8 Things You Should Know About Your Future Work
After spending some time in the social / crowdsourcing space — there are a few things that become pretty obvious. People are motivated by doing what they like. They are also motivated by doing what they will be recognized for and empowered to participate in. So what does this mean for the future of work? I think there are 8 interesting results that we can anticipate out of this:
Work will be atomized
When I say that work will be atomized, I mean that we will no longer do long complex activities individually. You and I, in the future, won’t grab onto something big and chunk away at it til we are done. We will instead work collaboratively with others — doing at maximum efficiency the things that we are best at and enjoy the most. What’s funny is that you go backwards to go forwards in this case — in the study of Comparative advantage — you figure out that all things equal — you should do the things that you are most efficient at, even if you are generally better at producing value in several areas than your neighbor. So — why shouldn’t this apply to work rather than just agriculture and physical goods? Why shouldn’t each of us concentrate on doing what we are best at and producing maximum value in that area? It just makes sense…
Work will be gamified
Some of the pundits in the media would suggest that gamification of work is an absolute necessity because of “declining attention span”. Without getting into any sort of debate about this — let’s just simplify — when work is enjoyable/fun, people are more productive. Granted, people are also more productive according to human motion studies when they are being watched. But that’s like comparing the use of a stick or a carrot to motivate people. I, for one, respond quite well to the carrot and don’t react at all well to the stick. It’s like raising kids — if you punish the child severely for every perceived slight — you won’t get much other than a surly child. So what does it mean to gamify work — everyone playing first person shooters? No — this is more about making the tasks that need to be done part of a larger competitive activity and giving immediate positive & negative points for effort produced as well as recognition, opportunity, reward and other incentives to do well. There will be fall-out from this though until some generations are no longer part of the work force — younger workers will adapt to this and enjoy it — older workers will see it as a threat to how they work and will struggle against it…
Work will be collaboratively/socially produced always
Many of us like to go into a corner and play with our work, blocks at times. While this may allow us a respite from feeling as if we are tethered to one another via email, text, and a million different links — it’s also not going to work in the future world of work. This isn’t to say that we won’t have moments when we are alone — it just means that we won’t be able to spend months hidden in a corner working on something. Everything we do will affect and be affected by everything that everyone else is doing. Keeping our commitments will be the single most valuable characteristic of how others see us. Those who do will thrive, those who don’t won’t.
Work will be tracked — every iota
People will introduce fudge though — the fudge is what makes us creative, what helps us grow, and what drives innovation, improvement, invention, etc. Fudge will become the norm — if you say you can get it done by working non-stop for 20 hours, your manager will introduce a 20% fudge — making the work 24 hours. And then, if he’s really smart, he’ll introduce breaks — because minds need to reset, recalibrate, relax, etc. Breaks will take up another 20%. This isn’t to make people waste more time, it’s just to make them as productive as possible for the highest percentage of the time. Look at it this way — when you work at 100% capacity for 8 hours — your efficiency drops and productivity drops after the first 4. When you do the math for the remainder of the time — you figure out that it’s probably 55% working time after all that — versus just being frank about it and driving for 60% by allowing 20% think time and 20% break time. Again — Fudge — it just makes sense…
Work will be mobile
People are going to be doing their email, communicating, connecting ideas, coming up with new ways of doing things, whether they are at work or not. You can’t really turn off your brain once you give it something to think about. Since this is true — a more honest realization about how people work remotely, on mobile, off campus, etc — will be reached.
Work will be paid based on productive output
For transactional work — work tracking will allow for # of transactions completed to be the productive measurement of how someone should be paid. For attention work — work tracking will allow for # of hours completed to be the productive measurement of how someone should be paid. And, for deliverable/creation work — again work tracking will allow for another method — deliverable completion/acceptance to be the productive measurement of how someone should be paid. By the way, just because your work place doesn’t do this today doesn’t mean it’s not already happening. The internet is full of individual task performance activities where people meet these criteria. It doesn’t stop with the “doer” level of the organization. Managers will have to meet similar criteria related to coordinating activities to completion. Leaders will have to meet similar criteria (they already are today, in public companies) toward meeting objectives and measures.
Skill based work will be automated
It’s time for people to realize that producing based on a relatively simple and repeatable skill that large numbers of other people may also have — is not lifetime employment. In the age of computers, robotics and automation — skill based work will be progressively eliminated based on an equation relating the cost of paying for the automation vs. the cost of paying for the direct labor. This doesn’t mean that everything is going to be automated overnight, but it does mean that as technology continues to march relentlessly forward, the cost of direct labor will eventually exceed the cost of automation, in most cases. This is as true for Doctors as for Automobile Manufacturing assembly lines. Quality Assurance is a solid job for the future — but you won’t need the same number of people providing quality assurance as you had doing direct labor previously on the skill driven activity. Think about it… Much of labor is skill based today…much of this labor is repeatable…machines and computers are often much more consistent in the application of the skill than individual practitioners. If there’s no creative side to the skill — then it’s a target for elimination.
Work will be put out for Bid
Whether you work on contract to a company to achieve a specific result — or whether you are a direct employee working on a variety of internal objectives — in the future, you will find your work through some sort of bidding system. Your work quality will be tracked on the basis of reviews. You’re past performance will directly affect your ability to monetize your efforts in the future. Your skills will be tracked and reviewed. Everything you produce will be assessed, measured, weighed and documented in assessing your productivity, your career growth, your opportunities, etc. This happens to us today all the time whether we are paying attention or not — from credit scores, to salary, to resumes online, to recommendations, etc. That it’s not completely formalized yet is just result of design, technology, innovation and integration not having caught up yet. In time, it will.
