#FitForVUCA: Rethinking The Future Of Work

If we’re honest there’s nothing but bad news when we pop the hood and get real about what’s happening in the world of work today from a people perspective.

All we see is lip service to recruitment, diversity, training or heated debates over working spaces, and who can think of the quirkiest bring-your-dog-to-work type perk, but no deep discussion over how are people are actually doing.

Tired as we may be of terms around “employee satisfaction” or even “wellbeing”, the reality of the figures on everything from burnout to mental illness to stress or mere disengagement and lack of productivity is stark, and it translates in business dollars down the proverbial drain. I won’t repeat the stats here because if we see them, we focus on that one number and gasp in shock for about 5 minutes, then carry on about our days as if the emperor is not completely naked. 

The reality is that we have mistreated our employees and have been rather horrendous to our people. Mostly out of indolent indifference and not out of malevolence, but now that we’re awake and aware, it veers more and more towards the latter every day.

In the grand scheme of things, having people be employed en masse in large corporate structures, in particular in the knowledge economy and doing white-collar jobs is not exactly old news, we’ve only been doing it in different societies for a couple of hundred years and in this time, it seems all we managed to work out is that we want them to do X, for Y amount of time, in W location and for Z payment thus ensuring we take care of their physical needs by sheltering and remunerating them and with about as much concern towards how they feel or think as slave owners used to give their property. Zero. 

What we are starting to pay more attention to these days is the “how” we want them to do the work, not because we want to make it better for them, but because the X we wanted them to do has drastically changed and for those of us involved with technology, the job descriptions of the past along with the processes around them are sorely inadequate and unsustainable. 

I put it to all of us that looking at the “how” in the future of work can’t be about “ways of work” only, and mustn’t be about process or tools exclusively, but it has to explore and determine what we value in terms of contribution and what we are offering and demanding in terms of human environment as well. 

I think that any discussion on ways of work that speaks about digital transformations, agile or lean practices and leaves out so called “soft skills” as well as an acute need for valuing and rewarding empathy, purpose, passion, openness, learning and courage, is not only a massive lost opportunity but also a disaster waiting to happen for any corporate that does it. 

It’s high time we redesign organisations because the ones we have today, with their hierarchical structures, their stale job descriptions, their waterfall project management and their old ways of thinking are slow -if not paralysed- and not fit for purpose. When we do so we must redesign with people at the centre not process at the centre. 

This should be non-negotiable and self-evident to anyone astutely trying to subsist in a new paradigm of work which waits for no one who’s obstinately in denial. 

As always, I won’t leave it at “we have to change mindsets!” or “we need to change culture and redesign the organisation” but say it needs to be approached with rolled sleeve as a conscious design exercise with the employee at the centre focusing on change, increasing their sense of psychological safety and their ability to innovate, their perception of value and engagement and their ability to build the future of work with you.

Nothing else but true and powerful intention to do so is needed to make this deep re-think happen. Every tool necessary for this workplace redesign exists. Any HCD technique will do. Any bluesy attempt will work. Any concerted effort to re-think with an absolutely open mind, building around what type of mindset and commitment the speed of technology and matching corresponding customer expectation demands of our people, will be a step forward.

Going back to the drawing board to reimagine and start building the future of work in an existent organization -or purposely driving the growth of a new one with that in mind- ought to be evident hygiene in this VUCA world where none of the old conventions of the workplace is to last us much longer. And when we do, we must do so around humans, not some imaginary on-paper strategy matching a definition of work that is only fit for the stapler brigade in "Office Space".