I am a great believer in the concept of agile working.  For those of you who don't know what that means, it will soon become apparent you as you read on!

The concept of agile working is not to be confused with "agile methodology" which technologists use to develop software.  Rather it is an idea which challenges that work is done in one particular place at a rigid time eg 9-5.  Work in a professional services firm in theory can be done anywhere and at any time.  Of course – there are practical barriers to this most purist of definitions!

The concept of agile is not new – I first come across it about 18 years ago when places like IBM trialled it successfully.  However, there has been a recent surge in interest.  My focus re-spiked in early 2016 partially through picking up the early trends in my professional reading but also due to the fact I was recovering from an illness which meant I took a later train and got into the office at 9.30 rather than my usual 8am arrival time.

As I recovered I wondered why we didn't think about flexibility more generally in our firm and set about some discussions behind the scenes to get it on the agenda.  Admittedly to my surprise, it received very positive feedback from many people in the business.  We piloted the concept in our London administration team where the team set its own ground rules.  We tested it objectively - It worked and agile working is now widespread across our firm.

It works because it gives us more control over how we do our work – we all have different preferences and creating an environment where we can do our best work is important at Hymans – it's part of our “deal” .  The key to its success is trust – trust from the firm that we will use agile appropriately and trust from us all that we will still be fully able to do our jobs without being at our desks.

For me the key test is the Agile Triangle – that is getting the tripartite balance correct between our clients, our team and ourselves.  In essence, we should test any agile request against does it work for all 3 of the groups – if it doesn't or you would feel uncomfortable if a colleague of yours asked to work in that specific way, then you know it's not hitting the right mark.

What was really nice to see recently is how well we coped with the "Beast from the East" – although we did not have official stats, we saw the vast majority of us unable to travel into the office, yet we still functioned with no discernible reduction in productivity or service standards – there is no way this would have been the case only 4-5 years earlier.

So we remain on that journey as a firm and encourage agile working as something which people can choose to make work for them if they wish.  Please add to the conversation and let us know experiences of agile working where you work now.

As for me – I still take that later train and drop my daughter to school on the way.  However, at the end of this week I will be trialling another of our policies with my 2 months sabbatical....I feel another blog coming on...!