What Is Agile Working? The Implementation & Benefits
What Is Agile Working?
Agile working, AKA activity-based working, is a workplace model that’s designed to offer your team flexibility in how they deliver their objectives. It’s a term that’s often used interchangeably with “flexible” or “hybrid” working, and while agile working does encompass these types of working arrangements, it’s also much more.
Implementing agile working brings about a cultural change that focuses on the delivery of your specific task, rather than where, when or how you work.
What Is An Agile Working Environment?
Agile working is about empowering your teams to take responsibility for their own work delivery, so there’s no set format for an agile working environment. However, to set teams up for success, many organisations are designing the working environment to promote creativity and collaboration. Employees are actively encouraged to move about the workplace.
Post-pandemic, many businesses opted for blended working arrangements or a hybrid working model. Today, work is not a place you go, but something you do. In reality, it means your employees could be working from a traditional office space in London, from home, a coworking space or a coffee shop – or even all of the above!
Agile workspaces are designed to allow your teams to flow comfortably between tasks. You’ll often find breakout areas to facilitate quick chats, amenity spaces for employees to replenish their energy, and collaboration spaces, alongside more conventional workspaces such as private meeting rooms or training rooms.
Types Of Agile Working
As the name suggests, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” for agile working. The very concept is meant to be flexible to suit the needs of your organisation and its employees, which can be fluid. Consequently, there’s a variety of different types of agile working zones, which may be better suited to some organisations than others.
Hot Desking
Hot desks offer people choices of where they sit, which can mean they move around to sit with the teams they’re working with at the time.
Breakout Zones
These informal spaces are often the spot where workers go to grab a bite to eat, relax for a few minutes or host an impromptu meeting. It can be a hub of creativity, as its function is not prescriptive.
Meeting Rooms
There will be times when your teams need to gather in a private meeting room, whether to meet with clients, focus on a project together or undertake some training.
Quiet Zones
A quiet zone can be beneficial to your teams when they need to concentrate or need to work on a confidential task. Often small, sound-proofed rooms, quiet zones are ideal for private phone calls or simply a place for quiet reflection.
Agile working can combine the physical zoning of your office-based work environment with the flexibility of hybrid working. So employees can also work from home, a coffee shop or from a train, as needed.
How To Achieve Agile Working
Agile working should empower your team to choose how they work. There are three factors that employees should have a degree of flexibility over:
- When they choose to work;
- Where they choose to work; and
- How they choose to work.
That’s not to say that agile working means a complete “free-for-all”. For agile working to be successful, there needs to be trust between the employer and the employee. To build trust, parameters need to be set to ensure that both parties understand what’s expected of them – a clear articulation of the deliverables or outcomes expected – so that employees can prioritise accordingly.
Setting expectations and embedding agile working into company culture is only part of the battle. There are also practical considerations that are needed to facilitate productive work:
- Technology – your team will need access to hardware and software to enable them to work seamlessly outside the office, as well as to interact with colleagues effectively.
- Workspace – hot-desking, agile room booking and office hoteling are ways to enable your team to utilise the most appropriate workspace for the task at hand, whether they need to focus on individual projects or collaborate with colleagues.
Last, but not least, you’ll need a way to measure the success of your agile implementation – are your teams actually utilising the workspace in the way you expected? Analytics will enable you to monitor productivity and quickly adapt your coworking space, as your needs change.
Agile Working Vs Flexible Working
Although agile working and flexible working are often used interchangeably, agile working extends beyond the traditional concept of flexible working.
Flexible working predominantly refers to having choices around when you work and challenges the concept of the traditional 9-5 working day. In a flexible working model, it’s recognised that some employees benefit from having some autonomy when they work – some are more productive first thing in the morning, while others benefit from avoiding conventional commuting hours.
Hybrid working builds upon the idea of flexible working and adds a degree of flexibility over where you work. It allows your teams to blend remote working with office-based tasks.
Agile working adds a third element for flexibility – how you choose to work. In an agile working environment, your team can flow from individual work at their desk to a client presentation in a meeting room, followed by a revitalising stand-up meeting in a breakout area. The workspace is adapted to allow employees to choose how they meet their objectives for the day.
Why Is Agile Working Important?
Through agile working, you can make better use of your office space and potentially reduce your costs. Gone are the days of permanent desks or cubicles, and instead teams can choose the working spaces that are best suited to the task at hand.
By giving your teams control over how they work, you can improve productivity and job satisfaction. Employees increasingly demand flexibility in their working lives and organisations that manage to nail agile working practices are likely to be more attractive to high-quality talent and instil a sense of loyalty in their workforce.
It’s a win-win situation, as employees will enjoy better work-life integration and thus feel more motivated. As productivity improves, so too should customer satisfaction, and ultimately, profit margins.
Agile Workspace Opportunities With Spacepool
Integrating agile working practices into your business can open up your talent pool, improve retention rates and build an all-around happier workplace. To support an agile workforce, you’ll need a great workspace that encourages collaboration, creativity and teamwork.
At Spacepool, we have a catalogue full of high-quality office spaces in Manchester, London and a variety of many other locations that may take your fancy.
These professional office spaces will ensure your teams have access to dynamic collaboration spaces, breakout areas, hot desks and meeting rooms. Whatever your line of work, you’ll find a suitable workspace in our easy-to-use search engine. Simply type in your filter criteria and let us take care of the hard work for you.