Workshifting is about more than just working from anywhere.  It's about a certain way to work.  Seasoned workshifters work differently than most other knowledge workers.  Many of the behaviours of workshifters are learned by necessity, but once learned, are found to be more effective than traditional methods.  Workshifting is not only positive for the freedom it gives to the worker, but the skills and lessons learned while workshifting can benefit almost all businesses and workers.  As such, the corporate world should take a good look at successful workshifters and see what it can learn from them. Here are just a few lessons that the corporate world can learn.


1) Not every e-mail is life and death

As a workshifter, you often have to contend with intermittent internet access. People who fly often know this feeling well. WiFi is not yet ubiquitous in the air, and as such, a long flight can often leave a road warrior without access to the internet or his emails for hours at a time. Strangely, this doesn't actually cause the world to end.

Office workers are all too aware of the familiar MS Outlook notification, or the buzz of the Blackberry.  The pressure to respond immediately means a break in the flow of whatever else you were doing, so that you can answer that e-mail instantly.

The workshifter, instead, will download his e-mails, and then while disconnected, take the opportunity to respond to all of them, and queue them into his outbox. Upon connectivity, the e-mail responses go out.  

A mandatory disconnection from the e-mail server would do office workers a world of good in both productivity and stress reduction.  The majority of us don't have jobs where an e-mail going without answer for 3 hours will make a difference.  If the subject of an e-mail were that important, then the sender would pick up the phone.  Also, by self-imposing e-mail blackouts, a worker trains his co-workers as to which medium to use for contacting him.  E-mail for regular communication, but a phone call for something that is urgent.

2) Employees do well with flexibility

Workshifting employees are generally more productive than their office-bound counterparts because they can do things according to their own rhythms.  Every individual has his own peaks and valleys of productivity throughout a day, and so, imposing the same schedule on everyone doesn't make sense. People perform better when they're given the opportunity to operate in an environment that best suits them.

In the coporate world, this manifests itself in a few ways.  Giving employees flex hours means that they can work when they're most efficient, instead of forcing both Tina, the mom with two kids who's up at 6 am, and Jim, the 20-something night owl to both come in to work at 9 am.

Opening up network firewalls also gives employees the flexibility to do what needs to get done.  If employees are getting the work done, recharging their creative batteries by checking Facebook for ten minutes will not harm the company.

Likewise, computer admin access for those who request it, can go a long way in an employee's productivity.  More and more people are becoming computer savvy, and those people develop their own preferences for the tools that they are most productive with.  Forcing them to use the tools that the company imposes upon them is handicapping them for no reason.

3) Focus on results

The workshifter doesn't count hours.  He can't because, oftentimes, he's working in between other commitments, at strange times, or in odd places.  Despite this, the workshifter still gets his work done.  This is because he focuses on results and not on how many hours were put in.  Workshifters work with tasks and projects, not with punch cards, and for that reason, they're more likely to get the job done, because instead of saying, "I'll work from X to Y," they say, "This needs to get done."

Similarly, the corporate world that is often predicated on a work schedule, and has the backwards habit of rewarding those who put in extra hours, could stand to learn a thing or two from the workshifter.  

By focusing on results, companies may see work get done quicker because employees don't have to fill up their days.  Instead, they get their work done, and that's all.  Just because one employee leaves at 4 pm, and the other leaves at 7 pm, it doesn't necessarily mean the one staying later is working harder.  More likely, the employee leaving earlier is working smarter.  However, there is no incentive for an employee to work smart if the company doesn't focus on results.

4) Work in any environment

Workshifters are used to working in any environment.  They work from offices, home, cafes, co-working spaces, trains, planes, hotels, and anywhere that they can set up.  Location independence is what makes them workshifters after all.  However, this kind of flexibility to work anywhere can benefit the corporate world as well.

By empowering employees to work from places other than their desks, productivity is maintained when they simply can't be there.  One example is employees who have to attend training seminars or conferences.  By allowing them the flexibility and tools to work from anywhere, they will still be able to be productive in between sessions.  Employees will not feel like they're falling behind, and employers get additional productivity.

In addition, giving the employee location flexibility can help to drastically reduce the loss of productivity from sick days.  When someone is feeling under the weather, they can choose to work from home.  That same person would either have not worked at all that day, or would have come in to work, and possibly gotten other people in the office sick, contributing to future productivity losses.

5) Push decision-making power down the chain of command

Another great trait of workshifters is their ability to get tough problems solved quickly and efficiently.  Because of their remoteness, they don't have the luxury of seeking advice, or waiting for someone else to make the call for them, and so they are forced to make quick decisions.

While this may be scary for some managers, at the end of the day, allowing employees to take more responsibility is more efficient and leads to more confident employees and a quicker more agile team.  When all decisions need to be approved by a manager, things bottleneck, and response time slows.  Employees often know exactly what the course of action to take is, but are afraid to do so, because they have never been empowered to do so.  Therefore, giving the employees the responsibility doesn't materially change the decision that's made, it just allows it to be reached faster.

The corporate world is constantly fighting against the ankle biters.  Those small firms that seem to steal away business simply because they're quicker and more agile.  By empowering employees, large firms can emulate the ankle biters and preserve their domain, while at the same time providing employees valuable leadership and decision-making experience which will allow them to grow within the company.

Conclusion

Workshifters, whether by necessity or ingenuity, have created a new way to work.  That way of working is faster and more efficient than many traditional ways of doing the same work.  There is no reason why traditional companies shouldn't learn from this new wave, and embrace some of the lessons that have come from it.


Photo Credit: mccun934