Don't just work harder, work 'smarter'

MANILA, Philippines - In today’s highly globalized business landscape, companies are under intense pressure to get work done faster and cheaper. But working better isn’t just about working harder. It’s about working smarter.

The past decade, the world of work has undergone a radical transformation. In the best-run companies, where working “smarter” is a way of life, the changes have been dizzying. Work is no longer a place you go. It’s what you do. Teams don’t huddle in conference rooms. They collaborate from different continents. Schedules aren’t 9 to 5. They span time zones. Workers are no longer measured by how much they show up. They are measured by how much they produce. And colleagues aren’t always inside the corporation. Increasingly, they are outside, too.

Consultants, partners, customers—all are new and important voices in the corporate conversation. Instead of being a frustration, these type of networks can become a competitive asset.

But too often, companies aren’t able to capitalize on the new world of work because they are stuck in old systems, old processes and old ways of thinking. They remain so at a terrible cost. A new survey from the IBM Institute of Business Value, “A New Way of Working,” found that companies that embrace the new way of working can outperform their industry peers by a long shot.

In fact, companies that outperform their industry peers are three times as likely to have created dynamic, collaborative and connected work practices. The executives who IBM surveyed reported that greater collaboration wasn’t just helping them improve operational efficiency. It was also enabling growth.

How do companies adopt the new way of working? They start by adopting use of the kinds of social networking tools that allow employees to collaborate and communicate in real time. According to online statistics, there are over 500 million users of Facebook around the globe. This clearly indicates that adoption and acceptance for social networking tools are rapidly growing. Locally, the Philippines has almost 16 million Facebook users alone, making it the 8th largest country for FB users in the world.

Companies must also make sure that employees can work productively regardless of location, time or device. Managers must have instant access to the data that allows them to match the right people with the right skills and with the right projects—regardless of title or rank or salary level. Teams need to be able to come together quickly and disband just as quickly.

The survey found that there are always people within companies who will resist these changes. Networks threaten hierarchies. Some managers scoff at the notion that employees don’t need to physically show up in the office every day. Others fight the spending that must occur in order for companies to become fully networked. There are those who still believe that hoarding information is power; that the few can make better decisions than the many. Others will argue that it is safer to continue to close doors.

But there is simply no turning back. The lessons have already poured in: When some IT departments banned the use of wikis because of corporate security concerns a decade ago, junior employees simply set up wikis on their own. When managers tried to guard their turf, employees used instant messaging to get around them. When customers got upset about a product flaw, they shouted about it on the Internet.

Working smarter isn’t about resisting the new work world. It is about working with them. Companies must now equip themselves so that they can compete in this new reality. This isn’t just about convincing naysayers to share power. It is also about adopting new technology tools that enable companies to create digital nervous systems so that they can participate, compete and collaborate in this new world order. This means empowering more and more employees with responsibility, ownership and decision-making power.

The author is the President and Country General Manager of IBM Philippines.