Work's Great Renegotiation

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF WORK?

In February 1966, Time magazine asked a group of “New Futurists” to share their predictions about how technological advances would shape U.S. culture in the 21st century.

“By 2000,” they wrote, “the machines will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will, in effect, be independently wealthy. With government benefits, even nonworking families will have, by one estimate, an annual income of $30,000 to $40,000 (in 1966 dollars). How to use leisure time meaningfully will be a major problem, and Herman Kahn foresees a pleasure-oriented society full of ‘wholesome degeneracy.’”

This optimistic vision hasn’t yet come to fruition, and in 2021 work is still the thing that fills most of our hours on most of our days. While technology has been chipping away at some workplace conventions for years, you could argue that the office of January 2020 didn’t look meaningfully different from the one in which those Time editors wrote in 1966.

HOWEVER…

The Covid-19 pandemic created a truly disruptive inflection point. March 2020 and all that followed forced companies and their leaders to imagine a new way to work and test-drive it in real time. Sometimes in those early days, it felt like we were careening down the highway with the doors still open. But for better or worse, we tested many possibilities at scale. We emerged on the other side stronger, with an unprecedented opportunity to intentionally transform the future of work.

For the first time in a long time, we’re asking ourselves what is work? How is it evolving and how do leaders evolve to that?

There is a LOT of cultural noise when it comes to this topic. One of the dominant themes depicts “the Great Resignation.” Some have taken the pandemic-induced pause as an opportunity to contemplate what really matters and how work should fit into their lives. People are leaving jobs that do not suit them in record numbers, downshifting, rightsizing, and pushing against the cultural convention that their work defines them.

This has been especially pronounced among parents, particularly women, many of whom feel pushed to the breaking point by pandemic-driven childcare gaps. The “lying flat” movement, which calls for young people to opt out of conventional measures of success like home ownership and high-paying jobs, has captured imaginations on both sides of the Pacific and is a fascinating embodiment of the extreme edge of this trend.

The “Great Resignation” may or may not slow as we settle into a post-pandemic routine. Economists say that, historically, workers who weather an uncertain macroeconomic climate – especially young people – often find themselves more likely to value financial security than meaning. Perhaps the next generation will be pragmatists who value stability and a steady paycheck above all?

No matter the trajectory of job quit rates, it is indisputable that we face a societal reckoning about the nature of work. But rather than the Great Resignation, I think it is more aptly called the Great Renegotiation, and I feel privileged to be a part of it.

In straightforward terms, a renegotiation simply means changing the agreed upon terms, or the rules of the game. This moment of Great Renegotiation is a dynamic conversation about how to change the conventions of the traditional workplace so that it “works” for everyone. The conversation has two facets, an internal and an external.

The internal dialog is taking place within individuals, as they ask themselves how to create the right relationship between the important elements of their lives - paid work, passion work, time with people they care about, and in the places they care about. They are seizing this opportunity to reconsider (some even to overhaul) the way the “work” piece fits with the others. In the post-pandemic landscape, they feel more empowered than ever to ask for what they need from their employers to put these elements in harmony.

The Great Renegotiation’s external dialog is taking place between employees and their employers as they work together to translate these collectively voiced aspirations into meaningful change. A new window has opened for leaders and organizations to work with their employees to renegotiate the rules of work, and I am here for it. As with any negotiation, there may need to be concessions for both sides. But the anchor point - a conventional work culture that allows both employees and employers to thrive - has been set.

I have been thinking a lot about what is around the next corner. What do I need to “see” to set my organization up for success with the next generation of leaders and beyond?

I discovered an interesting clue in an unexpected source: The World Happiness Report. The authors mined a vast amount of data (over 5 million responses) about employee happiness that was collected on the jobs website Indeed.com, starting in November 2019. The responses offer a unique, quantitative look at what it means to be “happy” at work and how that might have changed during the pandemic.

The most interesting takeaway? Even during the tumultuous months of 2020, the top drivers of workplace happiness remained fundamentally unchanged: belonging, flexibility, and an inclusive environment. I find this list encouraging for two reasons.

