The future of work is caring

A year ago I wrote a piece called “The future of work is remote”.

I still believe it: at Slite half of our team is remote, the other half enjoys the possibility as much as they want. To the point that our office sometimes feels very empty, with people spread around the globe in Sao Paulo, Lisbon, Seoul, Amsterdam, London and all over France.

But while I deeply believe remote will reshape the way we work and live, I realised it’s merely a sub-phenomenon. The reason remote works so well for us is because in our organisation people deeply care about what they do. And care seems to be the common denominator not only to remote but to multiple rising trends shaping our work lives: squad organisation, teal or holacratic organisational models, the art of feedback, transparency in teams, among others.

The future of work is caring.

By care I mean having very high empathy for your teammates, employees, boss, clients and for your global impact.

I also refer to trying to be the best version of oneself in all dimensions: developing mastery at what you do, at the way you work with other, in the way you make them grow.

Caring is not living in candy land.

Tough decisions have to be taken, tough things have to be said, and saying those things the right way is also caring. The most common example of it is constructive feedback. Giving a great piece of feedback is the best service you can give a teammate you’ve seen working or behaving poorly, yet it’s one of the toughest acts one has to go through.

You could bury your head in the sand as your teammate’s performance has limited impact on your job. But giving feedback makes both you and your teammate grow. You put yourself out of your comfort zone for others, and that’s caring.

Why would this be the future?

Automation has entered a new era and this will only accelerate with the rise of AI. This reality means that the need for huge operational work might disappear in our century. And that’s great news, we went from in average 65h per week worked in developed countries in 1900 to less than 40h in 2000(source). We’ve been shifting from musclepower to brainpower as the number one factor for organisational efficiency.

Hours become less important, brainpower drives efficiency, and motivation drives brainpower. Your company’s core drivers become motivation and focus. “Drive” by Dan Pink gives 3 factors determining motivation: autonomy, purpose and mastery. You can read more about them, but care, as I see it, underlies them all.

In the future (and today already) the best team will be made up of the most motivated teammates, caring for one another, for the business and its impact, sharing ownership and responsibility, feeling their work is not just a mean to an end, but a core part of their personal journey.

Those that think care is uncompetitive will themselves become uncompetitive. When people feel owner they put extra effort into finding the best solutions.
When people feel responsible they go the extra mile to prevent issues.
When people give feedback they get better and help their team get better as well.

In the end, this is a highly beneficial equation which creates more virtuous circles: clients want to work with you, candidates that rush to your door, and employees will stay and grow.

What comes with care?

Here are a few trends we’ve seen emerging with the years, many of them not only show care, but actually open the possibility for employees to perpetuate the movement.

Transparency

is something we’re rooting for at Slite. There are many examples of this, Stripe having all documentation and emails public is probably the most famous one. In my opinion it’s the first step to enable shared ownership and responsibility with all members of the team.

Empathy

New organisations usually are friendlier places. And while some people don’t want to have friends at work, you can show deep empathy for coworkers : spend time mentoring, giving the right feedback, helping junior folks.

The Art of Feedback

Radical Candor is our bible on this. Put yourself at risk and dare to give feedback. It will change your life and your teammate’s.

Remote!

When remote means you can be with your family and at the same time have the job you’re truly passionate about, it becomes a form of caring.

I deeply hope modern teams in the 21st century will be fuelled by care. We’ve grown to think of work as a hassle but some lucky ones actually spend their work life, 1/3 of their whole life, doing something they love.

Automation is our generation’s privilege. Within a few decades it has delegated virtually all mundane, thoughtless tasks out of our hands. Soon, work itself may even be a choice.

When it happens, all that will be left to do is work we deeply care about.

Moving intentionally towards that future is worth it. Putting ourselves in positions where we deeply care for what we do and the people with who we do it seems like the essential first step towards it.