My last post was also about Future of Work & Workplaces , albeit with a different perspective. I placed some thoughts on changes that have been happening, and some simple questions that emerge, about future workplaces. There may be much more, but it helps to keep life simple and talk about simple visible things.
Technology, communication etc., have been leading to massive shifts in the way we work and the way a business and its work processes can be more efficient. These are defining the future of work. However, some things will stay the same, till we end up in the sci-fi universe where machines take full charge of humans.
What i don’t see changing at future workplaces ?
I am isolating only a few thoughts for easy understanding. While these are simple pointers – a permutation and combination of these can lead to almost each and every aspect of a business.
People
- Human Mind (thinking – creativity, decision making , intuition, judgement etc.)
- Human Psychology (Needs for affiliation, recognition, respect, well-being.)
Business
- Decision making (the aspects that are beyond data and dashboard’s)
- Need to Innovate & change. (create, ideate, explore ideas with no past precedence, decisions, changes, shifts – pivot’s.)
Future workplaces: Where thinking and decisions matter ?
The need for productivity of processes and business can be ably supported by technology. Decision support can also be well supported by technology – specially with the fast pace of work happening in areas of data science, AI, and machine learning.
However technology, at least for the foreseeable future, may not be able to do all that’s needed. Technology will make life easier by way of providing data backed recommendations, but then someone has to take decisions. Also, there are aspect of decisions that go beyond data and dashboards. The aspects that relate to innovation, change and need human intervention – creative thinking, intuition, emotion etc.
Probably the future workplaces will still have a scope for people.
Praveen is the Founder & Principal Consultant of KHEdge, a boutique HR & Business Process Advisory firm. Over last 15 years he has advised & worked with promoters, founders, business leaders, HR leaders in areas of - Business Strategy, HR Strategy, Organisation Design etc.