Unlimited vacation days, 4-day weeks, teleworking, remote working, holacracy, OKR, QWL…
These fairly recent practices are bound to ring a bell, while some of you are already benefiting from them.
More than 15 years ago, Tim Ferriss talked about ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ in his best-selling book of the same name. In short, he explains how to free yourself from the nine-to-five routine and live life to the full by repositioning work as an everyday activity rather than the essence of life. The rise of freelancing was influenced by Ferriss and other personal development authors and coaches because it enabled those who took the plunge to free themselves from the corporate grip that made them unhappy.
The democratization of freelance work has reshuffled the deck in terms of the relationship between companies and services that are non-essential to their operations. We are now seeing the market finally adapt to new developments and practices. Of course, each revolution can also have its downsides, such as the phenomena of ‘Uberization’ or ‘taskers’, whereby freelancers from all over the world end up competing on digital tasks by offering the best price, often to the detriment of quality.
Freelancing isn’t for everyone, and with the Silicon Valley start-ups we have seen an emerging set of practices in terms of work, working conditions and even the environment, which have not only reconciled employees with their work but also boosted their commitment to the company.
Who hasn’t dreamed of working at one of the world’s Big Tech firms or similar start-ups? As noble as their intentions may have been, they were no doubt also designed to appeal, given that their rapid growth required a large number of high-level recruits. Differentiation through quality of life in the workplace became an important issue.
This is one of the reasons why applicants now look for companies that not only offer a comfortable salary, but also a working environment and conditions that are better balanced with their personal lives.
Remote or teleworking is a good example: enabling employees to work from home on certain days of the week means that they not only avoid the daily commute, but can sometimes dedicate themselves to demanding issues or even handle personal tasks. Having reached its peak during the COVID health crisis, some companies are now asking for employees to return to the workplace.
Modern Work, while it refers to a new way of working, should not be frozen in time, like modern art or modern architecture. Instead, it refers to a movement that is constantly evolving, meaning that Modern Work in 2020 will not be the same as Modern Work in 2040.
As with software solutions, simply adopting an Agile solution does not on its own make a company agile. Above all, Modern Work is the result of a strong, engaging corporate culture, which results in all the benefits mentioned in the introduction and which many dream of today.
But what if all these Modern Work practices ultimately aren’t for every company?
We will soon be exploring how different practices are in fact specific to each company.
In our next few articles we will be describing the importance of corporate culture, of teamwork, values and missions, of development as the key to success, of taking into account the issues at stake rather than the expected result – and a whole host of other fascinating subjects and debates surrounding Modern Work.
