Once upon a time in corporate America, a big bold line defined the boundary between work and home, play and rest. You didn’t take your work home, and you didn’t take home to your work. Today, with our 24/7/365 access to communications, that line has become a faint memory. But there’s another line that has taken much longer to fade, and that’s the corporate ladder. Up until even today in many cases, there has been just one way to advance in a company, and that’s climbing the ranks one promotion at a time.
But nothing lasts forever, and that’s true for the workplace as well: in the most forward-looking companies, even the corporate ladder is all but gone.
A workplace changing right under our fingertips
The corporate “ladder” is quickly being replaced by a corporate “lattice,” as reported recently in The Guardian. The one-promotion-at-a-time upward path is breaking apart into a multidirectional exploration of options and opportunities, driven in large part by the explosion of social platforms and mobile devices that are being used for play as well as for work, along with whole ecosystems of new products, services and business models built especially for the social, mobile citizen. In other words, the existence (and popularity) of one new thing reinforces the others.
As Cathy Benko, vice-chairman of Deloitte in San Francisco and co-author of The Corporate Lattice says, “We don’t live in the industrial age; we live in a digital age.” According to her and many others, one of the most significant shifts now taking place is the nature of the workforce.
A recent report from The Future Laboratory, The Future Workplace, categorizes the sea changes now starting to sweep the workplace into four quality markers. The new workforce is
- Collaborative: people want more collaborative, more inclusive working environments, where more voices and ideas can be heard and respected
- Ageless: health and well-being are critical elements of productivity and having the option to enjoy a long and fruitful career
- Intuitive: today’s younger generations expect their employers to be much more responsive to their wants and needs than they were for previous generations
- Mindful: true work-life balance means disconnecting from time to time and paying active attention to food, exercise and mental space
Let’s look at what this means for employers.
How employers can embrace the new workplace
While all of this change can be a little unnerving for that employee and employer alike who are used to more traditional workplaces, it’s also an opportunity to recreate and refresh an entire organization and its productivity. Benko estimates that companies have significantly flattened their social hierarchies—by about 25% in the past 25 years. Flattening refers to replacing multiple layers of management with a more horizontal, interconnected management structure that allows ideas and concepts to travel in whatever ways are most productive or meaningful. It means lower-level employees don’t have to go through layers of managers to bring an innovative idea to higher executives, and CEOs can talk directly to anyone at their organization.
This is precisely why the larger, more populated or established companies face an enormous challenge in attracting younger workers, especially the millennials, who have come to expect much more flexible, entrepreneurial environments and are excited about the greater, global prospects for work literally anywhere in the world that they have at their fingertips. So those companies that recognize the world isn’t going to move backward, and seize the chance to restructure and innovate, will thrive in the long term.
More collaborative, more flexible, and more wellness oriented is the mantra we would—and do—preach: from the physical reorganization of a space, say from cubicles and walled offices to a more open floor, to allowing workers to work according to their personal rhythms, to providing health benefits packages that focus not on illness but on well-being and energy. This is particularly important for the more established corporations, as it will enable them to compete for top talent with the nimble, future-oriented startups that seek to disrupt their business.
All within reason, of course. Just because someone is a night owl doesn’t mean they should skip important meetings on Monday mornings. Or do yoga for 3 hours straight during the workday. It’s all about balance, for both employee and employer. Companies want to be innovative, productive, and successful; employees want to be passionate about their work and have a supportive professional environment.
Support your employees equally
Above all, employers should shy away from prejudging or assuming any given thing about a particular type of worker. Older, more experienced people can often save an organization a lot of time and resources by steering it away from bad decisions or ideas proposed by younger, more inexperienced workers. They can also serve as mentors for their younger peers.
On the other end of the spectrum, established companies shouldn’t discount ideas and suggestions from younger staff, because a good idea can come from literally anywhere.
Likewise, health programs and any other benefits should be aligned not with age but with need, preference, and desire. This is the truly age-agnostic workplace people from all areas of the spectrum are looking for; because at the end of the day, there is perhaps nothing more empowering and motivational than to be respected for what you do.
Here to Stay
Regardless of minor fluctuations such as what social network is the most popular, what device is the hottest at any given moment, or what startup or company is leading the way in a given field, the social-enabled, digital workplace—and the social digital worker—is here to stay. And if the Internet of Things really takes off, life and work alike will become even more social and digital, in more ways than we can imagine. The sooner a company can truly embrace this reality, the sooner it can get down to the business of re-imagining and remaking itself into a vital economic force of the 21st century.
Alan Wang is the President of UBF and serves as the lead consultant. He has delivered the UBF solution set throughout the world and is highly regarded for his areas of expertise. You can follow him on Twitter @UBFconsulting.