While we have heard the term many times, how relevant is smarter working to our working lives?

From 16 November, brilliant minds from across the UK’s public sector are coming together for three days to discuss, debate and educate us on smarter working at this year’s Smarter Working Live Conference. While we have heard the term many times, how much do we really understand about smarter working, and how relevant is it to our working lives?

Gov.uk explains smarter working as empowering “… us all to make the right decisions about where, when and how we work; optimising the use of workplaces and technology, and realising savings for the taxpayer.”

The Government Property Agency (GPA) has been leading the civil service transformation since 2018 by implementing smarter working practices across the Government’s general office portfolio. So, what does this actually mean?

Steven Boyd, CEO at the GPA, will be opening the Conference by taking us through how the Agency is working with government bodies to design, build, manage and evolve workplaces and working environments for civil servants. You will discover the most important four ‘C’s’ to workplace design and productivity.

Joining Steven is Rupert McNeil, Government Chief People Officer, and Helen Lederer, Deputy Director Corporate Services at No 10 and Cabinet Office Diversity and Inclusion Champion. Rupert and Helen will discuss the people, culture and leadership elements of smarter working, and why they’re some of the most critical principles in achieving sustainable change and in creating great places to work across the public sector.

As day one of the Conference continues, you will join a live panel of smarter working practitioners from different government departments who will discuss their approaches to smarter working implementation, lessons learnt, the benefits of smarter working to their organisation, and much more.

Andrew Nelson and Leah Jones from the GPA will then deep dive into how changing working practices and employee behaviours have impacted the workplace design. And how these insights have been applied to the recently updated Government Workplace Design Guide.

This is a completely virtual event that is free to attend, with various opportunities to interact with speakers, industry experts and like-minded peers across the three days. View the full agenda, and book your place now.

Smarter Working Live is hosted by the Government Property Agency (GPA) and GovNewsDirect. This three-day conference is supported by the Smarter Working Awards – the platform for recognising the significant achievements and commitment demonstrated by individuals, teams and organisations to drive positive change towards smarter working. View the Awards finalists.