Our Future of Work

Our options of work may be dictated to us by what is on offer where we live but our desire to follow that lead seems to be changing.

A special report conducted by Deloitte Insights Report on Human Capital Trends 2021 highlighted that 86% of executives told them they believe workers will gain greater independence and influence relative to their employers in the future.

We might want to celebrate that result, right?

Before we do, we have to know where the 86% of executives were based, right?

Our understanding of our future of work needs to be nuanced. I guess that fact we have time to contemplate it, analyse it and write about it, already makes us privileged and we have to make sure our own bias doesn’t see us naval gazing about a world of work for the few, and not the many.

Do we expect all businesses to be social enterprises?

It feels like we are struggling with the reimagining of business, which in turn means we are struggling with the reimagination of what our future of work looks like.

Our future of work isn’t a one size fits all reimagination or even discussion.

As soon as you touch of the topics of economic growth, the use of technology in business, unexpected disasters, climate change, and social divides in access to resources such as education, wealth, and health, the global world is in very different places.

Which means that our future of work must be a personal choice.

Building something for the long term has more than a whiff of sustainability about it, do we class Facebook, now Meta, as a company doing things for the greater good?

When Meta was known as Facebook, it famously operated under a mission statement of: “Move fast and break things.”

As the company matured, those values were eventually changed to: “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”

As companies align to purpose driven values, does that mean we should all be happy and trust they are doing the right thing?

Is my “right thing” the same as your “right thing”? It seems we are back to personal choice.

If you live in the westernised world the statement “take back control” may resonate with Brexit campaigning and our spell under Trump leadership.

If you can put that to one side, Our Future of Work depends on us as individuals doing just that.

Not in the autocratic, self interest way the politicians like to talk about it, but in a co-collaborative way that signals to the worlds businesses that we want change, and we are happy to work together on achieving that.

There are a plethora of new models and marketing terms coming out to tell us there is a modular way forward, and I can’t help but think that is missing the point completely.

For humans to survive, we must remember and talk about the conditions we require to thrive, and we must prioritise what the planet is giving us to enable us to do that and stop doing the things that hurt us.

Perhaps stop generalising?

Understand our experience is individual to us, which is why sharing, co-creating, and diverse collaboration is essential.

A new study (McKinsey, The future of work after covid) estimates that 100 million global low-wage workers will need to find a different occupation by 2030.

At the same time, the demand for skilled workers is growing, with seven in 10 employers globally saying they are struggling to find workers with the right mix of technical skills and human capabilities.

Who is deciding this?

Why are we automating the low paid work, instead of seeing the value in humans contributing and getting paid fairly for it?

The total cost to the world in these senarious has never had to be calculated.  In the same way that business does not have to pay the actual cost to the planet of taking natural resources.

Why not? 

Because big business is more powerful than the people we elect to take care of us and the world we live in?

Has Geopolitics become our biggest barrier to change?

Technology should be making it easier to work anywhere in the world, yet tax laws and residency issues get in the way of Digital Nomads wanting the work and life realities that should be freely available now. 

A few countries are seeing the opportunity to tap into a skilled labour force that is demanding a different life, these examples need to be celebrated because this is about people making their own choices about their Future of Work, and the world responding, albiet slowly.

I've come to the conclusion that we are not ready to talk about OUR Future of Work,  the conversations need to start around YOUR future of work and MY future of work, individially we have to decide what that is, and then collectively we can co-create and collaborate on making change happen.

Nina changes the tough stuff necessary to keep leaders’ vision and strategy alive and prosperous, planet and people engaged, healthy, smiling and having fun. Coach, Consultant & Trainer.  Contact her when you are ready to make your contribution to changing the world at ninadar.com the forst 30 mins are free.