Here is our (occasionaly opinionated!) glossary of terms commonly used in the worlds of Smart and Flexible Working, including in some cases an explanation of preferred uses and the reasons why.
The Glossary covers not only different working patterns, but other aspects of workplace change that accompany them in integrated projects of change that cover the areas People, Real Estate and Technology.
Here we go:
Activity-based working (ABW)
ABW is a key ingredient of Smart Working, describing a) the range of physical settings used in Smart Working workplaces, which one uses according to the work activity one is doing at the time, and b) in a wider sense, organising one’s work and choice of location on the basis of the activities involved.
Agile Working
In most uses, this is identical to Smart Working. It is sometimes used as the preferred brand within an organisation for their programme of smart working change. It puts an emphasis on agility and flexing the time and place of work, and sometimes who does the work, according to need at the time.
‘Agile Working’ as a term suffers a little from confusion with other uses of the word ‘agile”, as with the specific methodologies of agile software development and agile project management.
Annualised hours
Annualised hours is a form of time-based flexibility where employees are contracted to work an annual number of hours that can be worked flexibly over a 12-month period. This is useful for dealing with peaks and troughs of work as well as, on the employee side, potentially tailoring one’s work to meet personal requirements.
Atypical working
‘Atypical working’ is a phrase soemtimes used as an umbrella term to describe all the working patterns that differ from a default pattern of working that has set hours and a usual organisation-owned set place of work. So that could encompass not only flexible hours and flexible location, but also agency working, casual working, etc.
Biophilia
Biophilia is based on the concept that humans have an innate affinity with the natural world. It is an increasingly important consideration in designing human-centred and productivity-supporting workplaces to include natural elements, access to natural light, natural sounds, etc.
Collective workplace
This is the term I use for any workplace across the Extended Workplace (see below) where groups of people gather together for work. As these days the workplace for millions of people can be anywhere, the aim is to distinguish physical places where people gather for work, e.g. offices or coworking centres, from the wider concept of the everywhere workplace.
Compressed working week
This describes doing one’s usual weekly hours of work over fewer days, e.g. four ten-hour days rather than five eight-hour days. This more traditional practice is leading to some confusion in discussions about moving to a productivity-focused 4-day week.
Coworking
Coworking centres are professional spaces designed to be used by individuals from different organisations, offering a range of facilities and services and often with a focus on building community.
Distributed working
Distributed Working is a favoured term of some commentators and researchers to describe the generic phenomenon of people working in multiple locations. It’s a kind of shorthand for geographically distributed working.
eWork
‘e’ for ‘electronic, plus ‘work’. It was a word in favour for a while at the start of the 2000s as a broader alternative to ‘telework’. But now there’s no need for the ‘e’ either – it’s just work.
Extended Workplace
The term I use to distinguish the totality of physical and virtual places where people work, as opposed to the traditional idea of ‘the workplace’ being a primary organisation-owned location for employees to go to. Essentially there are four physical domains of the Extended Workplace: Organisation-owned, Third-party owned, public and personal. Then there’s a fifth domain, the Virtual Workplace with which we should have seamless connection, whichever of the physical domains we work in. Within the four physical domains, there should generally be a choice of activity-based settings available for different kinds of work.
The concept is: wherever you work, the workplace extends beyond that for interaction with information, applications, systems and colleagues, and all locations within this Extended Workplace should be treated as of equal value.
Flexible contract
As well as time flexibility and locational flexibility, some people also include flexible contract under the broad umbrella of flexible working. So flexible contract refers to forms of work arrangement such as agency working, casual working, short-term and temporary contracts.
Flexible officing, or flexspace
These are terms that bring together various forms of third-party ‘space-as-a-service’: more traditional serviced offices, coworking, and a combination of the two. A very fast-growing area of commercial property.
Flexible Working
A catch-all term to describe all kinds of flexibility in working practices – and in the most advanced forms can be pretty much the same as Smart Working. However, it is more commonly used to denote a range of alternative patterns of work that employees can apply to do. As such it is supported in some countries by legislation giving (some) employees a right to request Flexible Working.
As a term it is generally also used to include practices such as part-time working, term-time working and compressed hours, which have limited flexibility as set patterns of time and place are typically baked into agreed arrangements.
On Flexibility.co.uk and in Beyond Hybrid Working, I use ‘Flexible Working’ (with initial capitals) to denote these kinds of agreed arrangements that apply to individuals by agreement (formal or informal) rather than the more strategic and dynamic flexibilities within Smart Working. I use flexibility with a lower-case ‘f’ to denote more general flexibility.
