workplaces of the future essay

• futureofwork

The Office of the Future Is Greener, More Social, and Might Even Include Childcare

B efore the pandemic struck, Lucy Jefferson spent nearly £50 ($57) a day commuting from London, where she had moved in 2019, to Birmingham, England where she worked as a product manager at a large U.K. bank. Although it was Jefferson’s choice to relocate 125 miles away, she believed that the 5 a.m. starts and two-and-a-half journey weren’t necessary for her to do her job well. She says the workplace culture encouraged employees to always “look busy” in the office. ”Classic corporate culture.”

When a U.K.-wide COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 forced her employer’s staff to work remotely, Jefferson was able to save time and money working from home. But, frustrated by her employer’s reluctance to guarantee the flexible work model would continue, Jefferson handed in her notice in November 2020. Fast forward nearly two years, she works full time running her own e-commerce brand, Bare Kind, and all of her six employees work remotely. “I haven’t looked back, it’s been amazing,” she says, citing benefits to her mental health—and her bank balance.

Jefferson says her former colleagues tell her it’s now much more common to work from home and as a result, the Birmingham office has lost its former buzz, with some floors no longer in use. This shift in office culture is in no way unique—offices in major U.S. cities are less than half as busy as they used to be, according to data from security provider Kastle Systems. The pandemic forced many companies to shift online, and some employees realized they preferred it. In the U.S., Australia, France, Germany, Japan, and the U.K, 18% of workers aren’t going into the office at all, according to a survey published in July by Future Forum, while patterns of hybrid working have become the norm for nearly half of the workforce.

Meanwhile, business leaders have been twisting themselves in knots over the return of in-person work, which some argue promotes more productivity and collaboration. At times this has created tensions .

Read More: Dropbox Tossed Out the Workplace Rulebook. Here’s How That’s Working

The clash in priorities between employers and workers has come amid record resignations across the workforce around the world. In the U.S., around 4 million workers have been quitting their jobs every month since April 2021, with many citing workplace inflexibility as a key factor. But being in the office could make a difference to their careers. In response to a survey published last month by workplace platform Envoy, 96% of U.S. executives said they were more likely to notice the contribution of employees in the office.

The conundrum for businesses has been getting workers to come back. Some industry leaders are viewing the pandemic disruption and shifting labor market as an opportunity to reconfigure workspaces in a way that prioritizes flexibility, wellbeing, and sustainability—and actually entices employees to travel in. The office may never dominate the world of white-collar work in the way it did pre-pandemic, but innovative designers and bosses are hoping it will add greater value to both their businesses and employees’ lives.

Making workplaces “commute-worthy”

While the new ways of working during the pandemic came as a shock to many businesses, global music streaming platform, Spotify, was well ahead of the curve. Just a month before the U.K. first went into lockdown in March 2020, Spotify unveiled its new London headquarters that would house hundreds of freshly hired employees and one of the company’s largest R&D hubs. Gone were the sea of desks typical of traditional office spaces. Instead, large booths, plush lounge spaces, production studios, and dedicated “listening rooms” gave the space, a “social club” feel, says Sonya Simmonds, Spotify’s global head of workspace design. Although employees initially couldn’t benefit from the new space—situated inside the Grade II listed Art Deco Adelphi Building in the heart of London—during the early months of the pandemic, the building was primed to cater to the blend of remote and in-person work on their return.

“We all felt disappointed not to use the new office and share the new spaces [during lockdown], particularly the stage and listening rooms with artists,” says Simmonds. As workers returned to the offices, it was set up to better suit their needs. Spaces dedicated to wellness provided a welcome getaway for workers dealing with the stresses of the pandemic, Simmonds says. “When we were allowed to return we really appreciated the wellbeing rooms.”

The idea behind the space was “very much based on where we wanted to go in the future,” Simmonds says. In February 2021, Spotify announced a work from anywhere policy, a transition that she says was accelerated, not triggered, by the pandemic. Yet, the company found that staff were still choosing to travel to the London office—the huge variety of spaces within the building offered even greater flexibility than employees’ own homes. In a post-pandemic era, workplaces must be “commute-worthy” for remote workers, says Shane Kelly, principal director at London-based architecture firm TP Bennett, which designed Spotify’s London office. “It’s about creating buildings that offer really collaborative experiences, focused on community and amenity, that you don’t get when you’re engaging remotely,” he says. Following the success of the London HQ, Spotify rolled out the design concept across its global locations.

Read More: How to Ask Your Employer if You Can Work Remotely Permanently

Swiss furniture brand Vitra took the concept of work flexibility one step further, when in spring 2021 it filled its headquarters in Birsfelden, Switzerland with customizable fittings that allow for multiple office configurations. The company’s new range, dubbed “Club Office,” includes modular sofa systems, flexible partitions, and foldable desks that fit together like a puzzle, allowing teams to tailor the work set-up to a variety of needs, moods, and even locations. By letting employees use their own office as a “laboratory” for new design concepts, Club Office fostered flexibility within Vitra’s workforce, says the company’s chief executive, Nora Fehlbaum. “Environments shape our thoughts and feelings,” says Fehlbaum. “This environment signals to stay on your toes, be ready to move.”

Fehlbaum hopes that Vitra’s products will make all workers feel connected to their office environments, even as their companies downsize or shift to co-working spaces. “The Club is the physical environment where a common mission and sense of belonging comes to life,” she says.

Blending the office with the home

Months of isolation during lockdowns around the world made workers appreciate the feeling of belonging to a team and connecting with colleagues—even when working remotely or from their homes. According to recent findings from the WFH research project , a monthly survey run jointly by the University of Chicago, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, the average professional spends more than 40% of their working day interacting with others. With this in mind, Edouard Bettencourt and Malik Lemseffer, founders of French-Moroccan architecture firm Studio BELEM, have focused on designing a space where workers could connect and interact with others within the comfort of their own homes. Their aula modula apartment block design—a Tetris-like system of cube-shaped units with sliding wall panels—incorporates the collaborative elements of an office environment in a residential setting. While the block hasn’t been built yet, the firm says it is in talks with various developers.

With each block arranged around a sunny inner courtyard, the idea is that inhabitants would be encouraged to develop a sense of neighborly community, even while they work from home. “If you work remotely and just stay in your own flat or office all day, you’re going to go crazy not seeing anyone,” says Lemseffer. Creative shared spaces in the building, including shared terraces, co-working rooms, and roof tops, allow residents to network, brainstorm, and celebrate professional milestones—”all the things that can be a little bit harder to do remotely,” he says. At the same time, the architects were keen to contain the intimate living spaces and office units in different rings of the building, to allow residents to switch off from their work as they cross the physical boundary.

The blurring of the home and work environment precipitated by the pandemic forced many businesses to accommodate the unique personal circumstances of each employee. One such accommodation was caregiving responsibilities, as workers had to juggle educating their children while schools were shut or caring for elderly or sick relatives. Research published in June by the Society for Human Research Management found that, even as the pandemic subsides, workers place increasing value on jobs that offer the flexibility to care for family members.

Read More: The Dream of an ‘Internet Country’ That Would Let You Work From Anywhere

Entrepreneur Keltse Bilbao recognized this need before the pandemic when, after relocating to Los Angeles with her husband, she struggled to find a space where she could work on her own projects while being close to her daughter. In 2018, she founded Big and Tiny, a daycare service that provides on-site co-working spaces for parents—one of the first to do so in the U.S. “As a parent, what I wanted was the option to choose,” Bilbao says. “I could spend all day working, or I could have a break and be close to my child.” Big and Tiny has three studios in the U.S.—two in Santa Monica and one in Battery Park, New York City. They combine soundproof study rooms and phone booths, but also common spaces for working parents to socialize and relax.

While the business took a financial hit due to the pandemic—forcing it to shutter a center in Silver Lake, Los Angeles—the shift to remote working meant that more parents needed the service when lockdown restrictions were lifted. The increased demand for family-friendly work spaces led to partnerships with co-working office provider Second Home and mall and office complex Brookfield Place in New York City, with Big and Tiny providing on-site childcare. “These companies were having issues getting their customers back,” says Bilbao, adding that employers partnering with Big and Tiny to offer these workspaces to employees have been able to “differentiate themselves” from rivals whose offices didn’t cater to the demands of modern life.

Sustainability and wellbeing

Months of mask mandates, social distancing and enhanced hygiene practices shifted many people’s understanding of what makes a healthy environment. As poorly ventilated office buildings became potential public health hazards, citizens found respite in outdoor spaces. Simultaneously, the pandemic appears to have heightened public awareness of the climate crisis, according to a survey by Boston Consulting Group, as the effect of human behavior on the natural world, and the risks to humankind, have become more apparent. This shift inspired a new wave of office design that prioritized the wellbeing of both employees and the external environment.

Read More: In Some Workplaces, It’s Now OK Not to Be OK

Turkish architecture practice Salon Alper Derinboğaz made the learnings from the pandemic central to the design of Ecotone, an innovation center at Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul. When construction is completed in late 2023, the transitional space between teaching facilities and a professional academy will be “pandemic resistant,” says the architecture firm’s founder, Alper Derinboğaz, referring to the building’s partially open air design. Istanbul’s mild Mediterranean climate has allowed Derinboğaz to permeate a series of open co-working spaces with outdoor walkways, creating the kind of passive natural ventilation system that the World Health Organization says reduces the transmission risk of airborne viruses. Ecotone’s geothermal heating and cooling system is low emission, while the self-supporting structure—featuring columns resembling stalagmites and stalactites in caves—removes the need to lay intrusive foundations in the land. Fluid, glass-paneled walls and interior foliage allows for greater connection between workers inside the building and nature.

Developing innovative approaches to reducing the office building’s carbon footprint was a priority for Derinboğaz, who notes that the construction industry produces nearly 40% of global carbon emissions. “As architects we really need to find a new way of doing things,” he says. “That’s why we wanted the university’s innovation center to be innovative in its design.”

When it came to choosing architects for an addition to its Geneva campus , the United Nations (U.N.) says it chose London-based firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Swiss studio Burckhardt+Partner. The architects took an innovative approach designing the 250,000 square foot office space. Completed in November 2021, the building was constructed on the historic Palais des Nations complex of buildings overlooking Lake Geneva, the U.N.’s second largest site after its New York headquarters. Water from the lake is used and recycled to heat and cool the building, eliminating the need for air conditioning units that are expensive to run and harmful to the environment .

According to Kent Jackson, SOM’s lead designer on the project, which the firm said was for a “non-profit humanitarian organization in Geneva,” the impressive surroundings gave the architects a unique opportunity to enhance the building’s design. “We wanted to give every employee [working in the office] a 360 degree view around the natural setting,” he says—floor-to-ceiling windows stand in place of walls. “Who couldn’t be inspired in their work looking at the hillsides, parkland, water, and mountains?”

For many of the companies pursuing new approaches to workspaces, that is the ultimate goal: creating a space to inspire and motivate employees to produce their most innovative work. In an age of increasing flexibility and less emphasis on geographical location, the office space must benefit its inhabitants as much as it does the business. “It’s about going through the whole journey of the build and design process together,” says Spotify’s Simmonds. “Coming out the other end, our staff feel they really have ownership over their office.”

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9 Trends That Will Shape Work in 2024 and Beyond

• Emily Rose McRae,
• Peter Aykens,
• Kaelyn Lowmaster,
• Jonah Shepp

Looking ahead at a year of continued disruption, employers who successfully navigate these trends will be able to create a competitive advantage.

In 2023, organizations continued to face significant challenges, from inflation to geopolitical turmoil to controversy over DEI and return-to-work policies — and 2024 promises more disruption. Gartner researchers have identified nine key trends, from new and creative employee benefits to the collapse of traditional career paths, that will impact work this year. Employers who successfully navigate these will retain top talent and secure a competitive advantage for themselves.

In 2023, business leaders and organizations continued to contend with major shifts affecting the workplace, including the pressure of inflation on both employer and employee budgets, the emergence of generative AI (GenAI) , geopolitical turmoil, a series of high-profile labor strikes , increased tension over return-to-office (RTO) mandates , a shifting legal and societal landscape for DEI initiatives, the increased impact of climate change , and more.

