus on closing this gap are going to be the ones that attract and retain top talent, build better leaders, and thrive in the new world of work. If your organization doesn’t think about and plan for the future of work, then your organization has no future!
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October 9, 2014
Is “Privacy and Security” Really Dead?
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http://traffic.libsyn.com/futureofworkpodcast/raj-samani-podcast.mp3
The one stat you need to know
86% of internet users have tried to use the internet in ways to minimize the visibility of their digital footprints. 55% of internet users have taken steps to hide from specific people or organizations. – Pew Research
What this episode is about and why you should care
A few weeks ago on Forbes, I wrote an article called, Privacy Is Completely And Utterly Dead, And We Killed It, as a follow up to that article I wanted to do a podcast. To me, it feels like we’re in a place where privacy and security is not only dead but we, as people, are kind of helping facilitate the death of privacy and security.
This whole series on privacy and security was inspired by the movie “Terms and Conditions may Apply” which provides a fascinating look at how organizations such as Google, Amazon, Twitter, or Facebook are collecting, and using information that users may or may not be aware that they are giving away. It got me thinking, “Is privacy and security dead?” We’re signing away our information every time we use our iPhone, iTunes, Google, or Facebook yet we all keep doing it.
To help discuss this topic, I decided to talk to Raj Samani, the EMEA Chief Technical Officer at McAfee and member of the Advisory Group on Internet Security at the EUROPOL CyberCrime Centre.
What you will learn in this episode
How to make your personal data more valuable?
Issues and problems with regards to personal privacy and security.
Should people care about giving personal information when buying goods or services online?
3 key components required for the future of privacy or better decisions to be made.
The impact of privacy and data for consumers and individuals.
What happens if people don’t value their personal data?
What people should do to be conscientious about their personal privacy and security?
The concept behind digital tattoo.
Privacy and security within organization, and the big challenge on CIOs and CTOs are being faced with.
What can CTOs or CIOs do to deal with organizations that are struggling with organizational privacy and security?
The impact cloud is having on privacy and security – does it make sense for organizations to shift to the cloud?
What should organizations do on privacy and security?
Links from the episode:
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October 8, 2014
20 Quotes to Challenge Convention Around the Future of Work
This is one of the bonuses I sent to people who pre-ordered a copy of my book, The Future of Work, last month. Now, I wanted to share it publicly with everyone else. It’s a compilation of some of my favorite quotes from the book and features some of the world’s most forward thinking business leaders. Hopefully this will inspire you to challenge convention around the future of work. Please feel free to share it, embed it, download it, and spread the word!
20 Quotes to Challenge Convention on The Future of Work from Jacob Morgan
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October 3, 2014
Is Reddit’s Decision To Kill Off Remote Workers A Good Idea?
The popular user generated content site reddit just killed off their remote worker program and issued a mandate that everyone must move to San Francisco or they are no longer going to be employed by the company. Clearly this is causing a lot of discussion and while I don’t think we have the exact details around this, I do have some thoughts on the announcement, in fact we recently released a whitepaper on this very topic called, “The Manager’s Guide to Leading Teams Working Under Flexible Work Arrangements.”
The big issue with many physical workplaces today is that they are a poor reflection of how we want to work, the year that work in (we live in 2014 and work in 1975), what we value, or how we see ourselves. When your physical environment doesn’t align with your values, approaches towards work, or how you work- you start to resent it. This is why so many people despise cubicles and why so many offices today seem antiquated.
However, having just come back from the AirBnB headquarters in San Francisco I can say that there plenty of office spaces around the world that do a great job of getting employees to WANT to work there. Lithium Technologies, Pixar, Airbnb, The Motley Fool, and others all do a wonderful job of this. These companies also don’t force a standard 9-5 work day. In other words, your office is your home base but if you need to leave at a certain time to run an errand or pick up a kid from school, you can do it.
I strongly believe that we don’t HAVE to rely on offices as the only place that work needs to get done, in other words, I don’t agree with a “you have to come into work every day from 9-5″ approach. Still, we have to remember that flexible work and tele-work are not the same thing. Flexible work gives employees a choice of when and where they work but an office can be one of those choices which means that you can ask for some common “physical time” every week but not require that ALL work be done in an office. Today, we can work from anywhere we have an internet connection so it seems a bit nuts for any company to force people to come into the office unless that is what their corporate culture supports.
The corporate culture clearly plays a big role here, there are many companies around the world that have full-time remote employees which are always location independent and timezone independent. Some companies force a 9-5 in office work-day and others seem to be more willing to meet in the middle.
But, if companies want employees to come to an office they should absolutely create a physical environment that people will actually want to come to, otherwise what’s the point? I see nothing wrong with flexible or remote work.
So back to Reddit, overall I don’t agree with their approach for several reasons, many of which were outlined in the article above:
the very employees who helped make reddit successful are getting canned
talent doesn’t only exist in SF
I haven’t seen data which shows that remote work hurts of hinders collaboration
the cost of living in and around SF is among the highest in the nation so forcing people to uproot and move there is a bit extreme
many companies around the world have part/full-time remote workers and flexible work programs and are doing quite well with them
What do you think about their recent announcement?
