Reflecting Upon Our Future Of Work.

The moment it all changed.

The last flight I took for business was February 26th 2020; EWR-SFO, seat 6D.

We had just hosted our board in NYC. After sharing the usual business updates, we briefly discussed the country-wide COVID-19 lockdown that was severely affecting our business in Shanghai. Our colleagues painted a dystopian future of tracking and control. We all agreed global disruption was likely, but had little idea how much our lives would change.

Flying home to San Francisco, I read that the first case of community transmission had been recorded in California. Twelve days later, we shuttered our offices globally and took a step into the unknown.

Understanding our futures; Now, Near, and Far.

Distance from a problem gives you perspective, and while we are clearly not through the pandemic, we have had time to think about what’s next.

There is no one “Future of Work”. There are as many futures as there are types of companies and needs of workers — and both of those are experiencing lasting change as a result of this experience. Anyone who claims to know what the universal “new reality” looks like, is overstating their confidence.

Yes, there are foundational shifts that companies need to embrace:

• Asynchronous tasks, networked structures, and talent models that allow for more fluidity—from looser job requirements to gig work—are here to stay.
• Workers have more power to define how and where they work than they ever had before.
• What’s desirable for workers will challenge business priorities, given that without talent, there will be no business.

Beyond that, all we can do is learn from the Now and plan for the Near future. How we work going forward is a design problem. And as with any design problem we tackle, we are learning from a series of experiments.

Since May of 2021 we’ve had a team studying how we work, exploring key themes, and collaborating with our community to ensure that we’re grounded in the needs of all IDEOers.

Two insights.

That research uncovered two key insights that are influencing our thinking:

• Instead of asking when we should go back to the studio, we needed to ask “Why are we going back?”
• Roles vary wildly across our company, and so does the work that those roles entail. Understanding this complexity is key to creating human-centered futures that meet everyone’s needs.

Two Truths.

We miss the crackle of our studio culture, which was wacky and wonderful and made up of by serendipitous hallway interactions. In-person collaboration is still critical to our sense of belonging and wellbeing. Building trusting relationships with one another, and with clients, will never be the same over Zoom.

And: virtual has worked surprisingly well for us. We quickly scaled our use of digital collaboration tools and will continue to embrace them for the things they enable when done well: Productivity. Flexibility. Deep focused work.

But I also have an admission: Our leaders, myself included, need new skills to answer to the expectations of this blended environment. We need digital fluency and a mindset shift to make up for the loss of in-person visibility. We need new forums for communication and management. There’s an entire playbook waiting to be written on this.

The challenge we and so many organizations are facing now is how to integrate all of these needs into one operating vision.

So what are we doing?

We are increasing flexibility in where we work and how we work.

Few people will be required to be in our studios five days a week. We will push for greater work-life balance and hope to tap into a more diverse talent base who may not live in the cities where we have studios. It will challenge us to think creatively about space and find new ways to “be together”.

2022. The year of learning.

That means embracing 2022 as a year of learning. We’re launching a series of pilots with the intent to evolve our hypotheses, and iterate our future ways of working.

Our pilots for 2022 include:

• Pilot 1: Rethinking Work. Establishes a new toolset and behaviors for hybrid and remote working.
• Pilot 2: Project Typologies. Explores new project engagement types with the aim of understanding what models work best for all of our stakeholders: our employees, our clients, and our participants.
• Pilot 3: Community Cadences. Coordinates our global and regional calendars, considering a hybrid environment to get the best out of us when we are together — be that virtually, or in person.
• Pilot 4: New Roles. Defines new roles for virtual and blended communities, acknowledging that the work in these spaces is radically different than before and that it requires new expertise.

I’m committed to sharing our learnings openly and hope they’ll be useful to you if you’re helping to define the future of work at your organization.

If you’re an executive grappling similar challenges, are interested in running your own pilots and learning together, let me know at [email protected]