Creating a Collaborative Workplace: Amplifying Teamwork in Your Organization

 Amplifying Teamwork in Your OrganizationLet’s begin with a question. Are you experiencing barriers to working collaboratively, even though you know collaboration is necessary? If you answered yes, this article is for you.

We all know that contemporary work requires collaboration. In our fast-paced, knowledge-intensive workplaces, success requires people to integrate and leverage their efforts. However, knowing that collaboration is essential and being able to foster collaboration, are two different things. Indeed, collaborative failures are commonplace.

As an academic and practitioner, the question I hold is: how can we design organizations to foster necessary collaborative work? Two core assumptions are inherent in my question. The first is that organizations must understand their collaborative work needs. In other words, to support purposeful collaboration, leaders must first step back and reflect on the basic question: what work will benefit from a collaborative effort? While seemingly simple, this question requires leaders to rethink the very nature of how work is framed, assigned and distributed. A second core assumption is that collaborative work cannot simply be overlaid on top of traditional contexts. Rather, collaborative efforts require a system of norms, relationships, processes, technologies, spaces, and structures that are quite different from the ways organizations have worked in the past.

Below, I share the learnings I am acquiring through my research and practice around how collaboration is changing, and the ecosystem of supports that enable it.

Queen’s University IRC 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit Proceedings

Queen's University IRC 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit ProceedingsThe world of work is changing, and the most successful organizations and practitioners are those that understand how these changes impact the way they do business. To help them do so, and to foster further dialogue, Queen’s IRC hosted the Workplace in Motion Summit in Toronto on April 16th, 2015. Over 100 human resource, labour relations, and organizational development professionals from across Canada attended the Summit. Chaired by IRC facilitator Brenda Barker Scott, the Summit provided a forum to stimulate new ideas and new perspectives on the dynamic new world of work.

The Summit focused on a variety of questions of interest to today’s human resource, labour relations, and organizational development professionals. More specifically, it helped participants:

  • Identify issues and best practices related to current trends and practices in human resource manage­ment, labour relations, and organizational development.
  • Explore how rapidly emerging technologies are shaping and re-shaping modern workplaces and the way we work.
  • Investigate the impact of changing demographics on contemporary organizations.

This was all done with the intent of identifying how they can better lead change and promote excellence within and beyond their organizations and professional networks.

Over the course of the Summit, several themes emerged that were particularly critical to today’s human resource, labour relations, and organizational development professionals. These included the need to:

  • Manage change and transformation in order to advance organizational and professional interests with as little disruption as possible.
  • Create the physical space, infrastructure, technologies, and systems necessary to support a collaborative, open, and innovative workplace and work culture.
  • Engage, retain, and motivate the new generation of employees and to bridge inter-generational gaps in the workplace.
  • Think outside the box in order to appropriately encourage risk-taking and innovation.

This report elaborates on the most important questions, issues, and themes identified by Summit participants going forward.

2015 Workplace in Motion Summit a Success

Summit Chair Brenda Barker ScottThe inaugural Workplace in Motion Summit was held last week in Toronto, with over 100 people in attendance. The one-day Summit brought together Human Resources, Organizational Development and Labour Relations professionals from across the country to learn about the future of work, and examine the trends creating the new world of work.

Summit Chair Brenda Barker Scott shared the characteristics of the new employee, the new work and the new workplace. Infographics contrasting the old world vs new world in terms of the new employee, the new work and the new workplace provided a basis for discussion amongst participants.

Millennials from Shopify, Free the Children and Me to We, shared how their companies have created innovative workplaces that are attractive to new workers; Hugh Ritchie from OpenText discussed how technology is changing the world of work.

The afternoon featured break-out sessions with OD Leader Francoise Morissette, HR Leader Diane Locke, and LR Leader Anne Grant. Guest speakers in these sessions were from TELUS, Samsung, the City of Edmonton, and CUPE. They shared stories about successful culture change, workplace innovation, and attracting and retaining talent in their organizations.

Summit proceedings and more information will follow in the coming months.