• Emily Rose McRae is a senior director analyst covering the future of work and workforce transformation, and she leads the talent research initiative for executive leaders. Emily Rose works across all issues related to the future of work, including emerging technologies and their impact on work and the workforce, new employment models, and creating an enterprise-wide future of work strategy.
• Peter Aykens is a distinguished vice president and chief of research for the Gartner HR practice. He is responsible for setting the practice’s research agenda and strategy to address the mission critical priorities of HR leaders, including leadership, talent management, recruiting, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), total rewards, learning and development, and HR tech.
• Kaelyn Lowmaster is a director of research in the Gartner HR Practice. She focuses on the Future of Work including all areas of future strategy development, with a core emphasis on the impact of emerging technology on work and the workforce.
• Jonah Shepp is a senior principal, research in the Gartner HR practice. He edits the Gartner  HR Leaders Monthly  journal, covering HR best practices on topics ranging from talent acquisition and leadership to total rewards and the future of work. An accomplished writer and editor, his work has appeared in numerous publications, including  New York   Magazine ,  Politico   Magazine ,  GQ , and  Slate .

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What Will the Workplace Look Like in 2025?

The shift to remote work will be among the biggest business trends in the coming years, though it won't be the only lingering effect from the pandemic.

​Before the pandemic, General Motors Co. was moving toward giving employees more flexible schedules. However, the coronavirus outbreak threw that effort into overdrive.

In November, the Detroit-based automaker announced it was hiring 3,000 technical employees, the majority of whom will work remotely. The company is offering more full-remote experiences than ever before. Leadership’s confidence to take such a bold step stems from the performance of the teams that are working remotely because of the COVID‑19 pandemic.

“Our workforce was able to meet the new challenges [while working from home] without missing a beat,” says Adam Yeloushan, GM’s human resources executive for global engineering. “We can [work remotely] well. We can do it effectively.”

‘The role of the office has changed. People aren’t going to go back to five days a week. Offices are going to be hubs of innovation and social interaction.’ - Bhushan Sethi

Working from home became a necessary stopgap measure to keep companies running amid the COVID‑19 crisis, but it has evolved into a new business paradigm. Many employees praise their newfound flexibility, while company leaders continue to manage their businesses effectively—and less expensively—even when employees aren’t in the office. Employers also welcome the broader pool of potential job candidates, since remote employees can live anywhere.

“The role of the office has changed,” says Bhushan Sethi, joint global leader, people and organization, at global consulting firm PwC. “People aren’t going to go back to five days a week. Offices are going to be hubs of innovation and social interaction.”

That shift will be among the biggest business trends in the coming years, though it won’t be the only lingering effect from the pandemic. The virus pushed companies to grapple with health and safety issues like they never had before. Not only have they reconfigured workplaces to prevent infection, they have also grappled with how to address the pandemic’s toll on employees’ physical and mental health. Those efforts will continue to better prepare companies for other emergencies.

The killings of George Floyd and others while in police custody and the ensuing protests is the other development from this year that will reverberate through the business community for the foreseeable future. Floyd’s death laid bare the overall inequities in the U.S. and prompted soul-searching in the business sector. Companies have promised to increase diversity within their ranks—especially among executives—and the fulfilling of those pledges is now expected to top corporate agendas.

While the combination of the pandemic and social unrest have led to major new trends, the upheaval has also pushed other long-standing issues, such as environmental concerns, worker activism and rapidly changing technology, to the forefront of C-suite executives’ minds.

These are six major trends that will ripple through companies until at least 2025:

1. More employees will work from home.

The world should start returning to “normal” in 2021 as the COVID‑19 vaccine is distributed. The new normal won’t include nearly as many office workers commuting daily to a company facility. A large majority—82 percent—of executives say they intend to let employees work remotely at least part of the time, according to a survey by Gartner Inc., a Stamford, Conn.-based research and advisory firm. Nearly half—47 percent—say they will allow employees to work remotely full time.

Meanwhile, 36 percent of companies say they’re willing to hire workers who are 100 percent remote and live anywhere in the U.S. or internationally. Just 12 percent were receptive to that idea before the pandemic, according to The Conference Board, a New York City-based research nonprofit.

Reconfiguring the office for this new scenario is an interesting dilemma for companies. Executives expect that individuals will want more personal space even with a COVID‑19 vaccine available, though businesses will likely reduce their real estate holdings if employees aren’t in the workplace full time. Seventy percent of companies expect to shrink their real estate footprint in the next two years, according to CoreNet Global, a nonprofit organization made up of corporate real estate executives.

Design experts predict that more companies will adopt what is known as “hoteling.” That means employees no longer have assigned seating but locate where there’s space available for the type of tasks they’re working on. Some areas will be earmarked for quiet work while others will be designated for group discussions, for example.

“The workspace needs to be more agile,” says Jamie Feuerborn, director of workplace strategy at New York City-based design firm Ted Moudis Associates. She adds that companies are looking at flexible furnishings, such as desks that can be easily moved and have adjustable privacy panels.

Remote working is not for every company, nor is it without risks. Some jobs require people to be onsite, and surveys have shown that some individuals have had trouble achieving work/life balance while working from home. There’s also a fear that corporate culture and innovation will suffer if co-workers aren’t in the same space.

Sixty-five percent of employers say it has been challenging to maintain morale, and more than one-third say they’re facing difficulties with company culture and worker productivity, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Three years ago, IBM, a pioneer of remote work, called most of its off-campus workforce back to the office to improve innovation.

Now it seems that companies are more aware of the pitfalls of a remote workforce and seek to approach remote work with an intention that was lacking in the rushed response to the pandemic. Over the summer, Facebook advertised for a director of remote work, whose responsibilities would include developing strategies and tools to keep the business running no matter where employees are located, and coaching managers on how to adjust to the new remote-work structure. Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said 50 percent of the company could be working from home within the next five to 10 years.

GM’s Yeloushan says the company can adjust to any issues or problems. “All because we’re doing some things today doesn’t mean we’ll be doing the same tomorrow.”

2. Companies will invest heavily in health, hygiene and safety.

COVID-19 turned a spotlight on worker health and safety in all industries—not just those known for being dangerous—as even people who sat at computers all day landed in intensive care units after contracting the coronavirus. Employees who have returned to their workplaces wear masks, sanitize surfaces and social distance, and some even submit to temperature checks. Those measures are likely to transform into workplace testing protocols, state-of-the-art ventilation systems, and high-tech detection and disinfectant tools.

“We’re assured of having another [pandemic],” says Cristina Banks, director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Workplaces at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. “Our mobility around the world is at the peak, and there’s no stopping the spread. We need to plan for that.”

The planning is already happening. A vast majority of business executives—83 percent—say they expect to hire more people for health and safety roles within the next two years, according to a report by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. It’s the sector that’s predicted to have the most hiring.

‘We’re assured of having another [pandemic]. Our mobility around the world is at the peak, and there’s no stopping the spread. We need to plan for that.’ Cristina Banks

Concerns extend beyond employees’ physical health. The pandemic, the recession and social unrest have caused increased anxiety, depression and stress in the general population. Employers had been increasing their mental health benefits before the COVID‑19 outbreak and are now stepping up even more. Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of companies plan on improving their mental health offerings next year, according to a survey by PwC.

Many companies have heavily promoted their employee assistance programs, increased the number of paid sessions with mental health counselors for employees while waiving or lowering co-payments, and added more digital tools to help people calm and focus themselves. Some organizations are training managers to spot signs of distress.

“We know that having a strong mental health strategy will be a critical priority,” says Abinue Fortingo, a health management director at Willis Towers Watson. He says employers are combing through claims data to understand how to put together the best plan design.

3. Companies will continue striving to increase diversity, equity and inclusion.

The $8 billion that McKinsey & Co. says companies spend annually on diversity, equity and inclusion programs is not money well spent. White men still occupy 66 percent of C-suite positions and 59 percent of senior vice president posts, according to a study by McKinsey and LeanIn.Org. White women hold the second largest share of such positions, though they lag significantly behind their male counterparts, filling only 19 percent of C-suite jobs and 23 percent of senior vice president spots. Men of color account for 12 percent and 13 percent of such roles, respectively, while women of color hold only 3 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

Such statistics entered the public consciousness in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, putting more pressure than ever on companies to diversify their ranks.

Some companies are opting to initiate conversations that encourage their employees to talk openly about issues such as racism, sexism, bias and prejudice. Yeloushan says hiring more remote workers will allow GM to tap into a much wider talent pool that will help diversity the workforce.

Meanwhile, in October, Seattle-based coffee company Starbucks said part of its executives’ pay would be based on their ability to build inclusive and diverse teams.

It’s too soon to say if such efforts will spark real change, though there are some positive signs. Eric Ellis, president and chief executive officer of Integrity Development Corp., a West Chester, Ohio-based consulting firm, says the strategy sessions he holds about improving diversity, equity and inclusion now include more CEOs and not just human resource executives. “CEOs are more interested now and putting more pressure on their organizations to change,” he says.

4. Workers will demand better treatment for themselves and their communities from their employers.

Thousands of workers at companies such as McDonald’s, Target and Amazon, as well as at numerous hospitals, staged strikes this year to protest unsafe working conditions amid the pandemic.

Such actions followed two years of employee demonstrations over various issues—though not pay—signaling that employees were expecting more from their employers. Last year, for example, Amazon employees walked out over the company’s climate policies, while Wayfair workers left company facilities over sales of furniture to immigrant detention centers in the U.S.

Overall, work stoppages numbered 25 last year, more than triple the amount in 2017, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

‘People are looking for alternate ways to communicate, and virtual reality is a good fit. It allows a level of interaction that goes beyond voice and video. It’s much more personal.’ T.J. Vitolo

The activity hasn’t reversed the years-long decline in union membership, although that could change. President-elect Biden ran on a pro-labor platform that could translate into the removal of some obstacles to unionization implemented by the Trump administration. Even without more unions, workers—especially younger ones—increasingly expect their employers to take an active role in addressing society’s problems.

“We’re seeing companies have more of a social conscience,” Ellis says. “I think that’s part of the value system of the up-and-coming generation.”

The idea is taking hold. In 2019, the Business Roundtable released a new definition of a corporation and outlined a company’s purpose as extending beyond making profits to considering how its actions affect all stakeholders, including employees, customers and suppliers.

5. Organizations will re-examine how they impact the environment.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a brutal reminder of the ravages of climate change.

The novel coronavirus evolved from a virus common in bats, though it’s unclear how it passed to humans. Experts say deforestation, which pushes animals farther out of their natural habitats, could have been a factor, as it puts animals closer to people. What is known is that climate change is making the death toll worse. A Harvard University study found that a small increase in exposure to air pollution leads to a large increase in COVID‑19-related death rates.

“Businesses found themselves unprepared for COVID,” says Rachel Hodgdon, president of the New York City-based International WELL Building Institute, which has programs to create buildings, interiors and communities that promote health and wellness. The institute recently started a COVID‑19 certification program to help all types of facilities protect against the disease. 

To make matters worse, businesses are being buffeted simultaneously by disasters caused by climate change. This year, fires raged on the U.S. West Coast, and hurricanes hit many states, all while the country was fighting the virus.

Having more employees work from home will help the environment as fewer people commute and office buildings use less energy. More action is required, however, and experts expect more companies to hire chief sustainability officers.

Many companies already have such roles, though some practitioners only ensure that their organizations meet basic laws and standards. That won’t cut it anymore, thanks to the greater emphasis on health and the environment. Going forward, chief sustainability officers will be expected to look at their company’s environmental impact on workers, suppliers, customers and communities. “That will all be tied back to the business strategy,” says Anthony Abbatiello, global head of leadership and succession consulting at Russell Reynolds, a New York City-based executive search and consulting firm.

6. Technology’s rapid transformation will continue, forcing companies to rethink how to integrate people with machines.

The pandemic forced employers to adopt more digital and automated solutions practically overnight, as organizations sought to severely limit—or end—human interaction to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The McKinsey study found that 85 percent of companies accelerated the digitization of their businesses, while 67 percent sped up their use of automation and artificial intelligence. Nearly 70 percent of executives say they plan to hire more people for automation roles, while 45 percent expect to increase hiring for positions involving digital learning and agile working.

