My BLOG : Flexible Worksplace is the need of hour for creating competive edge , It requires organization culture change and IT readiness

We have been hearing about flexible workplace.
What is flexible workplace :
- Ability to access information from any geographical location .
- Ability to use any device ex laptop, desktop, tablets , mobile phones, smart phones. Earlier IT used to dictate devices used by end user , now employees dictates.
- Application availability and experience from any location .Applications used are changing from e-mail to access to sensitive information on ERP, CRM , Billing etc and video , voice conferencing to desktp sharing.

All the above is must to create virtual organization which offers flexible workspace.
Following advantages are seen of creating flexible workspace:
- Better work life balance
- Better attrition and ability to retain skilled manpower
- Better productivity
- Better collaboration across geography , skilled set and diverse teams.
- Infrastructure on space better optimzed

Not to forget traffic on street which kills productivity by killing travel time.This has seen one of the key reason of employees preferring offices to be nearby. Attrition due to trave time has become critical.

Challenges for organization:
- Shift in culture where hierarchy dictates physical presence
- Outcome/result oriented culture , trusting outcome being important as against when work is done.
This is more applicable to Indian organization.

Technology challenges:
- Borderless Access to information based on privileges form trusted and un trusted network. This could be critical applications within organization.
- Adoptability of applications to different access devices ranging from laptop , tablets to mobile phones (Feature phones and amart phones)
- User experience across geography on applications
- Adoptive behavior of applications whether changing codes for voice or video to adoptation on screen ranging from laptop to mobile phones

Flexible workspace has bigger impact on environment and society by :
- Reducing traffic thereby fuel consumption
- Load on infrastructure (roads, commercial space , trasportation)
- During HINI , organization with flexible workplace is better prepared , also during disrutive weather conditions.
- Not to mention helping in curbing spread of infectious disease and public safety

Even more is worklife balance , I know being in NCR how frustrating it is it is to live at one end of Noida , work in Gurgaon and vice versa. Its torture of new age lifestyle which takes away health and peace.
This may not be applicable to all type of work but some workplace flexibility is possible in all organization. Some organizations have become 100% virtual.
Need of hour is flexible workplace when technology can enable it then why not ?