« Guess this is as good a place as any... | Main | Facebook App Overload »

15/05/2008

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Jamie Leonard

Very interesting. I believe that change starts at home, where YOU are and what YOU do. We work in recruitment and we preach forward thinking, job satisfaction and innovative working dynamics yet the message of that video could not be more far removed from the majority of sales environments in the UK, where creative thinking, flexible job structures and ACTUAL THOUGHT are substituted for basic metrics like call time and appointment levels.

A great example are companies banning instant messenger. If they want to speak to there mates, they will! Either via email, the phone, text message, social networks and so on. Messenger is a great way to communicate with clients, as its personal, closed and does what it says on the tin…is instant. Maybe those companies should stop trying to prevent people from wasting time in work and look at why those people are so disengaged with the job they are doing they would rather preoccupy themselves throughout the day than progress themselves?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s be a cold day in hell before you see hammocks and back rubs at MyLongLunch Towers but there needs to be a happy medium between structure and freedom.

Outside of that, just attach electronic dog collars to your telesales staff and zap them when you aren’t on the phone ;-)

Matt

Am completely with you on the messenger point Jamie. I've heard just about every excuse you could imagine from companies who ban it. All the way from it "distracts people from their work" to "it's a security risk". Well you know what, if configured properly is no more of a security risk than anything else and when I see my team using it I know it's not distracting them from them work it's actually allowing them to work smarter and faster. What other medium allows you to have multiple conversations with people at the same time, get answer to simply questions in milliseconds and pull together instant virtual meetings to share thoughts on a topic. Whether you colleague is in Leeds, Cape Town or sat two desks away it doesn't matter.

Many businesses are still suspicious of "electronic forms of communication", I say get a life. The generation entering the workforce now expects to communicate in this way and if you don't allow them to you won't get the best from them. Does this make them less good at face to face interactions? Absolutely not....just think how many diverse people and how often your average 21 year old communicates effectively with. It only makes them better at "real life" conversations not worse!

The comments to this entry are closed.