View Pictures from the Summit on Facebook

View Infographics from the Summit on Facebook

Getting Ahead of the Shift: Summit Inspires Thoughtful Conversations About the Changing World of Work

Summit Chair Brenda Barker ScottWith an impressive line-up of guest speakers and facilitators, the Queen’s IRC 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit brought together over 100 leaders in HR, OD and LR from across the country to engage in conversations about the workplace of the future, and the trends that are driving new models for organizational planning.

The Summit, held on April 16, 2015 in Toronto, featured a number of themes, including:

  • Talent: How do we engage, retain and motivate a new generation of workers?
  • Transformation:  How can organizations transform without trauma?
  • Making the shift: What do organizations need to do to shift to new models?
  • Managing overload: How do we keep up with evolving technology and trends?

What Matters in Today’s Workplace?

Summit Chair Brenda Barker Scott shared the characteristics of the new employee and introduced Courtney Jolliffe from Free the Children and James Prince from Me to We to talk about millennials at work. “Passion trumps choosing a location. We’re following what we’re passionate about,” said Jolliffe.  Jolliffe and Prince discussed what makes their jobs attractive, how they want to work, career expectations, and where in the world they want to work. They joked that, in true millennial fashion, they surveyed their teams to get input before their presentation – they prefer to work collaboratively and learn by interacting with their peer group.

Visual Art at the Queen's IRC 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit - Free the Children, Me to We, Shopify“We don’t want our career to be limited by our job,” said Prince. He noted millennials have a flexible and fluid work-life balance and are seeking variation in their jobs.  Technology gives them the mobility to work anywhere in the world.

Brittany Forsyth, Vice President of Human Relations at Shopify, talked about the importance of culture in her organization.

“When we interview, we look at potential. Are they going to push their boundaries? Are they going to challenge other people? Are they ok with being challenged?” They want employees to fit their culture of innovation and resourcefulness.

The highlight of Forsyth’s presentation was the concept of Hack Days.  Every three months, Shopify employees are given two days to work on a special project that will improve the Shopify platform. They stop their day-to-day work and do something outside of their regular role. “It’s about creating the right environment for people to grow, learn, experiment and innovate,” Forsyth said. Many of the products and features created at Hack Days actually make it to market.

Visual Art at Queen's IRC 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit, including OpenTextHugh Ritchie from OpenText shared how technology is changing the world of work. “It has never been so disruptive,” he said. He discussed the impact of big data, the cloud, mobile, security, digital and the internet of things. He shared a number of facts and statistics:

  • There are generations that have ONLY known life with the internet.
  • Today more information is created every 2 days, than from 0 AD to 2003
  • 90% of world’s data was generated over the last 2 years
  • Mobile data traffic will grow 13X by 2017
  • 15 of 17 U.S. sectors have more data per company than the Library of Congress

A Deep Dive into HR, OD and LR

Visual Art at the Queen's IRC 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit - Deep dives into Human Resources, Organizational Development and Labour RelationsThe afternoon featured break-out sessions with OD Leader Françoise Morissette, HR Leader Diane Locke, and LR Leader Anne Grant. Participants were able to choose two of the three sessions to attend, and then all attendees returned to the plenary for a large-group debrief.

Human Resources

Diane Locke talking about Talent Management at the 2015 Workplace in Motion SummitFacilitator Diane Locke led a discussion around HR practices in a new work model, and introduced guest speakers from Telus and Samsung to share their best practices for attracting, developing, engaging and retaining talent.

Bryan Acker, Culture Change Ambassador with TELUS, discussed their Work Styles® program, which gives employees the flexibility to work when and where they are most effective, so they can focus on supporting an exceptional customer experience. He said this supports work-life balance, improves employee retention and delivers consistent productivity.  According to their new hire survey, work-life flexibility is shown to consistently be a talent attractor for TELUS.

Christine Greco, Vice President of Human Resources and Corporate Affairs at Samsung Canada, shared her company’s philosophy to have highly engaged, innovative “brand ambassadors” breaking boundaries in order to achieve long term success. Samsung’s work environment includes collaboration spaces, creativity rooms and a lounge/café. Their recognition program offers unique employee perks, and they are heavily involved within their communities.

