So what’s changed about work?

Not many people working now were also working thirty years ago, but, for those that were, work has changed beyond recognition. Virtually gone are whole industries and sectors (for example coal mining, shorthand typists or textile production), replaced by waves of different roles in technology and the service sectors in the UK. As industries shrank and withered, the nature of work and society changed, with less delineation of work by gender, for example.

Globalisation has meant that manufacturing has moved predominantly to China and IT has been outsourced to places where people are paid less than in the UK – Eastern Europe, the Far East or India, for example. As a result, people now work in online in global teams, using platforms to collaborate across borders and time zones. This brings me to one of the recent developments to rock the work landscape: working from home.

Previously reserved for people working in software development, or swish international projects, Covid meant that everyone HAD to work from home – it was the law. Suddenly, a huge proportion of the workforce was freed from having to travel into an office; people only needed a laptop with a webcam to get things done.

Covid brought with it other changes too, particularly to people’s attitude to work. Already a ‘thing’, people have become more and more conscious of the value of working to live rather than living to work.

A forced pause from normal work, coupled with perhaps a reappraisal of what really matters when faced with people dying prematurely lay behind many people rethinking their future. The Great Resignation, when many decided to move away from work they considered bad for their wellbeing, put down a marker for people to take more control of their employment.

Changes in society have also changed organisations. Diversity and Inclusion is now a serious business topic, within the bigger ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) remit. Organisations are falling over themselves to show that they are making progress in being ‘good’, in some cases genuinely and in every case aware that customers now expect corporate social responsibility to be a central objective of organisations.

At the same time and in the advent of the Financial Crisis and app based work, the gig economy has emerged out of nowhere to provide work for people who want ‘freedom’ or alternatively can’t get one of the dwindling, permanent secure jobs around. Even in relatively stable jobs, pensions are not what they once were and people are simultaneously working longer hours but, strangely, being less productive.

The latest economic downturn has underlined that not only are many organisations fighting for survival, but that the ones that are successful are the ones that are realistic and, above all, agile enough to morph from one thing to another. ‘Agile’ in itself has become a way of working that is fluid and hasn’t got the stuffy constraints of strict deadlines and set expectations.

This has led to a weird mix of companies touting their social responsibility at the same time as trying to get to grips with lower profitability; being emotionally intelligent whilst having to make announcements of redundancies and demand higher performance from everyone else. It is a balancing act that is testing the strategies of many firms. Bosses are not having an easy time but, in this environment, standing still is not an option.