Future Work/Life is my newsletter in which I explore ideas focused on the future of work, and how to build legendary companies and careers. If you find it interesting, please share it!
One obvious problem with being a leader or entrepreneur is TIME – or rather, a lack of it.
That’s why, after 150 editions, I’m relaunching my Future Work/Life newsletter.
So you can read it more quickly.
It’s still designed to help you build great careers and businesses.
And it will still give you interesting and valuable insights on:
Technology
Productivity
Workplace culture
Creativity and innovation
But now you can read it in a few minutes and choose when to dig deeper.
I hope you enjoy it. If you do, I’d love you to tell your friends.
HYBRID WORK
If you’ve spent any time on LinkedIn recently, you’ve probably seen data from Flex Index, a global survey of office trends created by Scoop. Their most recent report focuses on Fortune 500 companies, but there are some insights in there for companies of all sizes.
First a quick definition:
STRUCTURED HYBRID = Companies that set expectations on when their people should come into the office, including specific days, minimum days, and minimum time.
Now here are the headlines:
Large public companies (1,000+ employees) are significantly more flexible than their private counterparts. 50% of private companies require employees to work Full Time In Office versus 25% for public companies, while just 18% of Fortune 500 companies require Full Time In Office work for their corporate employees.
Structured Hybrid is the most popular work location flexibility model for Fortune 500 companies. The largest Fortune 500 companies are even more likely to adopt Structured Hybrid compared to their smaller peers.
Listen to Scoop and Flex Index Co-Founder & CEO Rob Sadow on the Future Work/Life podcast for more of the latest hybrid and remote trends.
MULTI-GENERATIONAL WORKFORCE
One challenge that keeps coming up in my conversations and speaking gigs is how we approach leading a multi-generational workforce. I’ll be sharing more on this over the coming weeks and months, but for starters, this article by Daniel Jolles, Odessa Hamilton, and former podcast guest Grace Lordan, neatly summarises the ‘The Do’s and Don’ts of Generational Labels’.
Here’s how they break down:
Do recognise the value of intergenerational diversity.
Don’t use generational labels to reinforce negative stereotypes.
Do acknowledge that generational differences exist…
…But don’t overstate these differences.
CAREERS & PRODUCTIVITY
Note to self: FOCUS
I veer from relishing the chance to experiment with different projects and take on new and varied opportunities to realising I’m spread too thin.
Whether it’s designing your career or getting an important piece of work finished, focus is critical. Easier said than done, of course, but this excellent article from Frederik Gieschen breaks down why you need to take it seriously and how to approach it, including this nugget:
Micro focus requires discipline, small but consistent dosages of suffering. Macro focus asks us to choose what to suffer for.
If you get micro focus wrong, you go to bed frustrated. You know your goals, but you’re not moving. Your day felt like a meaningless grind.
If you get macro focus wrong, you spend years, decades even, walking with great success in the wrong direction. Until one day you wake up and realize you never entered your Maze. The cost of getting macro focus wrong is an existential crisis.