Agile workers ditch traditional careers

More than 90% of employers claim to have a strategy for agility, but less than 15% give their managers the freedom to employ people in truly agile ways. As a result, some of their most valuable workers are planning to leave traditional careers altogether. That is the verdict of fresh research from the Career Innovation (Ci) Group, a think tank and innovation hothouse supported by leading international employers including Boeing, BT, Marriott and global charity Oxfam.

ìEmployers are restricted by traditional mindsets, budgeting methods and a fixation with ëheadcountíî commented Jonathan Winter, director of the Ci Group. ìBut itís not just employers who need to change. Our research found that frustrated workers lack the skills to negotiate imaginative career deals with their employers. Whatís needed is an entirely new kind of ëcareer partnershipí between employers and workers.î

In a survey of over 2000 people from 32 countries, Ci found that 45% are either ìFlexersî or ìAgile Performersî, groupings which describe people who are seeking new ways of working. Their frustration is so great that around 40% of these two groups say they are planning to leave their employer within the next 12 months, and almost half of them would be willing to give up some of their pay to achieve a more flexible working arrangement. In total 55% of the people surveyed rated a complete change of direction attractive, with ìworking for yourselfî universally the most popular employment option.

According to Ci, the current debate on flexible working is sterile. Employers and workers are pulling in different directions, leading to dissatisfaction, poor performance and a stifling of talent and enterprise. The Ci report urges employers to go beyond narrowly-conceived flexible working programmes to offer a broader mix of initiatives that make better use of peopleís surprising willingness to be agile themselves: As many as 51% of workers are willing to re-train, 40% would regularly work away from home for periods of a week or more, and over a fifth would work reduced hours for reduced pay.

The study also reveals three types of agility that employers need: the ability to scale up and down (scalability), the ability to re-train or gain access to new skills (versatility), and the ability to vary the location and time of work (flexibility). There are hard commercial gains to be made from each of these. For instance in one year alone, Sun Microsystems, which introduced a programme through which staff can work ëwherever they happen to beí, saved $24 million in IT and power costs and $71 million on its property portfolio. And 60% of the time saving was translated into extra working time.

The Ci Groupís latest global research will be formally launched at an innovation event in Oxford on 23rd February. The research sets out a six-point ëManifesto for the New Agile Workplaceí. The Manifesto offers a set of practical and inspirational principles for creating and managing agility ñ simple ideas which could radically change the workplace of the future.

Some of these principles are already being put into practice by the Ci Groupís partner organisations. For example, the global charity Oxfam is developing cut-and-paste roles, rather than traditional job descriptions, so that project teams can be reconfigured using part-time, full-time and contract workers to enable rapid response to crises.

The Manifesto suggests an experimental approach, bringing together managers and staff to try out ideas such as ìsemi-employmentî ñ payment of a retainer to employees for specific work, who may be paid more for additional projects when needed. This leaves them free to pursue other activities and to work for other employers. Other successful experiments have included ìdevelopment fundsî to support retraining as an alternative to redundancy, industry-wide redeployment initiatives, supply-chain approaches to staffing and skills databases that include contract workers as well as employed staff.

Presenting the Manifesto, lead author Tony DiRomualdo commented: ìIn the end, agility cannot be created through systems and processes. An agile organization is made up of agile people. That means companies first of all need to focus on engaging and inspiring commitment from all kinds of workersî. The Manifesto provides both practical help and the inspiration to make some real progress, and the Career Innovation team will be working with the Ci Groupís corporate partners to expand their Campaign for the new Agile Workplace through 2006. This will include further research and practical projects within partner companies.

Career Innovation invites all employers and employees to join the Campaign! There are several ways to take part:

Read the Manifesto ñ order copies from www.cimanifesto.com. The report costs 65 (approx. $110/Ä100) ñ and an executive summary is available to download and distribute free of charge.

Create a new deal for yourself ñ try out the practical suggestions in the Manifesto, which provides guidance for creating a career partnership with your employer.

Join the Campaign ñ details of partnership options for employers are available on www.careerinnovation.com/employers. Partners gain access to research and tools that help attract, engage, develop and retain the skills of talented workers including ëAgile Performersí.