Transport for London (TfL) are already gloomily predicting the underground network will be 30-50% over-capacity during the three-month period; then there's the 60 or more miles of Central London "Games Lanes" exclusively for vehicles from the "Olympic family". As a result, commuter journey times, we are warned, could more than double during the Olympic period.
But while there's no escaping the massive impending business continuity challenge this poses, the Olympics also represent a real opportunity for business everywhere to change for the better in terms of avoiding cost, enhancing staff productivity and improving the overall competitive business position.
So, are you ready for this?
The reshaped economic landscape of the last three years has led all organisations to streamline their operations. There are simply no surplus staff left to 'pick up the slack'. Lean business operations mean that even the smallest disruption Can cause problems. How many times will a key staff member battle into the office in the summer of 2012 only to find a key colleague hasn't made it in?
This hasn't escaped the attention of the Olympic organisers, who have been running special workshops on reducing or eliminating staff travel, scheduling appointments for less busy times of the day and considering using alternative methods for meetings, such as conference calls, video conferencing and web conferencing.
But while business continuity planning and risk mitigation is all well-and-good there's no point asking staff to 'work away from the office' if management habits and conventions are not addressed. There's no point expecting staff to consider alternative methods for meetings if the remote infrastructure isn't available to all. There's no point assuming staff will work away from the office if they're left feeling isolated and not trusted to get together with colleagues in regional locations when they feel it's needed.
What's required is a complete transformational change to working practices - and that's a task that cannot be underestimated, particularly since this transformation needs to be embedded well ahead of July 2012 to ensure fluent operation.
Today's workplaces function through a series of complex interdependencies between HR, IT, Real Estate, and Management Culture, and isolated interventions such as a missive to 'work away from the office' or the deployment of technologies such as web conferencing in the hope that 'people will get it' simply will not deliver.
Compounding matters, people are inherently resistant to change. Consequently organisations must have a comprehensive understanding of how to effectively transform work practices.
To get it right is a time, and resource intensive process that demands wholehearted commitment from all involved - the collective actions of HR, IT, Real Estate, and Management Operations working in unison. It also demands an alignment with the way staff are incentivised. Asking people to work in a way that's contrary to the focus of their performance metrics will only serve to thwart and stall change.
To really change work practices, it's essential to model how your workplace interacts. It's simply unrealistic to assume the same interventions will work across all areas. This modelling will highlight both the opportunities for each department and their working styles to change and the specific tasks required to make this change happen.
Expectations for change must then unambiguously and swiftly percolate to each individual member of staff - irrespective of where they sit in the hierarchy. And this requires a focus on the '4 Ps':
What's the Picture,
What's the Purpose,
What's the Plan, and
What's my Part.
Moving forward, new working practices requires constant support, coaxing possibly recalcitrant managers and staff with metrics and incentives aligned to an ongoing desired outcome. The aim has to be for new work practices to become a pervasive principle, a philosophy that transcends every aspect of the organisation
Given the well-proven opportunities for long-term and enduring cost avoidance, productivity improvement and competitive positioning gain, is it not beholden on all responsible, forward-looking business leaders to seize this opportunity to see beyond a transient three-month event and effect a permanent change to work practices?
John Blackwell advises companies on effective business operation and transformation. His is author of over 30 management books, a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, a visiting fellow at three universities and Director of Research at Henley Business School.
He will be speaking at the Smart Working Summit on Tuesday 18 October at The Grange Hotel, Tower Bridge, London.
