Working From Home: Decision Making for Managers
Working From Home: Decision Making for Managers
10th May 2021There are three broad questions which will determine whether a manager moves their firm to home working: will it work for me, do my managers and employees want it, and is it financially viable for my firm.
First and foremost, the manager needs to determine if it will work – or if it can be made to work. If it won’t work, there’s no point in starting discussions to see if employees want it. If it won’t work, there’s no point in looking at costs and cost savings.
And that’s the question we focus on in this webinar – will it work? Will home working work for the manager’s firm? And of course, we’ll show how the manager should go about assessing whether or not it will work. We focus on this from the perspective of the jobs done and the people who do them.
In this webinar, we will make use of the graphical model of our latest decision-support tool on home working. This tool is free to use, and all participants can go on to use the tool without limit.
Our tool aims to have you, the manager, think about the issues of home working in a structured way. It’s a huge and complex subject. Our tool doesn’t give you an answer, but it does give you the necessary thought process.
The tool contains a series of questions to guide you through all the things you need to think about when considering whether home working suits your organisation’s needs.
Before you answer each question, you will be provided with information to help you think about the question posed. You then answer 'yes' or 'no'.
The tool is iterative, allowing you to move backwards and forwards in case you change your mind on any aspect under consideration. Depending on your answers, you'll be presented with further information and a summary.
Programme
We’ll start the webinar with an overview of the issues in home working: company systems, technology used by workers, quality issues, information security issues, work culture, worker autonomy and the ability to gain feedback from work done, job design, work breakdown, supervision and observation, management, worker personality, productivity and the legality of the workhome.
We’ll then work through each of these using our decision-support tool, giving examples of scenarios allowing and scenarios precluding home working.
The aim ultimately is that each participant will understand the issues and be able to go on to repeatedly use our free and unrestricted tool to evaluate home working in their firm.
Since everyone will have access to the tool and its notes and descriptions, there will be no notes give. We’ll be happy to take questions both during the session and after.
Location
Online. UK-wide participation
This webinar is held online using GoToMeeting.
About the Presenters
John Berry
John is an alumnus of Loughborough University of Technology, the Open University Business School and Birkbeck, University of London, in engineering, management and organisational psychology. He has run technology and engineering companies and led R&D activities in SMEs and multi-nationals for over 30 years. He has been instrumental in driving public and corporate policy across technology and engineering for firms and governments. In a global career, John has led teams in 32 countries. He is a Chartered Manager and a Chartered Engineer.
Sue Berry
Over the past 30 years Sue has led the human resource function in several firms, heading up and driving organisational improvement and change across chemicals, aerospace, education and charities sectors. She has been instrumental in shaping relationships between people and organisations in pursuit of growth and prosperity for all. Sue is an alumna of Newcastle University, De Montfort University and the Open University in education, human resource management and psychology & economics. She is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD.
General FAQs
Your questions answered
How many people are on the sessions?
We limit the number of attendees to 20 people; any more and people will find it difficult to get their questions answered.
Do I have to login to your tool (and register my details)?
No. Access is unrestricted.
Can I use the tool repeatedly?
Yes. We recommend that initially you follow the questionnaire considering your firm as a whole. We suggest that you then consider your firm department by department, team by team. And once that’s done, we recommend you get down to the detail, reviewing one person, one job. To do a full analysis, you will therefore have to repeat the questionnaire many times.
When will you run the session?
We will run it from 3:30pm to 4:30pm on Monday 10th May 2021.
Can I access the webinar from anywhere?
Yes, you can. All you need is Internet access via a mobile phone, tablet, laptop or PC. You’ll need a headset for privacy.
What is the cost of the sessions?
There is no charge for participation.
Will the session be recorded and can I listen again?
No. We will not record the session. It's once only.
Problems with the Get Your Ticket link?
There are currently a few issues with the Eventbrite link. Please press 'Retry'. This will bring up the ticket information. Usually once does it, but in some cases you may have to press a few times. We apologise for the inconvenience.