Wearables in the Workplace: What you can expect

Wearable devices are gaining ground all the world over.  India is not far behind.  As per IDC Data published recently, in Q1 of FY 17 over 400,000 wearable devices were imported into the country.   While the early adopters of wearable devices are fitness enthusiasts and other experimenters soon the world of work will find them make a foray on the floors.   Some of the ways in which organizations can think about wearable devices to help improve the work organization are captured below.

a) Link fitness to incentives:   While few innovative organizations have started off by linking fitness to  external social responsibility and causes like sponsoring NGO's for miles clocked in future there will be lot of pressure to link fitness adoption to incentives. This will help directly bring down the cost of health insurance for the company.  Wearable devices will play a key role in this with real time data from employees being used to track adoption as well as adherence to wellness program and fitness regimes.  With escalating health care costs and insurance bills it would be the right direction for organizations to encourage and incentivise fitness.

b) Tracking employee movement and Safety:   Organizations can track movement of employees,  track entry and exit within the organization space and this can be a key tool to monitor safety of employees.  This could be very important in times of emergency situations needing evacuation of people at organizations.  If wearable devices are registered against individual names and consent provided to use the data it would be a great way to work collaboratively in the work space to track, monitor safety.  Those not registered could continue the manual route.  

c) Always Clued in:  Employees would get real time information relevant to their work wherever they move away from their desks or work stations.   Unlike laptops and tablet devices It is much easier to move around with a wearable and probability of being away is far less.   Email alerts, Flash information from organization communication channel or even push messaging can be easily enabled for all key relevant stakeholders in organizations.  Remember the days of pagers... similar scenarios can be worked out by organizations.  Hotels,  Hospitals,  Retail Stores, Airline operations can all benefit from such configurations. 

d) Mobile Learning:   A good start to real time mobile learning can happen through wearable devices.  There are complicated troubleshooting on shop floors which may need access to data which can be readily transmitted to the wearable for quick response on the shop floor.  Similarly information needed for spot decisions can be pushed on the wearable device for situations where there is need such as pricing negotiations,  deal closing,  evaluating alternatives etc.

There will be a sea change in the way people work and relate to their organizations.   Of course there would be some downside also on the organization behavior side with some feeling too much intrusion in their work space and spillover into their personal time.  Remember there was a time, not long ago, when you left office and were completely disconnected with whats happening at work.  Today you are almost all the time in extended office and work space including on weekends and holidays and cant' afford to be left out of the action and if you do stay out it is at your own cost sometimes. 

Keeping Tab on Executive Level Pay: Companies Act 2013

When I  talk of executive pay it is in the sense of how it is used in US.   It is about salary received by the Board Members, CEO and other senior most executives of the organization.   It appears often in news that shareholders are questioning the enormous pay packets to C level executives and not being able to see a justifiable relationship between the compensation received and the performance of the company.  

This escalation in executive pay can lead to myopic decisions that focus more on here and now and leave the long term sustainability of the organizations in question.  While this may not be the norm it is surely a possibility and there are several cases where pay received and performance are questioned. 

As per a Forbes Article CEO Median pay which remained at about 1 Million Dollars from the 30's to the 80's (5 decades) shot up about 9 times by the first decade of this century (all the decades adjusted for today's dollars to be comparable).  This increasing trend has caught the eagle eye of policy makers in India too...

If you read Section 197 of the recently approved Companies Act 2013 (Government of India) you will find an interesting point. (quoted below) related to executive level pay.

"Every listed company shall disclose in the Board’s report, the ratio of the remuneration of each director to the median employee’s remuneration and such other details as may be prescribed."

This is an important change and it is interesting that even the SEC (US) actually has incorporated a similar provision recently.  So surprising that US is following India in the thinking along these lines.

When companies actually start reporting this out it would become another important metric to compare across companies in a given industry. This would put pressure on decision makers (compensation committees) to find a acceptable level that does not remain outlier in the tables that would be scrutinized with a magnifying glass by analysts and other well wishers (sic !) of the company.

Other interesting areas (from people / HR perspective) which the Companies Act 2013 also addresses are gender equality in board composition,   making CSR spending mandatory (a pursuit so far) and allowing for class action suits to be filed.   More on these in a later post.

Elusive Shorter Work Weeks

I took a poll recently on CNN where the question was what would your preference be ; if you were to choose between more pay and a longer weekend.  80% of respondents polled said they preferred the latter. But is this what reality dishes out

Earlier in the 20th Century Economist Keynes had predicted that work week would get shorter as technological advancement made work faster and tasks could finish in fraction of time it took in the 1930's. 

Where did that benefit or improvement go?  What accrued as gains probably did not result in gains for leisure since people became more keen on consumption and spending that they had to earn more and therefore get more pay.  This is the contrast we see even today.   Given a choice one says "prefer more leisure (or weekend extended) but that is not happening due to need to earn more for ever growing needs and wants which is pushing us to earn more.to satisfy needs and wants.

On good shift we had in India since about 1980's the concept of five day work week came about in India and the number of hours worked per day went up to maintain the overall weekly work hours.   This meant longer week ends and more time for self and family.  

Some argue that in countries with lower productivity people are actually working more (See Link Below)  You will find that German productivity is 70% higher than Greek even though Greek work hours are much more than in Germany.

(http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/working-hours)


However the question for us to consider : Is the productivity being high a outcome or a precedence to less working hours.  I think it is more to do with being able to spare more time since you are at advanced levels of productivity.