One area that’s expected to grow enormously is companies’ use of virtual and augmented reality, as fewer employees work at the same location. Companies are already using these technologies for training, telemedicine and team-building events.

“People are looking for alternate ways to communicate, and virtual reality is a good fit,” says T.J. Vitolo, director and head of XR Labs, a division of New York City-based Verizon Communications Inc. “It allows a level of interaction that goes beyond voice and video. It’s much more personal.”

Robot use boomed during the pandemic, as companies sought to reduce workers’ exposure to the coronavirus. For example, San Diego-based Brain Corp. said use of its robots by U.S. retailers surged 24 percent in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the year before, as companies used the machines for tasks such as cleaning stores.

The increased use of technology will eliminate jobs. That means companies will need to reskill employees to prepare them for new tasks and responsibilities.

“I think reskilling will be the foundation of the new economy,” says Ravin Jesuthasan, a managing director at Willis Towers Watson. “What it’s going to require is a clear understanding of how to get the optimal combination of people and machines.”

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• The Workplace of the Future

Featured in:

© pexel | photos.oliur.com

This article invites you to peer into the future and explore the future workplace , what changes are to be realized in workplaces of the future , an objective consideration of the implications of those changes, and whether we should invite the workplaces of the future with open arms or apprehension .

As time progresses and as we move forward into the unknown, the workforce environment as we know it evolves , just like every other aspect of our lives. So, what does this mean for your organization’s future? What do you think the pacesetters of business in the future will look like? How will they be organized? What kind of machinery will they employ?

We face a future that is driven by evolutionary and revolutionary forces, for example; the invention of the internet recently hit the business world by storm and quickly transformed how business is conducted for good. What other megatrend will be next? How will it reshape our world? Have you considered the potential implications of these sort of changes?

The workplace of the future is going to be extremely different from workplaces as we know them now; workplace transformation does not simply imply the structures of our offices but more specifically how people work.

For example, just a few decades ago, there were very few individuals who worked to the ages of 60-70 but as time progressed, people held on just a little longer to their jobs. We can, therefore, assume that this trend may be stretched further in the future. In addition, as the world continues to become a ‘global village’, businesses have to reconsider their workplace. This is because of the rising demand in more skilled, more flexible, and more dependable employees.

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Because of the diversification of employees in the business world today, some businesses have begun to redefine what it means to be considered and employee, what it means to be contracted for a job, and how individuals are compensated by the business. For example, some businesses have started to recognize freelancers as part of their employees.

The future is working towards introduction of new and undocumented elements into workplaces as we know them. The next section attempts to look as far ahead as possible in order to give us an image on what the future workplace will be like.

THE WORKPLACE OF THE FUTURE

Workplace structures.

Set aside rigid corporate hierarchies and imagine free-flowing career paths and ideas. Search the website right now or go to your local library and you will realize just how many books have been written on climbing the corporate ladder. In the future, such books may become outmoded and quite possibly just antique possessions rather than useful tools of information.

One of the changes already affecting workplaces today is the gradual collapse of corporate ladders, where the structure is designed to ensure that only the most loyal employees climb higher and higher in the hierarchy, a promotion at a time. The corporate ladder can be traced all the way back to the industrial revolution, when businesses were structured on economies of scale and rigid hierarchies.

But we are no longer in that era; we are in the digital age and the workforce is as diverse as it has ever been. In fact, it is a surprise that this sort of workplace structure has survived this far in the digital era. This work place diversity coupled with rapid advances in technology has inspired the need for a more flexible work environment. For businesses of the future to maintain a productive workforce, it may be necessary to trim several layers off their hierarchies and adopt more horizontal systems. This will facilitate a better flow of ideas and ease communication between extremely diverse workforce personnel.

Interested in how Adidas sees the future of the workplace ? Watch this video.

Artificial intelligence

I know it sound like science fiction but the machine is coming. As technology advances, automation of very many functions normally performed by humans has become prevalent. Artificial intelligence is an anticipated reality in the future and it will undoubtedly affect the nature of our workplaces.  We are slowly but surely accepting the takeover of machines.

As awesome, progressive, or convenient these innovations appear, they can also be very disadvantageous. These innovations can nullify entire professions and if predictions are correct, the automation of our workplaces in the near future is expected to increase at an unprecedented rate. With such an expeditious rate of growth, artificial intelligence in the workplace might become a reality sooner than you think and its impact may be just as massive as the internet’s.

There is, however, a more positive outlook of this anticipated change. As opposed to assuming that the machines are taking jobs from human beings, we can choose to look at it as being freed in order to perform other more engaging functions. Over the past decade, machines have learnt how to organize immense volumes of data in order to produce actionable information for businesses. The ability to organize and interpret this kind of complex data enables the performance of activities that could not be previously done by businesses. For example, the pinpoint prediction of consumer persona and needs.

However, note that manual tasks are going to be the most affected areas as machines grow to perform more tasks. Robots in manufacturing industries are becoming increasingly mobile, adaptable, and affordable . Additionally, the performance of tasks such as digging, constriction, and basically, activities that would require hand eye coordination are being replaced by these low-cost, efficient, machines

Learn about a new mode of structuring the workplace called holocracy which includes new government principles.

In the future, businesses will be able to monitor employees in a more intimate way. Since the performance of employees directly translates to the performance of the business, workplaces may require employees to wear devices that track their movements at work. This, of course, is not for invasive purposes but it is to enable management to monitor how an employee is feeling, to observe that employees levels of stress, whether they are tired, or are deprived of sleep.

In fact, similar tracking devices are already in use. For example, cheap GPS technologies have already become widespread especially in the field of taxis and courier service providers. Additionally, earpieces are being used to convey instructions to employees in more manual and volatile workplace settings such as manufacturing plants.

Workplace monitoring of employee health is the more unexplored area. This, however, may change in the near future. With the rise in popularity of wearable devices such as Jawbone , which tracks the owner’s exercise, calorie intake, sleep pattern, as well as other health-related aspects, monitoring the state of employees might take a very different turn in the workplaces of the future. According to the research company Gartner, over 2,000 companies around the world offered their employees fitness trackers in the year 2013. It is, therefore, possible that the way monitoring is done in workplaces is already taking a turn.

One might argue that this level of monitoring is unnecessary and a borderline invasion of privacy. However, it is undeniable that the performance at work of any employee is not only influenced by factors found in the workplace; it goes beyond that. There is a direct link between a person’s sleep pattern , exercise routine, stress, and anxiety levels outside of the workplace that will influence their concentration and performance in the workplace.

Additionally, the benefits of this kind of monitoring transcend beyond the workplace and beyond the purpose of offering the business a competitive edge. This form of monitoring will also assist the employees in enhancing their personal wellbeing and not just that of the business.

An example of a business that is a frontrunner in this aspect is the BP Company . BP gives its employees fitness trackers as part of a programme geared at reducing the healthcare costs incurred by employees. For this form of monitoring to be initiated, it would be necessary for the employees to consent that they are comfortable with their employer having such personal and probably sensitive information. Businesses would, in turn, be required to act in good faith and protect their employees’ information from being misused by unauthorized third parties.

As mentioned earlier, the age of retirement has been gradually rising and now people work well over the age of 60 years. This can however be justified by an increase in the global life expectancy at birth by 6 years . As such, if people are going to live longer, it is only logical that other sectors of their lives are going to extend in equal proportion.

Also, the extension of retirement ages may be partially influenced by business’s that will definitely stand to incur additional costs in pension payments if the retirement age is set significantly below the average life expectancy age.

Such trends lead us to believe that the workplace of the future will accommodate even persons of even more advanced ages ; probably ages as high as 75 years. The workplace of the future will release employees gradually as opposed to the abrupt systems for retirement that we have right now. For some employees, this new prospect may be exiting, but it is highly unlikely that many people will want to stay in employment at the age of 70. At this age, most people want to be settled and relaxed without having to go through the hustles of the workplace and the work life.

However, it is important to note that this extension in retirement ages may be quite beneficial to businesses. Older employees have amassed years, if not decades of experience that can be passed on to younger employees, and the longer the elder employees are around the more knowledge will be imparted to the next generation. This will ensure that business never experience an air bubble in terms of their employees’ skill or expertise.

SHOULD WE LOOK FORWARD TO THE WORKPLACE OF THE FUTURE

Human beings are naturally afraid of the unknown. This is a result of millions of years of conditioning geared at preserving our own survival. Anything that we cannot fully understand is perceived as danger and in most cases we run away from it. Nonetheless, let us try to be objective for a moment and consider what the implications of the future changes in workplaces as we know them will be.

The world is experiencing drastic changes in the workplace as we proceed further and further into the future. This does not simply imply transformation of office spaces; it goes beyond that. The future workplace will change how people in workplaces interact and execute duties. The question now lies in whether this transformation is something to look forward to or something to dread.

• Connection . New workplaces, with more horizontal hierarchical setups , will encourage the establishment of both calculated and spontaneous connections between personnel. Breaking down the barriers that exist across all levels in our current workplaces will enhance our business’s services as well as employee performance. Leveraging the diverse perspectives through open communication encouraged by this open workplace setting will result in the formulation of outstanding solutions and ideas in businesses.
• Community. We encounter exceptional people in our workplaces all the time but we rarely ever get time to establish common ground. The workplace of the future will change this and enable people to build long lasting connections with one another. This is because the setting of the future workplaces, with open communication, will blur the line between personal and professional life. In addition to this, delays in retirement will encourage mentorship in the workplace and the creation of ‘father’ and ‘mother’ figures in businesses. With this sort of environment, an atmosphere of family and togetherness will emerge, enabling workers to relate better and ultimately boost their performance.
• Flexibility. The days of single-focus career paths are coming to an end and our future work places will evolve to reflect this new reality. Future workplaces will allow for more agility, accommodating diverse working styles, schedules, and employee needs. For example, freelance working has been gradually becoming accepted in businesses and continues to gain popularity as we march forward into the future.
• Inclusion. Future workplaces will encourage inclusion of workers of all kinds. Whether your concerns involve religion, accessibility, or an unpredictable schedule; workplaces in the future will create environments that support our diverse and unique needs. For example, I have encountered workplaces nowadays that set aside a religious room for their Muslim employees to be able to conduct their routine prayers even while at work. The workplace of the future will include everyone and will enable people to create the kind of careers they want without watering down their individuality.
• Genuine Collaboration. The establishment of a more pleasurable and relaxed work environment will promote creative teamwork that is unlimited by the psychological and structural barriers of workplaces today. This will promote genuine collaboration in the workplace because, when teamwork is encouraged, people get inspired and feel free to come up with creative and out-of-the box solutions and ideas that promote business growth.
• Competitive Edge. The workplace of the future, by creating a new way of working will aid in the modernization of our businesses, attract more clients, and stand out from competition. Through the reinvention of workspaces, businesses will be able to position themselves as market leaders. This is because these businesses will be forward-thinking and will in turn attain the ability to deliver extraordinary employee and consumer experiences. The workplace of the future is not just a new workspace, but a totally new outlook on work.

With this in mind, I think it is safe to say that future workplaces are nothing to be apprehensive about but rather something to really look forward to. Despite the fear that advanced technological interventions might render many of our careers obsolete; the benefits that we will realize will, in all probability, lead to the creation of more creative and engaging roles for the workforce. Therefore, let us not be afraid to walk into the unknown. Let us dare to embrace and immerse ourselves into the future and make it an even more prosperous one.

Despite the immense changes we have realized in our personal lives as a result of technology, our workplaces have retained a structure that is more related to the olden eras than the digital era. Most of us still work in offices that are structured to assign every person a supervisor; structures that deny them autonomy and limit their capacity to be creative or even think for themselves.

This will not be the norm for much longer. The future workplace promises to be less centralized, flexible, and mobile. The only workers who have gotten a taste of the future are freelance employees, and employees of progressive organizations such as Google . The workplace of the future is rapidly being accelerated and drawn closer by giant steps in economic volatility, technology, and the global race for the best employee talent.

Due to workplaces of the future, businesses will realize benefits through an increase in employee productivity, which will lead to better business bottom lines. There is one thing that remains constant in the world we live in; Change. Planning for the changes that will come with the future workplace is not an easy task.

