WELCOME CORPORATION 3.0

Corporation 3.0 – The Modern Work Environment

We are at the beginning of a new phase in the corporate world and the leaders who adapt are the ones who will thrive.? The professional work environment has changed, and the needs of your employees have changed as well.? ?The change was slowly happening before COVID but COVID added gasoline to the small flame that was flickering.? ?Technology has completely changed how we behave, how we interact, how we collaborate, and ultimately how we work.? ?Individuals have changed how they view their life, their work, and how they are motivated.?

First, Let’s Go Backwards

Before we get to Corporation 3.0, we need to know what Corporation 1.0 is and Corporation 2.0 is.? ?When I think about Corporation 1.0, this is back around the early 1900s up through the early 1950’s.? ?Factory work was prevalent during this time, and it was believed that people disliked work and that people would avoid work if they could.? ?Furthermore, it was believed that people feared taking responsibility and badly needed direction.? The predominant management style at this time was to coerce and control the workers.?

As society and research evolved, Corporation 2.0 started to take shape during the 1950’s.? Dan Pink talks about this in his book, The Drive.? In the book, he talks about Douglas McGregor who was a management professor at MIT and argued that “those running companies were operating from a faulty assumption about human behavior.”? McGregor’s perspective held that “taking an interest in work is ‘as natural as play or rest,’ that creativity and ingenuity were widely distributed in the population, and that under the proper conditions, people will accept, and even seek, responsibility.”? With this new perspective and the shift from factory jobs to more corporate jobs, management styles shifted to a carrot and stick model.? During this time, you began to have well defined job descriptions and company silos and some empowerment began to show.? But overall, management still lead with the “my way or the highway” approach.?

Back to the Future

This brings us to Corporation 3.0.? Naturally, society and research have continued to evolve, and as we moved into the 2000s we began to see another shift in behavior.? More and more, employees are fueled by intrinsic desires rather than extrinsic desires.? In general, employees are less concerned with external rewards.? Yes, money matters but only to a certain extent.? Salary has a shelf life regarding motivation.? ?Employees are more concerned with the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself, rather than the reward.? Employees are more self-directed, seek autonomy, and seek work/life equilibrium.? Notice how I said equilibrium and not balance.? It is not a balance because at any given time, one side is taking more than the other.? I view it more as an equilibrium when sometimes work is taking up more time and other times, your personal life is taking up more time.??

Also, in Corporation 3.0, the workforce is more dispersed.? Employees are working from multiple offices and/or remote from their home or other locations.? ?The dispersed workforces require new ways of collaborating, communicating, and motivating.? The dispersed workforce places added importance on the company norms for meetings and email use.? All of these variables play a factor in the overall engagement and performance of your teams.?

The question becomes:

What would your autonomy audit show?

What norms do you have for meetings and email?

What is your companies flexible work strategy?

New Problems, New Leadership

In this new modern work environment, leaders need to adapt to how they are driving their company forward.? First and foremost, you need to have a strategy of where you want to go and a game plan of how you believe you can get there.? But strategy isn’t just about the goals you want to achieve, you also need to have a strategy around your employee experience.?? ?When I say employee experience, I am talking about things like PTO, flexible work, and level of autonomy.? These are all variables that play a huge role in the mindset of your employee. ??I know I am stating the obvious here, but the more positive your employee’s mindset is, the better off they will be and the better off your company will be.? ?

The biggest challenge that leaders are facing with the employee experience is around the topic of flexible work and they are trying to approach it from a black and white context.? More often than not, companies are creating hard and fast rules of what every employee should do or can do.? The challenge with this fixed mindset is that everyone has different needs.? The needs of a 23 year old are different than the needs of a 35 year old parent with young kids and their needs are different from the needs of the 52 year old empty nester.? ?

These hard and fast rules are magnified when you start to deal with the day to day and employees collaborating when some are in the office, some are at home, some are in other offices, etc.? These defined rules that are applied to all have negative impacts on your employee’s mindset.? ?Employee A is sitting in the office on a zoom call with his/her colleagues that are sitting at home on the same zoom call.? Employee A then wonders why does it matter if I am in the office right now when the people I am working with are at home or in another office??

These are thorny situations that require thought and planning around work location strategy, office collaboration norms, and autonomy strategy.? ?You can’t approach these new problems with old ways of thinking.?

How important is employee engagement to you and are you willing to adapt?

Get Started with an Autonomy Audit today!