I’m excited to discover we are going to be part of an experiment. The executive management team have decided to trial agile working for back office departments, and they have confirmed the pilot for selected teams within human resources. HR seems an odd place to start; it would make more sense to go with teams who never speak to anyone like legal or IT. Still, it would be a first if the Higher Beings did something that made sense.
First in the trial are so-called centres of competence in HR: compensation and benefits, HR systems, and training and development. I never thought I’d put that last team and ‘competence’ in the same sentence. Even since my nemesis, Creepy Caroline, left the company it has really got no better.
Big Bad Boss and I have been quite positive about agile working. After all, it would allow more working from home, or in his case: from the golf course. I don’t think Lazy Susan has really grasped what’s happening, as she asked me if we are getting those new standing desks with a treadmill underneath. Bless.
New office set-up
We are indeed, as it turns out, getting new desks but not in a good way. We come back after a weekend to find the entire floor has been converted to a chicken coop. All the old cubes and cupboards have been shoved to one side, and on the other side there are two long rows of tiny desks pinned together to form a banquet table effect. Each ‘workspace’ has about forty-five centimetres of desk.
On the other side, the docking stations have been staggered so that there is nowhere to hide from the people sitting opposite. I grab the end desk near the window. Opposite is the guy from HR systems. At least he is unlikely to chat; he doesn’t even make eye contact as a rule. I am all too aware that he had curry last night. Diagonally opposite is a new recruit from training. When she is not speaking rudely on the phone, practically telling employees enquiring about a course to get stuffed, she is listening to Disney music loud enough for us all to hear. I hate Frozen but I try to let it go.
Lazy Susan takes half the morning to find her magazines and then sits down right beside me to chatter. Uff. To be fair, she doesn’t have any choice where to sit; by now we are all perched in a long row like budgies. We’ve each been given a list of agile working rules. We must be in the office on Mondays and Wednesdays so that we continue to communicate and work as well together. I have a feeling we might work a lot better together if we could sit a bit further apart.
Secondly, we must leave nothing on our desks and we’ve been given a locker for any personal items. There is nowhere to leave anything on the desk anyway; I’m having trouble finding space for my arms. Lazy Susan asks if I have a carrier bag as she’ll have to take her manicure set home. Looking on the bright side, she might have a bit more time to do some actual work.
Working from home
Naturally, on Tuesday I decide to work from home. It is a relief to have my own space again. The only problem is my internet is slow and the company remote access takes forever; I could send a message by courier and get it there faster. Much as I like a working-from-home day, they are usually because I am ill or taking a delivery, so I don’t feel expected to put in a full day’s work. Now, I am going to have to motivate and force myself to get something done. Despite the commute, by the end of the day I’m actually looking forward to being back in the office.
Big Bad Boss had been out on Monday, so I hadn’t realised he’d be forced to sit in the chicken coop along with us. It is rather sad to see Big Bad Boss demoted in this way. He can’t close his door as a signal to leave him alone. He does, however, find a reason to closet himself in a meeting room for most of the day. The problem there is there aren’t that many of them and he keeps getting turfed out to make way for scheduled meetings. At that, he decides we need a team meeting every Wednesday afternoon. We sit together in our little escape room to bemoan the new environment.
Does agile working work?
Perhaps you are already working in a setup like this and maybe you even like it. I think agile works for some people, those proper extroverts who are energised by noise and chat. Odd as it seems, I think it is rare for an HR person to be a true people-person like that, particularly in the numerical or technical areas.
No one has mentioned the fact that we are dealing with people’s pay and benefits and it is only a matter of time before I am sat next to someone less discreet. You would think everyone in human resources could be trusted with sensitive data, but experience says otherwise. Sure enough, Big Bad Boss said that someone looked over his shoulder and made a snarky comment while he was writing about an officer’s special pension arrangement. I don’t know if that really happened or not, but it certainly created a big fuss upstairs. Big Bad Boss is no fool. The upshot is the old office arrangement is being put back, for both the reward team and HR systems. I am delighted to hear that training and development will stay agile. The less they are in the office to annoy me, the better.
Next time... Candid enjoys some perks.
