Smart working

Smart working is a modern approach to business productivity that seeks to provide workers with important tools—work culture and leadership, workspace and technology—that allow them to decide when, where, and how they carry out their jobs. In many ways, smart working is a direct consequence of the increasing availability of technology such as automation and remote access in the contemporary working world. Philosophically, the argument for smart working is based on the premise that workers are more motivated and productive when they have the freedom to choose when and how they work than when they are forced to do their jobs at a specific physical workspace. Smart working encompasses any and all practices that improve the flexibility of work via innovative technological solutions, including remote work. Although it can have some disadvantages, smart working is quickly emerging as a standard practice in many professional fields and is likely to become even more prevalent in the future.

Background

While the concept of smart working is generally regarded as a modern innovation, its underlying principles have been part of how people lived and worked practically since the dawn of civilization. The members of early hunter-gatherer societies were among the first humans to have a distinct home-work dynamic. These hunter-gatherers regularly went out into the wild to find the sustenance they needed to survive and brought what they found back home every day. In their homes, they butchered and cooked the animals for food, sorted and prepared all the foodstuffs and other materials they foraged, and made clothing to wear from the hides they acquired. As such, work in hunter-gatherer societies was something that took place as much in the home as outside of it.

Home working evolved further in the medieval era, when many working-class people operated craft and trade shops in their own homes. The people who ran such shops made a living and supported their families by providing various goods and services for public consumption out of spaces specifically designed to facilitate home-based work. For instance, many working-class people in medieval England resided in one-room work-homes that served as kitchen/workshop, bedroom, dining room, dairy, butchery, tannery, and more all in one. In the Middle Ages, many craftspeople, including bakers, weavers, shoemakers, brewers, potters, and blacksmiths, regularly worked from home.

During the Renaissance, merchants and craftspeople began utilizing what were arguably the earliest home offices. Many of these enterprising individuals lived and worked in abodes that had both street-facing storefronts and private living areas. However, during this period people also started to construct administrative buildings where various types of work could be done in a centralized location. This shift in thinking about how and where work was done ultimately led to a move away from home-work.

By the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, most working men and women left their homes to work in factories or other central work locations, including some of the earliest modern office buildings. Still, some people continued to do work like baking or laundering from their homes. As office work became increasingly common in the twentieth century, even more people found themselves doing their jobs from commercial workspaces. Even so, the introduction of technological innovations such as the telephone, typewriter, and computer laid the groundwork for an eventual return to home-work.

Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 caused many businesses to close their physical office doors. However, employees could still work from home. Because of the number of people forced to work from home, coupled with advancing technologies like video calls, high-speed internet, and cloud-based computing, many companies changed their business model to include more remote and out-of-office work for employees. This cut down on certain overhead costs for employers, such as rent or lease payments, electricity, and maintenance of a physical building. It also cut down on some costs for employees, such as for those who had to commute, while potentially adding costs for higher internet speeds and home office equipment. However, following the pandemic, many companies began forcing employees back to the office.

Overview

Smart working is an approach to business that improves the flexibility of work methods through various innovative solutions. Some common elements of smart working include flexible hours, variable working locations, and shared responsibilities. In many respects, smart working is closely related to the traditional concept of teleworking. However, where teleworking simply makes it possible to move work from the office to the home, smart working effectively enables people to do their jobs almost anywhere, at any time. In that sense, smart working can be described as a natural evolution of teleworking.

Smart working has become an increasingly popular alternative to traditional work methods for many reasons. Over time, human resources have become the most important aspects of business. As a result, employers who want to keep their businesses operating as efficiently as possible must ensure that their employees are engaged and motivated to do their best work. Alternately, smart working allows employees to choose when and where they do their jobs so that their work lives can be as flexible as possible.

Structurally, smart working is based on a philosophical framework of four basic concepts: space, time, technology, and people. The space aspect of smart working reflects the belief that work does not have to be limited to a business’s physical limitations. In other words, the work itself is more important than where it is done. Similarly, the time aspect of smart working is based on the idea that reorganizing work processes allows for greater focus on the work at hand. When work time is more flexible, employees have more freedom to be creative and productive. Technology is the physical foundation of smart working. The various technological innovations that have enabled people to work from home are what makes smart working possible in the first place. Ultimately, all of this revolves around people, the most important element of smart working. At its heart, smart working is about giving people the freedom to choose when and where they do their jobs, to maximize their productivity and work output in every sense and improve their satisfaction.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to smart working. On the plus side, smart working affords workers significantly increased freedom and autonomy because it gives them more of an opportunity to organize their time. It can also reduce or eliminate the costs associated with maintaining a physical workspace, cut down on time spent commuting to and from work, and provide a more welcoming environment for people with reduced mobility. Smart working can make it easier for people to reconcile their work lives with their home lives and achieve a healthier work-life balance. Importantly, effectively deployed smart working systems can lead to increased productivity. Finally, the improvements that smart working brings to employees’ lives can elevate their opinion of the company and attract other potential talent. On the negative side, smart working can lead some people to view their work as invading their personal lives. It can also increase feelings of isolation due to lack of contact with coworkers. When it is not properly executed, smart working can even decrease productivity. Lastly, some of the savings generated by smart working can translate to increased expenses for workers who are left to pay for things like office supplies, equipment, and internet connection on their own.

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