Since October 2018, we have consolidated our four locations scattered around Tokyo into our new head office, ITOKI TOKYO XORK (hereinafter referred to as XORK), where we are working on the ABW work style. In the previous article, "ABW leads to an open HR department! What is the paperless work style practiced by the HR department?", the manager of our HR department introduced the ideas that we are actually working on to increase the self-discipline of each member's work style while not losing the sense of unity of the team through the ABW work style. This time, we will introduce an employee who has taken childcare leave and practices a work style that combines office work and telecommuting. We spoke to Mr.Kazuhiko Nii (hereinafter referred to as Nii) of the Financial Sales Division 1 Branch, who is in charge of a major city bank group, about the changes in work style that have occurred since the introduction of ABW. Please note that the masks are removed only when the photos in this column are taken.
Mr. Kazuhiko Nii, Financial Sales Division, First Branch
──What do you think has changed the most since you started ABW?
Nii: Before the introduction of ABW, I think that I had little awareness of prioritizing my work or "finishing this task today" except when I was out visiting customers. As a result, I would carry over any unfinished work to the next day. On the other hand, with ABW, I had to break down my daily schedule into "activities*" in advance and put it together, which naturally made me more conscious of "outputting on that day, at that time."
At ITOKI, we break down and reinterpret our daily work into "10 activities."
The biggest change in the office environment is that we can now use spaces designed for different activities. For example, before the introduction of ABW, we spent most of the day at a designated seat. There was no concept of "choosing a place that suits the activity," and even when we wanted to concentrate, we had to endure the noise around us. However, now we have high-concentration spaces that are enclosed and do not disturb the surrounding sounds and movements, and are equipped with height-adjustable desks and high-performance chairs that reduce physical strain and maintain concentration. Furthermore, before the introduction of ABW, almost all discussions and meetings were held in "conference rooms." Now, we have spaces that can be selected according to the activity, such as a dedicated space for coming up with ideas, a dedicated space for sharing knowledge, and a dedicated space for organizing information.
High concentration space
──How do you communicate with other team members when everyone is working in a distributed manner without designated seats in ABW?
Although the 10 members of the Nii team work in separate locations, we try to meet face-to-face as much as possible when we have team meetings, and we try to proactively engage in conversation and small talk, which is often lacking in normal situations. We also have our own rules and etiquette for working in separate locations. For example, when we want to contact someone, we first check their schedule because we don't know their situation. We sometimes use the phone when we have urgent matters to discuss, but we basically communicate through chat. For example, we send each other the day's schedule at the start of work, or the next day's schedule at the end of work, along with information about where we work, in the team group chat. At first, we were a little resistant to this exchange, but now we think it's a good initiative because it lets us know when each other is in the office and makes it easier to communicate face-to-face.
──How did you go from working in a paper-based environment to going paperless?
Nii Before ABW was introduced, each person had their own desk and cart, and there was also a shared cabinet, where many documents were piled up or stuffed. The company also loaned out iPads. It was helpful that the electronic catalogue meant I no longer had to carry around thick catalogues like dictionaries, but I couldn't use it well for anything else, so I was far from going paperless. In the midst of all this, the introduction of ABW was an opportunity to upgrade my iPad to one with a pencil, and I was able to write not only meeting notes but also PDF drawings with the familiar feeling of handwriting, which accelerated my paperless approach all at once. Because it is digital, it doesn't take up any space, can be viewed anywhere, and is easy to share with related parties. This triggered me to gradually reduce the amount of paper around me. I divided it into 1) things to be discarded, 2) things to be stored in an external warehouse, and 3) things to be stored digitally, and now I have been able to reduce the amount of paper to less than 20% of what it was before ABW was introduced. The paper that remains now is documents and proposals exchanged with customers on paper, which are temporarily stored in personal lockers and disposed of periodically after the data has been scanned. I used to have a pile of documents on my desk, but now they're gone and I can focus on the task at hand.
How do you split your time between working in the office and working from home?
Nii: Basically, my first priority is to visit clients, so I can only work from home all day about one day a week. On the other days, I work in a hybrid format that combines working in the office and working from home.
I often work from home in the morning and drop into the office before or after an appointment. This is because being able to work without having to come to the office early in the morning is a huge Advantage for me, as it means I can do housework and childcare without having to commute. However, I currently have two children who are not yet in nursery school, and the house can get quite noisy, so when I hold online conferences I move to a corner of the house. For this reason, I feel that the work environment is better prepared and it is easier to work when I go to the office than when I work from home.
If I were to divide my current weekly work into 10 activities, 50% would be "high concentration," 30% would be "going out," and the remaining 20% would be internal communication such as "conversation," "information organization," and "idea generation." Many of my tasks involve the handling of highly confidential documents, and it is difficult to work in an open space, so the proportion of "high concentration" activities where I can work in isolation is increasing. For this reason, I would like to increase the proportion of internal communication that transcends departmental boundaries in the future.
--Are there any issues you feel you have with the way you work now?
NiiThe challenge is how members manage their schedules. I myself am not able to register all of my plans in the company-wide scheduler, and I manage my personal schedules, such as creating documents, using a different task management tool, so they are not visible to other members. This can be a hassle when I am asked to adjust my schedule when I am busy with tasks. Furthermore, since the way members register their schedules varies, it is also a hassle to check the schedule directly with the other person. In the future, I would like to implement "team agreements" among team members in order to improve such small operational aspects (for details on team agreements, please see "What is 'communication management' that builds trust"?).
--You've probably had many opportunities to work on the go between visits in the past, but has it become easier to work on the go now?
Nii: With the ABW work style, we now have an environment where we can work anywhere, so we can work on the go. However, other working spaces do not offer the full range of IT tools, such as monitor displays, that XORK has, or the high level of security that allows you to work with peace of mind, so it is difficult to work on the go. For this reason, during spare time outside the office, such as travel time or waiting time, instead of working on the PC, we use our smartphones and iPads to gather information on our customers' industry trends, etc.
"To put ABW into practice, it is important to take care of detailed operational aspects such as visualizing schedules," said Mr. Futoshi. ABW allows individuals to choose the place, time, and people they work with at their own discretion. Please consider it as one of the options when considering your future work style.
