9-5 workplaces are dead. RIP.
A take on why modern workplaces deplete vitality, suffocate talent & impede progress & how do we fix them.
Welcome to Future of Work, Future of You. I bring insightful content on the accelerating trends for a next generation workplace. I want to welcome many of you who have recently subscribed to this newsletter. We all know that work sucks & workplaces are broken. My promise to you is to deliver thought provoking content on the state of workplace & ask tough questions. Today's issue brings insights into how workplaces are rapidly evolving to reflect the new work order that promises freedom, choice & flexibility to working professionals.
Physical workplace has changed so massively in the past few years that we need to go back several decades to digest the distance they have traveled in their unbridled & fascinating evolution. Noisy typewriters in the 1950s gave way to slick floppy disks in the 1970s & Macintosh of 1908s yielded to cell phones & PDAs in the 1990s. The office space morphed from stacked row seats to cubicles & eventually to open layouts in shape & form. And yet, workplaces continue to attract the ire of imaginative artists that label it as the quintessential destination that depletes vitality, suffocates talent & impedes progress. So much has changed but most of it is still the same in many ways.
Brick-in-the-Wall Era:
This was driven largely by traditional industries such as oil, chemicals, automobile & retail. Here work was organized around machinery & equipment so it needed fixed location & timelines. A lathe machine or a spinning yarn had fixed running cycles so the concept of work shifts came about that eventually led to the distinction between blue collar & white collar jobs. Work & labor had a direct one-to-one correlation with no scope for ambiguity or deviation. Division of labor was enforced strictly & unequivocally. Nation building, patriotism & conformance were prominent themes as most nations emerged from recession & a bloody world war. In the absence of automation, all work was highly labor-intensive & hence needed strict oversight & regulation. Therefore, most of the current hierarchical work standards were set in this era to maintain system & order amongst the masses.
Escapist Workplace Era:
In late 1990 & early 2000s, requirements for functional work changed dramatically. Machinery & equipment became more mobile (Desktop computers, processors & servers) & thus digital industries emerged with revolutionary concepts of how offices should be designed. Foosball, TT tables mixed up with work-desks; cabins & chairs spilled over to booths & lounges. Workplaces got replicated faster & leisure comforts (cafeteria, snacks, play) were rapidly embedded. Employees loved it & everyone wanted to go to a workplace & not just work at a boring office.
Optimist Future of Work Era:
But then 2010 onwards, three key technology trends emerged - mobile, cloud & computing. Computers went inside your bags or pocket aka laptops & smartphones. Servers became invisible & moved to the cloud thanks to Amazon. And content packets (mainly voice, data & video) were sent at lightning fast speeds. Hardware & software costs tumbled to historic lows & shipping technology products & services became incredibly easy. Unique business models of subscription-based software (history & origins of SaaS) meant that organization can buy infrastructure, build products & sell online. An employee’s work infrastructure was reduced to a laptop with an internet connection.
Wework was born as a mobile office concept
But no matter how fun workplaces became, it still wasn’t personalized to individual tastes & preferences. A product designer would need more creative whitespace & ambient environment for ideation. An analyst will need lots of me time drowned in excel & data for high-speed number crunching. A coder will need bursts of productive time for problem solving & code writing. A sales person will need block of days to do customer meetings. There is no way a singular workplace environment could fit in all these needs. More importantly, people had different emotional preferences & intellectual capacities to do optimal work. Some thrived on people interactions & connectedness to do the best work. Others were more self-driven & individualistic. Few needed constant feedback & hand holding.
So where does all this lead us to now?
Are we ready to take that momentous leap into a futuristic work environment that subtracts all the vices of today?
Not really.
We are not there yet.
Whether we like it or not, the coming work revolution will hold a mirror to the most ardent believers of traditional work order. Future of the workplace need to be driven by three inevitable trends & realizations. Organizations that adopt this rapidly will stay ahead of the curve in attracting the best talent & creating a cutting edge workplace culture.
Trend 1: Workplace needs to operate in a value-equilibrium
The trio of customers, employees & partners need to co-exist in a value equilibrium. Too often, we come across companies that are leaning towards customers but employees remain extremely disconnected & unhappy. In such cases, companies have chosen to trade-off employee value for customer value. In a value-equilibrium mindset, employees don't give up on their expectations in return for another stakeholder (customer or partner). Infact companies consciously choose to balance long-term employee interests against short term business gains i.e. revenue or customers. Employees need to become first-class citizens in the organizational fabric.
We need to ship features for employees just the way we do with customers. Workplace roadmap & plans should mirror business & customer growth plans.
The key question organizations should ask themselves is:
Where do I see my workplace in 6 months, 1 year, 3 years down the line? How do I drive employee love & obsession ?
Trend 2: Workplace as a vibrant community
Over the past decade, we have seen an ascendance of customer communities to deliver value more upstream in a user lifecycle i.e. to deliver unconditional value (webinars, free trials, discounts) without an expectation. Why not apply the same approach to employees? Till now, employees are looked at as transactional assets that enable value creation but never partake in active value consumption. It is time we place employees at the same pedestal as customers. Business value should flow back to employees unhindered & vice versa. Employees need to become one with the organization & become a community. The days of organizational leaders & top bosses acting hideous, arrogant & repulsive are gone. They now need to be radically transparent, purpose-driven & incredibly accountable to their employees. Just like customers, businesses need to win over fickle-minded employees & keep them happy & engaged through their entire tenure.
A pay raise should be given to acquire a new customer, take up a new job role or risk a moonshot idea. It should not just be predicated on archaic & ad-hoc performance evaluation that takes 12 months to realize. When a code can be shipped in 48 hours & customers be acquired in days, why make employees wait months for that pay hike ?
Trend 3: Workplace as a workspace
A product designer needs more creative whitespace & ambient environment for ideation. An analyst needs lots of me time drowned in excel & data for high-speed number crunching. A coder needs bursts of productive time for problem solving & code writing. A sales person needs block of days to do customer meetings. There is no way a singular workplace environment can fit in all needs of todays employees. More importantly, people also have different emotional preferences & capacities to do optimal work. Some of us thrive on people interactions & connectedness to do the best work. Some are more self-driven & individualistic. No matter how fun today's workplaces become, they aren't personalized to individual tastes & preferences. There was a reason employees escaped to Cape Cod or Hawaii during the peak of remote work. It was to find ambient work conditions that neutralizes job fatigue, inspires purpose & fuels productivity. Future workplace should become people’s workspace.
Never before in corporate history has there been such a premium on high quality talent. More importantly, you need talent that is capable, driven & effective. Organizations must innovate workplaces radically to nurture & groom talent for the future. To that effect, it is high time organizations realize that employees' choice of workspace will not be the same as their current workplace.
Workspace is the new workplace & it needs to evolve. Period.
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Reach me at Tejaswi Gautam and let me know what you think about this issue. Are you ready for the future of work? See you next week!