Strategies and themes from the HR deep dive:

  • Creating organizations that are employee-centric
  • Encouraging collaborative connections
  • Mapping out varied career paths
  • Taking advantage of millennial strengths
  • Releasing collective leadership capacity

Organizational Development

Francoise MorissetteFrançoise Morissette opened the OD Session by talking about how the world is changing and organizations have to transform in order to remain relevant, sustainable, effective and successful. She introduced John Wilson, Corporate Culture Strategist with the City of Edmonton, to share how the City is strategically building a better city and changing their corporate culture.

The City of Edmonton’s long-term strategic plan, called The Way Ahead, establishes six 10-year strategic goals to achieve the City’s vision for Edmonton in 2040 and to direct long-term planning. Wilson shared the Citizen Dashboard, which provides performance information to the public about municipal services that support the City’s strategic plan.

Strategies and themes from the OD deep dive:

  • Culture shift needs leadership
  • Engage employees and clients to create solutions
  • Goals must be regularly measured, evaluated and adjusted
  • Build engagement and involvement through transparency and accountability
  • Find a vision, commit to the vision, and stay with the vision

Labour Relations

Anne GrantIn the Labour Relations session, Anne Grant noted that, by 2031, it’s expected that one in three Canadian workers will be born in a different country, and that there will be roughly three people in the labour force for each retiree. Grant shared stories of unions cultivating strategic allies and partnerships, rather than adversarial rivalries in order to succeed in the global world.

Crystal Scott, past-president of CUPE Local 3521, told the group about turning around a fairly inactive local by increasing engagement, providing training to members (who hadn’t had training in almost 20 years), and working with management to create better processes and policies for her members. The session revealed that unions and employers deal with many of the same kinds of issues.

Strategies and themes from the LR deep dive:

  • We must develop partnerships and increase communication between unions across Canada, North America and internationally
  • Social technologies can increase membership and engagement
  • Bargain for more than monetary benefits
  • Honour seniority but embrace new talents and contributions
  • Form partnerships with employers to forge more collaborative, less adversarial relationships

What’s your one thing?

Visual Art at Queen's IRC 2015 Workplace in Motion SummitAt the end of the day, participants were asked what “one thing” they would take action on when they returned to the workplace. The most common theme was a determination to increase collaboration – between colleagues, across teams, in change, in long-term strategies, and with senior leaders.

Other action items included:

  • Have the courage to search and advocate for best practices not just accept the status quo
  • Look for solutions not problems
  • Help to foster an environment where new ideas, innovation, improved processes, creativity and fun are all encouraged
  • Share at least 1 positive/optimistic thought with coworkers everyday
  • Think about what’s next and not get caught up in what’s right now
  • Invite and create more opportunities to hear other perspectives outside of my immediate team
  • Look to find commonalities across groups of employees, rather than focus on our differences (ie: age, gender, department)
  • Update outdated key messaging on job descriptions and ensure that we are selecting the appropriate staff to fit our culture
  • Integrate the considerations for millennial workforce into the senior leadership HR and OD strategies
  • Promote client and leader reflection with thought-provoking questions
  • Build strategies to engage youth in organized labour

Smartphone capturing visual art at 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit

Pictures from the Summit are available on Facebook

Infographics from the Summit are available on Facebook

Summit Proceedings can be found here

Old World vs. New World: Where Does Your Organization Live?

Get ahead of the shift with the 2015 Queen's IRC Workplace in Motion SummitDo you encourage collaboration between departments?
Are you ready for a changing demographic in your workforce?
Do you know how technology will change your organization in the future?

The world of work is shifting. Centralized systems and hierarchies are giving way to more fluid environments.  With innovation, not efficiency, as the aim, success comes from harnessing and connecting talent and knowledge through technology.

Sound possible? Or maybe it sounds totally foreign to the way you and your colleagues currently operate.

What’s the old world? It’s traditional roles divided into units with a clear hierarchy and a bricks and mortar location. It’s seniority-based, with clear delineations around who owns what work and how it is done. This is the organization born of the 19th century horse and buggy era, when labour meant muscle and competitive advantage came from streamlining routine operations for maximum efficiency. Labour was a cost to be minimized, not an asset to be linked and leveraged.