Flexicurity
A rather clumsy portmanteau neologism that’s current in policy and academic circles. It reflects a view that flexible working needs a framework of regulation, to ensure flexibility offers secure working to employees. In discussion one often sees a lot of confusion between flexible contracts, which provide less job security, with the forms of time or place flexibility that that may apply within a permanent employment contract.
Flexitime
A pattern of work where employees can vary their start and finish times. It often operates with defined core hours when people must be available, but this is not always the case and it can be more fluid.
Focus space
A setting in a workplace designed for quiet concentrated working. It may be a small room or booth, or a library-style environment. A combination of design and etiquette should make it clear about the purpose of the space.
Four-day week
There are various kinds of four-day week – as discussed in this article. The global campaign for a four-day week envisages a reduction of hours, with no reduction in pay alongside increased productivity. It promotes a 100-80-100 model: 100% of five-day’s productivity in 80% of the time, with 100% of the pay. Not all uses of ‘four-day week’- follow this approach.
Gig working
An imprecise catch-all term that can include various forms of casual, agency and temporary and zero-hours contract work as well as some forms of freelancing and side-hustles. One problem with the term is that it includes both working with one employer or many, and can include both employment relationships and self-employment. The CIPD has found that around three quarters of gig workers are happy with this way of working.
In the UK, the Labour Party and trades unions have pledged to outlaw gig working. Any laws would have to be quite specific about forms of gig working in order to be workable. The two biggest employers of gig workers in the UK are the NHS and local authorities, so there are issues of both additional costs per worker and potential shortfalls in recruitment to consider.
Homeworking/Home-based working
When people work from home, and in some definitions also when people use home as a base for going out to clients or other work activities. Although the focus tends to be on office-style work, in practice much homeworking is in traditional crafts and new areas of hands-on work. This post looks at the changing nture of homeworking.
Hotdesking
This is a loaded word that describes various forms of sharing desk space. It’s a term best avoided – partly because people generally hate the concept, but also because it focuses conversations on desks, rather than space as a whole with all the potential ABW settings.
Hoteling
Hoteling – a term used more in North America than elsewhere – refers to booking and checking into space in workplaces. Not just desks, but many or all of the other activity spaces in a workplace where individual workspaces are not assigned to individuals. The term implies a hospitality approach to the management of workspace.
Human-centred (human-centric) workplace
A workplace that is designed around the needs and preferences of the people who work in it, rather just for efficiency or on a one-size-fits-all basis.
Hybrid Working
A term that has come into vogue with the pandemic. It is mainly understood to describe splitting time between home and office. Unlike ‘Smart Working’, it does not imply any significant transformation in working practices or processes. Often accompanied now by expectations or mandates for a set amount of time spent in an office.
Industry 4.0
This is a widely-used term for step changes in digitisation along with new areas of automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics. With all of these comes increased capabilities for remote interaction with data, products, and autonomous/semi-autonomous/remotely-controlled systems and machinery. This has implications not only for how people work and the skills needed, but also where and when.
Jobshare
A form of part-time working where two (or potentially more) people share the tasks that would otherwise make a single role. One of the least-used forms of ‘flexible working’, although there can be many advantages in designing roles to be shared.
Maker space
Essentially, space for making things. There’s a growing phenomenon in coworking to provide maker space as a service, i.e. to be used by people from different companies and freelancers. It also has relevance to some home-based industries where there is a need for fabrication.
Management by results / output / outcome
A very important element of Smart Working is to have a strong focus on the results of work, instead of focusing on time input or presence.
Open plan office
A term that is used in many different ways of many different types of more open work environments, leading to frequent misunderstanding and incoherent commentary. It features in our post on Time for a Bonfire of Useless Terminology.
Part-time working
Work arrangement that specifies working fewer hours per week than for a standard 5-days per week contract. It’s usually classed as a form of Flexible Working, though contractual arrangements are often quite specific and inflexible, e.g. set hours on certain days per week.
It is however in principle possible to combine part-time work with greater autonomy over when the hours are worked and the location of work, just as for full-time work.
PAS 3000
PAS 3000 (2015) – Smart Working Code of Practice is a British Standards document setting out best practice in Smart Working across sectors. It has substantially guided implementations in the UK public sector in particular.
