In Davos, Inconvenient Truths About Work Laid Bare

After a week spent at the World Economic Forum, three things are clear to me:

1. A striking percentage of knowledge workers have unhealthy relationships with work.
2. These workers want more flexibility. This has been obvious for a while, but CEOs are talking about it differently. They don’t sound like they’re trying to muscle their way back into a 2019 level of “normal.” Instead, they know they need to adjust more to people’s new expectations.
3. There’s a lot of anxiety over whether AI will replace people at work, and how segments of the labor pool will be reskilled.

All of this sounds gloomy. But actually, Davos left me feeling genuinely uplifted and excited about the future of work ahead.

The leaders at the WEF, despite what the more conspiratorially minded corners of the internet might think, actually want to do good in the world. Many of the discussions were centered around how we can all make work better for people. Others — including one that my co-founder spoke at — were about using AI to reduce bias. It was refreshing to hear top leaders talk about their efforts to ensure AI doesn't negatively reshape society.

But my biggest source of excitement is that Inclusively stands to play an outsize role in the future of work.

In Davos, I heard the same problems discussed over and over by CEOs and CHROs — and knew that Inclusively is solving them.

To start, there's the widespread, unhealthy relationship people have with their jobs, and the lack of a structured, company-wide framework to fix that. HP’s CEO Enrique Lores shared a startling stat at the Axios House session: just 27% of knowledge workers feel they have a healthy relationship with their work. That was an eye-popping stat to hear to most, but it tracks with what we hear and the data we see.

People want flexibility, and they're not happy. At the same time, companies are wary of a free-for-all, where “flexibility” can equate to “less output.” Managers are already being inundated with ad hoc requests to leave work early or to work remotely on a given day. The lack of structure — and sheer volume of these requests — is burning them out.

What’s needed is flexibility, but with structure — and an acknowledgment that flexibility does not mean “less work.” It means working in a way that makes you more productive and happier, yes, but it also means restructuring things to get the quality work done.?

There’s a way to fix the unsettled relationship between employers and their employees — and it comes from an unexpected source.

People still think accommodations are just for people with disabilities, but if they could shift that mindset, they could solve work’s biggest problem today.

Let me be clear: The accommodations processes at most companies, in their current form, aren’t enough. But when companies refresh their process with new architecture, all of a sudden that old archaic foundation becomes strikingly effective — and leads to dramatic upticks in worker productivity, retention, and happiness. Best of all, the process is scalable.

Let’s diagram it.

In today’s process, employees have to disclose if they have a disability to get additional support. Everyone begins at this stage. It's the interactive accommodations process, and it’s a beast — a massive process involving a lot of back and forth, lawyers, medical notes, and a host of redundancies that rarely leave the employee or employer satisfied with the process.

What our Retain product does is it creates a self-serve model around this — and not just for people with disabilities. We’re talking about a model that works for every employee. This could be an employee who has mental health needs, caregiving needs, wants more mentoring or coaching, needs to pick up their kids at 3pm most Wednesdays, or simply wants access to tools that make them more likely to excel at (and like) their job.

We heavily automate this process.

In this new framework, people get educated as to what accommodations — or “Success Enablers” — will make them better and happier at their jobs. That might mean more heads-down time to complete tasks, periodic rest breaks to recharge, screen readers, or digital job coaching and mentoring. They can also chat with our AI tool to help them find the right success enablers for their needs. People get support, they don't need to self-disclose, and they aren’t thrown immediately into a time-consuming legal process. They can get what they need directly.

Then, only a small number who need extra support will progress to the traditional interactive accommodations process — particularly for certain success enablers and accommodations that might require more intensive support. Ideally, most cases are addressed early on.

For employers who want to know more about what accommodations they can offer, our AI tool also offers intel into what other companies are doing in similar industries. They also get a dashboard that provides their people with transparency and stats to track what’s working, creating a more psychologically safe environment for current and prospective employees.?

This is all done without disrupting existing HR workflows that already exist at your company.

We want our platform to be a space where anyone can explore, learn, and receive what they need. And if they do need to proceed with the traditional accommodations process, all their data should flow into that system seamlessly, fitting right into their existing workflow. But the goal is to significantly reduce the volume of cases reaching that stage.

After leaving Davos, I’m heartened by the fact that CEOs and CHROs know what’s going wrong in so many workplaces.

Now, it’s time for them to address these things — and we’re excited to be in a position to help.