“Don’t focus on an open workplace, but instead focus on creating multiple work environments for employees”-Jacob Morgan, The Future of Work Community
Author, speaker, and futurist, Jacob Morgan tried his hand at the traditional work environment, but like many people today, he quickly realized that the 9-5 life wasn’t for him. After working for a company in LA, where he was given the impression that he would be doing exciting work, but ended up doing data entry, the straw that broke the camel’s back was when an executive handed him a $10 bill and asked him to get him a cup of coffee. At that moment, he knew it was time for a change.
Today, Jacob travels around the world speaking at conferences and events about the future of work. In addition to regularly contributing to major media outlets like Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal, he is also the co-founder of The Future of Work Community, which is a “brand council that brings together the most forward-thinking organizations to explore the future of work”. We caught up with Jacob to learn a bit more about what the Future of Work Community predicts for the rest of us.
Hi, Jacob. Can you tell us a bit more about your organization, The Future of Work Community, and what the platform aims to achieve?
The community is a brand and innovation council for the world’s most forward-thinking organizations. Today we have around 70 brands in all sorts of industries and locations. We have an online community where leaders from these organizations talk about what they are working on, what they are struggling with, and how they see their organizations and the future of work evolving. We explore everything from management and leadership to robots and automation to the freelancer economy to the future of talent and technology.
What companies have participated in the Future of Work Community?
We have all sorts of companies like Cisco, Accenture, Linkedin, IBM, Air France, Wells Fargo, Sanofi, and dozens of others!
From interviewing various business leaders, were there any ideas that were particularly innovative that stood out to you?
The future of work is a huge topic and depending on whom I speak with, and because of the diverse landscape of players, the lens at which they look at this topic extremely varied. Overall, there are a few things that come up. Reimagining HR, integrating with the freelance/sharing economy, redefining what it means to be a manager, making sense of technology, and perhaps the most important, designing employee experiences.
Jacob Morgan
Would you say are challenges that larger enterprises face while trying to adapt to the demands of contemporary workers, for example, more flexibility and remote time?
The biggest challenge is getting over their conventional way of thinking to challenge convention. It’s moving beyond talking about the future of work to actually doing something about it. Too many organizations are scared to take that step because they don’t know what’s on the other side.
The future workplace is also rethinking space design. What role will more traditional business like banks and real estate platforms play in this?
Traditional businesses still have to think about these concepts as well. For example, there’s a bank next to my house that is virtually unstaffed by people. There are maybe 1 or 2 people working in this busy bank which is now occupied by sophisticated modern machines.
I read in one of your articles that you don’t believe that the physical office will ever completely go away, why do you think that is?
I think our concept of the office will change but in fact, commercial real estate is at a 7 year high, at least in the U.S. That’s because organizations are reinventing offices to focus on designing employee experiences and creating spaces where employees actually want to show up. I think we will certainly see more flexibility and the definition of the workplace change, but the office won’t just disappear on us.
On a similar note, what are some common misconceptions that you see in regards to future of work?
Over the next 5-10 years, we will certainly see some change but it’s not like we are going to look back and say “oh my goodness, it’s like a whole new world!”. Change, at least on the corporate level always takes time. We talk about things like robots and automation, self-driving cars, etc, which are definitely coming, but I don’t see these being mainstream in the next few years.
If you were going to give advice to people looking to make this transformation to openwork place, what would be some essential things to consider?
I would say, don’t focus on an open workplace, but instead focus on creating multiple work environments for employees. It’s not about open vs closed, that’s a common misconception and a problem. Companies need to create many work environments for their employees!
