Law firms see hotdesking as agile working?
August 03, 2015
I was surprised to read an article in The Law Society’s Gazette entitled “Clear your desk – leading firms embrace agile working” and find out that it wasn’t about agile working at all but about just two top 100 firms going in for hotdesking, an idea that was in vogue in the 1990s but had had its day by the early 2000s.
To me agile working is something quite different. To quote from www.agile.org.uk “Agile working incorporates dimensions of time and place flexibility, but also involves doing work differently focusing on performance and outcomes – it is transformational. The Agile Future Forum whose aim is to provide leadership and practical support to disseminate agile working practices, considers these practices across the 4 dimensions of: time (when do people work?), location (where do people work?), role (what do people do?) and source (who carries out work?).”
I guess this article represents just another example of law firms failing to understand the need for and to embrace fundamental change?
Two top 100 firms have this week pledged to move away from traditional working methods to embrace ’hot desking’.
DAC Beachcroft started ‘agile working’ two months ago when it moved 300 staff members to a new office in Leeds.
Only ‘static workers’ such as secretaries are assigned a desk. Lawyers packs their belongings into lockers at the end of each working day.
Incoming senior partner Virginia Clegg said the early feedback has been so positive that the firm is ready to expand the system to its offices in the rest of the country.
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/clear-your-desk-leading-fir..
Back to Expertise