Proximity bias
Proximity bias happens when employees who are physically closer to managers and colleagues are favoured, or included more, in an organisational workplace compared to those who work elsewhere. It also infuses much thinking about where is the optimal location for certain activities, e.g. for learning or generating new ideas.
Phased retirement
There is very substantial demand for greater flexibility amongst older workers approaching retirement age – or who wish to work beyond a pensionable age but on terms more under their control. Reducing the hours of work is an option, as are arrangements for being available as needed e.g. to deal with peak demand or to contribute specific expertise.
Remote First / Virtual First / Digital First
These more or less interchangeable terms are used to describe a way of designing work and implementing change that ensures that everything works optimally for people who work outside the traditional organisational workplace, as a guarantee of equality between all colleagues. The idea is that if it works optimally for people who spend more time working away from the office, it will work for everyone.
Remote working
Largely used to describe working from home instead of an organisation-owned workplace, but can refer to other locations as well. It arguably carries overtones of being distant, and not in the primary work location – so I prefer to avoid using it.
Right to request flexible working
In several countries there is a statutory right to request (some forms of) Flexible Working. In the UK, this right is quite extensive, and applies to all employed workers. In principle, employers should only refuse for valid business reasons.
From April 2024, it’s a right that will apply to all workers from their first day after joining an organisation.
Self-rostering
Team-based self-rostering enables time-flexibility and greater autonomy for people who do shift work or have to be on call. It works by team members agreeing their times of work, rather than having a schedule determined by a manager.
Smart-proofing
Smart- proofing describes an approach to ensuring that every new policy, strategy, working practice, process, service plan and budgetary proposal in an organisation is compatible with Smart Working.
Smart Working
Smart Working describes a strategic approach to flexibility that embeds flexibility as normal, rather than something to be requested as an exceptional pattern of work. It aims to deliver greater efficiency and effectiveness in work organisation, service delivery and organisational agility, as well as an improved work experience.
Key features are management by results, a trust-based culture, high levels of autonomy, flexibility in the time and location of work, new tools and work environments, reduced reliance on physical resources and openness to continuing change.
Spaceless growth
Spaceless growth involves growing an organisation without adding to its real estate requirements. This is one of the potential advantages of adopting Smart Working practices that enable working in other locations across an Extended Workplace.
Team agreement / charter/ protocols
These are agreements drawn up by colleagues in their teams to clarify their arrangements for working smarter. I outline a process for using these also to encourage innovation in ways of working in chapter 9 of Beyond Hybrid Working.
Telecommuting
A term that has a historic feel to it, describing teleworking, but emphasising the elimination of commuting. Mainly used in America.
Telework
Working at a distance for an organisation using technologies for accessing one’s work and one’s colleagues. In practice, it’s mainly used to describe working from home. The term has a slightly archaic feel to it now, but is enshrined in some countries’ legislation and is often by researchers.
Term-time working
Working arrangements where people work during school/college term times only, and not during vacations. This is one of the lesser-used forms of flexible working, and most of the uptake is by working mothers.
Time off in lieu (TOIL)
TOIL is a form of flexible hours working that allows hours to be varied across days, by paying back extra hours worked on one day with time off on other days.
Total ‘time worked’ account
Total number of hours contracted over a long period and employees can ‘complete’ work faster to discharge their responsibilities.
Trust-based culture
Facilitating greater choice and autonomy for employees and implementing management by results require the development of a culture of trust, where employees and teams are trusted to make responsible decisions about where, when and often how they carry out their work activities. It’s about treating employees and contingent workers as mature adults.
Virtual mobility
A term used to describe being able to carry out activities virtually that one would otherwise have to travel for. An important concept for looking at the impact of use of technologies for travel reduction.
Virtual Workplace
In Beyond Hybrid Working, I use Virtual Workplace as a description for the ‘fifth domain’ of the Extended Workplace. We may work in many different locations, but always connected by the Virtual Workplace as a means of accessing our information, applications and colleagues.
Workhub
Another, slightly older, word for a coworking centre.
Zero-hours contract
With a zero hours contract, an employer makes work available but the worker is not obliged to take up the offer of work. The CIPD defines a zero-hours contract as ‘an agreement between two parties that one may be asked to perform work for the other but there is no set minimum number of hours. The contract will provide what pay the individual will get if he or she does work and will deal with the circumstances in which work may be offered (and, possibly, turned down)’.
This kind of work relationship is most used where work is irregular or has peaks and troughs. From the individual worker’s point of view, it can provide flexibility to dovetail work with other commitments in life.
