(Washington, DC - November 9, 2011) Today, I'm attending the Work-life Focus Conference, sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). The gathering is bringing together the latest thinking in flexible workplaces.
The audience is made up of corporate types, charged with developing and managing workplace flexibility programs, and plenty of consultants and experts who bring the research to bear on the "why" of work-life programs.
It's fascinating.
This morning, writer Dan Heath talked about how to make change. His observation that "bad is stronger than good" nails where most organization put their emphasis - what isn't working and needs to be fixed? Rather than, "What is working, and how can we do more of it?"
He went on to say that analyzing problems is completely natural to us humans, but analyzing success isn't. However, analyzing success is the only surefire way to create more of it.
Heath pointed out that the old way of implementing change within an organization is to plan, then execute flawlessly. Which is a flawed approach.
Rather, Heath says, the optimal way to effect change is to get people to see, feel, and then change. Employees need to see that something can be done differently, feel what that would mean for them, and then make the change - allowing that flaws and mistakes will naturally flow with the process.
Heath, the co-author of Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, gave a compelling case for making change easy.
And making change easy is going to be important to allow work flexibility programs to really going take root.
A breakout session on Gender and Global Differences in Work-Life Effectiveness illustrated how hard it's going to be to change people's minds. Because while many executives understand the benefit to the bottom line in offering flexibility, they also hold a view that anyone who uses flexible options is really not committed to his or her work.
Dissonance ensues.
This view is held across the world, and is fairly intractable. But we do know that when people have a strong work identity - they relate to their organization strongly and value their role - there is a high level of engagement in work. People who are highly identified with their home lives, too, exhibit great engagement with their workplaces.
But there is also widespread fear that by taking advantage of parental leave, or teleworking, or other flexible benefits will derail a career.
What's to be done?
Perhaps a high-level education program for leaders looking at their fears ("work won't get done") and shifting the perspectives there, to start.
And also, having more top performers use and use well the flexible options available will open the space for wider adoption.
MORE FROM THE CONFERENCE in two hours.
