Unilever tries out ‘Agile Working’

KARACHI: Many multinational organisations are seeking to boost productivity in unorthodox ways, well at least unorthodox for Pakistan. In sharp contradiction to the popular practice of making employees spend a certain number of hours at their desks and keeping track of every instance they walk in or out of the office, business are now giving them more leeway.

Going forward with the company’s global work flexibility policy, Unilever Pakistan has introduced a pilot project by the name of ‘Agile Working’ at its head office in Karachi. The programme enables individuals to work from outside the office during the regular work day. This means that ‘agile workers’ may operate from home, office, agency, distributor or alternate locations during business hours as long as they are reachable via the phone or email at all times.

An employee may become an agile worker as long as he or she is fully meeting business needs and job requirements which have been clearly agreed upon in advance with concerned managers – the company has also outlined strict criteria for eligibility into the programme to ensure minimum disruption to production, colleagues and of course, customer service.

Agile Working is not about doing less work, instead it entails working effectively and revolves around the vision: ‘work – an activity, not a place’. It supports individual vitality by giving employees greater control over how and where they work.

Unilever Pakistan has been offering flexi-work hours since 2009. Under this arrangement, all employees are given the option to choose one of three time slots for their work day in consent with their respective line managers.

Even though the organisation’s policies are globally aligned, each Unilever company has the flexibility to find the best mix between global and local and implement it in the best possible manner. In such, there is no generic flexible working arrangement being followed by Unilever companies across the globe.

Wherever such a policy is adopted, each country has tailored it according to specific needs, culture and the prevalent business environment.

For example, the Singapore office is a regional one and hence very different from the setup in Pakistan. Most employees of Unilever in Singapore spend the greater part of the week travelling to different locations. Hence, the concept of ‘hot-desking’ is prevalent and not every employee has assigned seating.

Meanwhile, the pilot for Agile Working introduced at the Karachi office ends next month after which a final decision on permanent implementation of the programme will be taken. At present, 300 of the 550 employees at the head office are part of the project and if formally rolled out across Pakistan, almost one-third of Unilever’s population will be eligible for Agile Working.

Even though employees are currently being given the option to work from home only one day a week, some may eventually go on to become permanent agile workers if the pilot is successful.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 6^th, 2010.