It’s moving day.
This evokes a vision of boxes – piles and piles of boxes - which need to be packed, moved from place to place and unpacked. Moving day presents an opportunity to clear out the old and start anew. You have the chance to evaluate what you will really need, what you want and what you can do without. You can choose to bring along all of the old stuff, and it may be tempting to hang on to everything you have, just in case, and throw it all in the box to bring along with you.
This time, though, it’s going to be different. No boxes and very few things to be packed up. We’re moving to a new workspace and all I am bringing with me are my laptop, my headset, my backpack and my refreshed outlook. Like others before us, we’re moving to a new way of working. Flexible, configurable workspaces which allow for collaboration and mobility will be the norm. Technology and tools are available to make it possible for us to work just about anywhere and to collaborate with our partners and clients using enhanced digital capabilities.
It’s 2020 and moving day is a great time to look towards the future of work. What will we need to be successful in the new environment and the new world? The world is evolving faster than it ever has before. New technologies continue to supplement the human experience and to make the most of the opportunities that technological advances offer us, we need to get rid of the old boxes.
Artificial intelligence facilitates our daily lives. Siri, Alexa or Google can greet us in the morning and provide the weather forecast, the daily headlines and some helpful suggestions about products we might be interested in purchasing. We can communicate with each other and access information on our mobile devices, whether we’re at home, on a train, on a plane, in the office, or at a social event.
At work, we’ve embraced some of the same concepts – allowing email access on the go, supporting remote work arrangements, and making data more accessible. As we move into the future, our industry has the opportunity to further embrace the technical capabilities that our world has to offer, if we’re willing to refocus our vision for 2020 and beyond, and leave behind our old boxes.
Roles and responsibilities that were “boxed” used to be the norm. Functions were distinct, defined and often limited in scope. Assembly line workflows don’t make sense in our operations any more. While we may still need to move information and processing items from “box A” to “box B” to ensure quality control, with the ability for machines to enhance the daily processes, we don’t necessarily need different people to perform discrete functions along the way. The human workforce can be augmented by machines. This can lead to fear of displacement, but every electronic process has a person behind it. The skills we need, however, are different – and will continue to evolve in the months and years ahead.
How can we reskill our existing staff? Don’t box yourself in by assuming that the old staff cannot or will not embrace the new. Provide the opportunities and the tools to give both your current team members and your new hires a holistic view of the way things operate, and why. Look for ways to incorporate continuous learning into your culture.
Encourage your teams to ask “Why?” This simple question is the key to the most effective solutions. Telling someone how to do something isn’t enough – they need to understand why and to understand the larger context around the work they are doing. Putting the context around any task or question allows us to see a clearer way to a solution.
While training remains important, it also cannot be boxed off and looked at as something that is separate from the day to day. Technology allows us to provide our teams with learning opportunities that are easily accessible – for example, short videos explaining key concepts or describing industry developments. Learning that is interactive, mobile-enabled and concise matches the way that we consume information in our daily lives.
If we help our existing teams to reskill for the future, in addition to hiring new and diverse talent into our organizations, we’ll benefit from the institutional knowledge and the continuity of experience. If we think outside the box, we’ll be able to look ahead with clarity and confidence. Strong leaders recognize that learning is a never-ending journey, and with our industry and our world evolving we need to look clearly at the future with a new, invigorated vision – 2020 vision, and beyond.
