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Good morning.
I spent most of the day yesterday discussing the future of work—first, at an internal meeting with Fortune employees, then at our four-hour Reimagine Work Summit (full coverage for subscribers here), held in partnership with the Future Forum by Slack. The topic is a hot one for every employer of knowledge workers these days. The end of the pandemic creates a rare opportunity—Thrive CEO Arianna Huffington called it the “first since the Industrial Revolution”—to truly redesign work.
A couple of data points frame the discussion. According to the Future Forum’s surveys, only 17% of knowledge workers want to return to the office full time. But only 20% want to work from home full time. The vast majority are looking for flexibility. And that’s not just flexibility on where they work, but also on when they work.
The buzzword for that new approach is “hybrid.” But what exactly does hybrid mean? The consensus is the office will become an venue for collaboration, for serendipitous interaction, and for social bonding and culture building. Focused individual work can be done elsewhere. But how do you make sure people are in the right place at the right time for the right type of work? Are certain days of the week, or certain hours of the day, scheduled as “collaboration times”? Does collaboration and innovation really lend itself to that kind of scheduling? And while video conferencing may have had a democratizing effect during the pandemic, will folks who return to the office be able to collaborate effectively with those who do not? Or will the playing field tilt toward the people in the room?
Then there is the question of whether big city offices make economic sense if you only use them for occasional collaboration and social events. Wouldn’t it be better to rent space as needed—perhaps, as suggested by Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian, from underused hotels? (There is general agreement that business travel will remain depressed. Why spend the time and resources?)
Layered on top of questions about where and when to work are another set of question about how we work. The pandemic accelerated the adoption of new technologies that transform work in fundamental ways. That, in turn, has led to heightened concerns about training and reskilling people for the retooled workplace.
Leadership also has to change. In their classic management book In Search of Excellence, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman talked about the importance of “management by walking around.” That doesn’t work when the office is empty. There’s also agreement that leaders need to focus more on worker well-being. “We need to lead with empathy,” said Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh. Pymetrics CEO Frida Polli concurred: “The human elements of empathy and connection (are) critical to making this distributed workforce function properly.”
Sorry for offering more questions than answers here, but my takeaway from yesterday’s conversations is that this design challenge is far from solved. A lot of work to do in the next few months.
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Separately, I was surprised to see that McKinsey Global Managing Partner Kevin Sneader wasn’t selected for a second term. I have no special insight into why the firm’s 650 senior partners rejected him. But I certainly hope it wasn’t for the reason suggested in press reports.
The Wall Street Journal said “some partners” felt Sneader had gone “too far” in criticizing his firm’s behavior advising opioid maker Purdue Pharma—which resulted in a $573 million legal settlement. Those partners felt McKinsey had “acted within the law.”
I’m not a judge or a lawyer, so I’ll leave the legal question aside. But it’s pretty clear McKinsey advised Purdue to focus its efforts on the health care providers who were writing the highest volume of prescriptions, even as the addiction crisis was reaching its peak. It doesn’t take a lawyer to recognize the implications of that strategy. I’m with Sneader on this: McKinsey needs a higher standard.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
