The practice of working five days a week from 9 to 17 is ending. Some companies will develop more creative and flexible ways of getting employees to do their jobs in the future of work.
Some examples?
Zoom, which many companies and employees have relied on throughout the outbreak, now allows more than 6.000 employees to choose whether they want to work in the office or remotely. Bolt, a San Francisco-based e-commerce company employing nearly 600 people, has launched a permanent four-day work week for its staff. Slack, a workplace communication platform, is transforming its office primarily into a meeting place for meetings and projects. Amazon e Salesforce they are giving team employees the ability to work for goals, not schedules.
These are just some of the examples of approaches to the Omicron variant, or to the "large resignations", Or to the Yolo Economy. In summary? To the renewed desire that people have to build a healthier relationship between life and work.
The consequences to be avoided in the future of work
As with any major change, organizations that do not use a cautious approach to implementing their rules could inadvertently exacerbate employee inequality. For example, if a company requires workers to choose two days in which they will work from the office, it is possible that some people will never have the opportunity to collaborate. It may also be difficult for employees to work more or fewer days together. The “new world”, in other words, would be (even) worse than the “old”. The future of work would be worse than the past.
So? How is it resolved?
First practical case: Zoom
We need work practices that allow the exchange of information without requiring people to participate in grueling video conferences and meetings. Activity tracking tools such as MasterTask e GitLab they can help create spaces for brainstorming and discussion without unnecessary stress.
The employment agreement of Zoom Inc., announced last week, gives employees the ability to work however they want. Employees can change their options at any time if they change their mind - a method inspired by the inputs of workers, consumers and colleagues. Most of them said they wanted freedom and options.
Kelly Steckelberg, the company's CFO, wrote that many employees (including herself) moved during the pandemic, and that the company would not force them to return. Some individuals have moved to be closer to family or to a place where a family can live better, so Zoom wants to make sure employees maintain the flexibility that has supported them during a difficult time.
In light of this, however, for the future of work Zoom plans to implement new training for managers. It's to make sure the workplace is fair, regardless of who goes back to the office and who chooses to work remotely.
Managers will often choose office catering over restaurant lunch, because they can include remote employees via Zoom in a conference room when hosting a team lunch, for example. To make the workplace more inclusive, Zoom will also use its technology, such as its “smart gallery” feature that separates on-screen participants into individual tiles.
Again (this has its own significance), Zoom currently has no plans to adjust employee salaries, as it does did Meta, mother of Facebook, based on their geographic location.
Second practical case: Bolt
Bolt he described his new strategy as a “shake-up.” The company's goal, according to Bolt, was to make a big change in the way its staff worked. So at the beginning of the year, when it came time to achieve two important goals – improving employee productivity and reducing burnout – the company adopted a permanent four-day work week.
To help employees focus on their work, Asana is used by Bolt to encourage “writing rather than talking” with the help of project management software. The tool allows teams to divide projects into subtasks, assign tasks, and track progress or add notes as needed.
“This has been a huge paradigm shift in the way we operate,” he said Jennifer Christie, chief people officer at Bolt. “So he works with his supervisor to focus on the things that have the most impact and eliminate everything else.”
“People want to be able to do their work in a way that feels natural to them,” Christie added. “That's where the talent will come from.”
Third practical case: Kickstarter
Dannel Jurado, a Kickstarter member, reports that when the company went full-time remote last year and got rid of its Brooklyn headquarters, not all employees were happy. I can understand this, especially since the office had a theater and a rooftop garden near a river.
“We talked about it to the death,” Jurado added. “But it's one of those things where you never reach an agreement.”
The only thing everyone agreed was a four-day week.
The future of work in (extreme) synthesis
Whatever bosses decide, they will almost certainly face a stark reality born of the epidemic: workers will need changes to stay.
A four-day work week, even if only in the (however large) IT sector, is the next starting point: I don't consider it a possibility, but a certainty. It is not a question of "if", but of "when", and that "when" could be quite close.
