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In a recent issue of Deloitte Review, John Hagel, Jeff Schwartz, and Josh Bersin suggest a framework for understanding the future of work and its implications for individuals, organizations, and governments.
HR Times: How did the framework come about? What led you to create it?
John Hagel: We were seeing more and more discussion of the future of work, from mass media to conferences and from corporate boardrooms to lunchrooms. We were struck by how very fragmented the discussions were. Our sense was that they were losing the interdependencies, and that to really understand the future of work and the opportunities it presents, you need to view it holistically, not in fragments. We were also struck by how much the discussion was dominated by fear: ‘Robots are going to steal our jobs.’ Our view is that, while it’s certainly a challenge, there’s actually enormous opportunity, but only if we understand the whole domain.
Jeff Schwartz: We recognized that to help individuals and leaders understand the future of work, we needed to get an integrated picture. As Tom Friedman said in his interview, jobs are being redesigned around technology, and jobs and work are being separated from companies. So what does that mean for individuals and businesses and HR and government?
HRT: It does sound sweeping. What can our readers do, as HR leaders, to get a handle on it? What are some concrete things to consider?
JS: The questions about how we redesign work and jobs and reimagine learning—how we use technology and emphasize the essentially human things we can do—present a seismic opportunity for HR leaders at every level. With exponential technologies, we’re looking for 10x improvements in productivity. But the question is, what are the 10x improvements in employee experience and 21st-century careers?
HRT: This sounds like maybe a different role for HR. What should HR leaders be doing to operate at this level?
John: Obviously, it goes beyond just changes in hiring practices or performance ratings into really all aspects of the institution. HR leaders need to look ahead. You have to be willing to look ahead and try to imagine where this is going. What forces are shaping this, and what could we be doing in order to take advantage of it?
In terms of what can HR leaders do early on to get some traction and start to demonstrate impact, one of the big things we’re proponents of is applying design thinking and methodologies to the work environment to accelerate learning and performance improvement. We’re not saying redesign everything tomorrow, but take one frontline work environment that can be particularly pivotal in terms of driving the performance of the company. Start thinking about how you would redesign that work environment to accelerate learning, and be very explicit about the metrics of performance improvement that would tell you whether you’re on track or not.
JS: That design thinking piece of reimagining learning and performance and work in an exponential environment is spot on. The other thing I would encourage HR leaders to understand is that there are couple of things going on at the meta level. So if I were advising an HR leader—by the way I say something similar to almost any C-suite leader—I’d say you need to understand exponential technologies and you need to understand convergence.
Right now no one in the company is looking at the different kinds of learning going on: there’s machine learning, individual learning, and ongoing, workplace learning. So machine learning is over in technology and individual learning is over in the L’D group, and we’re not really sure anybody is thinking about workplace learning (we’re trying to encourage people to shine the light over there). But if HR leaders can really wrap their thinking and their entrepreneurship in the organization around machine learning, individual learning, and workplace learning, there’s an exponential play there, and a convergence play there. The future of work is about people and smart machines working next to and with each other.
HRT: When you say “workplace learning,” what do you mean?
JH: Our view is that the learning that is most important and most powerful in an exponential world is learning in the form of creating new knowledge, not just accessing existing knowledge that you get in a lecture or training video. It’s about how you get work groups who are confronting an unexpected situation, maybe it’s never been seen before, to figure out how to creatively and imaginatively address it—that is creating new knowledge, through action. And then come back from that saying ‘Wow, what we did was pretty amazing. What we did is something new and different.’
HRT: Are there things people can be doing as individuals to try to prepare for this future?
JH: One of my key messages to individuals in this changing world is to find your passion and integrate your passion with your work.
JS: The next years belong to people who understand curiosity and understand how to pursue curiosity and actually learn and explore new things. Being comfortable with learning and newness is critical. I encourage people—particularly young people—to pursue their passion, and if they can combine passion in different fields, architecture and economics or biology and medicine and theater, that’s even better. It’s my guess that people who are comfortable in these convergent/divergent situations will be better prepared.
HRT: Getting back to that scary element: Will I have a job? How will I make a living? Are people right to be afraid?
JH: We’re ultimately optimists on this in the sense that the way we’ve defined work in the past is in terms of tightly specified tasks, highly standardized tasks, and tightly integrated tasks.
To be provocative, I would suggest that all of those jobs are going to go away. Robots and machines are much more efficient in work that is tightly specified, highly standardized, and tightly integrated. However, it becomes a catalyst to ask, ‘What can we as human beings really harness in terms of our unique capabilities?’ And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of curiosity, creativity, imagination, emotional intelligence, and harnessing those to both solve problems and creatively identify new opportunities.
We as human beings have a great need to bring those characteristics out in all of us. And on the other side, as consumers, I think we’re going to have increasing demand for highly creative, individualized, rapidly evolving kinds of products and services that machines can help with. But, ultimately, it’s going to be up to us to come up with the creative ideas and find creative ways of reaching the marketplace. I think that’s going to be the Big Shift in terms of redefining work.
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Psychologist Tom Gilovich did a study on how satisfaction changes over time when you spend money on a physical item versus an experience. He found that if you spend money on a tangible item, over time your satisfaction goes down. However, if you spend that money on an experience, over time your satisfaction goes up.
But how does this apply to the workplace? Work can translate to showing up and getting your work done just to secure a paycheck. It tends to be less authentic, personal, and sincere, with employees not really putting the effort in to build relationships because they are only there for the money. According to Dr. Gilovich's study, this leads to job satisfaction going down over time.
On the flip side, viewing work as an experience tends to lead to high levels of satisfaction and much more engaged employees. If employees view their time with an organization as an experience, they will put more effort into their work and relationships. Experiences grow and change over time and leave employees with changed feelings, growth opportunities, and new emotions over time. That leads to increased satisfaction over time as the employee grows in the organization and become more connected to the company.
Consider how you view your time at work--is it a transaction where you show up for a paycheck, or is it an experience where you grow and learn? What can your organization do to foster an experiential attitude that facilitates growth instead of turning work into a transactional daily grind? Changing the attitude of the company and the employees can have a big impact.
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It's true that accountability starts at the top, and that if leaders don't walk the talk, and meet their commitments, it will be almost impossible to create a culture of accountability. But, if you truly want to create a culture of accountability you have to HOLD people accountable.
Most leaders, seem to forget this piece.
If people continually fail to deliver, then you will need to confront them about it if you really want to improve their performance.
Here are three things you can do to introduce a culture of accountability that will help make it feel easier for you.
- Approach accountability from a position of support.
Don't think of implementing accountability as something where it's all about holding people accountable, think of it as being supportive of them. It's about putting them in a position to succeed, which is really the essence of good leadership. - Let people know they will be held to account.You need to let your teams know that they are going to be held accountable, and do this by informing them up front. Competing and conflicting things can crop up, but letting them know that you will be checking to see the progress made, helps to keep them more focused and this work in priority.
- Regularly review performance, where you offer support or praise.Once you have let people know that there will be reviews you need to be religious about having them. Make them a standard part of the working culture.
Accountability doesn't happen by chance, it happens by design.
Yes, you need to be a role model for accountability, but you also need to hold people to account. Implementing this in a way that is up front, visible and supportive will help it to be perceived as a positive step, which will help drive accountability as part of your company culture.
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