WORKPLACES ARE GETTING WOKE BUT IS IT WORKING?

When I first went to college in the mid 90’s, I was delighted by most everything. Spaced-out classes, theater-style seating, cafeterias, social spaces, a beautiful quad. The antithesis of high school, where regimented schedules, concrete, a linear layout reigned supreme. College was MADE for me, a kid who couldn’t sit still and listen to someone talk for hours on end, couldn’t stand the monotony of the square of the school. I was drunk with the freedom of the schedule, the aesthetic, the open air. So enamored was I, that I couldn’t handle it. Didn’t make it. Flunked out. I went back later and finished, but by then I was over the bounties of beauty and freedom. I understood that, when left to choose my own adventure, I needed SOME boundaries. Some direction. Some walls. Not square, but not non-existent.

We’ve been working hard in Hartford to create a workplace environment that is open, inviting and relaxed. Where staffers feel appreciated, empowered, and free. Free to do their work, free from scrutiny, free from the boundaries of a cubicle and a lunch whistle. We have a big ballpark; a giant open field, 6,000+ seats, a banquet space that holds more than 300, a giant conference room, multiple suites and decks. And we have wi-fi throughout the ballpark. You could really work anywhere, and people do. We’ve also tried to convey that the work, the job itself, is the thing… not being arbitrarily accountable to a desk or a space. And with that the philosophical equivalent: that there is no question to which you don’t deserve an answer, there is no discussion to which you are not privy. All one team, working toward one goal, and the longer we all stay here, at this job, this place, the more successful we’ll all be. We’re not trying to be like the best teams in Minor League Baseball, or the best teams in sports, we’re trying to be like the best companies. The Googles. The Facebooks. The Bain & Company’s (it’s real, look it up). And if we’re being honest, we’re doing it for the Millennial generation.

You see, the best companies are literally tearing up their buildings, taking down their office walls, creating cafeterias and hang-out spaces, getting rid of offices, encouraging employees to dress down, bring their pets to work, to work from home when needed. For the Millennials. And the philosophical equivalent: do your job, however you see fit, in whatever way makes you comfortable. Everyone is a boss, everyone the CEO of their own company. The theory being that freedom is empowering. Removing the linear landscape is empowering. Everyone being part of every conversation is empowering. All of which should lead to greater success. Greater loyalty. Longevity.

But. Whether or not that’s “a thing” is open to debate. According to a recent Gallup poll, today’s younger working generation has a reputation for job-hopping. Unattached to organizations and institutions, people from the generation born between 1980 and 1996 are moving freely from company to company, more so than any other generation. And when it comes to productivity? Fast Company surveyed 1,000 full-time workers in the U.S., and as it turns out, they aren’t as content as you might assume with the blurring of lines between the personal and the professional and the relaxing of workplace norms. In fact, a majority of respondents issued a strong rejection of many workplace behaviors that seem to have gone mainstream. Saying it actually hurts productivity.

And that’s just the workplace environment. What about the workplace philosophy? When you anoint tens, twenties, hundreds of CEO’s, you have to remember that CEO’s traditionally have voting shares. You can’t just say it and not mean it… if you say it you have to mean it. And that’s really hard. Because, despite what’s being espoused, the fact of the matter is there are just some things that everyone doesn’t need to know. Some decisions just require the input of one, two or three. And when your CEO’s question you on that, well, that is the chickens coming home to roost.

Some say this effort, this ambition, is just creating an extension of the college experience for young people. That we're not going to lengths to create more productivity, but merely going to lengths to maintain the productivity that’s always been. That may be true, it may not… frankly we won’t know for decades. One thing is certain: we are creating a thing that will be a thing for years to come, regardless of the benefit.

Mike Abramson is the General Manager for the Hartford Yard Goats MiLB team, Double-A Affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. You can follow him on Twitter at @YardGoatsGM.