The Working Future: More Human, Not Less [REPORT]

In 1964, the RAND Corporation predicted that we would be breeding intelligent apes to perform manual labor by 2020. In 1959, the US postmaster general predicted that today’s mail would be sent by rockets (email turned out to be a more cost-effective option). In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that continued economic growth over the course of the coming century would reduce the workweek to 15 hours. Nikola Tesla echoed this sentiment in 1935, when he predicted that robots would replace most human labor in the next hundred years.

These and many other predictions about the future of work have not played out exactly as forecast. Yet even amid the hype about life-changing disruptions to how we work, most of us can sense that real shifts are underway.

The pandemic has undoubtedly triggered lasting changes when it comes to work. Many were part of a forced experiment in remote working that has shifted perceptions about such arrangements. Others found themselves in jobs that required them to personally confront the virus on a daily basis just to keep society running. All of us had cause to reflect on what we want our work to look like and what role we want it to play in our lives. According to a Bain & Company survey conducted by Dynata, 58% of workers across 10 major economies feel the pandemic has forced them to rethink the balance between their work and their personal lives.

But profound changes were starting to surface even before the pandemic. Concerns about the impacts of automation have surged as machine learning and related technologies have matured. The growth of gig work, supported by new digital platforms, has thrown the longevity of the traditional employment model into question. Flexible work arrangements have moved into the mainstream. Demands for firms to define a clear social purpose have prompted business leaders to embark on soul-searching journeys.

The relationship between workers and firms is changing radically, forcing leaders to rethink their approach to talent. And there’s never been a more critical time to do so: Talent is rapidly becoming the firm’s most precious resource. In prior research, we have explored the dawn of a new era of business, one in which outrunning extinction demands not just scale, but also speed and customer intimacy. We call those who achieve this balance “scale insurgents.” This era of scale insurgency leaves behind the shareholder primacy era, which elevated capital as the paramount resource for business leaders to secure, steward, and reward. Now, amid decelerating labor force growth, superabundant capital, and the growing importance of intangible assets like intellectual property and customer networks, the balance of power is shifting from capital to labor.

Much of the prevailing thinking about the relationship between workers and firms was forged in a very different world than the one we live in today, where workers were viewed simply as factors of production in the machine of enterprise. Today’s firm requires a new mental model, one that rehumanizes the way we think about work. More than simply inputs, workers are the atomic building blocks of the modern firm. Yet our understanding of workers—their hopes and desires, their untapped potential, their emotional state—is often superficial.

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