Harvard Business Review - The Future of Work: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business

Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review

Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind?

Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your companys future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBRs smartest thinking on fast-moving issuesblockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and moreeach book in this series provides the foundation introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow.

You cant afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideasand prepare you and your company for the future.

Books in the series include:

Agile

Artificial Intelligence

Blockchain

Climate Change

Coronavirus: Leadership and Recovery

Customer Data and Privacy

Cybersecurity

The Future of Work

Global Recession

Monopolies and Tech Giants

Racial Justice

Strategic Analytics

The Year in Tech, 2021

The Year in Tech 2022

THE FUTURE OF WORK

Harvard Business Review Press

Boston, Massachusetts

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Harvard Business Review Press, issuing body.

Title: The future of work.

Other titles: Future of work (Harvard Business Review Press) | Insights you need from Harvard Business Review.

Description: Boston, Massachusetts : Harvard Business Review Press, [2021] | Series: Insights you need from Harvard Business Review | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021021329 (print) | LCCN 2021021330 (ebook) | ISBN 9781647822286 (paperback) | ISBN 9781647822293 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Quality of work life. | Corporate culture. | Diversity in the workplace. | Work environmentMoral and ethical aspects.

Classification: LCC HD6955 .F854 2021 (print) | LCC HD6955 (ebook) | DDC 658.3/12dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021021329

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021021330

ISBN: 978-1-64782-228-6

eISBN: 978-1-64782-229-3

1. Your organization must adaptthere is no going back.
2. by Brian Kropp
3. Best practices to make it possible.
4. by Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury
5. Create an open, safe, and inclusive environment.
6. by Deborah Grayson Riegel
7. They make us calmer, healthier, and happier.
8. by Bea Boccalandro
9. Build your talent platform strategy.
10. by Joseph Fuller, Manjari Raman, Allison Bailey, and Nithya Vaduganathan
11. A four-phase approach to implementing AI.
12. by Boris Babic, Daniel L. Chen, Theodoros Evgeniou, and Anne-Laure Fayard
13. A practical road map to fostering anti-racist practicesat all levels.
14. by Erin Dowell and Marlette Jackson
15. Diversity is not enough on its own.
16. by Michael Slepian
17. Companies must move beyond box-checking and window-dressing.
18. by George Serafeim
19. Let corporate purpose lead the way.
20. by Frank Cooper III and Ranjay Gulati

THE NEW WORLD OF WORK

by Brian Kropp

In just a handful of months, the relationship between employers and employees has fundamentally transformed due to several factors. The impact of the social justice movement, the Covid-19 pandemic, and digital evolution have dramatically accelerated the pace of change. Leaders who think that what has happened across the last year has been a blip, and that we will return to normal, are wrong. Much like heating water, this transformation is the result of factors that have been at playslowly heating upfor years, and then in 2020 hit a full boil. The changes we have experienced, and will continue to experience, represent a fundamental shift to a new, different relationship between employees and employers. There is no going back.

The new deal between employees and employers will be redefined along a series of three dimensions: creating a shared purpose, radical flexibility, and deeper connections. The result will be organizations driving social change and improving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts; employees exerting more control over where, when, and how much they work; and employers becoming more involved in supporting the life experiencenot just the employment experienceof their employees.

To create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization, leaders must go beyond corporate messages to real behavior change. In order to drive DE&I in their organization, executives must model the right behaviors. But this is only step one: Executives must do more; they must use their budget, systems, and processes to drive DE&I throughout the organization.

Improving DE&I efforts within the four (virtual) walls of your organization is laudable, but your workforce expects more; three-quarters of employees expect their employer to take a stance on current societal and cultural issues, even if those issues have nothing to do with their business. CEOs commonly get involved by issuing a corporate statement in response to these issues. However, research has found that only issuing a corporate statement degrades employee engagement versus the status quo of doing nothing at all. Instead, when organizations put actions behind their wordsby reallocating resources, changing suppliers, giving employees time off to volunteer, and explaining these movesthe number of highly engaged employees increases. This is true even for employees who disagree with the organizations stance on the issue; while they might disagree, they at least know why the decision was made.

Progressive organizations have embraced the idea of radical flexibilitygiving employees control over where, when, and how much they workto meet the desires of employees and realize the potential financial benefits of a hybrid workforce. Research shows that when employees are able to choose where, when, and how much they work, the number of high performers in a company can increase by as much as 19%. Now the question is: How do we redesign work to achieve this? While experiments are playing out across companies, one of the major lessons is that leaders must shift to a much greater emphasis on the output employees achieve rather than the systems and processes they use to achieve it.