Humans at Work

The Art and Practice of Creating the Hybrid Workplace

Anna Tavis, Stela Lupushor

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781398604230
• eBook ISBN: 9781398604247
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Is your organization strategically prepared for the digital and distributed workplace? Technology, data analytics and artificial intelligence already impact how people work and engage with organizations. A dispersed workforce, greater transparency, social change, generational shift and value chain disruptions are driving new behaviors and expectations from the workplace. Together, these trends are shaping a new era of distributed and digitally enabled network of workers where the work comes to workers instead of the workers going to work. In Humans at Work, employee and workplace experience experts Anna Tavis and Stela Lupushor advocate for the adoption of human-centric practices as a critical and necessary part of adapting work and workplaces to the future of work. Outlining the four factors (digitization of work, distributed workplaces, organizational redesign and changing workforce) driving the dramatic changes in the workplace, each chapter provides examples of how innovative companies are building workplace infrastructure and reshaping norms, serving new markets and adopting new technologies. Filled with examples from both start-ups and established companies, Humans at Work is the workplace leader's guide to building a workplace that creates market value by making work more human.

Part One

Work

01

What Is Work?

Introduction: Evolution of Work

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm.” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations¹)

To the Roman emperor and stoic philosopher (161–180 AD), work was the essence of human existence. From the slavery-based Roman state to Newtonian mechanics, Keynesian economics to today’s digital workplace and quantum computing to the Metaverse of tomorrow—humans evolved through their work by innovating and developing smarter tools. Yet often, whenever the future of work is being discussed today, it disproportionately credits tools and technology for humanity’s progress. Workers traditionally appear to be mere accessories to technology, valued for their skills and rewarded for the products they deliver.

The Covid-19 pandemic stopped humanity in its tracks and forced the focus onto the humans at work amid the public health crisis. Work moved to people’s homes along with the technology devices and tools. The essential workers became the most vulnerable, left to serve the rest of humanity who were safe in their home offices. As much as the pandemic is being credited with the acceleration of technology adoption, it has been an even greater catalyst in changing human behavior at work. There is no going back for the humans. Work needs to continue to adapt to put humans at its center.

Figure 1.1 Hard Work

The Rise of the No-Collar Economy

For the most part of the last century work was metaphorically described in terms of the color of the shirts worn at work. There were “blue collar” workers who could be easily spotted wearing durable and affordable clothing that did not stain easily and was customarily made of blue denim or cambric cloth.² The “white collar” worker was a term coined in the 1930s by US writer Upton Sinclair to describe clerical, administrative, and managerial office work. There were attempts at applying other “collar” colors to signal belonging to certain professions, but none had the lasting usage of their blue/white-collar equivalents.

In November 2016, Ginni Rometty, then CEO of IBM, wrote an open letter to the US president urging his support for the introduction of the “new collar jobs” in technology that required skills in data, artificial intelligence, computing, and cyber security.³ IBM supported the idea of creating career pathways for talented high school graduates to become trained in technology jobs and bypass college, creating opportunities for successful careers while rejecting traditional recruitment channels.

In 2020, the pandemic caused the largest ever global workplace disruption. Covid-19 put the final nail in the proverbial coffin of the white-collar economy. Overnight, office workers were sent home, abandoning cubicles and corner offices alike and putting an end to the century of the office dress code culture. What came to replace the “white-collar” etiquette was the essential “Zoom shirt”—the one that hangs camera-ready on the back of the chair only to be used when the video call is on.⁴ An informal poll by LinkedIn confirmed that at least 42 percent of the online workers owned the “Zoom shirt.”⁵ As uncertainty remains about the right on-screen decorum, experimentation with “workleisure” attire⁶ continues and technology is stepping in to help.

By contrast, the blue-collar economy turned out to be even more essential and, for the moment, irreplaceable. Given the high human cost of not having technology alternatives immediately available, the pandemic became just as much of an accelerator for essential jobs automation and adoption of robotics as it was for the “Zoom shirt.” With automation as an ultimate target, transformation of those essential jobs is now coming at a much greater speed. As per the 2020 World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report, “43% of businesses reported that they were about to reduce their workforce due to technology integration, 41% plan to expand their use of contractors for task-specialized work, and 34% plan to expand their workforce due to technology integration.”⁷ Yet, despite fears, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) does not spell blue-collar job elimination but rather provides an ability to transform those jobs to a new level of collaboration between the humans and the machines. The loss of jobs that are destined to disappear by 2030 such as cashier, travel agent, and bank teller will be counterbalanced by those in healthcare, social work, coaching, and others for which demand will continue to grow.

Work clothing is coming full circle to close the gap between white- and blue-collar work attire and become an all-performance, technology-smart, human-centric wardrobe.⁸ The pandemic accelerated the departure of fashion from the look to the function, focusing on enhancing human performance enabled through technology via the clothes people wear. Truly integrated smart performance clothing was first adopted in sports but did not stop there. Smart textiles technology is coming to the mainstream, evolving from smart yoga pants designed by companies such as WearableX to the collaboration between Google and Levi Strauss, creating the new tech-enabled denim “Jacquard” Trucker Jacket.⁹ The jacket functions as an alert system, enabling one to answer or locate one’s phone, play music, or use maps.

The relationship between workers and their clothing is changing as experiments with sensor-enabled apparel continue and new designs are added to provide more control, variety, and choice. As per technology analysts, the global smart clothing market is set to grow from $1.9 billion in 2019 to over $5.9 billion in 2024.¹⁰ By fusing clothing and smart technology, work apparel is transformed from being an accessory to work to becoming the source of physical and intellectual capability, performance, and learning all in one. The evolution of workplace clothing is one of the facets of the profound transformation happening in the workplace today.

Work and Its Boundaries

“Freedom comes from understanding the limits of our power… By accepting life’s limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, we become free” (Epictetus).¹¹ The ancient Stoics were among the first to recognize the importance of setting boundaries and thus achieving freedom and control over the unpredictability of life.

Day-to-day boundaries are invisible yet they provide structure and a sense of control over uncertainty; they help manage energy, prioritize tasks, and maintain mental and physical health. Boundaries define social roles and become embedded in our sense of who we are.¹²

An abrupt dislocation from the office routine and setting up a new work from home regime brought out a new appreciation for setting personal boundaries around the work day. Working, parenting, housekeeping, and caregiving roles all rolled into one long day. Frequent trips from the computer to the kitchen replaced catching up with co-workers at the water cooler. Periodic checking on kids’ virtual school stood in for the lunchtime trip to the gym. Weekdays merged into weekends. The new pandemic normal felt like a loss of professional identity for many. The “always on” culture fit for robots has proven to be destructive in the longer term for humans at work. The tech world serving the workpl...

Table of contents

• List of Figures
• About the Authors
• Preface
• Foreword by Peter Cappelli
• Introduction
• Part One Work
• 01 What Is Work?
• 02 Jobs vs Work
• 03How Work Is Measured: Productivity vs Impact
• Part Two Workforce
• 04 Human-Centered Work Design: Humans vs Workforce
• 05 Designing for Inclusion: Empathy as a Superpower
• 06From Customers to Employees: Employees Are the New Customers
• Part Three Workplace
• 07 Where Work Happens
• 08 Work at Scale: Organizations as Platforms
• Part Four Worth
• 09 Why Work? The Rise of Employee Experience
• 10 Work Reputation as Experience
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• 1: (4+3) Ws Framework
• 2: Work
• 3: Workforce
• 4: Workplace
• 5: Worth
• 6: Worker Journey
• 7: Work Experience Design
• 8: WorkTech
• Glossary
• Index