What’s the new world? The new world turns the traditional organization on its head, and re-establishes value based on knowledge, talent and innovation. The new world measures success by the ability to learn and innovate, and leverages talent by bringing together teams with diverse abilities and sub-specialties to create and mobilize knowledge.

The principles from the old world are so deeply rooted in our organizations that we often do not see them – and yet, they are the genesis for many dysfunctional corporate practices. Executives are still focused on short-term goals at the expense of longer term prosperity, unit goals and rewards are shaped independently, engagement is limited, and communication channels go up the stovepipe, not out and across the network.

Perhaps you or your organization don’t think it’s possible to make the shift from the old to the new.  We’re going to show you why it’s not just possible, but critical to your survival. Our ambitious aim at the Queen’s IRC 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit is to introduce you to pioneering organizations that are re-imagining the workplace and creating value for a whole ecosystem of customers, suppliers, partners and communities. We’ll explore how key trends in technology, global competition, generational flux and the knowledge economy are shaping the new world of work. Together we’ll discover what you and your organization need to do now to prepare for a successful future.

The world is changing – and we can either get ahead of the shift, or get left behind. Let’s begin the conversation together and discover what’s next.

Guest Speakers Announced for 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit

Queen’s IRC is hosting the 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit in Toronto on April 16, 2015. We are pleased to announce the growing list of speakers and special guest speakers.

Summit hosts and leaders: (bios can be found in the Facilitators and Speakers tab)

  • Paul Juniper, Queen’s IRC Director
  • Brenda Barker Scott, Summit Chair
  • Françoise Morissette, OD Leader
  • Diane Locke, HR Leader
  • Anne Grant, LR Leader

Special guest speakers:

  • Brittany Forsyth, Vice President of Human Relations, Shopify
  • Bryan Acker, Culture Change Ambassador, TELUS Communications Inc.
  • Christine Greco, Vice President, Human Resources and Corporate Affairs, Samsung
  • Courtney Jolliffe, Resource and Logistics Co-ordinator, We Day, Free the Children
  • Hugh Ritchie, Director, Government Relations Program, Office of the President, OpenText
  • James Prince, Manager of We Day Retail Distribution and Sales, Consumer Engagement, Me to We
  • John Wilson, Corporate Culture Strategist, City of Edmonton

2015 Workplace in Motion Guest Speakers

Are You Ready for the New World of Work?

Get ahead of the shift with the 2015 Queen's IRC Workplace in Motion SummitWe have reached an important turning point in the world of work – a time when organizational success is no longer defined by economies of scale and efficiency, but by the ability to learn and innovate. Technology is transforming how we work and what we do. Global competition is the new normal. By 2020, millennials will make up half of our workforce. How do we prepare for this shift?

The 2015 Workplace in Motion Summit creates a space for discussing these issues and exploring new strategies and structures for a changing workplace. The day will include an exploration of key trends in technology, global competition, generational flux and the knowledge economy, along with valuable opportunities to network with colleagues. Discover what pioneering organizations are doing to connect and leverage talent, and learn what you and your organization can do to thrive in the future.

Summit Chair Brenda Barker Scott and Queen’s IRC Director Paul Juniper will lead group discussions, along with workshop facilitators Diane Locke, Françoise Morissette and Anne Grant, who will delve more deeply into human resources, organizational development and labour relations issues. “Our bold agenda for this first Workplace in Motion Summit is to create space for re-thinking, reflecting and re-imagining,” says Barker Scott. “We’ll be challenging individuals and teams to view their systems from new perspectives.”

The Summit is designed specifically for human resources, labour relations and organizational development professionals, as well as the leaders in their organizations. It’s ideal for organizations who want to bring colleagues from HR, LR and OD, as well as current and future leaders who will leave inspired to lead change together.

Queen’s IRC alumni save 35% off the regular price (with limited spaces available). Bring your team and save – groups of 2-4 people will save 25% and groups of 5 or more save 50%! Single attendees can register online. To take advantage of the Team discount or the Alumni discount, please call 1-888-858-6826 or email irc@queensu.ca.

