What do people really want for the #FutureOfWork? Ping pong tables?
I keep seeing a trend. Don’t know if you do too?
The trend of remote working.
And life work balance. And working from home. It feels like a LOT more people are working flexibly too. The old 9–5 hours are out. Even having an office as we know it might be in danger.
But is this really the future?
I read something on LinkedIn the other day that made my soul sing. It resonated with many people as it went viral with nearly 80,000 reactions and almost 1500 comments. It struck a chord.………. It was simple. And posted by one: Christine Tao
“I left work at 2pm today. I had to pick up both my kids from school and then go to a doctor’s appointment for myself. I was at a work summit yesterday and one of the panels was a lengthy discussion about employee benefits — what was the “new hot perks and benefits” that companies were looking at to attract talent in a hyper competitive market.
Here’s some food for thought.
Treat your employees like adults and allow them to manage their own time. Create a culture that allows people to integrate their personal and professional lives.
And make sure your executives and leaders model this openly — not hiding doctor and family appointments behind private calendars.
You’d be amazed how much further this goes than having kombucha on tap.”
My favourite part is the ending.
“You’d be amazed how much further this goes than having kombucha on tap.”
Awesome.
As me and Michal from Your FLOCK — a company culture mapping tool based at The Landing often joke about how it must be impossible to create a positive company culture without beanbags and ping pong tables!
Joking aside, if people don’t really want — the bells and whistles of a super relaxed company culture like in a cool tech startup. What do they want?
What do employees really want?
Well in a survey of 11,000 workers and 6,500 business leaders by Harvard Business School and Boston Consulting Group, the vast majority said that among the new developments most urgently affecting their businesses were employees’ expectations for:
- flexible, autonomous work;
- better work-life balance;
- and remote working.
It simple really. The future of work is remote and flexible.
It’s a trust thing.
As companies that embrace flexible working have to trust their employees. In turn their employees need to trust that the technology works and that they can be seen to be working. They also then need to work.
The future of work isn’t not working. It’s WORKING from home. And your manager or boss must trust that you can and will do that. Otherwise what’s the point?
It is this KEY point on trust that I will leave you with.
This is the greatest #companyculture shift.
It’s whether your team trust you and each other to honour flexible working — this is what is key for the winners and losers in the future of work.
Perhaps, therefore, part of the #futureofwork — is all around TRUSTING each other to do the right thing. And being able too…
Which isn’t just about playing ping pong together.
Especially in tech startups. But perhaps playing games together is part of the start?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
IS FLEXIBLE WORKING JUST A #TECH #STARTUP THING?
