Scenario three - The larger enterprise

My name is John and I work in the planning Deaprtment of a Local Authority. At the moment, every day I drive into Winchester from home. Apart from team meetings, training and a few other things, most of my time is spent at my desk answering the phone, dealing with e-mails etc and the fairly routine processing of planning information.

Last month, I completed our application process to become a part-time Teleworker. I am not keen on full time home working as I think you can become rather isolated from your colleagues or even depressed if you are not careful. However, I can see the benefits to me and my employer of working at home or remote from the office for at least 2 days most weeks.

I suppose I applied because my manager is now goaled to encourage more Tele forms of working in the department. The organisation reckons it will reduce office (and parking) space by at least 25% and be seen to be pro-actively trying to reduce travel by car. That’s important to the authority when it talks to companies in the area about Corporate Travel Plans and the like.

I filled in the form, mind you it wasn’t that easy. I had to state how my preferred form of working wouldn’t unduly impact our clients or my colleagues. So I had to suggest ways to minimise the impact on days I would not be in the office and agree these with my colleagues as well as my manager. Well, I must have done a good job, because within a couple of weeks I got the OK.

 

I have been part of the new Teleworking team now for around three months. My office base is still in Winchester, though I have now agreed to work from home on Mondays and Wednesdays and I book a hot-desk in the nearby Eastleigh local office each Friday. The system will allocate me a team desk in Winchester on Tuesdays and Thursdays, though some weeks, inevitably this may vary. My new terms and conditions of employment reflect the changes as do my allowances.

Monday – it’s so good not to have to contemplate forcing myself out of bed at 6.00am like I used to in order to be on the road by 7.15am to try and miss the worst of the traffic. It’s around a 25 mile commute, but it is very rare it takes less than an hour. Then there’s the time from the park and ride which I have started to use. We get a concessionary rate which is good given it costs a fortune to park near the Winchester HQ. If the train station was a little nearer, I’d use the train more regularly given we get a 20% discount on rail fares too.

Anyway, it’s a home based day thank goodness. I’ve just walked the little one up to school and now, just before 9.00am, I’m ready to log on the network using my fancy encryption card. Apparently you can be breaking the Data Protection Act if you access personal records over an unprotected (non-secure) link. They also made me set up separate password access on my own PC. I guess some of the data even I see as a planning officer is sensitive and could be dynamite in the wrong hands. That’s why the keyboard is automatically locked out after 10 minutes of non-use too.

There’s not too big an inbox but a couple of new quite complex jobs to work on today which is much easier at home. I know the boss is calling me at 10.00 on a couple of my projects and we have a team update meeting this afternoon where I get to use my new webcam. Not quite like being in the same room, but almost as good. Otherwise, with all my regular contacts and colleagues knowing that Monday is a home based day, the phone should be quieter than in the office, ideal for concentrating on that new business park outline planning application.

Tuesday morning, so it’s the dreaded journey into the Winchester Office. However, it’s not as bad as it used to be because with the new Tele hours (my core hours are between 10 and 5) I now set off just before 9.00 and can follow the main rush in. I’m usually at my desk by 9.45am at the latest. The extra space at the park and ride is a blessing as is being able to get a seat on the bus.

I forgot to check which desk the building services reception team had allocated me, so I needed to ask when I got there (it would be nice if I always have the same desk, but at least there is a dedicated area for our team so I usually  bump into at least three or four of the team). I log into the system and automatically the system configures the nearest printer to me and the phone on the desk to receive calls made to my number published in the on-line phone directory.

I have a storage area here as I do at Eastleigh (though a smaller one there as it is not my ‘home’ office), where I will collect a few things I keep at the office like pens, paper and my picture of the family. I’ll use the instant message facility to get input from a couple of my team colleagues who I know have some expertise in this area.  A few minutes later and I have received a couple of helpful replies and a phone call too (like me when I’m at home, they use cost-saving VOIP (Internet) phones) and both the tricky issues are sorted.

There’s a notification of a voice mail when I get back from lunch. I listen to the message. Need to refer to something which is, annoyingly, back at the home office so I set a reminder for myself on the system to deal with it tomorrow. Teleworking is great but you do need to think ahead more and be well organised. There’s a string of lunch time instant messages too on a colleague’s promotion and suggestions on how and when we celebrate. The boss has put a lot of emphasis on get- togethers, including social ones, to ensure the team still meets and chats regularly.

Wednesday morning and on the radio I hear there are major problems on the M3 – I smile as it is a home based day. I later learn that a couple of the team took one look at the traffic news, decided not to even try to get into Winchester and dropped into the Eastleigh office instead. Great that we can log into our accounts at whichever office we pop into. There is soon even going to be provision at some of the District and Unitary Council offices that we work with to log in at their premises too.

Thursday morning and it’s my 2^nd office day of the week in Winchester. Someone was busy yesterday, there’s an e-mail with a scanned document that was sent at 6.15am. I print it out so I can add more notes for tomorrow’s process meeting (must remember in future to do notes in black in case they need to be scanned).   An uneventful afternoon, so I get away promptly but put in an extra hour late evening when the kids are tucked up in bed. I’m ‘baby-sitter; tonight, Claire is out with her friends celebrating a birthday.

Friday morning, so I get the bus to the Eastleigh office – it’s a good ten minute walk from the bus stop, but a bit of exercise and fresh air is good for me. I see on our local Eastleigh page that a sandwich bar is trying to see if there is any interest in a delivery service. Reply – Yes. Need to make sure I make time before this afternoon’s meeting to look at the processes again in more detail. Message from colleague about the process changes

So, it’s head down now until lunch time. If I had been in the Winchester office it would have been difficult not to be distracted by the talk about the process changes. Lunch time and I take my sandwiches to the communal area. Its almost like living 2 lives, I have my team colleagues at base and ‘the regulars’ here at the Eastleigh office. It amazes me some times just what is going on that I would never have heard about if I had been based with my team all the time.

We use the electronic white-board in the team-meeting office we pay for here in Eastleigh. It’s a good meeting – a bit heavy for a Friday afternoon – and we reach agreement on the next steps. We even set up a time – again in Eastleigh – for my review in a couple of weeks. Preparing for such as reviews or important meetings generally is so much better on my home based days when it’s relatively quiet and I can concentrate.

Finally, I methodically gather the files I need for next week and fill in my time sheets (we all have these now, they’re simple to produce on-line with the hours automatically calculated for you). I also use the on-line holiday booking system to confirm the request for a week’s leave I mentioned to the boss earlier.