As I wrangle my way through launching Chatter Mill, I have been thinking a lot about how Blue Hill Solutions can contribute to the future of the employee workplace. The more I think about it the word “workplace” is part of the issue — “workspace” seems more appropriate. More and more, people are working from home or remotely. And that trend will continue as the traditional top-down corporate structures are further flattened by access to information and technology.
But companies don’t need to fear those days — they need to adapt to them. Web 2.0 is the near standard on the internet and it’s slowly edging its way into internal communication strategies as well. But no one has really put the whole package together. I am interested in what people think are the key headaches when it comes to your every day work tasks? Is it getting good up-to-date information? Is it finding the right people in the company? Is it understanding certain operating procedures and processes? Is it knowledge management in the ever-revolving door of today’s corporate careers?
What do we need to create a workspace for the future? The generation that has never used a typewriter is coming soon to an office near you.
April 13, 2007 at 6:58 pm
My issues are not web issues, they are work issues. The implementation may be web related but the issues are not.
First is meetings. No one has time for them, and they so easily get off track. We need to meet as a management team, but I start before 7am, and there are others that don’t start until 9:30am.
Second is tracking projects and tasks. I barely can keep track of my own tasks and projects much less the ones of the people that work for me or with me. Whatever the solution is here, it is a requirement that it not take more of my time to keep the information up to date. It probably should tie into everyones calendar, and possibly hyperlink to their email. But from there?
This feeds into the third issue of keeping track of our strategic plan. As top managers, we need to look at all of our tasks, and all of the projects we are responsible for in terms of the corporate strategy. How well is our #1 priority doing? If I make the tactical decision to do something, how does that impact my top strategic issues?
And underlying all of this stuff is ‘How well are we doing towards our tactical and strategic goals?’ For example, if we implement Chatter Mill, how will that help us achieve our strategic goals? How do we measure our movement forwards towards our goals and the effect that Chatter Mill had on this movement?
April 24, 2007 at 9:53 pm
1) I am not convinced yet, that anything besides mutual respect and collegial relationships, can resolve the meeting scheduling issue. Of course, this does not mean that the web couldn’t make arranging these meetings easier. Lately, I have become a fan of the Google Calendar system which is in Beta, but I don’t know that anyone has really hit the nail on the head with that yet. Anyone feel differently?
2) Tracking projects and tasks — this is an interesting issue and one that I think, if resolved, would be a bazillion dollar idea. Chatter Mill is not a project tool, but if you are using a project tool that works for you, Chatter Mill can provide a great post-partum (my business partner thinks post-mortem is a bit too macabre — who wants to think of their project as “dead” anyway?) feedback process. Leaders of the project can make themselves available to other members of the project team through our tool and are able to store valuable feedback about the project that can be referenced in the future. Like you, I am still searching for a workflow for making project management easier for all members of a project team. It’s definitely a Blue Hill “think tank” issue.
Regarding Rob’s final two issues — I think these are linked. It’s all about communicating strategy to employees and then making sure they have a way to funnel information back to you. It’s about the two-way conversation. Have you made it easy for employees to know how the company is doing on the #1 priority? A dashboard with performance metrics that is posted online or on a bulletin board is the best way to make sure employees can stay focused on the goal. Make sure it’s not too many measurements or a thick report. It’s about priorities — no one can prioritize successfully if everything in a 20-page report is a “#1 priority”.
Finally, Chatter Mill provides the channel for employees to dialogue with management about the business. First and foremost, it is a communication tool. The rating system, though, allows you to get a Snapshot read of the pulse of the organization. The reports can then help you drill down into the problem areas or even help get people past a particular area of pain so they can get focused back on strategic goals. Or even better, Chatter Mill helps illuminate employee ideas on how to improve.
I return to the age-old adage that employees truly are a company’s greatest asset — if that’s true, how come we don’t listen more to what they have to say. When you do, you will see employee engagement increase, retention improve and if linked with a clearly communicated strategic plan, Chatter Mill helps employees tell you immediately and directly when something hasn’t gone according to plan (not weeks later as it makes its way slowly from the water cooler to your office). Chatter Mill isn’t a silver bullet — think of it more as a silver tongue…for your organization.