Explore what the new world of work means for your career, your organization and your industry. Join Queen’s IRC at the Workplace in Motion 2015 Summit on April 16, 2015 at the Allstream Centre in Toronto.

 

 

Designing for Collaboration

Designing for Collaboration in OrganizationsCollaboration is emerging as a core organizational competence, and indeed an imperative, in today’s interconnected work context.  Despite the need, collaborative results often fall short of the intended ideals.  A large body of research suggests that while collaboration may be necessary, it is not easy (Bryson, Crosby & Stone, Rhoten, 2003; 2006; Suddaby, Hardy, & Huy, 2011).  Failed collaborative efforts have led academics to point to the many sources of collaborative inertia; organizational elements that act as barriers to collaboration.  What if, instead of attempting to overcome elements of inertia, we shift our efforts to designing holistic systems that enable collaboration?  Below, I argue that collaboration is a design challenge.  To enable more fruitful collaboration in our organizations, we need to design for it.

Interviews with Labour Relations, Human Resources and Organizational Development Experts Available Online

Queen’s IRC has interviewed many of our expert facilitators, speakers and staff, in the areas of Labour Relations, Human Resources and Organizational Development. These interviews are available on our YouTube channel.  We encourage you to take the time to check out these videos.

Al Loyst – Coach/speaker at the Negotiation Skills and Managing Unionized Environments programs

Andy MacDonald – Coach at the Negotiation Skills program

Anne Grant – Facilitator for the Labour Relations Foundations and Mastering Fact-Finding and Investigation programs

Brenda Barker Scott – Facilitator for the Organizational Design, OD Foundations, HR Decision Making and Building Smart Teams programs

Carol Beatty – Facilitator for the Change Management program, and past Director of Queen’s IRC

Craig Flood – Guest speaker at the Labour Arbitration Skills program

Derik McArthur – Coach at the Labour Relations Foundations program

Gary Furlong – Lead Facilitator for the Negotiation Skills and Managing Unionized Environments programs

Henry Dinsdale – Speaker at the Labour Relations Foundations program

Jim Harrison – Facilitator for the Linking HR Strategy to Business Strategy program

Paul Juniper – Queen’s IRC Director, and Facilitator for the Linking HR Strategy to Business Strategy, Strategic Workforce Planning, and Advanced HR programs

Peter Edwards – Guest Speaker for Labour Relations Foundations and Change Management

Join us online for new videos, articles and information:

Queen's IRC on LinkedIn Queen's IRC on Twitter Queen's IRC on Facebook Queen's IRC on YouTube

Developing Organizations – A Metaphorical View

Developing Organizations - A Metaphorical ViewCan organizations be designed to grow people? With the emphasis on talent and knowledge management in today’s uber-competitive business context, the assumption certainly seems to be yes. The reality, however, is that many organizations fail to develop or tap the competence of their people. Referring to the problem of pervasive disengagement amongst today’s workforce, Gary Hamel (2012) laments that organizational systems are more likely to “frustrate extraordinary accomplishment than to foster it” (p. 137). Just what is the relationship between people development and organizational development? Can organizations be designed to foster both? How are our views about this relationship evolving?

To ponder these questions, I trace the evolution of how theorists and practitioners have viewed organizations, and the development of people within them. My viewfinder for this journey will be the lens of metaphor. For, suggests Morgan (2006), the images, frames and perspectives we bring to the study of organizations very much shapes what we can know about them. If the way that we understand organizations and shape management practices is based on implicit metaphor, then what might we see—about preferred structures, practices, and models of organizational life—as we adopt alternative worldviews? Just as importantly, with each change of the viewfinder, what might we miss?

I begin with the mechanistic lens, often associated with Frederick Taylor’s (1911) scientific management. Here organizations are viewed as machines and people development is focused on isolating and perfecting skills in service of operational efficiency. With the advent of the human relations movement, an organic view of the organization emerged. Pioneering theorists Elton Mayo (1933), Abraham Maslow (1943), and Kurt Lewin (1947) identified the important linkages between employee aims and motivations, the social and technical environment, and organizational performance. More recently, those espousing the contextualist worldview place practice, within one’s workplace community, as the core lens through which human and organizational development are explored.

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