Location agnostic work

Late last year I heard a term that I had not heard before: that of "location agnostic" work (De Smet et al., 2021). What this means is that our employment does not have to be tied to one specific location - such as an office - but allows us to work from wherever we are. This term - which has been around in IT for over twenty years (Meinert, 2002) - reflects how views are changing on what work is and where it needs to be undertaken.

In today's parlance, location agnostic work does not necessarily mean working from home (aka WFH or "home-shoring"): it might mean that as we move around our region, our nation, or the world, our work can move with us. While many travel writers have been living and bl/vlogging this way in recent times, it has been Covid-19 that has enabled the rest of us with potentially portable work outputs to take advantage of working in a more nomadic way. Although during the pandemic this was necessity, not desire, many of us have really enjoyed the luxury of being able to choose what we come together for, to be more deliberate in how we seek human contact in the workplace. It has also allowed us to ensure we can undertake interruption-free work when we need to by changing location.

Further, most of the time we can decide WHEN we travel into our work's location. This reduces stress, traffic load, consumption of resources, and time spent in advisory or information-only meetings (read more here). Totalling the cost of advisory or information-only meetings in the workplace - average salary by the number of attendees, by the length of the meeting (a fast and dirty calculation by MeetingKing, 2023, here) is worth it. Knowing the costs to the organisation reminds staff to check whether we really need to spend $1k to tell us what is happening, or whether one person writing key elements in an email is better value. Or the boss talking to camera and putting a passworded link on YouTube. We can then be deliberate about going to the pub on Friday night instead for team building.

Why should we do team building? Well, we are in a tight labour market. And a recent global survey shows that the three most significant reasons for employees to leave are that we don't "feel valued by [our] organizations (54 percent) or [our] managers (52 percent) or because [we don't] feel a sense of belonging at work (51 percent)" (De Smet et al., 2021). Work needs to provide us with a sense camaraderie and purpose: not boredom. It is truly time to automate the crap, and focus on adding-value. 

Keep an eye on 'location agnostic' work. I think we are going to see more of it.

Sam

References:

BT. (2011). Phone Home: The Rise of the Homeshored Contact Centre Advisor. British Telecom. https://digitaltransform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Homeshoring.pdf

De Smet, A., Dowling, B., Mugayar-Baldocchi, M., & Schaninger, B. (2021). 'Great attrition’ or ‘Great attraction’? the choice is yours. The McKinsey Quarterly. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functions/people%20and%20organizational%20performance/our%20insights/great%20attrition%20or%20great%20attraction%20the%20choice%20is%20yours/great-attrition-or-great-attraction-the-choice-is-yours-vf.pdf?shouldIndex=false

Jain, M. (2020). The Next Normal: Building resilience in the post-COVID-19 workspace. Digital Debates, 2020(3), 23-35. https://www.orfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Digital-Debates-Journal.pdf#page=23

MeetingKing. (2023). Meeting Cost Calculator. https://meetingking.com/meeting-cost-calculator/

Meinert, K. A. (2002). Subsynth: A generic audio synthesis framework for real-time applications. [Master Thesis, Iowa State University]. https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/49916511/Meinert-Subsynth-MastersThesis-ISU2002-with-cover-page-v2.pdf

Nichols, A. (2022). Digital nomads: a savvy enterprise’s newest HR frontier. Strategic HR Review, 21(6), 185-190. https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-08-2022-0049