Good Practices In Managing Virtual Organizations
We have posted a copy of the presentation that Edel Keville and Glenn Dirks made at the September 2008 Tertulia. Their talk was based on research they conducted earlier this year to learn about management practices for virtual organizations. They reviewed documents and conducted interviews with leaders, managers and individual contributors at MySQL, a database software company recently acquired by Sun. MySQL has 400 employees in 30 countries; 70% of whom work from home. Glenn and Edel identified several cultural traits and management practices that enable virtual work.
http://www.newwow.net/members/node/957
From our members:
- New book: Mass Career Customization. Eric Richert forwarded this book suggestion from Noel Hirst. Mass Career Customization was written by a couple of people from Deloitte. In it, the authors discuss a new way to look at careers: "Today's career is no longer a straight climb up the corporate ladder but rather an undulating journey of climbs, lateral moves, and planned descents." Noel observes that "Chapter 3 seems to talk about Flexible Work Arrangements as point solutions which may not work over a career span or may not work as much as certain entities assumed they would." http://www.newwow.net/members/node/931#comment-640
- New in the library: Top 10 Myths About Mobile Work. Edel Keville contributed a new white paper from Sun's Open Work Services Group. The paper lists ten common myths (Examples: #3 -Teams can't be productive if they don't sit together; #4 - Employees prefer traditional work arrangements; #8- If managers allow mobile work, they will lose control). It then provides research-based information to help organizations assess distributed work options. http://www.newwow.net/members/node/956
Featured study: Designing Space to Support Knowledge Work
The authors, a team from Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Kansas, and Steelcase, examine the impact of office design and spatial layout on employee productivity and connectivity. They base their analysis on a case study: the relocation of a design firm to new premises, which were designed to support organizational culture and creativity. Researchers learned that layout can contribute to the density of different networks of interaction at shorter time intervals. Layout can also indirectly contribute to productivity, by facilitating the sharing of ideas, communication, and the joint exploration of possibilities in the nonroutine phases of knowledge work [the second point was not supported statistically but there was evidence to support it.] Read on at: http://www.newwow.net/members/node/958
Pitfalls of green development
Huangbaiyu, an agricultural village of 1,400 people in northeast China, was selected to become a model eco-village. But things went terribly wrong. In the first phase of the proposed 400-home village, a unit of 42 homes stood nearly empty. Only two families had moved into the modern green village and they moved simply because their old homes had burned in a fire. Read more of our summary of research by Berkeley anthropology student Shannon May who studied the effect of the new energy technologies (solar and bio-gas) on Chinese village life. More at: http://www.newwow.net/members/node/949
Also newsworthy: We focus on a trio of surveys this week:
- Job-hopping Gen Yers. Seventy percent of Generation Y leave their first job within two years. In addition, Gen Y members are constantly looking for another job, even if they're happy with their current one. http://www.newwow.net/members/node/644#comment-638
- Study shows mixed attitudes towards "always on" work. Working Americans have mixed views about the impact of technology on their work lives. For example, 46 percent say information and communication technologies (the Internet, email, cell phones, instant messaging) increase demands that they work more hours and 49 percent say the use of these tools increases job stress. http://www.newwow.net/members/node/735#comment-639
- CFO survey shows business benefits of flexibility. According to a study by BDO Seidman, LLP, and Work+Life Fit, Inc., chief financial officers believe work/life flexibility can positively impact their companies beyond employee issues, but say if flexibility is managed solely by human resources, it won't succeed. http://www.newwow.net/members/node/752#comment-642
Nappak - a design trend? For those offices with no space for a separate sleep room comes Nappak, a portable sleeping cube. See a picture of this blow-up sleep shelter at: http://www.newwow.net/members/node/150#comment-637
