Chris Ainslie, Leadership Consultant and University of Leeds alum gave a fascinating lecture to an audience of students, alumni and business representatives at Leeds University Business School last night.
Drawing on his own experiences as a Vice President of BT who successfully negotiated and worked a four-day week, Chris shared his own experiences during his talk on the dichotomy of the working balance.
Despite the cynics Chris proved that it was possible to deliver outstanding results in four-days, but this required him to be 'ruthlessly disciplined' to delivering objectives . Chris diligently switched his phone and laptop off at midnight on a Thursday night and didn't switch it on again until 5am on a Monday morning - a concept that would send shivers down the spine of many.
Improving efficiency
Chris controversially described the click on outlook as the 'click of death' and that this habit significantly reduced his efficiency. He made himself complete his list of client facing activity before checking emails and felt this was a much more productive way to operate his working day. He also only read emails once and dealt with anything there and then. Chris gave one of his general managers VP powers on a Friday - the day he wasn't working. It was made clear that he wasn't to delay decisions to a Monday but was to deal with things as a VP would and handle any issues arising there and then. The results of these were fantastic - and it became a fundamental part of the 4-day week criteria.
Measure success by output not presenteeism.
Chris shared his frustration that more organisations don't encourage staff to work from home / work flexible hours and suggested that larger corporations could learn a lot form SMEs who encourage and welcome this type of working arrangement.
Time is becoming the desired commodity and organisations need to recognise this in the rewards and recognitions they offer employees
Chris proved that the balance worked. The results of his business in BT went through the roof and when they saw that it was acceptable more people were working flexibly and approving requests to work flexibly. When he left 17,000 BT employees were working from home and they were proving to be 30% more efficient than people working from the office.
Chris was passionate in his belief that there are very few excuses to refuse a request for flexible working but until middle managers see the light it won't become standard practise. He stressed that to make flexible arrangements work, strong leadership and clear objectives are paramount.
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