However, being unopposed to change and leaving the past behind will enable us to be front runners in a world of rapidly evolving workplaces and marketplaces. Tiny and gradual measures today taken in an effort to promote easier communication, connectivity, creativity, and personalization at the workplace enable your business to prepare for the workplace of the future and to stand out among thousands if not millions of other businesses as the future approaches.

Image credit: pexel | photos.oliur.com under CC0 License .

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David Perell

The Future of Work

Sometimes, it feels like we’re living in a science fiction novel. Robots and sophisticated computer algorithms have workers around the world fearing automation. This widespread distress has contributed to today’s turbulent political environment and specifically, many of the issues that Americans grapple with today. 

The digital revolution is a fiercely powerful trend. A World Economic Forum study  noted that 65% of students entering primary school today will end up working jobs that don’t exist yet. Yuval Noah Harari, author of Homo Deus : A Brief History of Tomorrow argues that 99 percent of human qualities and abilities are simply redundant for the performance of most modern jobs.

By nature, technological change leads to an exponential rate of change. Automation, speed, globalization, and complexity increase non-linearly  over time. The result is an interconnected environment that is seemingly random and complex.

The law of accelerating returns says that human progress moves faster and faster over time. The law states that the rate of technological change doubles every year. Linear thinking has made sense until recently. The natural world changes in a slow and gradual fashion. Humans are biologically fit for a simple world with linear change. The modern world is complex and change is non-linear. We need fresh ways of thinking about the nature of work to succeed in this complex and rapidly evolving new world.

Today, skills that were once relevant for a lifetime are only relevant for decades. Soon, these skills will only be relevant for a few years. Ask anybody who is over the age of 50, and they will tell you that they are overwhelmed by technological advancement. Many of them “just do not get it.” The differences in how generational gaps think, learn and communicate expand every year. An eternal state of chaos and complexity is emerging. This reality of exponential non-linear change challenges the foundational institutions born out of the 20th century — namely education and jobs.

As the rate of change shoots skywards, computers and mobile technologies are uniquely enabled to process and synthesize these paradigm shifts.

How we prepare and respond to these changes will determine our ability to prosper in the 21st century work environment.

This new emerging work environment rewards an entrepreneurial, nimble mindset. Business owners and brand owners are plugging into existing technologies and selling their products to diverse populations around the world. The commoditization of distribution has given rise to global marketplaces that aggregate hundreds of thousands of unique individuals. Geographically limited and remote markets have turned global.

In this new world, people are incentivized to produce customized and diversified work for distinct niche markets. The next decade will give rise to companies and entrepreneurs that can connect with consumers on a more personal level. We are already seeing the end of mainstream, “one size fits markets — examples include razors, music, philanthropy, media, clothing, and cosmetics.

Routine tasks are increasingly being automated by powerful machine learning algorithms or low cost labor around the world. The result is a market that rewards human ingenuity and creativity, making it more possible than ever before to focus on what we, as 21st century workers, “do best.”

Alec Ross, the former Senior Advisor of Innovation for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explains how geographical areas are adapting to the 21st century. In his book,  Industries of the Future , Ross contrasts attitudes to show how two regions prepared for the 21st century. Ross compared his home state of West Virginia, with 1.8 million citizens, to Estonia, an Eastern European country with fewer than 1.5 million citizens.

The State of West Virginia hung on to coal as its main industry export even as it became automated. The state of Virginia is built on the coal industry in the same way Pittsburg is built on the steel industry, and Detroit for automobiles. In the early 1900s, West Virginia expanded into chemical and plastic production. These were stable industries that provided prosperity to local citizens. For a century, the “Chemical Valley,” which neighbored Charleston, hosted the highest concentration of chemical manufacturers in the United States including Union Carbide, DuPont and Monsanto. However, the end of the 20th century, the economy ceased to flow as these industries collapsed. Machines replaced coal miners and chemical companies relocated their plants to India and Mexico in search of cheap labor and fewer regulations. West Virginia saw a rapid rise in unemployment, degraded infrastructure and cultural distress. From 1960 to 1990, the state capital of Charleston lost 40 percent of its population. By 1988, West Virginia’s unemployment rate was close to double the USA’s national average.

Across the world, the powerful forces of globalization hit manufacturing hubs hardest. Charleston flourished through years of stable economic growth in the early 20th century, only to be hit hard by technologically induced capital and production flight. The downfall of Pittsburgh’s steel sector contributed to rapid migration and a stagnation in job growth. In Detroit, the population declined from 1.8 million to 700,000 as automobile manufacturing jobs moved elsewhere. Manufacturing hubs like Charleston, West Virginia struggled to face a downward turn, while geographical centers that embraced technology advancements thrived into the 21st century.

After regaining independence in 1991, Estonia benefited from a fresh perspective and new ways of thinking about the future. Estonia leaned and stretched into the future through a national embrace of computer science education, digital currencies, and digital transparency. A collective culture of innovation was born. Estonian students learned to code beginning in the first grade, and government services, including voting, were conducted online. These tech-friendly policies had a powerful impact. Estonia now holds the world record of startups per person, yearly tax returns take less than five minutes, and the country enabled startups such as Skype which sold to eBay for $2.6 billion in 2006. These results speak for themselves.

How cities, states, and countries respond to this new rate of change will impact their level of political and economic preparedness for the 21st century landscape. In the same way, how we prepare and adapt to 21st century labor trends will dramatically shape our quality of life. Leaning into the future is the only option. Let’s be like Estonia, not West Virginia.

The industrial revolution brought dramatic acceleration to the economy. Before 1850, connections and communications were local. Most citizens never traveled farther than 50 miles from their original birthplace. They personally knew the farmers that grew their food, they frequented the same merchants that sold their goods, and they wore clothes that were locally manufactured. Most communities were relatively self-sufficient.

The 20th century kick-started globalization. People, products and ideas could travel across the world efficiently and quickly at lower costs. Shipping containers, interstate highways and networked telecommunications infrastructure connected the world and reshaped the playing field. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, economic and production advancements accelerated GDP growth. The epoch was dominated by multinational corporations, stock market investments and growth, driven by consumerism of the western world. The world was transformed by, advancements in communication technologies, electricity and the automobile.

As Thomas Friedman wrote in his 2005 book,  The World is Flat ,  we are entering a brave new world defined by an unprecedented rate of change. An entirely new and global playing field that will disrupt well-established theories of economics, politics, and work. Friedman says we are entering the third wave of globalization. Globalization 1.0 was spurred by countries and governments while multinational corporations led Globalization 2.0. Now, we are on the brink of Globalization 3.0. This third wave will be defined by complex global supply chains and increased competition. The emerging abilities of individuals and developing countries will reshape the global economic landscape. Due to the competitive nature of this new world, individuals who differentiate themselves will do best.

The rapid pace of technological change has lowered the “half life of skills”, which is the period of time with which existing skills are likely to be superseded by better ones.

Source : Benedict Evans

This photo shows a scene in the movie,  The Apartment , a 1960s film featuring a clerk in a large New York insurance company. This office depicts hundreds of workers with telephones, Rolodexes, typewriters and large electro-mechanical calculating machines.

Today, the jobs of most all these workers have been replaced by Excel spreadsheets, laptops, high capacity servers and mobile handheld devices.

In medieval times, skills extended over many centuries. In the industrial economy, skills extended over many generations. Now, skills last less than a career, and very soon, they will last less than a decade. Skills are becoming ephemeral and impermanent. The “half-life of skills” has never been lower and will continue to decrease.

The digital revolution, which took off with the introduction of the iPhone is largely encapsulated by the instant spread of ideas and information, inspired significant workplace changes. With exponential population increases in emerging growth nations, the result is an abundant global supply of low wage workers. Millions of technological jobs have been outsourced. India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Southeast Asia and China have become skilled manufacturing hubs, while the United States has emerged as a hub for design, innovation and new ideas. This is a good thing for people who can adapt to change. However, this trend is a challenge for those who cannot. In the USA and Western Europe, routine tasks, from manufacturing to processing, to accounting to medical procedures, are being automated by robots and intelligence algorithms managed and stored on cloud-based servers. The result in the USA is a climate of labor abundance.

Three recent books on the economies of the future,  Industries of the Future ,  The Future of Professions ,  and Inventing the Future  all came to the same conclusion: robots are taking our jobs and it is going to happen soon. Robots surpass human capabilities on multiple levels. They can work 24 hours per day with more precision at a lower cost. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, who purchased a robotics company in 2012, recently stated “it’s hard to overstate how big of an impact robots are going to have on society over the next twenty years.”

Robots are already fulfilling hundreds of thousands of orders every day for Amazon Prime customers. Large robotic arms take care of routine tasks that can be automated. Humans are responsible for cognitive, non-routine tasks that require problem solving and flexibility.

Amazon Robots

We are already seeing the second order effects of globalization reflected in tense political climates around the world. We have seen a backlash from Britain, to Hungary, to the United States. The backlash has come in the form of nationalism, closing borders, and rising political tension. In Britain, the people who voted for Brexit were, disproportionately older, less educated, poorer, and working class. CNN political analyst Fareed Zakaria believes  we are seeing the emergence of a new political divide between openness towards globalization and technological change, and national sovereignty and border control.

The new divide is likely to shape Western politics for the next 50 years and will only become stronger due to technological advancements.

We are just beginning to see the ancillary effects of automation. Increasingly ambitious, technically precise, customized tasks require fewer and fewer people. One needs to look no further than Amazon, worth more than $400 billion, with less than 350,000 employees. By contrast, WalMart, a staple of the post World War II boom is valued at $211 billion with over 2.3 million employees worldwide.

The numbers are even more staggering in the software businesses. Blockbuster, formerly a retail giant distributing videos and CD’s from big box retail stores employing 60,000 jobs, gave way to Netflix an online subscription delivery model, employing 2,000 jobs.

The returns for a small cohort of winners are increasing exponentially as companies scale more efficiently at lower costs. Once prestigious work is being displaced by technology. JP Morgan & Chase Co. software automates the tedious and routine interpretation of commercial-loan agreements. These tasks once consumed 360,000 hours of work each year by lawyers and loan officers.

According to some estimates, the changes brought to the global economy in the next two decades could be as impactful as the entire industrial revolution, which took more than a century and a half to materialize. This rapid change marks the advent of increasing complexity, unpredictability and randomness. We must confront reality as it is, not as we wish it were.

Robots and computers far exceed human capabilities when similar processes are repeated multiple times, over and over again. The good news is that creativity and ambition can now be realized like never before. Creative work is more likely to be enjoyable and creatives are less likely to lose their jobs to robots.

The Internet has opened the door for niche businesses that tap into human creativity. Recent guests on my podcast, the North Star , have included some creative talent who stay on top of emerging niche opportunities — stop motion animators, illustrators, and two self-published authors to name a few.

The history of human automation shows us that new and better jobs are created when automation replaces traditional workers. This will continue. As the number of people participating on both the supply side and the demand side of the global market grows, economic opportunity emerges at the edges where algorithms cannot replicate human creativity and only motivated and talented individuals can build their own businesses. Unskilled, soon-to-be commoditized labor is not a great career plan.

The old world, defined by assembly lines and large work environments rewarded manual and routine work. Manpower was everything and workers adopted the 9-to-5 schedule which arose out of the need to coordinate worker hours and facilities uses. An Oxford University research paper concluded that machines will take over nearly half of the work done by all humans.

To date, automation has helped overall standards of living, improved literacy rates, lengthened the average life span, and contributed to falling crime rates. In 1908, it took about 4,800 hours of work to purchase a Model T. Today, the average person has to work about 1,000 hours to buy a car that is much better than the Model T. By 2030, robots won’t just build our cars. Robots will drive them too. They will replace taxi drivers, truck drivers, and train conductors.

The new, emerging world rewards cognitive, non-routine work that reflects a creator’s individuality, which cannot be automated. Even routine knowledge work in the areas of accounting, medicine, and law are becoming automated. Workers in these occupations may be intrinsically motivated to try to advance their careers, while the forces of automation and technological advancements will put them and millions of other general skill and manufacturing workers out of jobs and leave hundreds of companies without a future — if they don’t adapt.

The rapid arrival of new technologies is unpreventable. Humans will compete directly with machines and algorithms that continuously improve and operate 24 hours per day. The world emerges with more connected, complex, non-linear, interrelated, adaptive and spontaneously evolving networks with each passing day, giving humans who conduct cognitive, non-routine, quick to market, high value work a tremendous advantage in the 21st century economy.

