Question

Case: Work Styles Promotes Flexible Work at TELUS

TELUS, a telecommunications company, is a Canadian company spread across several time zones. TELUS’s Work Styles program was started to enhance employee productivity, help employees stay happy by promoting practices that enhance their work-life balance, and support TELUS’s commitment to environmental sustainability. Work Styles allows employees to choose to work away from the office—at home or on the road. Part of the Work Styles program includes providing employees with technology that can help them meet their job responsibilities and allow them to work when and where they can be most effective. Because many employees work at home or on the road, TELUS provides mobile devices including smartphones and notebook and tablet computers. These devices include teleconferencing and video conferencing capabilities and cloud-based networking applications, which help employees collaborate and interact with their peers. TELUS provides training courses that help employees work effectively in such a flexible work environment. These courses cover how to lead effective meetings, establish and sustain team norms, and lead and succeed in high-performing Work Styles teams. Also, employees can participate in weekly one-hour webinars during which the philosophy of the Work Styles program is discussed, and they can ask questions and share success stories. TELUS’s goal is to have 70 percent510of employees working on the road or at home, rather than in office buildings across Canada.

If you were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of Work Styles, what outcomes or data would you collect? How would you collect your data or outcomes? What are the challenges of delivering learning to employees who work on the road or at home? What should be included in mobile-delivered training courses to ensure that employees learn?

Answer 1

1. Outcomes to be collected or evaluated to measure the effectiveness of Work Styles or measure the success of program from TELUS

- Measurement of productivity with the same duration when the employees worked at home or road with respect to when they worked at office.

- Productive Working Hours of each employee

- Attrition of Talent and Attracting new resources

- Quantifying Work Life Balance on Interval Scale

- Operating Costs - Cash Savings over the years paid on real estate rent and facility maintenance.

- Carbon Footprints - Reduced consumption of energy directly impacting the environment

2. What are the challenges of delivering learning to employees who work on the road or at home?

- Not every employee will be logged into their devices at the same time due to flexible work schedules.

- Since devices would work online, connectivity i always poses a threat to seamless communication.

- Participation level of employees and ineffective communication can lead to lot of confusion and distraction.

- Building Trust

3. What should be included in mobile-delivered training courses to ensure that employees learn?

- Content should be mobile/device friendly.

- Keep the training content short as most of the mobiles have screen size of 5.5 inches. Ensure to make content which is comfortable for reader.

- Specific to Multimedia to be added. Inclusion of right multimedia can keep the reader engaged and learn faster. We can also think of adding read aloud feature with which employee can put aside the device and listen to the content.

- Interactive Content - Now that you are able to engage with employee in the effective way, having a facility to interact/two way communication is going to enhance the experience. Facilities like uploading a certain content which becomes visible to all become an empowering act. A pen tool for making notes, Search within the content, Facility of zoom to read the content.

- Inclusion of Animation, Games and Quizzes to gauze the understanding.