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October 2, 2014
Education Is Broken: Open Badges Might Be The Solution
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http://traffic.libsyn.com/futureofworkpodcast/Jade.mp3
The one stat you need to know
I’ll use this excerpt from Sir Ken Robinson’s Huffington Post article
“In 1970, the U.S. had the highest rates of high school graduation in the world, now it has one of the lowest. According to theOECD, the overall U.S. graduation rate is now around 75 percent, which puts America 23rd out of 28 countries surveyed. In some communities the graduation rate is less than 50 percent. About 7,000 young people ‘drop out’ of the nation’s high schools every day, close to 1.5 million a year. The social and economic costs are enormous.”
What this episode is about and why you should care
Pretty much anywhere you go today you can hear about the issues and challenges with our education system, especially in the United States. Whether it’s our falling test scores, decreasing graduation rates, increased cost of education followed by increased debt, or just the fact that our education system seems outdated – it seems that there is consensus that something needs to change. But can Open Badges be the solution?
An open badge is a representation of a skill or an achievement. It is issued to recognize these skills and achievements which may help with future education and career opportunities. Think of the cub scouts or even a popular video game where you level up and earn badges and experience points for your accomplishments, now imagine something similar being applied to the world of education. Transcripts and your college diploma are representations of your theoretical knowledge. On the other hand, badges are the representations of the skills and experience you gradually learn and develop through time and paint a much better picture of who you are and what you are good at.
To learn more about open badges and why they are increasingly getting popular in educational institutions as well as in corporations, I talked to Jade Forester who is the Global Coordinator for the Badge Alliance.
What you will learn in this episode
The definition of badges in a learning environment
The purpose and types of badges in a traditional education setting
Examples of educational institutions and companies that are using open badges
The reason why the concept of badges was developed
What needs to happen for employers to be able to take these badges seriously or look at these badges as a way to evaluate potential employees
Determine whether open badges is the solution for the future of education and competency-based learning
Which parts of the world are adopting open badges more than others
A look of open badges in the future.
Links from the episode:
Jade Forester (jade_forester) | Twitter
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October 1, 2014
One Company’s Quest To Eliminate Email
In 2011 the Chairman and CEO of Atos, Thierry Breton, publicly announced that he was on a mission to become a zero email company by 2013 (at least as far as employee communication and collaboration was concerned). When he announced this a few years ago it’s safe to say that their were plenty of cynics and skeptics, after all, how could a global information services company with over 76,000 employees in 47 countries get rid of email? However, Thierry realize that email is not an effective way for employee to work, collaborate, or communicate, instead it was decided that a shift towards more collaborative platforms was required.
This infographic helps tell the story of the Atos zero email initiative:
He [Mr. Breton] estimated that barely 10 per cent of the 200 messages his employees received on an average day were useful, and that 18 per cent were spam. Managers spent between five and 20 hours a week reading and writing emails.”
The article went on to say that,
“When 300 Atos employees measured their email traffic for a week, they found they had sent or received 85,000 messages. Within Atos, 73 per cent of employees estimated they spent more than one quarter of their time managing email, and 82 per cent said they had trouble keeping on top of it. Most importantly, the majority felt this time was wasted and added no value to their day or to the company.”
Clearly these numbers are a bit scary and demonstrate clear justification for the need to go email free. So, three years later, how is Atos doing with their initiative? Well, they aren’t email free yet but Gartner recently did a report on them and here are some recent numbers.
2013 operating margin is 7.5, up from 6.5 percent in 2012. Free cash flow increased year over year from €267 million to €365 million, earnings per share increased more than 50 percent, and selling, general, and administrative costs declined from 13 percent to 10 percent. It’s hard to give all of this credit to email reduction but it is correlated.
Atos did reduce email by 60% going from 100 email messages per inbox per week to just under 40 by the end of 2013. The average number of internal email messages dropped from 100 per mailbox per week in 2011 to fewer than 40 by the end of 2013, a 60 percent reduction. The goal was to reduce this by another 20% by mid 2014 but I wasn’t able to find any current numbers on if this actually happened
Through using their own internal collaboration platform (called blueKiwi, which they acquired a few years ago) they now have over 74,000 employees who are participating in around 7,500 communities and posting nearly 300,000 times per month and viewing almost 2 million pages per month.
Through their report Gartner identified four key practices to help with major corporate culture change (in this case, getting rid of email)
Clear and compelling justification- Managers were very clear and specific with how zero email impacts employees and what this initiative means to how they work. The effort must make sense for employees as individuals, a point that I have been driving across for several years!
A sense of urgency- Setting a clear deadline and making this effort public and tangible was key.
Big investment and complete commitment- Atos tied bonuses and performance evaluations to the zero-email effort (10% of an executives bonus was tied to this). Gartner estimated that Atos is investing 500x more than what a typical company invests in their collaboration efforts. This might sound like a lot but I can tell you from personal experience that most of companies I have worked with or researched are actually under investing in their programs!
Collect success stories- Atos collected and shared as many success stories as they could. One story came from a service desk in Brazil where it was reported that customer issues were resolved up to 30% faster as a result of this effort and that both employee and customers were happier.
Clearly what Atos is attempting to do falls on the “outlier” scale but it should be an inspirational call to action for other organizations around the world to take steps towards creating a more collaborative organization where communication doesn’t depend on technology that was invented in the 70′s. As I’ve long stated, we shouldn’t have to live in 2014 and work in 1975. If a global organization with 76,000 employees can reduce and almost eliminate email, than so can your organization.
Now…go check your email.
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