UK Patent Office:
The work of the UK Patent Office is to receive technical documents from organizations and individuals who are claiming to have designed an innovative product. Examiners (professional staff) within the Office, consult a range of databases to judge whether this product is truly innovative. They then produce a report, either denying or supporting the application for a patent to be granted. Examiners are highly trained and have years of expert individual experience. They are supported in this work by IT system providers and clerical staff. Human Resource professionals manage recruitment, staff development and conditions of employment for all staff. A Management Group is responsible for developing strategy for the Patent Office and for delivering the work efficiently, effectively and to budget.

CASE STUDY
The Patent Office has decided it needs to look into the issue of implementing a formal teleworking scheme because:
• They want to attract and retain certain valued staff
• There seems to be an informal scheme in place that is not monitored
A formal scheme would mean:
• Identifying exactly who could telework and when, and monitoring this
• Providing more obvious support mechanisms for telework in terms of IT, opportunities for development etc
• Putting new staff management strategies in place specifically oriented to the needs of teleworkers
The Management Group has decided to gather opinion on the feasibility of this new scheme and are consulting with various groups in order to make a decision about whether and how this will be implemented:
• Human Resources department
• IT department
• Group of professional staff
• Group of support staff
•
ACTIVITIES
• Class split into the groups and allocated a particular employee group to discuss. Aim to pinpoint how the proposed change(s) would affect their group and what they think that group’s preferred outcome would be. 15 mins
• Each group (except Management) summarises and presents their view as list of points 10 mins
• Management Group discusses information from across the groups, calls in groups for further discussion if required. Management Group decides on whether to implement a formal scheme. Possible decision outcomes:
No formal scheme, continue as before with informal
No formal scheme, ban informal teleworking
Institute formal scheme, ban informal teleworking
Each of these decisions may have conditions attached
Employee groups also discuss what they have heard. 20 mins
• Management Group presents decision, its justification and further actions to Employee Groups. Employee Groups give their feedback. 10 mins
• NB ALL students intending to write this up take detailed notes as the action unfolds

Developing the Workshop
1 Writing up the workshop as an organizational report
2 Share notes on what happened but write up report separately
3 Gather examples of organizational telework policies and any relevant legislation
NB You may NOT write-up this report if you did not attend the workshop. Submitted reports based on this workshop will be checked against the workshop register by an independent administrator (to maintain anonymity for marking)

Writing up the Workshop
3000 word report due in January
1 Executive Summary (250 words): objectives of telework scheme, main points of results and decision outcome (bullet point form)
2 Review (1000 words): research on teleworking and telework policies, with relevance to this case study See references in handbook
3 Report (1000 words): problem facing PO, process of reaching decision, main issues of debate to come out, decision and recommendations for implementing that decision, risk analysis, including employee groups’ reaction to this
4 Conclusion (250 words): Summary of decision and its justification and necessary further actions
5 Critical Evaluation (500 words): Main insights learned about implementing new telework systems from this role play
6 References and Appendix (not included in word count, including, for example, telework policies consulted)

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