Agile Working: Why do we do it?
Back in 2013 the Web Development became the first team really within The Health Informatics Service to trial agile working. Now I must point out that working agile is different to the agile development working, one is the way of working in which an organisation empowers its people to work where, when and how they choose whilst meeting the needs of the business. The other is an umbrella term for several iterative and incremental software development methodologies. The bit we are talking about today is the movement within NHS staff to ‘maximum flexibility and minimum constraints — to optimise their performance and deliver “best in class” value and customer service’ nhsemployers.org
The link above provides the full context of aims, benefits, considerations and values for the agile working movement and I’m not going to repeat this but instead, I’m going to talk about the benefits and struggles we have faced with this office approach in practice for anyone considering it.
We decided early on as a team to work three days off-site and two days in at the head office, using hot desking facilities, to ensure we had regular catch ups with each other and discuss projects in person. We also utilised various software available to us including VPN access (to hook us up to the network) Cisco Jabber, Cisco WebEx and personally created systems to keep us connected easily even when we weren’t sat next to each other. Although we recognised the benefits that personally choosing your base would have, we also realised that those times sat together in an office were equally important to share with everyone our updates, to keep on top of the conversations with other teams and create that sense of team unity without needing to start a group chat. It’s very easy for the process to become quite isolating quickly and that is why we ensure the core team meet regularly on our protected days.
The benefits for us as a team include:
- When it snows there is no wastage in staff time trying to dig out their car and make it to the office. It creates a calmer atmosphere and reduces the anxiety of trying to travel in difficult conditions. You wake up, see the conditions are treacherous and log on at home.
- If you are under the weather but still able to work it provides the comfortable surroundings needed to relax without worrying about blowing your nose too loud or passing on germs reducing the number of sick days we have as a team.
- It reduces employee costs of travel, giving an added sense of benefit to the role.
- It reduces our carbon footprint. As a two-car household, I do worry about the effects we are having so the ability to reduce unnecessary travel helps us contribute towards improving the environment. It also reduces the number of cars on the road at rush hour which will make the commute for those who are unable to work from home, that little bit easier. #everylittlehelps
- For me, I work better with fewer people around me as it allows for focus. This isn’t for everyone but especially with me leading people, it helps create a clear separation of time to support and time that I need to get on with my personal responsibilities.
- It improves my home/work life balance as instead of now getting up really early to make myself presentable and travel into the office I can have an extra half an hour sleeping, and when I finish work I can crack straight on with some household chores and still have some downtime left at the end of the day to regenerate.
- It reduces travel time between meetings as now instead of commuting to the meeting location and then heading back to base, I have the ability to hot desk at multiple locations giving me more time at the desk to create outputs.
- We seem to be a happier team. Gone are the Monday blues, the dreading getting up and the build-up of office politics. We aren’t with the same people five times a week which reduces the confrontation that might arise from stressful situations building up over time.
- Because we aren’t in each other’s pockets five times a week we purposely make the time to socialise with each other outside work to catch up with each others lives. Because of this, we end up having an interest in each other’s lives. We’ve spoken in a previous article about why we create importance on work being enjoyable but I really do believe this is what helps get through the working week more productively.
Working agile does mean we need to have a mutual respect for the process and benefits it brings. It’s quite easy for the boundaries to be stretched and forgotten such as forgetting to log onto our chat system or not coming into the office on the protected days but I believe the unit we have created allows for us to gently nudge each other and remind ourselves why we created the structure in the first place. We are very lucky as a team to have a role that allows for agile working as other teams are required due to the nature of the job to be on site. What are your thoughts towards agile working? Are you an agile worker and would prefer to not be? Are you a static member of staff and think others should be too?
Published by Rebecca Johnson on 01.11.2018
Becky is our Team Leader and Web Developer. She has been working within the Webteam since July 2011 and her role includes managing and supporting the whole team and developing the infrastructure of websites and ensuring sustainability. Becky also has Level 3 qualification in Education and Training, Level 2 qualification in Customer Service, PRINCE2 Foundation and Management Studies certificate.
