Agile Working. It’s a phrase thrown around a lot when it comes to modern working, but what does it mean really, and is it all it’s cracked up to be? In brief, agile working is simply where employees are given maximum flexibility and minimum constraints, to work how they see fit.
While it may take a fair deal of trust, the reality is that agile and flexible working environments are the direction more and more businesses are heading, and for great reason. More than a desire for a paycheque drives today’s worker, autonomy over where and when you work and a good work, life balance are central to the needs of the modern employee, and indeed central to the best outcome for a company. This is why so many workers today are no longer tethered to their workstations, preferring to hot desk, work out of the office, collaborate in group project areas, and bounce ideas of co-workers in huddle spaces.
With 69% of the millennial, or net generation, wanting to choose when and where they work, it’s no surprise that businesses are turning to agile working to attract the next wave of thought leaders and innovators.
Agile working is more than simply opening up variable office hours, with the mantra “work is an activity, not a place”, serving as a suitable slogan for the practice. Most definitions of flexible working follow this idea, seeing new ways of working as multi dimensional and not just limited to doing the same old work in the same old way, just at a different time. Effective agile working is about more than where, or even when people work, it’s about fostering an environment of freedom of choice for staff; about ensuring a culture where the work carried out is enjoyable and delivers the best possible outcomes.
It’s undoubtedly true that there’s A LOT about ‘agile’ to wrap your head around. But thankfully our industry’s prime agile working research and development team at Haworth have collated all you need to know about agility in the workplace. Their compound infographic series, below, is designed to take you through every element of contemporary agile behaviour, designs and workplace modalities.
Get the complete Agile Working infographic here.