To thrive in this new world, we must respond to the rising value of individual creativity and the adaptive power of robotics, personalization, customization and mobile automation which will iterate and evolve at a rapid pace.

Differentiated workers will perform best. They will harness the unique capabilities of the internet and build their careers around the new realities of the modern world. We should build our careers and work styles around the inevitabilities of globalization, abundance, and automation.

• http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/19/our-automated-future
• http://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/09/robot-economy-artificial-intelligence-jobs-happy-ending-526467.html
• www.cnn.com/2016/06/27/opinions/western-world-after-brexit-vote-zakaria/
• http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21685437-why-economic-growth-soared-america-early-20th-century-and-why-it-wont-be

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The Future of Work Should Mean Working Less

By Jonathan Malesic Sept. 23, 2021

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Mr. Malesic is a writer and a former academic, sushi chef and parking lot attendant who holds a Ph.D. in religious studies. He is the author of the forthcoming book “ The End of Burnout ,” from which this essay is adapted.

A dozen years ago, my friend Patricia Nordeen was an ambitious academic, teaching at the University of Chicago and speaking at conferences across the country. “Being a political theorist was my entire adult identity,” she told me recently. Her work determined where she lived and who her friends were. She loved it. Her life, from classes to research to hours spent in campus cafes, felt like one long, fascinating conversation about human nature and government.

But then she started getting very sick. She needed spinal fusion surgeries. She had daily migraines. It became impossible to continue her career. She went on disability and moved in with relatives. For three years she had frequent bouts of paralysis. She was eventually diagnosed with a subtype of Ehlers-Danlos syndromes, a group of hereditary disorders that weaken collagen, a component of many sorts of tissue.

“I’ve had to evaluate my core values,” she said, and find a new identity and community without the work she loved. Chronic pain made it hard to write, sometimes even to read. She started drawing, painting and making collages, posting the art on Instagram. She made friends there and began collaborations with them, like a 100-day series of sketchbook pages — abstract watercolors, collages, flower studies — she exchanged with another artist. A project like this allows her to exercise her curiosity. It also “gives me a sense of validation, like I’m part of society,” she said.

Art does not give Patricia the total satisfaction academia did. It doesn’t order her whole life. But for that reason, I see in it an important effort, one every one of us will have to make sooner or later: an effort to prove, to herself and others, that we exist to do more than just work.

We need that truth now, when millions are returning to in-person work after nearly two years of mass unemployment and working from home. The conventional approach to work — from the sanctity of the 40-hour week to the ideal of upward mobility — led us to widespread dissatisfaction and seemingly ubiquitous burnout even before the pandemic. Now, the moral structure of work is up for grabs. And with labor-friendly economic conditions, workers have little to lose by making creative demands on employers. We now have space to reimagine how work fits into a good life.

As it is, work sits at the heart of Americans’ vision of human flourishing. It’s much more than how we earn a living. It’s how we earn dignity: the right to count in society and enjoy its benefits. It’s how we prove our moral character. And it’s where we seek meaning and purpose, which many of us interpret in spiritual terms.

Political, religious and business leaders have promoted this vision for centuries, from Capt. John Smith’s decree that slackers would be banished from the Jamestown settlement to Silicon Valley gurus’ touting work as a transcendent activity . Work is our highest good; “do your job,” our supreme moral mandate.

But work often doesn’t live up to these ideals. In our dissent from this vision and our creation of a better one, we ought to begin with the idea that each one of us has dignity whether we work or not. Your job, or lack of one, doesn’t define your human worth.

This view is simple yet radical. It justifies a universal basic income and rights to housing and health care. It justifies a living wage. It also allows us to see not just unemployment but retirement, disability and caregiving as normal, legitimate ways to live.

When American politicians talk about the dignity of work, like when they argue that welfare recipients must be employed, they usually mean you count only if you work for pay.

The pandemic revealed just how false this notion is. Millions lost their jobs overnight. They didn’t lose their dignity. Congress acknowledged this fact, offering unprecedented jobless benefits: for some, a living wage without having to work.

The idea that all people have dignity before they ever work, or if they never do, has been central to Catholic social teaching for at least 130 years. In that time, popes have argued that jobs ought to fit the capacities of the people who hold them, not the productivity metrics of their employers. Writing in 1891, Pope Leo XIII argued that working conditions, including hours, should be adapted to “the health and strength of the workman.”

Leo mentioned miners as deserving “shorter hours in proportion as their labor is more severe and trying to health.” Today, we might say the same about nurses, or any worker whose ordinary limitations — whether a bad back or a mental health condition — makes an intense eight-hour shift too much to bear. Patricia Nordeen would like to teach again one day, but given her health at the moment, full-time work seems out of the question.

Because each of us is both dignified and fragile, our new vision should prioritize compassion for workers, in light of work’s power to deform their bodies, minds and souls. As Eyal Press argues in his new book, “ Dirty Work ,” people who work in prisons, slaughterhouses and oil fields often suffer moral injury, including post-traumatic stress disorder, on the job. This reality challenges the notion that all work builds character.

Wage labor can harm us in subtle and insidious ways, too. The American ideal of a good life earned through work is “disciplinary,” according to the Marxist feminist political philosopher Kathi Weeks, a professor at Duke and often-cited critic of the modern work ethic. “It constructs docile subjects,” she wrote in her 2011 book, “ The Problem With Work .” Day to day, that means we feel pressure to become the people our bosses, colleagues, clients and customers want us to be. When that pressure conflicts with our human needs and well-being, we can fall into burnout and despair.

To limit work’s negative moral effects on people, we should set harder limits on working hours. Dr. Weeks calls for a six-hour work day with no pay reduction. And we who demand labor from others ought to expect a bit less of people whose jobs grind them down.

In recent years, the public has become more aware of conditions in warehouses and the gig economy. Yet we have relied on inventory pickers and delivery drivers ever more during the pandemic. Maybe compassion can lead us to realize we don’t need instant delivery of everything and that workers bear the often-invisible cost of our cheap meat and oil.

The vision of less work must also encompass more leisure. For a time the pandemic took away countless activities, from dinner parties and concerts to in-person civic meetings and religious worship. Once they can be enjoyed safely, we ought to reclaim them as what life is primarily about, where we are fully ourselves and aspire to transcendence.

Leisure is what we do for its own sake. It serves no higher end. Patricia said that making art is often “meditative” for her. “If I’m trying to draw a plant, I’m really looking at the plant,” she said. “I’m noticing all the different shades of color that maybe I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t drawing it.” Her absorption in the task — the feel of the pen on paper — “puts the pain out of focus.”

It’s true that people often find their jobs meaningful, as Patricia did in her academic career or as I did while working on this essay. But for decades, business leaders have taken this obvious truth too far, preaching that we’ll find the purpose of our lives at work. It’s a convenient narrative for employers, but look at what we actually do all day: For too many of us, if we aren’t breaking our bodies, then we’re drowning in trivial email. This is not the purpose of a human life.

And for those of us fortunate enough to have jobs that consistently provide us with meaning, Patricia’s story is a reminder that we may not always have that kind of work. Anything from a sudden health issue to the natural effects of aging to changing economic conditions can leave us unemployed.

So we should look for purpose beyond our jobs and then fill work in around it. We each have limitless potential, a unique “genius,” as Henry David Thoreau called it. He believed that excessive toil had stunted the spiritual growth of the men who laid the railroad near Walden Pond, where he lived from 1845 to 1847. He saw the pride they took in their work but wrote, “I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time better than digging in this dirt.”

Pursuing our genius, whether in art or conversation or sparring at a jiujitsu gym, will awaken us to “a higher life than we fell asleep from,” Thoreau wrote. It isn’t the sort of leisure, like culinary tourism, that heaps more labor on others. It is leisure that allows us to escape the normal passage of time without traveling a mile. The mornings Thoreau spent standing in his cabin doorway, “rapt in a revery,” he wrote, “were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance.” Compared with that, he thought, labor was time wasted.

Dignity, compassion, leisure: These are pillars of a more humane ethos, one that acknowledges that work is essential to a functioning society but often hinders individual workers’ flourishing. This ethos would certainly benefit Patricia Nordeen and might allow students to benefit from her teaching ability. In practice, this new vision should inspire us to implement universal basic income and a higher minimum wage, shorter shifts for many workers and a shorter workweek for all at full pay. Together, these pillars and policies would keep work in its place, as merely a support for people to spend their time nurturing their greatest talents — or simply being at ease with those they love.

It’s a vision we can approach from multiple directions, befitting America’s intellectual diversity. Pope Leo, Dr. Weeks and Thoreau criticized industrial society from the disparate, often incompatible traditions of Catholicism, Marxist feminism and Transcendentalism. But they agreed that we need to see inherent value in each person and to keep work in check so everyone can attain higher goods.

These thinkers are hardly alone. We might equally take inspiration from W.E.B. Du Bois’s contention that Black Americans would gain political rights through intellectual cultivation and not only relentless labor, or Abraham Joshua Heschel’s view that the Sabbath day of rest “is not an interlude but the climax of living,” or the “ right not to work ” advocated by the disabled artist and writer Sunaura Taylor.

The point is to subordinate work to life. “A life is what each of us needs to get,” wrote Dr. Weeks, and you can’t get one without freedom from work’s domination. “That said,” she continues, “one cannot get something as big as a life on one’s own.”

That means we need one more pillar: solidarity, a recognition that your good and mine are linked. Each of us, when we interact with people doing their jobs, has the power to make their lives miserable. If I’m overworked, I’m likely to overburden you. But the reverse is also true: Your compassion can evoke mine.

Early in the pandemic, we exhibited the virtues we need to realize this vision. Public health compelled us to set limits on many people’s work and provide for those who lost their jobs. We showed — imperfectly — that we could make human well-being more important than productivity. We had solidarity with one another and with the doctors and nurses who battled the disease on the front lines. We limited our trips to the grocery store. We tried to “flatten the curve.”

When the pandemic subsides but work’s threat to our thriving does not, we can practice those virtues again.

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COVID-19’s impact on work, workers, and the workplace of the future

What will the world of work look like, post COVID-19? A paper co-authored by Dyson School faculty member Kevin Kniffin along with 28 other researchers and scholars from around the world — “ COVID-19 and the Workplace: Implications, Issues, and Insights for Future Research and Action ” ( American Psychologist ) — includes a preview of how COVID-19 may change work practices in the long term and offers projections about the workplace of the future.

Kniffin and his co-authors took a broad view of the pandemic’s many impacts on the workplace, encapsulating existing research, predicting a few likely outcomes, and pointing to new questions worthy of study. “By organizing our experiences as researchers in a wide array of topical areas,” they wrote, “we present a review of relevant literatures along with an evidence-based preview of changes that we expect in the wake of COVID-19 for both research and practice.”

“‘Sensemaking’ was the first value generated by this extraordinary collaboration, which we undertook because of the extraordinary impacts associated with the emergence of COVID-19,” says Kniffin. “With so many dimensions of work and life changing rapidly in relation to COVID-19, a clear and succinct assessment was our first task—and a foundation for charting roadmaps for future research and action.”

A new normal: Working from home

When the pandemic hit the U.S. hard in March, millions of workers began working from home – an unprecedented and ongoing phenomenon “facilitated by the rise of connectivity and communication technologies,” Kniffin and his co-authors note in the paper.

The authors project that working from home will not only continue for many workers, but that “COVID-19 will accelerate trends towards working from home past the immediate impacts of the pandemic.” This will be driven, in part, as organizations recognize the health risks of open-plan offices. “As we now live and work in globally interdependent communities, infectious disease threats such as COVID-19 need to be recognized as part of the workscape,” write Kniffin et al. “To continue to reap the benefits from global cooperation, we must find smarter and safer ways of working together.” Organizations will also appreciate the cost-savings of replacing full-time employees with contractors who can stay connected digitally, note the authors.

In light of this anticipated shift, one goal of the paper is to guide future research to “examine whether and how the COVID-19 quarantines that required millions to work from home affected work productivity, creativity, and innovation.”