First, it reassures me that even in the most turbulent times, employee well-being and happiness depends on enduring elements. Some have suggested we need to “blow up” the structure of work to reap the true benefits of technology or respond to the post-pandemic mindset, but I do not think that is the case. Rather, we need to understand and satisfy the fundamental human needs that existed pre-Covid, which the pandemic pushed to the forefront of the conversation.

Second, these foundational elements – belonging, flexibility, inclusivity – are achievable for any company or leader. They are not tied to whether we are “in” or “out” of an office; they do not require massive restructuring or large IT budgets. Rather, they ask us to lean in to understanding our employees as people and our organizations as important sites of collective progress.

I believe we are entering the era of the Human-Centered company. There is a new openness to seeing the person behind the employee – and to having meaningful conversations about how, where, and when we all work.

Some may push back by saying that companies have cared about their employees as people for years. Aren’t there entire departments dedicated to “Human” Resources? But, have they really? The unrelenting conversation about burnout and the ongoing number of resignations say otherwise.

Collective time spent working from home offered an unvarnished peek into the lives of our leaders, peers, and direct reports. It afforded a new, deeply empathetic understanding of the façade of “balance” in a tech-led workforce and the barriers to well-being at work. For many, it illuminated sacrifices and trade-offs we did not even realize we were collectively making. We cannot “unsee” these things, nor should we as we forge into the post-Covid workplace.

When I peek around the corner to imagine what kind of meaningful change could result from Great Resignation conversations, I envision a flexible hub of belonging, where employees feel supported to perform as the best versions of themselves and licensed to draw boundaries between their personal and professional selves.

For me, this Great Renegotiation covers four key ideas:

#1: FLEXIBILITY:

Flexibility is by far the most important driver of workplace wellbeing for most employees. We see this writ large in the ongoing cultural discussion about return “to the office.”

Importantly, though, flexibility goes far beyond “where” we work. We need to lead with empathy, to understand the true barriers to flexibility and continue to break them down. To enter a genuine conversation with employees to think about how to renegotiate the boundaries. Flexibility may look very different for someone just starting their career, versus a mid-career employee, or someone nearing retirement, yet the current options within work culture remain fairly one-size-fits all. Personalization has been a dominant consumer trend for more than a decade; how can we bring it to the workplace experience?

#2: HUB OF BELONGING:

Fresh research shows that “belonging” is not just about being welcomed or included, but also feeling that you are able to do your best work to reach a collective goal. Here, we have an opportunity to renegotiate what the concept of “inclusion” authentically means within our organizations. More than ever, employees want their company to have a clear purpose, to feel a part of setting the organization’s goals, and to understand how they individually can help achieve them. How can we as leaders encourage that feeling of individual contribution to the greater good?

#3: SUPPORTED TO PERFORM AS BEST VERSION OF SELF:

Without the physical office, we lose the “dual perspective” of others that motivates our best work. We need strong managers more than ever, and we need to help them transform their role from oversight to include connection and coaching.

In this realm, Great Renegotiation conversations can help us think about how to push the playbook for the boss/employee relationship. Forward-thinking leaders will explore ways to bring elements of friendship and unstructured play into the culture of work. We know these enhance feelings of belonging and ultimately boost performance, but I see them as undervalued today. How can we do more to bake them into our cultures? (Some thought-provoking ideas here.)

#4: EMPOWERED TO DRAW BOUNDARIES:

The 21st century workplace is always “on,” with limitless possibilities. That is both its greatest promise and its greatest challenge. I thought and wrote about this while working in China’s WeChat culture, where the lines between private and professional lives are blurry at best and sometimes downright nonexistent.

I believe there are cross-cultural lessons to learn, which I wrote about back in 2019. Above all, I learned that tech makes the workplace of the future almost impossible to navigate unless leaders set the pace. Here, that renegotiation of the boundaries might mean empowering yourself and your teams to create tech-free zones: times of the day or week or month when it is permissible—even encouraged—to be “out of pocket.”

The future of work is not a hard reset. It’s a system upgrade to allow organizations to catch up with the direction tech-empowered workers were already headed.

While we may never realize Kahn’s 1966 vision of a 100% pleasure-oriented society, we can certainly build human-centered organizations, where concepts like flexibility and belonging become lived practices rather than just buzzwords. This cultural moment has given us an opening to renegotiate the future of work. I hope you’ll join me in seizing this once in a lifetime opportunity.