HR.com has asked me to comment on last week´s attack to discuss the work-life implications for everyone to consider. I am still numb from the horror of the attack. My heart aches for the victims and their families.
But while the pain is fresh, perhaps it is a good time to begin a dialogue about the structure of work in our world. Events like this attack challenge us to question some of the basic assumptions about how we live our lives.
Assumptions are now being challenged about airport safety and about how the mail gets delivered. Changes are occurring at our airports, with our mail service no longer being transported in passenger cargo cabins, and with our psyches in terms of our sense of safety and security.
Perhaps it is time to also look at changing the structure of our work. Our assumptions about work go back to the industrial revolution as we moved from the farm to the factory. The forty-hour workweek was conceived of in the 1930´s. The Ozzie and Harriet family with a breadwinner at work and a homemaker taking care of domestic responsibilities reflects the social constructs of 40-60 years ago.
The nature of our work has changed significantly in these 70-100 years. Yet, the structure of our work has not changed. Our business models evolve constantly. Yet the structure of our workday stays the same - eight-hour days and forty-hour weeks.
With a global market place; with 24x7 work requirements; with increased technology, do we really need to be working in skyscrapers? What work can be done remotely? What work can be done via video-conference or teleconference rather than on-site visits that require airplane travel?
It is time for us to reinvent the way we work. It is time for us to more effectively align our work processes to the needs of our businesses as well as the needs of our people. Our workforce has changed. We now have more dual career couples, more single parents, and more elders to care for. We no longer live close to work or close to extended family members. Yet, our corporations are still structured as if we live in an Ozzie and Harriet world with a stay at home mother to take care of all the domestic responsibilities.
A recent PBS documentary, Juggling Work and Family, reported how companies like Hewlett-Packard are challenging old assumptions about work. Here is one example from the documentary: Instead of an assembly line of employees building computers, they have individual employees build an entire unit. Thus, if one person is absent for a parent-teacher´s conference, it does not stop the assembly line. Factory managers no longer have to scramble for replacements. Employees know what is expected of them and if they miss two hours in the middle of the day, they make it up at night or on the weekend. Individuals are in control of their schedules, are provided with on-going feedback from their managers and take pride in building an entire computer.
In the wake of the terrorist attack, as employees re-examine their values and their need to be close to family; as businesses examine their liabilities and their new business models; we need to come together and creatively construct work processes and work structures that support the needs of both employees and employers. We need to let go of old constructs created in the industrial revolution. We need to design work so that it increases productivity, profitability, and customer and employee satisfaction.
As our world examines airline safety and as individuals examine their personal values, I would like to encourage a worldwide dialogue so we can collectively create a world of work that will help our corporations prosper while also supporting the personal needs of employees.
As a result of a Ford Foundation sponsored research project, Artemis Management Consultants has been helping organizations redesign their work for almost six years. Our ReInventing Work workbook teaches managers and their teams how to examine their traditional assumptions and how to challenge their habitual work structures in order to more effectively achieve both their business and their personal goals. You can read real case studies of how corporations have already begun to change their work structures at www.ArtemisManagement.com.
