Today, I’m pleased to bring you a guest post by Sharlyn Lauby, aka the HR Bartender. This post is part of the HR Blog Exchange – an idea cooked up by Steve Boese last month. Enjoy!
I was standing at the grocery store checkout this week and saw a headline on the latest TIME magazine that caught my eye – “The Future of Work: Ten Lessons for Succeeding in the New American Workplace.” Needless to say, I couldn’t resist and plunked down $4.95 for the issue. Later I found it on the web (here) so let me save you some money.
Also, let me save you some time by sharing with you a few tidbits from the article. Bless their little hearts, TIME magazine did nothing more than point out the painfully obvious. Here’s a sampling of what they call the future of work:
1. Training Managers to Behave
I totally agree that the future of work involves management training. But then I might be naive in thinking that everyone agrees with me on this one. As I see it, the training challenge is three-fold:
- People need to understand when training is appropriate. Training is not the answer for everything.
- Training professionals need to figure out how to calculate ROI. Not by smile sheets, but company results. And,
- companies need to quit chopping the training budget every time money gets tight.
The future of work is not conducting training. It’s about changing the perception of training in the workplace.
2. The Search for the Next Perk
TIME Magazine says that due to the rapidly rising cost of benefits, companies are scaling back. Please forgive me for the first of many “no duh” comments during this post. There’s a lot of conversation that the only way employees will continue to have benefits like health care insurance and vacation is to legislate them.
But the article does briefly touch on an idea that bears discussion. The idea that success will be “defined by not rank or seniority but by getting what matters to you personally.” Does that mean that the future of perks and benefits might become cafeteria-style? As an employee, I could pick the things that are of value to me. If so, this could really change the way we think and design rewards.
3. We’re Getting Off the Ladder
The article says that 80% of employees would want more flexibility in their work if they didn’t think it would harm their career. Duh! Isn’t this like asking the question, “Do you think you get paid enough?” Everyone will take a pay increase if you offer it and everyone will take more flexibility if you provide it.
The real question is – what does flexibility look like? Is it telecommuting which still has a tremendous amount of structure or something that is more results based? Either way, there’s a need for managers to know how to manage this flexible workforce (see #1).
4. Why Boomers Can’t Quit
We all know that the Boomers can’t quit. And, we know the reason why: Their 401(k) has tanked. Will they eventually retire? Of course. The thing we really want to know is when. And, the future of work will be driven by whether or not organizations were prepared for it.
5. The Last Days of Cubicle Life
We are already seeing an increase in home based employees because of the high cost of commercial real estate. This is no surprise. The future of work is not about ‘where’ you work but ‘how’ you work. It’s about productivity.
So unfortunately, at the end of the day, we don’t really know what the future of work looks like at all. We know that work is dynamic and, in order to deal with the changes that the future holds, we will need to be agile and unafraid to challenge the status quo.
My thanks to Chris for letting me share this article (and my thoughts) with you.
About the Author: Sharlyn Lauby, SPHR, CPLP is the HR Bartender (follow on Twitter), who’s blog is a friendly place to discuss workplace issues. When she’s not bartending, Sharlyn is president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting. Her off-hours are spent searching for the best hamburger on the planet, fabulous wine that cost less than $10 bottle, and exotic martinis.
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Sharlyn – this is a great post, and I’m so happy to host it on my site. I have a few thoughts/comments on your article:
Training professionals need to figure out how to calculate ROI. Not by smile sheets, but company results.
This is so key! The norm for many HR pros seems to be, “Did they enjoy it? Did they learn something?” Those are both important, but if that’s all you measure, you’re missing the point of training. It needs to:
1. Actually change behavior, and
2. Change behavior in a way that delivers results.
Well said!
Does that mean that the future of perks and benefits might become cafeteria-style? As an employee, I could pick the things that are of value to me. If so, this could really change the way we think and design rewards.
How cool would that be? You get a bank of benefits money, a list of possible benefits and perks, a “cost” for each. “Buy” what you want. I’d love to see that in action!
The real question is – what does flexibility look like?
