The Future of Work (FoW)

The topic of future of work post COVID19 is a hot one and tackled at many forums. At the early stages, work in the “new normal” will be different mainly for the possibility of resurgence of the virus (or any mutated form of it) and validation of a vaccine. At the later stages, I expect that we will still change the way we work due to acquired new behaviors and experiences during the crisis.

WHAT TO EXPECT?

I believe we will witness the following trends (and drivers behind them):

1. less business travel >> due to costs pressure and the efficiency of video-based meetings
2. more work from home (WFH) / remotely & flexible work schedules >> due to efficiencies we all experienced during the crisis (flexibility, parents spending more time at home with their children and families, and fewer commutes), reduction in absenteeism, potential reduction in office costs, and the fact that companies will automate many of their tasks (including production thanks to IoT)
3. more fluid scope of work through cross-functional project marketplace >> due to the need of matching right talent and work to solve evolving business challenges in real time
4. more purpose driven work >> due to a pre-crisis trend that got amplified during the crisis: employees wanting to “contribute to society” and “create meaningful work”
5. more gig work >> since being employed at a company was not a guarantee for continuous income during the crisis   
6. more office as hub >> office working will not be over for good as offices will become hubs where people come and meetup once or twice a week

More than half of US adults want to work from home permanently, according to an IBM survey, while three-quarters would like to do so occasionally.

I plotted the above on the following 2x2 framework. I think what will persist in the future is mainly point (2) and likely (1) and (6).

According to a recent study by BCG, companies expect approximately 40% of employees to utilize a remote working model in the future. 37% of companies expect that more than 25% of employees will work in hybrid models that combine remote and onsite work.

WHAT ARE THE SKILLS OF THE FUTURE?

The future will require a combination of tech skills and soft skills.

• Tech skills: system analysis, programming, and data management
• Soft skills: problem solving, empathy, communication, leadership, emotional intelligence, creativity, adaptability, and learning  

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES?

FoW will bring with it set of challenges on leaders, employees, and organizations as follows:

• Leaders will have to ensure inclusion, adapt to a new way of working, and protect innovation
• Employees will have to stay motivated and adapt to a new way of working & delivering value
• Organizations will need to optimize the FoW, adapt their onboarding processes, and “manage” their culture

ADDRESSING FoW CHALLENGES FACING LEADERS

What should leaders adapt to?

Leaders of teams working remotely need to adapt to:

1. Paying attention to quality and quantity of output not the speed of response by setting deadlines, times to check-in, and flexibility
2. Discussing time during their informal one-on-one check-ins
3. Supporting their employees’ boundaries and signal their own while modeling healthy behaviors
4. Communicating more however refraining from sending communications outside of work hours. PS: I don’t know about you however I always send emails post working hours and during weekends. The way I tackled this one is by communicating to my reports that I don’t expect anyone to read these notes and that they should address them only during working hours
5. Being sensitive when scheduling meetings and contain the number of meetings
6. Minimizing non-urgent interruptions and offering flexibility
7. Encouraging informal “collaboration hours” and ensuring feedback

How leaders can insure inclusion?

There are many researches proving the importance of diversity & inclusion (D&I) on decision making (for business recovery), re-imagination (for innovation), and resilience (for culture). These findings are particularly relevant for the FoW. 

Following are five suggestions for your consideration as leaders:

1. Ensure that all employees have equal access to technology (laptops, internet connections, etc.) for remote work
2. Make virtual meetings unbiased by sending pre-reads, collecting input in advance, and encouraging participants to speak-up irrespective of their positions
3. Begin meetings with acknowledging everyone in the room
4. Understand how gender bias may show up knowing that women are bearing the disproportionate burden of responsibility for children, family, home, and healthcare-giving
5. Remember that it is not only about gender; we need to add the layers of race, class, nationality, and religion?

If companies pull back on D&I now they place themselves at a disadvantage: they could not only face a backlash from customers and talent but also fail to better position themselves for growth and renewal.

How can leaders protect innovation?

Research have shown that innovation prosper in companies that adopt ways of working that allow for failure, encourage new thinking and experimentation, and facilitate commercialization of ideas.

