One of the things we often hear from our HR alumni and network is that, however much they’d love to change the way they and their teams or Functions ‘do’ HR, they simply don’t have time. The daily dilemma: you may have found a new way to help their clients solve their business problems, but with a constant stream of emails making demands on your time it’s all too often much easier to respond reactively, reverting to old tried and tested habits and methods, for a ‘quick fix’. These demands inevitably come from every angle; your clients, your team, your Manager and as a support function, we’re wired to feel the need to be there, always.

It’s a dilemma with a modern edge, too. Whilst once work could be left at our desks, it now follows us around, bleeping its demands on our time with every new email delivered efficiently to our phones. I imagine there are few of us who haven’t felt a pang of nostalgia for the days without mobile technology.

We were inspired then by an auto-reply we received yesterday from one of our contacts informing us that both she and her blackberry were on holiday! As much as we were tickled by the idea of a smart phone sipping cocktails on a sunny beach somewhere, we were more taken by the idea of unashamedly ‘switching-off’. Perhaps not all of us have the luxury of granting our technology full annual leave rights but if this be the case, why not a coffee break? We may not all work for the kind of young hip companies where thinking time is an integral and accepted part of your work-load, but we could always try safeguarding our own thinking time by shutting down our technology for the time it takes to drink a latte. Far from being wasteful, this could prove to be the ‘golden time’ which gives you the space you need to work or think on the areas which could make a real difference, but which usually get lost in the rush.

With this in mind, I’m off for a technology-free frappe!

By Crownefinch