YES!! I think the answer might be, “As flexible as you can be and still get the work done.” Obviously, that looks very different for a hospital worker than it does for a computer programmer.
Why Boomers Can’t Quit
I have nothing to add – you nailed this!
The future of work is not about ‘where’ you work but ‘how’ you work. It’s about productivity.
Maybe people wouldn’t get off the ladder if more organizations adopted this attitude.
Sharlyn, thanks again. This was an awesome post!
Great post. Instead of joining in the much-deserved Time-bashing, I have two observations.
Getting good leadership, management and supervision requires better selection, more focused training, and more intentional development than most companies are doing today. It also involves holding those we choose as bosses accountable for team results.
It may be that in the future we will develop workplaces that are more like tribal culture. Bosses may not be selected from above or selected to permanent positions.
The other observation is that what you describe as an outcome, increase in home based workers, I see as a driver of change. Supervising people that you can’t see directly requires different kinds of work than line-of-sight supervision. We’ll make the changes because the workers we supervise won’t be where we can see them.
@Wally – I’d really love to hear more about the tribal culture development model you referenced. Care to expand on that?
OK, Chris, tribal culture it is. For me this is more a line of inquiry right now, more questions than answers. Background first.
When I left the Marines in 1968 and went into business, the dominant model for thinking about management was Professional Manager as Organizational Engineer. Planning had pride of place. That was followed by a shift to a computer-like model, with emphasis on process, but with planning still the dominant discipline. Now I think we’re moving more toward biological and anthropological models.
I’m coming from the anthropological side of that. If you have a workplace that’s “tribal” in the sense I’m using the term, several things would be different from the way things are in most places today.
Leaders would probably be selected from by the group, not by some power above the group. In addition to some general leadership, there would probably be task specific leadership for some work (hunting party). Hiring would probably be by the group. The group might divvy up bonus money for group performance rather than have assigned bonuses.
There are some companies already doing bit of this. In the US there is SW Airlines, Whole Foods, and WL Gore. In Brazil, Semco. I’m not sure where this will all go, but I intend to ask a gazillion more questions along the way.
@Wally – Interesting model, particularly since my undergrad is in Anthropology. I can see some benefit to this model, particularly in areas like choosing leadership. I wonder how effective allowing a hiring team to handle the recruiting process would be, though. I could see a tendency for “you’re like me so I’ll hire you” to dominate, minimizing diversity of ideas. Groups could then become more cohesive but far less effective.
Funny you mention Semco. I hadn’t heard of them until just a month ago, and now they seem to keep coming up in conversation. I’m absolutely fascinated by their model!
Thank you both for the terrific comments. I did want to echo Wally’s comment about accountability. It’s so necessary and seems to have such a low emphasis right now.
I’d be interested in your thoughts on how organizations can create more accountability in the workplace.
That certainly could happen with a team hiring process but what’s interesting is that places that use it: SW Airlines, Whole Foods, and Semco seem to generate good ideas quite well. SW and Semco have done this for quite a while. Maybe “like me” can also create situations who demonstrate things we know make for good creativity (playfulness) or perhaps there are other things in the company culture that foster diversity of viewpoint.
If you’re interested in Semco, pick up a copy of The Seven Day Weekend. It’s by Ricardo Semler and it’s his attempt to figure out what, exactly makes Semco so productive.
Sharlyn, you get accountability when you hold people accountable. If there are consequences tied to performance and if those consequences are delivered, then people will expect to be accountable. Of course, you need fair and reasonable expectations or what you have is coercion.
@Wally – I’ve noticed that both here and over at HR Bartender, you seem to be equating productivity with innovation. Those two are qualities are mutually exclusive. You can be productive but not innovative, and innovative but not productive.
Group think can absolutely lead to more productivity – it’s far easier to get things done when a group gets along and works in a similar way. You may, however, find that the quality and originality of ideas decreases.
It’s not my intent to equate productivity with innovation. It is my intent to contrast the quest for a workplace that is both productive and has high morale (note the ‘and’) with the quest for a workplace that is innovative. I think that if you strive to achieve the former you are likely to wind up with a workplace that shows innovation.