The Future of Work

‘Never until now did human invention devise such expedients for dispensing with the labour of the poor’ read a pamphlet in the Industrial Revolution against weaving machines and steam engines. A similar hysteria seems to have gripped many in today’s world: The robots are going to steal our jobs.

Much has been written about what the future of work looks like. So much of it is already here: self checkouts, online banking, chatbot assistants. Some parts of it will come sooner than many expect: greater financial access (blockchain), automated homebuying/selling (Opendoor), human-less retail experiences (Amazon Go). And some of it is a lot further than many give it credit for (general AI). A lot of this talk has been limited to everyday, repetitive tasks, or changes that are many decades into the future.

Yet there is no doubt that the nature of work around us has been profoundly changing everyday, job loss or not. Radical changes in the workplace mean that there is outsized opportunity for some while challenges for others; individuals have to market themselves just as much as companies, notions of an ‘office’ and to some extent a ‘company’ are more fluid than ever, and expert talent in the most innovative fields is desired and paid for like professional athletes. Without trying to predict trends way into the future, this is a look at the future of work as it’s already unfolding in front of us today:

Remote and Distributed

Everywhere it seems like people increasingly agree on this, and yet the number of major remote companies (even tech ones) can be counted on two hands. Companies continue to be concentrated in a few big cities (SF, NYC, LA etc.) but great talent lives all over this country (and indeed the world). Some of this is with good reason: funding is easier, location itself lends a degree of prestige, and talent is easier to hire and filter for within a network. Yet limiting yourself to one city is not just expensive, it’s inefficient and limiting. Instead of being the best person for the job, companies end up hiring the best person for the job available right now, who happens to be in that city, and within their network of reach.

Increasingly top talent craves greater flexibility: people know they can live elsewhere and they want to — as long as they can access the same opportunities. Commutes suck, and no one enjoys sitting in traffic for hours everyday. Offices are full of distractions and meetings (so many meetings) that it’s easy to have the whole day go by before you can even get around to getting anything done. Being able to choose a city of your liking, and increasingly a cost of living that works with your lifestyle isn’t just a perk- it’s an entirely new way of working. Companies that wisen up to this flexible future will find they have an unfair advantage in hiring, and have happier, more productive employees.

Scalable and On-Demand

We live in a world where any possible product can be in your hands within 48 hours, but adding a new team member that your team desperately needs takes weeks if not months. And to some degree, rightfully so: You first need to build a pipeline of candidates to ensure you’re seeing the best people. The stakes are so high because companies need to make sure potential employees are a perfect fit for their organization and culture- once there, they’ll be around a while. But think what free returns did for retail and then imagine that no-risk model for work: Not satisfied with how a project or employee is panning out? Both of you just move on. Experiencing rapid growth? Add new team members that very day.

It feels like startups/companies today face a choice: hire too early and carry some of that deadweight as you try to expand, or not hire early enough and there’s chaos while you’re aiming for growth (dissatisfied customers, lack of support etc). Just-in-time hiring completely eliminates that: Add someone exactly when you need them, for as many hours and as long as you need. Mix that in with pre-vetted candidates and an always accessible pipeline of top talent, and not only does that make today’s inherently manual recruiting process infinitely scalable, it also expands a company’s reach and the quality of candidates they’re seeing; even for a non-flagship name or an ‘unsexy’ company, recruiting reach soars dramatically.

Autonomous and Independent

Consulting is one of the most desired career options across top schools for a reason. Great performers constantly desire change and crave choices in their work: new projects that are exciting and innovative, being on teams surrounded by other brilliant people, and above all else- situations where they’re learning everyday.

Instead, today, conventional work is pre-defined and rigid. Confined to a single organization (and within that a specific role in a specific department), and with many mandatory strings attached: Mingling with coworkers, living in a particular city, commuting to an office daily, working certain set hours, and dealing with bad managers.

In the future of work, the individual has more autonomy than ever. The positive is that you can achieve outsized gains compared to just being a cog in a giant organization. Individual expertise and experience is extremely valuable, and can scale to multiple organizations at the same time, allowing one to work as they please: flexible schedules, interesting problems, and dynamic teams.

In ‘The Startup of You’ Reid Hoffman reiterates that those who 1- Invest in themselves, 2- Show aptitude for a variety of complex and constantly changing situations, 3- Have a genuine network of alliances, and 4- Can deliver a high impact in a short time, are handsomely rewarded and experience exponential career trajectories. The downside of course, is for those who don’t bring a strong competitive advantage to the table, or don’t have a quality network to lean on for resources and opportunities.

Future of Recruiting

Recruiting is broken and way too much time is spent on it. You hired an operations manager to manage your operations, not to spend half their day hiring new ops people and sitting through interviews. Not to mention- he/she were hired because they were good at operations, not because they were great at hiring, interviewing, judging ability, or a convincing salesperson for your company.

Smaller companies struggle with recruiting even more since resources are ever more limited, as do companies without a major brand name or an expansive network, as they scramble to fill their recruiting pipelines with quality candidates.

Add to this the fact that the way expertise is determined today is extremely outdated. Interviews present an incomplete picture and are full of biases. It’s much easier to have someone perform the tasks they would be required to in the course of their work than ask their greatest strengths/weaknesses, and these task-based evaluations are a much better indicator of competence, everyday communication and ownership, and how they think through problems.

The future of work is better optimized for evaluating expertise, measuring individual productivity and efficiency, and valuing and rewarding employees’ contributions.

Mass performance analyses, standardized evaluations, and one size fits all solutions as used today will feel increasingly archaic in this world.

In a time where we can see nationalism making its last stand in countries around the world, the borders of work have already become porous: digital nomads wake up in Bali and work in Houston, companies open satellite offices from Nashville to Estonia, and the entire world communicates on a handful of platforms we all check daily.

There is a treasure trove of data on each candidate’s ability and expertise: the collective sum of the work they’ve done in the past; residing in the annals of the companies they’ve worked for, the managers they’ve worked under, and the colleagues they shared teams with- data rarely to ever see the light of day again, let alone be useful to the future employers who could use it most. It seems obvious then that centralized review systems, scores of past work performed and feedback received, and an overall record of ability and progress for individual employees will become the norm. Not only will this lead to more productive outcomes for both sides, it will also ensure a better culture fit. If this sounds dystopian to you, remember you already rate your Uber driver after every ride.

Collective Expertise

From Netflix to Facebook to Amazon, data has become the most valuable currency of the 21st century. But compared to the many industries data has completely upended, so far its impact on the way organizations work has been limited.

Experienced hires have one big advantage: Execution know how from previous companies and past successes. As the war between tech giants heats up, these intellectual resources are commanding ever greater premiums. Imagine however, beyond just these individual experiences, a combined global knowledge database of thousands of employees across hundreds of companies that allows you to distill best practices across all of them and only implement the ones that work, leading to dramatically better decision making and minimized risks of failure. Companies that control or have access to this data will not just be incredibly valuable, they will be the ones best positioned for success in this rapid rate of change and increased big company hegemony.

Positive Externalities

Lastly, the future of work is one that’s more evenly distributed globally. In a time where we can see nationalism making its last stand in countries around the world, the borders of work have already become porous: digital nomads wake up in Bali and work in Houston, companies open satellite offices from Nashville to Estonia, and the entire world communicates on a handful of platforms we all check daily. A future that’s more equal, with more evenly spread economic opportunity, and increased global communication and reliance is one that results in a better world; narrowing distances and creating financial freedom for millions regardless of how many try to build walls or restrict human movement.