Most Organizations Are Not Ready For The Future of Work. This is Why and Why It Matters

The traditional “life cycle” that was in place for too many years looked like this: go to school (15-20 years) → work (30-40 years) → retire (for as many years as you have left).

In such traditional cycle, each piece of life was separated from the previous one (school, work, retirement). It was considered that learning was only achieved through and at school, that work was a full-time commitment to one organization and nothing else, and that retirement was a long-term thing at the end of one’s person career.

Today, such approach is incredibly obsolete and detrimental to the development of both people and the organization.

Why? Because…

→ Lifelong learning is fundamental in the new world of work. Learning all the time, from every experience, anywhere, and remaining curious, innovating and creating are critical human skills. Learning doesn’t happen only at schools anymore. It’s a hands-on, real experience that people live day by day. Only in doing so can they remain relevant with the vast amount of information and knowledge created every second. As important as lifelong learning is the fact that learning is cheap today (are schools ready for that?)

→ Most people don’t truly “retire” anymore (as in the traditional concept), least so the newer generations. Today, employees value “short-term” sabbaticals. They take time off every now and then (if possible) to volunteer, to visit national parks, to enjoy life. I don't want to generalize, but do people really want to work 40-50 years straight? Newer generations will live up to 120-130 years, do they really want to work 80 years nonstop?

→ Most people who are actually retiring after 40+ years of work are trying to get back into some sort of “work life”. Not for the money, but for the adrenaline (watch the movie The Intern).

→ Working in one organization and doing the same thing for a 5-8 years’ cycle before switching to something else within the same company became extremely boring. Most employees are quickly seeking for the “new thing” at work. The new cycles of lateral mobility must be implemented in weeks or maybe months, not years, because people learn too fast today (they must, or they go out of business too), which also means that they reach plateaus and get bored faster. When people don’t find such “new thing” in their current companies, they move on and get another job (as opposed to what you think about millennials and GenZ not being “loyal”. It isn’t about loyalty, it’s about crappy work design that prevents them from being “high” – engaged – at work at all times, and instead getting bored to death and moving on to find the adrenaline somewhere else).

Sadly, most companies still operate and design themselves (structure, jobs, etc.) based on the assumption that the “study → work → retire" approach is still relevant, when evidently it is not. 

This is how you can see that:

• Is your organization schedule (9 to 5) or project oriented?
• What kind of compensating packages are you designing? Are they targeting all generations or only those who still believe in the traditional life cycle?
• How do you have your competency frameworks designed? Are they “job-based skills” or “project-based skills”?
• Do you have limited or unlimited PTO? When do people take time off?
• What happens when you hire someone new? How much time do you give them to learn the job? What happens after?
• How long does it take for someone to be assigned to a new project or role? How about the skills necessary to remain competitive? How often do you check those skills?
• How long do you think your people take to master the skills to do certain job?

Using the obsolete study → work → retire approach to life and work have at least two dramatic implications in the workplace and the employees.

The first one is the total misalignment between the organization and how the new world of work works. Each day the business landscape is becoming more competitive than ever, demanding more and faster agility and innovation. But companies can’t keep up because their structures are a heavy weight. And inertia from heavy objects is difficult to combat and change.

Second, organizations can’t offer meaningful, “learning-ful” opportunities to their people. They offer “just a job” (one that most people today, especially the newer generations, will master in weeks… to then get stuck in that job for months and years because that’s how it is designed).

This results in those people leaving their jobs or simply living two lives at work: 20% doing what they must do and 80% in something else that very often doesn’t have anything to do with the organization, but becomes their creative outlet.

If you think about it, you are paying someone’s 100% salary but you are really utilizing only 20% of their capacities. And it isn’t because of the stupid idea that they are lazy or not loyal (one of those ideas inherited from obsolete management theories). It’s because of the significant idea that your organization isn’t ready to fully unleash 100% of the power that most people can give at work.

What to do

We must start by getting rid of the theoretical and practical boundaries established by what the obsolete study → work → retire model established.

This means that we must not only think far outside the organizational preexisting boxes when preparing our organizations for the future, but in some cases we must from scratch to redesign the workplace and the nature of work.

I’m not necessarily advocating for completely erasing 120 years of management and organizational development evolution. But I am certain that the linear evolution of the traditional management thinking (which has been tied to study → work → retire) has become a huge hindrance for the organization and its people to develop and unleash their full potential. 

We must acknowledge that today life is but an intertwined series of events, some of which belong to the “study”, “work” and “retire” periods, but all happening simultaneously!

How can you start transforming your organization and getting it ready for the future?

→ Redesigning competency frameworks from “job-based” to “project-based”: this means that you will be able to move people around in the organization and assign them to projects on a faster basis. In addition, you will increase their commitment and motivation as they will have to always be learning since projects change faster than “jobs”.

→ Forget about schedules: goodbye 9 to 5, have happy life in retirement! Seriously, a lot of people don’t care about this anymore. They have “alternative work schedules”. But we must go deeper. For example, do you think your people are happy by working and living in a city where they can’t even afford a normal life because all the money goes to pay rent? Schedules and physical location in an office is a thing of the past. To make sure that you can attract and retain the best talent in this new world of work you must go fully flexible. Not half-measures anymore!

→ Redefine your compensation approach: personalize your compensation plans so that they truly cater to people's real needs. People aren’t motivated for the same things and you can’t continue to use a one-size-fits-all kind of approach to compensate people. Some people value some things more than others. For example, some want to have kids and for them a daycare or education fund for their kids is important. Some others don’t want to have kids, but you can’t offer them the same “benefit”. As long as you are paying them well, reaching the next level is about common sense compensation plans that really address what people needs, and not what you think they would like.

→ Provide a creative outlet: look around in your organization. How many people do you think are giving their full potential to their actual work? Probably 1%. Most people are fully committed, but there’s simply not enough room for them to use their full creative powers (usually, because the very job description they were hired to do prevents them to do so!). I am sure that most of your people will say that they are busy, but busyness isn’t engagement, enjoyment or being creative, curious and innovative. How are you providing your employees an “intentional (well-designed) creative outlet to let them create cool stuff?

→ Humanize the experience: people don’t hate working. People hate doing work that sucks. And, granted, everything in life has elements that suck, and yet we have to do them. But, why would we make work a miserable experience?. You can humanize work. It starts by letting people be who they are, by transforming the work that they do so they find it more enjoyable and challenging, and see more learning opportunities than just chores to do day in and day out. Make work human so that people can truly unleash their potential at it, and not resent it because it sucks. 

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About the author:

Enrique is an HR and Tech Evangelist and founder of Hacking HR Forum. Enrique came to the United States from Venezuela as a Fulbright Scholar. Prior to coming to the US, Enrique was the CEO at Management Consultants, a firmed specialized in Human Resources and Corporate Social Responsibility in Venezuela. Before Management Consultants, Enrique worked in the telecommunications sector as a Senior Project Engineer for Telefonica. He currently works as an advisor for the CHRO at the Inter-American Development Bank. He is also the cofounder of Cotopaxi, an artificial intelligence based recruitment platform focused on Latin America and the Caribbean. Enrique is a guest author in several blogs about innovation, management and human resources. He has over twenty years of experience. Enrique holds an Electronic Engineering from Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela and an Executive Master’s in Public Administration from Maxwell School in Syracuse, New York. Enrique also holds a Design Thinking certification from Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, he is certified Scrum Master and PMP.

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