Mobility is an important aspect of employee experience. It has implications for the identities and wellbeing of workers. How can HR address the fact that movements can be very different depending on the context of work?
Mobilities and movements in the workplace
In a recent piece on management research, myself, and Dawn Chow argued, that although we often talk about when and where people work, it is likely that we don’t give enough thought to the patterns of movement which link time, place and space in defining our working lives.
In HR, mobility is usually linked to global mobile services. These support the relocation and transfer of employees across locations and borders to complete assignments. talent Mobility is another option, which allows employees to change positions within an organization.
A’space,’ can only become a “place” if it is a place that people are attached to through meaningful activities
Since the 1990s, however, the’Mobilities’ Research has called for a more comprehensive and systematic examination of the role that movement plays in our lives.
This emphasis is relevant in a post-pandemic work and HR world, where there are many “deskless” frontline workers who work on the go (2.7 billion people or 80% of global workforce), and so-called Digital Nomads, using special visas for remote work from other countries.
Work and HR on the Move
In the world of employment, much attention is still paid to places of work. This usually includes an office or a home. What if the workplace and employee experience were a patchwork made up of different locations and journeys that are meaningful because of movement?
You can easily identify examples of work arrangements that involve movements between the home, office, coworking spaces, clients sites, and other hubs or locations, departments or countries. This will involve virtual technology interactions and experiences with transport routes.
The movement of objects and ideas (plus people) is a timetable and geography that surrounds the working life. This has implications for power dynamics at work, as well as identities and workplace practices. The impact of mobility decisions on employee experiences is influenced by cost, time constraints, health concerns, family and leisure considerations, as well as career.
HR can better capture this reality if it stops thinking about the employee experience being embedded only in certain fixed places, such as rooms, buildings or going from A-B.
There are many examples of distinct mobility employee persons or “figures for mobility” in the workforce, including migrant workers and disabled workers.
Always moving or staying still?
The two extremes of work mobility are (1) Sedentarism which is a habitual and stable routine of staying in one place for a long time and (2) Nomadism. This involves a pattern of frequent and cyclical movements, but with less stability and more uncertainty.
For most of us however, our working lives are a complex mix of both – with feelings of stopping and starting, stillness and movement, feeling trapped, etc.
What most people seek is a balance between a secure attachment to a fixed place or roots and embracing new experiences.
Drivers, for example, are often sedentary or still for long periods of time, but they can move their vehicles and/or cargo, as well as passengers. Delivery and logistics workers are nomadic and highly mobile along supply routes while recipients remain still.
The patterns of moving and being still are essential to the motivation and identity of an employee. They affect their perceptions about what it is to be “at work” and what they expect to do at different times.
Can a space create a sense or place?
It is subjective to how employees feel about working and moving in different places and spaces. But we can all recall places that we disliked or felt uncomfortable in, such as an airport or a soulless office.
Some’spaces’ become ‘places’ when people attach themselves to them through meaningful routines and activities. Many critics are concerned that modern globalised spaces resemble “non-places”, which is anonymous, generic and unpersonal.
Airports, hotels and shopping malls are all examples of non-places. The same goes for theme parks, casinos, motorways, casinos, and other attractions. Non-places are places where workers, consumers, and others move about. They may be efficient, convenient, and functional.
In places where there is a constant stream of people, people can feel disoriented and dehumanised. Virtual online spaces can also suffer from the same problems.
Moving across places and networks
social networks analysis can be used in organisations to map important patterns and relationships between people. There is a lot of potential to map out the networks of places where employees travel as part of their work experience.
People can spend their time in a wide range of “third places” that are associated with recreation and community. They may also be involved in religion, or other social contexts.
Mapping out the employee journey as a series of interconnected locations, journeys and destination allows for a deeper understanding of their relationships.
People may have retreats or stopping-off points, visit places more or less frequently, travel between local and distant places, or change their patterns of technology connections and platform use.
Conclusions: The implications of mobility for HR
Mobility can help us understand the importance of employee experience, especially in a world that is constantly on the go, and a post pandemic environment with a variety of flexible, dynamic, frontline, hybrid, and deskless work environments.
HR can use three mobility levers: (1) balancing nomadism with sedentarism in the workplace, (2) mitigating negative experiences with “non-places”, and (3) understanding employees’ perceptions of movement as a flow across a network.
HR can do more by:
- It can be embedded in processes that relate to employee experience, such as engagement measurement and learning and development.
- Customizing mobility interventions and offering differently for frontline/deskless and hybrid/remote workers where the experiences of moving at work can be profoundly different.
- Promote flexibility and sustainability benefits by improving mobility experiences while developing a brand that acknowledges and celebrates the fact that everyone has different mobility needs, preferences and circumstances.
In the end, most people seek a balance between a secure attachment to rooted places and gaining some freedom, adventure, or mobility.
