The Changing environment of work

I remember when I started my work life work was considered a via media for material success. There was enough time during the day to finish our work and then pursue our passion – what that may have been. Today that has completely changed. Work is not just a via media for success but more so a “need” for our very survival. We spend most of our day at work with little or no time left for sleep, family or friends, let alone our passion. Naturally then, with the workforce spending 50%-60% of their time at work or working, the human sense of fulfilment, which erlier was fulfilled by our passions, now has to come from the workplace. Products and business do not matter anymore.

Visionary companies recognize this. Profit is not the only objective; making money is one objective and not necessarily the primary one. They value core ideology, core values and a sense of purpose beyond money. This corporate sense of purpose then also provides a purpose to their employees, creating passion. Surprisingly, these companies make more money than “profit only” companies. The flkip side is that employees who do not identify with that sense of purpose, generally get expunged.

Business and business leaders need to understand that in today’s work environment people are actually trading in 50% of their lives and obviously want to trade for something that matters. They want to belong to something they feel is special. Business leaders are the face of the company to the workforce. I think Daniel Harkavy expresses it quite well in his book, “Becoming a coaching leader” where he says – “ If you are coldly tactical and distantly technical and efficiently process oriented and leave your heart out of it – the your people will follow you only part of the way. They need to believe that by following you they will go places they would not even see without you at the helm.”

We all agree that employees are the pillars of the organization. Strengthening those pillars creates a strong resilient and successful organization. And to do that, a leader must acknowledge and accept this changing environment and bring that change into his organization. If we want to succeed as leaders, we have to understand the mind set of this new generation of workers and the differing perspective of our own generation.