Best practices for high-functioning virtual teams

Virtual teams were already growing in number and importance pre-COVID-19, as noted in the paper. Now, many workers participate in a variety of remote teams, via synchronous and asynchronous digital communication. Since virtual teams are here to stay for many workers even post-pandemic, it’s important to recognize the challenges and adopt best practices. For example, the authors point out that “traditional teamwork problems such as conflict and coordination can escalate quickly in virtual teams” and offer recommendations based on prior research, including:

• Build structural scaffolds to mitigate conflicts, align teams, and ensure safe and thorough information processing.
• Formalize team processes, clarify team goals, and build-in structural solutions to foster psychologically safe discussions.
• Provide opportunities for non-task interactions among employees to allow emotional connections and bonding to continue among team members.

Greater appreciation for woman leaders?

“A feminine style of leadership might become recognized as optimal for dealing with crises in the future,” write Kniffin et al. They point to high-profile woman leaders who have grappled with COVID-19 effectively, including Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, and Tsai Ing-wen, president of Taiwan. And they list several feminine values and traits that can be effective in crisis management (pointing to the relevant research regarding each trait), including:

• a communal orientation in moral decision-making,
• higher sensitivity to risk, particularly about health issues,
• higher conscientiousness, and
• more attentive communication styles.

Creating roadmaps for new patterns of work

In addition to the sudden shift in working from home, “COVID-19 and the Workplace” touches on many other aspects of the pandemic’s impact on workers and organizations. They point to the economic, social, and psychological challenges and risks for workers deemed “essential” as well as for furloughed and laid-off workers. They touch on fundamental changes brought about in some industries, and new opportunities in others. Regarding impacts on workers, they discuss increases in economic inequality, social distancing and loneliness, stress and burnout, and addiction. The authors also refer to factors that moderate the impacts of workplace changes brought about by the pandemic, including age, race and ethnicity, gender, family status, personality, and cultural differences.

By drawing on existing research to help make sense of the crisis and highlighting topics ripe for new research, the authors hope to clear a path to guide studies focused on building positive, productive interactions that will aid in the ongoing transition to new patterns of work. “We hope that our effort will help researchers and practitioners take steps to manage and mitigate the negative effects of COVID-19 and start designing evidence-based roadmaps for moving forward.”

“When we started this project,” Kniffin added, “it wasn’t clear how long COVID-19 would persist as a force of disruption and destruction. As the pandemic has persisted, though, it’s increasingly clear that COVID-19 should be considered for its impact in relation to almost any work-related practice. On top of that, the many ways in which COVID-19 has variably and disparately impacted people and work around the world warrants close attention, concern, and action.”

• SC Johnson College

Tim Iorio, Ph.D.

I am working on a book concerning survival in Corporate America: Lessons Learned (my memoirs), including chapters on how COVID-19 has changed the landscape. Your research is needed and invaluable, and I look forward to following it. I will more than likely do some Qualitative Research myself on the subject. Thank you.

Rachel Frampton

From my point of view, businesses must invest in workplace covid management software that will protect their employees. Well, I agree with you that they must provide smarter and safer ways of working together. We also share the same opinion about the importance of providing virtual consultations and meetings.

Comments are closed.

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What’s next for remote work: An analysis of 2,000 tasks, 800 jobs, and nine countries

For many workers, COVID-19’s impact has depended greatly on one question: Can I work from home or am I tethered to my workplace? Quarantines, lockdowns, and self-imposed isolation have pushed tens of millions around the world to work from home, accelerating a workplace experiment that had struggled to gain traction before COVID-19 hit.

Now, well into the pandemic, the limitations and the benefits of remote work are clearer. Although many people are returning to the workplace as economies reopen—the majority could not work remotely at all—executives have indicated in surveys that hybrid models of remote work  for some employees are here to stay. The virus has broken through cultural and technological barriers that prevented remote work in the past, setting in motion a structural shift in where work takes place, at least for some people.

Now that vaccines are awaiting approval, the question looms: To what extent will remote work persist ? In this article, we assess the possibility for various work activities to be performed remotely. Building on the McKinsey Global Institute’s body of work on automation, AI, and the future of work, we extend our models to consider where work is performed. 1 The future of work in Europe: Automation, workforce transitions, and the future geography of work , McKinsey Global Institute, June 2020; The future of work in America: People and places, today and tomorrow , McKinsey Global Institute, July 2019; Jobs lost, jobs gained: Workforce transitions in a time of automation , McKinsey Global Institute, December 2017. Our analysis finds that the potential for remote work is highly concentrated among highly skilled, highly educated workers in a handful of industries, occupations, and geographies.

More than 20 percent of the workforce could work remotely three to five days a week as effectively as they could if working from an office. If remote work took hold at that level, that would mean three to four times as many people working from home than before the pandemic and would have a profound impact on urban economies, transportation, and consumer spending, among other things.

The virus has broken through cultural and technological barriers that prevented remote work in the past, setting in motion a structural shift in where work takes place, at least for some people.

More than half the workforce, however, has little or no opportunity for remote work. Some of their jobs require collaborating with others or using specialized machinery; other jobs, such as conducting CT scans, must be done on location; and some, such as making deliveries, are performed while out and about. Many of such jobs are low wage and more at risk from broad trends such as automation and digitization. Remote work thus risks accentuating inequalities at a social level.

The potential for remote work is determined by tasks and activities, not occupations

Remote work raises a vast array of issues and challenges for employees and employers. Companies are pondering how best to deliver coaching remotely and how to configure workspaces to enhance employee safety, among a host of other thorny questions raised by COVID-19. For their part, employees are struggling to find the best home-work balance and equip themselves for working and collaborating remotely.

In this article, however, we aim to granularly define the activities and occupations that can be done from home to better understand the future staying power of remote work. We have analyzed the potential for remote work—or work that doesn’t require interpersonal interaction or a physical presence at a specific worksite—in a range of countries, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We used MGI’s workforce model based on the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) to analyze more than 2,000 activities in more than 800 occupations and identify which activities and occupations have the greatest potential for remote work.

The potential for remote work depends on the mix of activities undertaken in each occupation and on their physical, spatial, and interpersonal context. We first assessed the theoretical extent to which an activity can be done remotely. This depends on whether a worker needs to be physically present on-site to do a task, interact with others, or use location-specific machinery or equipment.

Many physical or manual activities, as well as those that require use of fixed equipment, cannot be done remotely. These include providing care, operating machinery, using lab equipment, and processing customer transactions in stores. In contrast, activities such as information gathering and processing, communicating with others, teaching and counseling, and coding data can theoretically be done remotely.

Additionally, employers have found during the pandemic that although some tasks can be done remotely in a crisis, they are much more effectively done in person. These activities include coaching, counseling, and providing advice and feedback; building customer and colleague relationships; bringing new employees into a company; negotiating and making critical decisions; teaching and training; and work that benefits from collaboration, such as innovation, problem-solving, and creativity. If onboarding were to be done remotely, for instance, it would require significant rethinking of the activity to produce outcomes similar to those achieved in person.

For instance, while teaching has moved to remote work during the pandemic, parents and teachers alike say that quality has suffered. Similarly, courtrooms have functioned remotely but are unlikely to remain online going forward out of concern for legal rights and equity—some defendants lack adequate connectivity and lawyers, and judges worry about missing nonverbal cues in video conferences.

So we have devised two metrics for remote work potential: the maximum potential, including all activities that theoretically can be performed remotely, and a lower bound for the effective potential for remote work, which excludes activities that have a clear benefit from being done in person (Exhibit 1).

To determine the overall potential for remote work for jobs and sectors, we use the time spent on different activities within occupations. We find that remote work potential is concentrated in a few sectors. Finance and insurance has the highest potential, with three-quarters of time spent on activities that can be done remotely without a loss of productivity. Management, business services, and information technology have the next highest potential, all with more than half of employee time spent on activities that could effectively be done remotely (Exhibit 2). These sectors are characterized by a high share of workers with college degrees or higher.

Remote work potential is higher in advanced economies

The potential for remote work varies across countries, a reflection of their sector, occupation, and activity mix. Business and financial services are a large share of the UK economy, for example, and it has the highest potential for remote work among the countries we examined. Its workforce could theoretically work remotely one-third of the time without a loss of productivity, or almost half the time but with diminished productivity. (Exhibit 3). Other advanced economies are not far behind; their workforces could dedicate 28 to 30 percent of the time to working remotely without losing productivity.

In emerging economies, employment is skewed toward occupations that require physical and manual activities in sectors like agriculture and manufacturing. The potential for time spent on remote work drops to 12 to 26 percent in the emerging economies we assessed. In India, for instance, the workforce could spend just 12 percent of the time working remotely without losing effectiveness. Although India is known globally for its high-tech and financial services industries, the vast majority of its workforce of 464 million is employed in occupations like retail services and agriculture that cannot be done remotely.

Although India is known globally for its high-tech and financial services industries, the vast majority of its workforce of 464 million is employed in occupations like retail services and agriculture that cannot be done remotely.

A hybrid model that combines some remote work with work in an office is possible for occupations with high remote work potential

For most workers, some activities during a typical day lend themselves to remote work, while the rest of their tasks require their on-site physical presence. In the US workforce, we find that just 22 percent of employees can work remotely between three and five days a week without affecting productivity, while only 5 percent could do so in India. In contrast, 61 percent of the workforce in the United States can work no more than a few hours a week remotely or not at all. The remaining 17 percent of the workforce could work remotely partially, between one and three days per week (Exhibit 4).

Consider a floral designer. We estimate that between half and one-quarter of his job can be done remotely. He can take orders by phone or online and contract for delivery through an app, but floral arrangement itself requires being in a shop where the flowers are stored in a refrigerated case and ribbons, moss, vases, and other materials used to create a floral design are at hand. To make a floral designer’s job more remote would require dividing his various tasks among all employees in a flower shop. In contrast, credit analysts, database administrators, and tax preparers, among others, can do virtually all of their work remotely. In general, workers whose jobs require cognitive thinking and problem solving, managing and developing people, and data processing have the greatest potential to work from home. These employees also tend to be among the highest paid.

The ability to work remotely also depends on the need to use specialized equipment. According to our analysis, a chemical technician could work remotely only a quarter of the time because much of her work must be done in a lab housing the equipment she needs. Among healthcare occupations, general practitioners who can use digital technologies to communicate with patients have a much greater potential for remote work than surgeons and x-ray technicians, who need advanced equipment and tools to do their work. Thus, among health professionals overall, the effective remote work potential is just 11 percent.

Even for the same activity, the context in which a job is done matters. Consider the activity “analyzing data or information,” which can be done remotely by a statistician or financial analyst but not by a surveyor. Crime scene analysts and workers who analyze consumer trends both engage in what O*NET describes as “getting, processing, analyzing, documenting and interpreting information,” but the former must go to the location of, say, a murder while the latter can do his work in front of a computer at home. A travel agent can calculate the cost of goods or services from a kitchen table, but a grocery clerk does that from behind a counter in a store.

And then there are jobs that require workers to be on-site or in person more than four days a week. Due to the physical nature of most of their work activities, occupations such as transportation, food services, property maintenance, and agriculture offer little or no opportunity for remote work. Building inspectors must go to a building or construction site. Nursing assistants must work in a healthcare facility. Many jobs declared essential by governments during the pandemic—nursing, building maintenance, and garbage collection, for example—fall into this category of jobs with low remote work potential.

This mixed pattern of remote and physical activities of each occupation helps explain the results of a recent McKinsey survey of 800 corporate executives  around the world. Across all sectors, 38 percent of respondents expect their remote employees to work two or more days a week away from the office after the pandemic, compared to 22 percent of respondents surveyed before the pandemic. But just 19 percent of respondents to the most recent survey said they expected employees to work three or more days remotely. This suggests that executives anticipate operating their businesses with a hybrid model  of some sort, with employees working remotely and from an office during the workweek. JPMorgan already has a plan for its 60,950 employees to work from home one or two weeks a month or two days a week, depending on the line of business.

Hybrid remote work has important implications for urban economies

Currently, only a small share of the workforce in advanced economies—typically between 5 and 7 percent—regularly works from home. A shift to 15 to 20 percent of workers spending more time at home and less in the office could have profound impacts on urban economies. More people working remotely means fewer people commuting between home and work every day or traveling to different locations for work. This could have significant economic consequences, including on transportation, gasoline and auto sales, restaurants and retail in urban centers, demand for office real estate, and other consumption patterns.

