WTF is the Future of Work?

Image by Max Brettler

“What does the ‘Future of Work’ mean?” is probably the most common question I get asked.

And it is fair. It is not quite as overused a term as “AI” or “ML” but it is close. It won’t get you VC money if you say you are working on it, just a meeting.

When I first started focusing on the future of work at Social Capital last year, I thought it was fairly simple. I would respond to the question internally, “It’s about jobs and training…I think.” But once I really started to roll up my sleeves and had the space to dig in deeply, talk to other entrepreneurs, big companies, academics and government officials, I realized that there needs to be a much broader definition. One that encompasses not just the work, but also the workers.

The Three Pillars of Future of Work

Where I landed is that there are actually three, inextricably linked pillars (more like puzzle pieces) that, together, make up the future of work.

We most likely agree on the first two, so I will spend less time on them.

1. The Work — This is where most people immediately go in conversations about the future of work. What are the jobs going to be or not going to be? Where will automation take hold? How do we (re)train and get people in the new jobs — quickly? Here belongs favorite topics like AI and Automation, education, skills and training and even job marketplaces. These are no doubt critical FoW questions. Great companies, like Lamda School, Instawork, Carbon Robotics, Terminal and many more are working on interesting solutions.
2. The Infrastructure of Work — The less sexy, but increasingly important cousin of the work, is the infrastructure of work. What are the systems and tools needed to run an increasingly dynamic and new kind of workforce? Payroll, employee reviews and other internal systems need to be rethought. New systems for different kinds of setups — from remote teams to gig economy — need to be created. These are not only “back office” systems but also, communication, the workplace itself and physical spaces. Fan favorites Slack, Gusto and Zoom are fantastic, but they are not solving all of the problems or serving all of the needs.

Inevitably, “productivity apps” are mentioned under the umbrella of infrastructure. And certainly great products like Superhuman, Airtable (admitted fangirl), Retool, Command E and Crew save people countless hours.

But that’s not the whole picture.

3. The Workers — Enter the third, and most overlooked pillar — the workers and the problems they face. As we consider productivity and what the major drags on productivity really are, we shouldn’t limit our thinking to issues inside the office. Because “outside of the office” problems affect workers’ ability to focus, move up and better themselves more than almost anything inside the office every could.

What are the problems workers are having that prevent them being able to efficiently perform their work and find fulfillment in it? When you start to ask: why aren’t people getting training? Or why aren’t more people taking this job that seems to have a major dearth of candidates? You quickly run into fundamental problems affecting large numbers of people that do not happen at work but have major and far-reaching implications on work.

These are issues like access to reliable transportation, healthcare, long-term care, childcare, housing, dealing with student debt, retirement planning, mental health, addiction and community. Many of these are areas that used to be taken care of by employers, either implicitly (“of course you can afford to live near the office” ) or explicitly (healthcare, pensions, etc.). I’m not necessarily advocating retrofitting old solutions onto new or different problems. I’m saying that there was a reason those areas were taken care of by employers and there are massive negative consequences — at work and beyond — to no longer doing so.

Let’s look at a few examples.

• Mental Health and Addiction — Data from a range of studies show that 1 in 5 adults suffers from mental health issues so it’s no wonder that In December of 2018, CEOs from forty Fortune 500 companies and the American Heart Association collaborated on a report entitled Mental Health: A Workforce Crisis. The National Institutes of Health found that employees suffering from depression cost employers more than $44 billion per year in lost productivity, with more than 81 percent of that lost productivity coming in the form of presenteeism (aka they are at work but not 100%).

Last year I wrote an in depth piece about how the opioid crisis has ravaged the workforce. As one example, Regina Mitchell, a co-owner of Warren Fabricating & Machining in Hubbard, Ohio, told The New York Times that four out of 10 applicants otherwise qualified to be welders, machinists and crane operators will fail a routine drug test.

• Long-term care (caring for an aging parent or relative) — [Informal] caregiving has shown to reduce employee productivity by 18.5%. All-in, MetLife estimated that the cost of informal caregiving -just in terms of lost productivity- to U.S. businesses is between $30.5 and $46.4B annually.
• Financial Health — When asked what they feel causes them the most stress, more employees (59%) cite financial matters than any other life stressor combined. Before you dismiss this as “nothing new,” remember that real wage growth has been trending downward in the U.S. since 2015.

The toll that these “outside of work” problems take on worker productivity and happiness results in substantial economic costs for firms, employees, and society.

Solutions that help to ameliorate (and fix) these issues, are truly the ultimate productivity apps.

We are starting to see this with companies like Cleo, Carrot and Modern Fertility, Betterup, WorkIt Health, Common Bond, HubHaus and more. But it requires a mindset shift that includes workers in the future of work. Within those 3 extra letters, lies the key to unlocking higher levels of potential, competitiveness and fulfillment.

This is the Future of Work.