A hybrid workforce is coming. Are you Ready?

By: Eli Amdur
Guest Columnist
NorthJersey.com

..... It's one thing to look back on a singularly important moment, event, or trend in history. It's how we learn - or, at least, how we are supposed to learn. It's another thing altogether to see one of them coming Histrionic and author Thomas Cahill called them "hinges of history" - times when civilization could have gone to permanently change things and set new directions.
..... In the entire history of the American workplace - and I take the liberty of going back to 1624, when the Dutch West India Company settled Manhattan and began setting up shop - there have been only five of those hinges. That's it. Five. In 398 years. Each of them - industrialization, unionization, urbanization, digitization and globalization - irrevocably changed our workplace and labor force, not to mention our society and very history.
..... We're now at the onset of the next hinge: hybridization.
..... Now, lest you think this is already nothing new - and no big deal (because, after all, you're been Zooming for two years now) - the intriguing nature of hybridism lies in its unanticipated complexity - in how many ways it will change where we work, how we work, when we work, and even how much we work. With multiple layers, some of which, like an iceberg, are still beneath the surface, this is about far more than working at home or on site.
..... And that prompts another caveat. We shouldn't be running around thinking we've got this remote thing down pat or that it;s the full extent of hybrid work. Note the long, slow gestation period of previous structural and operational changes. We've only just begun.
..... While organizations are working out the logistics of remote work, a potentially bigger phenomenon is on the way: the four-day workweek. Around the world, organizations in the public and private sectors have sought to determine if they can reduce the number of workdays from five to four, reduce hours from 40 to 32, keep salaries the same, and maintain or increase productivity.
..... the breakthrough study was a five-year exercise completed in 2019 in Iceland and it delivered a resounding answer. Now 86% of Iceland's workforce either already has, or will have, the right to work a four-day week. Additionally, morale soared. Three regional pilots and one national study in Spain were equally supportive of the idea.
..... On a corporate level, Unilever New Zealand saw similar results, and the practice could be under consideration in all 132 countries in which they do business.
..... The implications of transforming our lives to more leisure and less work - not just on an individual level, but as an entire population - are almost incomprehensible, so you may doubt the inevitability. Here's a suggestion. Save this article in a time capsule to be opened only 10 years from now. If I'm still around, email me. My auto-reply will say: Told ya'."
..... Meanwhile, hybridism will likely lead to a revival of a popular though not widespread practice in Europe in the 1980s: job sharing. Two workers share one job, earn full time employee wage rates, and are eligible for benefits. It's a terrific arrangement, accommodating all manner of workers, increasing workforce participation, and reducing reliance on government support. In the eighties, it was bogged down by lack of good technology to manage it. It was an idea whose time had come; today, it's a time whose idea has come back.
..... And to add flair and fantasy to the age of hybridism, imagine meeting in a conference room with several colleagues from your location, a couple of avatars of colleagues from places afar, and a Watson-style AI robot whose job is to provide instant fact checking and a universe of data, all to ensure that decisions aren't built on soft foundations and can be made promptly and efficiently. Further, that robot, a full participant in the meeting and member of the team, would learn to recognize participants' voices, moods, and so on. the avatars aren't here yet, but the Watsons are.
..... Now, let's say you're on the team changed with re-imagining your organizational structure, job designs, work schedules, talent acquisition and development and compensation. Do you still think this is not a complex issue? In fact, it's more. When we start pulling the thread out of the sweater, we'll also find this to be complicated, convoluted, conflated, confusing, and confounding.
..... Just like the other hinges of history, from my vantage point.

.... Eli Amdur has been providing individualized career and executive coaching, as well as corporate leadership advice since 1997. for 15 years he taught graduate leadership courses at FDU. He has been a regular writer for this and other publications since 2003. You can reach him at eli,amdur@amdurcoaching.com or 201 357-5844.

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