A McKinsey survey of office space managers conducted in May found that after the pandemic, they expect a 36 percent increase in worktime outside their offices, affecting main offices and satellite locations. This means companies will need less office space, and several are already planning to reduce real estate expenses. Moody’s Analytics predicts that the office vacancy rate in the United States will climb to 19.4 percent, compared to 16.8 percent at the end of 2019, and rise to 20.2 percent by the end of 2022. A survey of 248 US chief operating officers found that one-third plan to reduce office space in the coming years as leases expire.

The impact of that will reverberate through the restaurants and bars, shops, and services businesses that cater to office workers and will put a dent in some state and local tax revenues. For example, REI plans to sell off its new corporate headquarters before even moving in and instead begin operating from satellite offices. In contrast, Amazon recently signed leases for a total of 900,000 feet of office space in six cities around the United States, citing the lack of spontaneity in virtual teamwork.

As tech companies announced plans for permanent remote work options, the median price of a one-bedroom rental in San Francisco dropped 24.2 percent compared to a year ago, while in New York City, which had roughly 28,000 residents in every square mile at the start of 2020, 15,000 rental apartments were empty in September, the most vacancies in recorded history.

Nor is residential real estate immune from the impact of remote work. As tech companies announced plans for permanent remote work options, the median price of a one-bedroom rental in San Francisco dropped 24.2 percent compared to a year ago, while in New York City, which had roughly 28,000 residents in every square mile at the start of 2020, 15,000 rental apartments were empty in September, the most vacancies in recorded history. Conversely, bidding wars are breaking out in suburbs and smaller cities as remote workers seek less harried, less expensive lifestyles and homes with a room that can serve as an office or gym—though it is unclear how successful companies will be with workers scattered in far-flung locales.

Remote workers may also shift consumption patterns. Less money spent on transportation, lunch, and wardrobes suitable for the office may be shifted to other uses. Sales of home office equipment, digital tools, and enhanced connectivity gear have boomed.

Whether the shift to remote work translates into spreading prosperity to smaller cities remains to be seen. Previous MGI research in the United States and Europe has shown a trend toward greater geographic concentration of work  in megacities like London and New York and high-growth hubs, including Seattle and Amsterdam . These locales have attracted many of the same type of younger, highly educated workers who can best work remotely. It remains to be seen whether the shift to remote work slows that trend, or whether the most vibrant cities remain magnets for such people.

Organizations will have to adjust their practices to capture potential productivity gains from remote work

Is remote work good for productivity? Ultimately, the answer may determine its popularity, especially given the long period of waning labor productivity  that preceded the pandemic. So far, there is scant clarity—and widespread contradiction—about the productivity impact. Some 41 percent of employees who responded to a McKinsey consumer survey in May said they were more productive working remotely than in the office. As employees have gained experience working remotely during the pandemic, their confidence in their productivity has grown, with the number of people saying they worked more productively increasing by 45 percent from April to May.

With nine months of experience under their belts, more employers are seeing somewhat better productivity from their remote workers. Interviews with chief executives about remote work elicited a mixed range of opinions. Some express confidence that remote work can continue, while others say they see few positives to remote work.

With nine months of experience under their belts, more employers are seeing somewhat better productivity from their remote workers.

One impediment to productivity may be connectivity. A researcher at Stanford University found that only 65 percent of Americans surveyed said they had fast enough internet service to support viable video calls, and in many parts of the developing world, the connectivity infrastructure is sparse or nonexistent. Developing digital infrastructure will require significant public and private investment.

For women in particular, remote work is a mixed blessing. It boosts flexibility—not needing to be physically co-located with fellow workers enables independent work and more flexible hours—as well as productivity, with less time wasted commuting. Yet remote work also may increase gender disparity in the workplace, exacerbating the regressive effects of COVID-19. The female workforce in many economies is more highly concentrated in occupational clusters like healthcare, food services, and customer service that have relatively low potential for remote work. Previous MGI research on gender parity found that jobs held by women are 19 percent more at risk than jobs held by men simply because women are disproportionately represented in sectors most negatively affected by COVID-19.

Some forms of remote work are likely to persist long after COVID-19 is conquered. This will require many shifts, such as investment in digital infrastructure, freeing up office space, and the structural transformation of cities, food services, commercial real estate, and retail. It also risks accentuating inequalities and creating new psychological and emotional stresses among employees, including from isolation. For most companies, having employees work outside the office  will require reinventing many processes and policies. How long before someone invents the virtual watercooler?

The authors wish to thank Olivia Robinson, Gurneet Singh Dandona, and Alok Singh for their contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Stephanie Strom, a senior editor at the McKinsey Global Institute.

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The future of work in America: People and places, today and tomorrow

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Future of Work, Essay Example

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The Future of Work

People spend a third of their adult lives working, which has led to many of them looking for ways to reimagine work. Since people have to work to guarantee their survival and wealth, methods of making work more flexible and comfortable are being developed, a phenomenon regarded as the future of work. The future of work will involve working in places with equity and inclusion. Many businesses are changing to accommodate a stress-free working environment. Company leaders are starting to establish a culture of trust in their organizations, which will allow them to become more transparent, compassionate, and acquiring more vulnerable management styles. This essay discusses the characteristics that will define a flexible and comfortable workplace and how workers are being prepared to adapt to the future of work.

Artificial Intelligence

Many fields of work, such as health and development of leadership are continuously growing, which has led to the experts in these fields to seek wellness and professional advice from technical experts to help in their work. Artificial Intelligence has replaced many jobs, as Massachusetts Institute of Technology predicted a decade ago, that by 2017, the 1.7 million trucking jobs will be replaced by Artificial Intelligence Systems (Wang 10).

Seeking Flexibility and Autonomous work

Self-employment, which started in the UK after there was a global crisis, was regarded as an alternative that people took because there was no employment. However, when jobs became available, and there was an improvement in the economy, self-employment rates also went up. People involuntarily became self-employed, because they wanted to work flexible, and any age and a pace where they did not require to be controlled. This is similar to the use of new digital platforms in the workplace. Many employers are seeking to improve their workplace by allowing people to work the way they want to work through the use of digital technology. However, this will also affect a certain amount of employees who will need to be terminated to give room for the digital platforms.

Distribution

In the 20 th and early 21 st century, most jobs involved people being in a physical location. However, in the modern world, there are tools and new approaches that have allowed work to be successfully executed with people distributed across many places, including continents apart. For instance, the company Automattic has 762 people from 68 countries, and they speak 81 different languages (Franck 442). The employees meet online because of the availability of transparency, which allows them to understand each other. Based on the development of teleworking and open-source software projects that have made distribution easier, many companies are seeking to do away with offices, allowing their workers to work from home offices or spaces where they can co-work. Employees will, therefore, become flexible and will save more money because of avoiding commuting costs. Through distribution, an organization can employ people with great talents, with the constraint of geographical location or language differences. An example of a company living in the future of work is the Linux Foundation, which has membership from more than 1000 companies all over the world. Linux Foundation meetings involve video conferencing and remote calendars. Team building is done daily, where workers communicate through emails, calls, forums, and other forms of technology.

Open employment

The future of work will not be traditionally-based, where people are hired in a company to work until they resign after getting new jobs. In the modern world, according to the 2016 Gallup Report, millennials like to job-hop from company to company, because they are always looking for new job opportunities in new companies (Hoffman 47). This has turned 57.3 million American youths into freelancers, which is 36% of the American workforce. This means that the percentage of youths to employ is decreasing, which has led companies to come up with new strategies for the future business market.

The future of work involves organizations being more fluid in their terms of employment. Many companies are hiring youth as part-time employees, independent contractors, advisors, and consultants. In the new work setting, there is a whole network of contract and part-time workers, working based on the needs of projects in an organization and coming to work based on their preferences. An example of a company that has already implemented this setting is the management consultancy company called SYPartners, which has both full and part-time employees, and the company has several freelancers. When the company has new projects, it hires people with expertise in the project in question, after which they are dismissed at the end of the project.

The appearance of Monopolistic Companies

The future of work will also involve people witnessing the emergence of big companies that will have better quality than the existing businesses, and the companies will appear to be operating in a monopolistic system. A large group of satisfied consumers then characterizes such companies. An example of a large company that has already dominated the market is Uber (Merkert 49). The main characteristic of these companies is to pop up in places where the traditional or the standard version of their work did not exist. For instance, taxis were rarely found in poor neighborhoods or areas where accommodation was not easily found. Uber, other than joining the car-ride business, has improved service quality and made traveling more flexible, rendering the traditional taxi business ineffective

Preparing the Workforce for the Future of Work

The future of work mostly involves the use of technology, whose adoption in organizations gives the workers a bleak future. Therefore, before preparing their workers for a shift from the standard work arrangement, organizations first convince their workers that technology will be a form of deliverance, helping them have a more productive, brighter future. Organizations convince their workers of the importance of the future of work to make them open towards what they will be taught about the changes in the Organization. Some of the ways that employees are prepared for the future of work are discussed below

Developing Leadership skills

The future of work will require workers to be aware of to be inspirers, regardless of whether they are leaders or not. In the future, these workers will be required to guide new workers in organizations. Many companies seek to develop leadership skills among the youth to prepare them for leadership positions at higher levels after the senior employees have retired.

The best approach in developing leadership skills is to allow employees to be leaders at any capacity, regardless of how minor it is. For example, they can be in charge of running company projects or welfare groups, where they help solve issues in the workplace. Practicing leadership skills will make them more confident, and eventually skilled enough to assume significant leadership roles.

Learning to use Technology

Embracing technology is in the future of work, which makes it compulsory for every worker to be well versed with technology. Employees at all levels are prepared to embrace technology by teaching them about communication, operations, and insight. The organization provides technological gadgets to employees, such as computers, where they are trained on how to send emails, make calls, and other common forms of technology within the company. Showing employees that technology is not a competition or their enemy will encourage them to learn, therefore making their work easier.

Create Continuous learning Opportunities

Evolving of employees will be required as technology changes. Organizations have to instill a growth mindset among their employees to create room for growing (Claro, David, and Carol 8665). Employees are encouraged to develop their skills and be more creative in their work. Hard work, new strategies, and input are some of the methods that employers use to improve the learning opportunities of the employees. Employees with a growth mindset can learn, feel more empowered, and committed in their work.

The future of work has people’s best interests, because they become more flexible, and they can work how they see comfortable. Workers can choose to be full or part-time employed, or they can work from home. The future of work does not only involve replacing human labor with technology, but also enhancing the skills of workers. If a worker loses their job because of technology, the skills that they learned from the organization will enable them to get employment at another skill level.

Works Cited

Claro, Susana, David Paunesku, and Carol S. Dweck. “Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement.”  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  113.31 (2016): 8664-8668.

Franck, Edwiygh. “Distributed Work Environments: The Impact of Technology in the Workplace.”  Handbook of Research on Human Development in the Digital Age . IGI Global, 2018. 427-448.

Hoffman, Blaire. “Why Millennials Quit.”  Journal of Property Management  83.3 (2018): 42-45.

Merkert, Eugene. “Antitrust vs. Monopoly: An Uber Disruption.”  FAU Undergraduate Law Journal  2 (2015): 49.

Wang, Fei-Yue. “Toward a revolution in transportation operations: AI for complex systems.” IEEE Intelligent Systems 23.6 (2008): 8-13.

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AI: 3 ways artificial intelligence is changing the future of work

Artificial intelligence (AI) will revolutionize the future of work. Image:  Getty Images/iStockphoto

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• Artificial intelligence (AI) has dominated the business agenda since chatbot ChatGPT burst on to the scene in late 2022.
• Generative AI is estimated to eventually automate millions of jobs, but its employment benefits are harder to quantify.
• Here are three ways that artificial intelligence will change the future of work, and why its likely to augment rather than automate.

Since ChatGPT burst on to the scene in November 2022, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has come to dominate the business agenda.

Boosts of a few percentage points in productivity are weighed against labour-market disruptions, with Goldman Sachs estimating that generative AI will eventually automate 300 million of today’s jobs .

Have you read?

The future of jobs report 2023.

