It’s time when we live surrounded by machines, technology, we easily work globally, across countries, continents and we can book travel to cosmos just like that. However, there are still people struggling with working environment and job that not necessarily positively impacts their lives. I do not mention here the problem with unemployment and areas that access to work and earning for living is difficult, I’d like to focus now on the future of work in the meaning of being able to ged rid of the tasks that can be done by non-human, that work means more than being paid for the productivity, that work can be part of our life we no longer treat as a burden that just pays the bills.
I think about future that replaces simple, repetitive tasks with creativity and intellectual endeavours, future which lets people do what they love and looks roughly like below.
Flexibility, it’s good to mention here time off that is more and more personally assigned rather than legally regulated per country. More and more companies (mostly startups) allow people for unlimited holiday and this approach is based on simple trust that employee will not take more than needs and it will not risk the quality and good results for the company. It’s great freedom but having responsibility for your time off is paradoxically more demanding that if you have it sorted out. You need to find the balance between your needs, desire to use your freedom for managing your time and keeping trust of your colleagues and making the best for the company. I had a chance to manage my days off at work and it was always great exercise to keep it healthy for me, rest when feel like but being responsible for work and making sure my colleagues know they can always rely on my.
Working environment. Nowadays, working spaces are more and more modern and equipped with newest technology, fancy furniture, great tools, free lunches, gym in the building, medical checks, playing spaces to keep people in the office and offer them all they need to relax while spending time at work. It looks like we can even sleep at work if we feel like. Years ago the only responsibility of the employer was to provide safe environment and drinking water. Now it’s changed dramatically for good and it’s to attract great minds as well as to make the time employees spend at work more efficient. You can take a look at Etsy, Google, Airbnb, Nike, Amazon, You Tube and others.
Distance working (home working, working spaces, co-working initiatives). Many people choose entrepreneurial path and work on their own business ideas. Since you are the owner of your startup your home is usually your office. However, we all know that being at home brings a lot of distractions. You may want to do laundry, cook something for lunch, your neighbour can step by for a late morning coffee and actually you end up with not so much work done at the end of the day. Great idea is to go out and use some co-working space where you have your desk, food around, coffee at your finger tips and there is noting else actually to do rather than sitting and working. Actually, Codi searches for you nearest neighbour’s living room you can use to work. That’s pretty awesome, latest idea born in Bay Area and no matter if you have noisy flat mates or you just want to go out to work somewhere else but your home, you can check out Codi Work and see you if it’s an option for you.
Passionate creators vs workers. Either you are a startup founders or corporate employer it’s now more and more about mission than about just paying your bills. People look for the work that has a meaning, where they can have impact, when they create something and bring their thinking to the table. They want to shape the process and not only do what’s supposed to be done without say a word. It’s more interactive and creative environment. It’s changing much faster than years ago so people need to not only adapt but also be ahead of this rapidly growing market. There are more and more opportunities in the world. You can easily apply for a work in different country now and it does not surprise anybody that you are moving to the other city or country (ok, maybe it’s still not so natural for my parents). People do not grow your roots so deeply nowadays and they are mobile if it’s what it takes to do the job they feel like totally matching their believes. You can take a Remote Year, work on your project and travel to several different places. If it resonates with you, you do not need to choose between work and discovering the world.
The future of work is being shaped by rapidly growing adoption of artificial intelligence and that can impact all 4 points I described above. It may help us get the work done quicker, it can improve quality of our free time, it helps us learning faster, make decisions without human biases, cure illnesses or identify them early enough to have great change for total recovery. It has tremendous power to collect unlimited data, analyse schemes and trends and come up with the report we would work on for 3 weeks otherwise. It’s a great power that is now being embraced by all people who hardly working on the understanding and implementation of the AI, ML. They have great mission and will be named as one of the first that dramatically changed how we live today and make the work we see today even more tailored to every individual. That’s possible thanks to, among others, visionary investors, Venture Capitalists who put great piece of their funds to support startups working on the ideas that are hard to believe in from the first sight. ‘It’s about investing in great ideas that look like bad ideas’ (saying from Secrets of Sand Hill Road, recently published book by Scott Kupor) so keep supporting revolutionary companies that make the future of work an amazing place to be.