Following are four recommendations:

1. reduce your confidence, increase your curiosity by asking questions >> go back to the days when you were a child asking many questions to satisfy your curiosity
2. adopt a mindset of continuous improvement >> MVPs and improving them through experimentation
3. ensure psychological safety and provide space / sand-boxes >> you need to embrace failure as a prerequisite for success and need to free up resources and people for other projects that could lead to future breakthroughs
4. many studies have shown that creativity and innovation is best when people have physical proximity. I believe leaders will have to ensure that teams responsible of innovation meet physically frequently and in-between the physical meetings they must be equipped with digital tools that can facilitate their brainstorm (e.g. whiteboards and mood-boards) 

ADDRESSING FoW CHALLENGES FACING EMPLOYEES

How employees can stay motivated?

Reduced feedback, diminished external encouragement, and decreased interpersonal interaction take an emotional toll on employees. To stay motivated, employees can:

1. challenge their possible stories that undermine their self-confidence and security
2. boost their self-confidence by thinking about all the positive, helpful, contributing roles they play for people around them
3. share positive feedback with their stakeholders which might drive positive feedback back to them

How employees can adapt to a new way of working and delivering value?

In order to demonstrate their added value when their supervisors and peers are not physically around them to observe or know what they accomplished; employees need to:

1. make sure to do their work to the best of their ability. You might want to schedule a meeting every two weeks with your supervisor to update her about your progress
2. separate work from life by setting hours for work, personal time off (PTO), and breaks
3. inform their peers and other stakeholders if they have accomplished a significant milestone and how they have done it
4. spread positive vibes among your internal & external stakeholders especially in uncertain and challenging times like these
5. commit to continuous development to keep up with relevant industry developments and develop skillsets. Specifically: (a) ideally employees should learn hard-skills to operate all the technologies that organizations will introduce, (b) must aspire to understand everything about their businesses and grasp key connections, (c) have an entrepreneurial mindset, (d) ethical intelligence, and (e) bottom line focus

ADDRESSING FoW CHALLENGES FACING ORGANIZATIONS 

How organizations can optimize the FoW?

I expect organizations to do so by adoption of the following technologies:

• productivity software >> Teams is currently used by 75mio daily and clocked 4.1bn meeting minutes in just one day in April, up from a daily average of 900m in early March
• artificial intelligence & machine learning (AI/ML) >> that can help in perceiving, reasoning, learning, and problem solving
• augmented & virtual reality (AR/VR) >> engineering, manufacturing, product development & maintenance, spatial planning, training & education, and customer engagement
• sensors technology behind the internet of things (IoT) >> intelligent process automation
• cybersecurity to ensure the security of: networks, cloud services, devices and applications

To succeed, I foresee 4 hurdles to overcome:

1. siloing of data >> need to collaborate smarter not harder, be ambitious but don’t try to realize your goal in one “big bang”; do it through use cases
2. failure to properly integrate the growing diversity of intelligent technologies >> need to plan, train (reskilling & upskilling), thoughtfully implement, and measure
3. employees (from 5 different generations in the workforce with different workstyles) adopting technology but not embracing it >> need to instill a culture of engagement
4. cybersecurity >> there are examples of businesses rolling out systems and platforms that they would normally take half a year to plan, research, scope and test, and they are doing it over a weekend,” which risks undermining businesses’ “cyber security architecture”

How organizations can adapt their onboarding processes?

To accelerate the new recruits onboarding, I have 6 suggestions:

1. establish onboarding classes where newcomers can connect with each other
2. extend their onboarding periods to ensure proper “hypercare” and organize several check-ins to feel the pulse
3. publish user manuals to all processes and leverage technology (eg gamification) to ensure push and pull of knowledge
4. facilitate the connection between newcomers with buddies and key stakeholders
5. be clear about short-term objectives
6. facilitate virtual team-building

How organizations can “manage” their culture?

If remote work will become part of FoW, much workplace dynamics will seize to exist. Virtual employees can no longer casually run into each other. As a result, interactions diminish, relationships recede, work networks shrink, and the organization becomes less interconnected. This will surely have an impact on the cultural weaving of the organization. In order not to lose their cultural DNA, I have 5 suggestions: 

1. leverage mobile technology and its personalization potential by pushing a mix of daily content (videos, text-based messages, and short quizzes) all designed to encourage employees to embrace company culture. It is also important to remind employees of the company’s past (founding principles, stories, and commitments) that have shaped its culture
2. cultivate feelings of solidarity and shared mission
3. encourage internal networks
4. foster communication norms that promote company culture and call attention to and acknowledge which aspects of culture are on display and why that matters
5. commit to leveling the playing field between remote and in-person employees 

I hope the above gave you a holistic view of how work might evolve in the future and what are the considerations to ensure a successful transition for leaders, employees, and organizations.