The employment benefits of generative AI are harder to quantify, but the Future of Jobs report’s cohort of 800 global business leaders is well placed to shed light on the future.

Here are three ways that AI will change the future of work:

1. AI will drive job creation

Businesses responding to our survey expect artificial intelligence to be a net job creator in the coming five years. Nearly half (49%) of companies expect adopting AI to create jobs, well ahead of the 23% of respondents who expect it to displace jobs.

The ranks of AI-linked roles such as data scientists, big data specialists and business intelligence analysts are expected to swell by 30 to 35%, with growth nearer 45% in companies operating in China.

Employment gains are expected to be strongest in the automotive and aerospace industry, where 73% of companies expect employment gains. The research, design and business management services, information and technology services and electronics sectors follow closely behind.

The future of jobs: 2 experts explain how technology is transforming ‘almost every task’

The future of jobs in the age of ai, sustainability and deglobalization, future of jobs 2023: these are the most in-demand skills now - and beyond.

Though the outlook is sometimes mixed, only four of the 27 industries studied expect net job losses. Workers in the oil and gas industry may be most exposed, with 45% of companies expecting losses, 35% forecasting job creation and 20% predicting no effect on employment.

The real estate, media, entertainment and sports and production of consumer goods industries are the only other sectors to predict a negative outlook regarding AI’s impact on employment.

A trickier question is who will benefit and who will be most at risk. A Chinese study of the country’s manufacturing sector showed that artificial intelligence reduced the demand for low-skilled labour across all regions and raised demand for high-skilled labour in the east of the country.

But the picture may be shifting as AI masters increasingly complex tasks. In April, researchers in the US found that highly-educated and highly-paid professions are likely to be most exposed to generative AI.

2. Businesses will prioritize AI skills

AI and big data is the number one skills priority for companies with more than 50,000 employees. Beating out 25 other skill clusters spanning the range of hard and soft skills needed in the workplace, the ability to boost business performance using artificial intelligence is the number one focus of investment in skills training for large companies responding to this year's Future of Jobs survey.

Across the full data sample, which spans small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large multinationals, AI and big data ranks behind only analytical and creative thinking in skills strategies for the 2023 to 2027 period.

This is particularly striking as the C-suite executives responding to the survey only ranked this skill cluster 16th in terms of its importance to workers today. Exploiting artificial intelligence is a skill of the future.

Public-private cooperation on skills training will be key to making sure everyone is swept along by the wave of increased productivity.

Initiatives such as TeachAI , a collaboration between the World Economic Forum, Code.org and foremost leaders and experts on artificial intelligence, aims to integrate AI and computer science skills in education to ensure that the next generation of talent is prepared for the future of work.

Similarly, the Education 4.0 Alliance aims to surface promising examples of public-private collaboration leveraging new technologies to develop future-ready skills. At the same time UNESCO is offering thought leadership on the need for AI skills in technical and vocational education and training – a crucial focus if the benefits of AI are to be shared by all segments of the global labour market.

3. Tasks will be augmented, not automated by AI

Despite technological strides forward, this year’s Future of Jobs report suggests that businesses are becoming more sceptical about the potential for artificial intelligence to fully automate work tasks. Executives estimate that 34% of tasks are already automated – just one percentage point ahead of the figure reported in the Future of Jobs Report 2020.

Future expectations for automation are also being revised down, as markets climb the human-machine landscape more slowly than previously anticipated. Respondents to this year’s survey forecast that an additional 9% of operational tasks will be automated in the next five years – a reduction of five percentage points compared to expectations in 2020.

The difference is a growing consensus that artificial intelligence will augment human performance rather than fully supplanting it. For example, a survey of AI experts published in June last year showed that most managerial skills are likely to be augmented rather than automated by AI.

Only information gathering and simple decision-making are likely to be fully automated, and leadership and imagination skills will be largely unaffected by AI.

Impact of generative AI on the future of work?

The next edition of the Jobs of Tomorrow report, in collaboration with Accenture, will shed further light on which jobs will see the largest impacts from generative AI – whether through automation, augmentation, or both. Watch this space – results are due to be published at the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings in September.

The Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2023 report outlined the technologies poised to positively impact society in the next few years, from health technology to AI to sustainable computing.

The World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution is driving responsible technology governance, enabling industry transformation, addressing planetary health, and promoting equity and inclusion.

Learn more about our impact:

• Digital inclusion: Our EDISON Alliance is mobilizing leaders from across sectors to accelerate digital inclusion, having positively impacted the lives of 454 million people through the activation of 250 initiatives across 90 countries.
• AI in developing economies: Our Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Rwanda is promoting the adoption of new technologies in the country, enabling over 4,000 daily health consultations using AI.
• Innovative healthcare: Our Medicine from the Sky initiative is using drones to deliver medicine to remote areas in India, completing over 950 successful drone flights.
• AI for agriculture: We are working with the Government of India to scale up agricultural technology in the country, helping more than 7,000 farmers monitor the health of their crops and soil using AI.

Want to know more about our centre’s impact or get involved? Contact us .

Some 75% of companies are set to have adopted AI technologies by 2027. Meanwhile, 80% plan to accelerate automation during this period.

But the Future of Jobs Report 2023 suggests that humans won’t be left behind by the AI revolution – an even greater fraction plan to invest in learning and training on the job. After all, artificial intelligence skills are at the heart of the reskilling revolution .

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World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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The Future Workplace

Compared to the past, today’s workplace is vastly different. Even though computers have replaced typewriters and machines have replaced jobs, it’s no secret that machines are taking over. The outbreak of COVID-19 has expedited workplace transformation. Because of this, people are more equipped than ever to work with each other worldwide. They’ve come up with new ways to work with computers. People are adapting to novel customs of at work, and organizations necessity to reorganize themselves to keep up.

There has been a significant shift in the workplace during the previous several decades. Using contractors and independent contractors as employees is an example of how this could be accomplished. Knowledge-based work is increasingly being done on the internet. There are various reasons why people choose to work from home, including the desire for a more flexible work environment and the desire to avoid spending a significant amount of money on real estate. Managing one’s identity while working from home can be difficult when one works from home. Before anything else can be accomplished, it is necessary to develop a virtual but apparent culture.

It is not apparent how a combination of natural and virtual surroundings could aid in the development of a culture of acceptance for ambiguity and uncertainty. Algorithms are being employed in various applications To connect people with employment, evaluate their work performance, and compute remuneration. There is a great deal of chaos, which usually spells the end of any civilization. Employees who perceive that algorithmic task allocation and payment are unjust may become furious due to these modifications. Because of this, the following workgroups would only consider them transactional participants, which might result in mediocre performance from the entire workforce. You must be aware of the number of firms that use algorithms and their employees’ attitudes toward procedural and distributive justice.

It doesn’t take long for businesses to discover that the great bulk of their information to generate new value is located beyond their traditional borders. On the other hand, companies are more likely to rely on independent contractors and consultants to complete their tasks (dubbed “gig workers”). Customer groups, open-source development, and crowd-sourced projects are examples of places where early signals of the future of work can be discovered. Workers from outside the company’s organization can join work teams, allowing for more efficient completion of tasks. Companies can form and dissolve groups at their discretion. Every work team has its distinct collection of agents, and an organization may be responsible for a large number of agents at any given time. Employees can now report to an excessive number of managers simultaneously and have resulted in a significant increase in the number of matrices groups relative to before. There are numerous reporting lines and performance evaluators to consider when operating in a matrix. Algorithms may become increasingly significant in job execution as a result. (Williams, 2021)

Work incentives must be integrated into the corporate culture of every organization. Intrinsic motivation and equitable reward for work can impact a person’s professional choice and teammates. Companies will have to use inherent motivators in the future to locate and hire “intrinsically motivated” individuals if they want to succeed. Dual incentive systems must be effective because they appeal to both internal and external motivations. It is critical to understand which intrinsic motivators are most effective in particular contexts and how they interact with one another to maximize performance. As a result, it will be easier to recruit for internal and external positions.

The underlying motives of collaboration and learning have been vital in the past and the future. Especially in today’s competitive environment, businesses must discover ways to create an environment that encourages collaboration and the generation of new ideas. For them to be able to generate new ideas, they must learn how to synthesize information. To ensure that all work is completed most efficiently and productively possible, large-scale cooperation has occurred within the organization. Consider how technology can make large-scale collaboration easier.

As robots and artificial intelligence (AI) take over more and more jobs in the future, human agents will be forced to master new skills. If you want to master these hobbies, you’ll need positive and negative feedback. It will not be easy to automate this type of information entry in the future. It is possible that auto-feedback will be seen negatively and could hamper learning, mainly when supplied in the form of ratings. Additional research must be conducted to discover how algorithmic feedback may be made acceptable. People and machines can provide input, despite little research having been done in this area. The use of human-machine synergy, for example, could assist people in predicting their future employment potential.

The inclusion of their staff is becoming increasingly crucial for businesses to be successful and run efficiently. The importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace will only grow in the years to come. There is an increasing demand for organizations dedicated to accepting, utilizing, and benefitting from neurodiversity in our communities. In the end, there will be an increase in the number of these organizations. While businesses strive to make their workplaces more diverse, they must consider demographic factors, notably ethnicity, in their efforts. Employers who rely on algorithms are attempting to be more inclusive. Working to eliminate human prejudices should be a priority. Human biases may pose a serious threat when it comes to developing algorithms. Understanding algorithms and how they work is critical for avoiding biases that make algorithms less inclusive. Examining how virtual work has made us more inclusive, as well as how the outcomes of this experiment may influence future work practices. (Lind, Madgavkar, & Manyika, 2020)

Specific issues stated concerning future employment can be solved by utilizing two fundamental design characteristics. In terms of design, we have these two criteria to keep in mind: Mindfulness is a critical design component. To understand post-epidemic employment, these two aspects of work design will play a significantly more significant role after the pandemic. Mindfulness in the workplace has lately been a hot topic among experts looking for ways to boost productivity and predict the future of work. According to research in fields as diverse as psychology, neurology, and medicine, mindfulness is essential for designing future workplaces that encourage cognitive engagement with work and healthy work behavior. Technology and human interaction must be included in mindful work’s future production. Future workplaces will need to consider such issues as fostering concentrated thought, recuperation intervals (after technology usage), and non-technology-mediated engagement. There are times when proximal human connections must be employed sparingly to achieve mindful job design. More research is required to balance technologically better assisted and non technologically assisted aspects of future job design. Because of the Zoom fatigue that many companies have been experiencing during COVID-19, it’s clear that finding a way to balance technology and human requirements is an important step. Research is needed to build organizational norms to help maintain this equilibrium. The future of mindful workplaces will entail taking into account workers’ mental health. (Malhotra, 2021)

Another part of the future of work that must be prepared is meaningful work. Workers at a typical firm preparing for the future may use their free time to work on educational projects unrelated to their “assigned” responsibilities. An employee’s extra time can study and develop if they aren’t distracted by their primary responsibilities. Employees in the future will expect their employees to have a positive influence on society. Therefore, companies will have to make social impact a critical capability of their employees. Individuals can utilize their leisure time to have a positive societal influence even if their regular work does not. The legal and financial professions have a long and renowned tradition of pro bono service. A more significant social and societal impact might be achieved through pro bono labor in the future. Pro bono and free time work influence job satisfaction and organizational loyalty, but further study is needed. There are a lot of essential issues that need to be answered via investigation.

In conclusion, Since the COVID-19 outbreak, people have been able to move faster toward the future of work and plan for post-pandemic employment and organizations. This discussion aims to inspire further study on a lot of work and organizations. Individual reactions and future work structure must be considered in developing a multidisciplinary vision of future work. This method helps understand future post-pandemic organizational situations since other undiscovered routes exist.

Lind, S., Madgavkar, A., & Manyika, J. (2020). The future of work after COVID-19. Retrieved Deecember 2021, from https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/the-future-of-work-after-covid-19

Malhotra, A. (2021, April 6). The postpandemic work.  Journal of Management, 47 , 1091-1101. Retrieved December 2021, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01492063211000435

Williams, C. (2021). The fight over the hybrid future of work.  The World ahead . Retrieved December 2021, from https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2021/11/08/the-fight-over-the-hybrid-future-of-work

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