Left Behind
January 17th, 2008 by Cali & Jody
Change is painful, isn’t it?
We’re not surprised at all at the findings in this study. We see it everyday when we speak at companies with traditional work environments. People who have less freedom resent the people who have more.
But what interests us about this piece is the paragraph toward the end that proposes the solution:
“[B]y ensuring greater face-to-face contact between co-workers when all employees are in the office and granting greater job autonomy, employers may be able to counter these problems”, according to the study published in the journal Human Relations.
So we’re supposed to ensure greater face-to-face contact, but also grant greater job autonomy? In other words, the way to react to the changing face of work is to make people do what we think is best for them (greater face-to-face), while also letting them decide what’s best for them (greater job autonomy). Huh?
We’re not criticizing this kind of mixed message. Given where we are in this global change in how we view work, it’s not surprising that there is confusion.
Our traditional attitudes about work make tempting solutions to our workplace problems because they give us comfort. They are the devil we know. Our emerging attitudes about work are the devil we don’t. Even though give people more control is better fit with the business and the personal realities of a global, 24/7 world, embracing this idea is a little scary.
But here is one thing we know: we’re never going back. The traditional eight-to-five, in-a-cube world of work isn’t dead, but it’s dying. So the question for those miserable souls watching other people enjoy their freedom isn’t how to make them feel better about being left behind, but how to bring them along with us.
