Are robots the answer to your workplace challenges?
Maybe not… but here’s how they can they inspire your workplace evolution.
Some really intriguing news came out this past Sunday concerning the future of work. The Icelandic government released results from the world’s largest workplace experiment to study if a shorter work week would lead to more happiness, well-being and…productivity. The conclusion, maybe a surprise, was that it was an overwhelming success.
As part of the trial that ran from 2015 to 2019, however, companies didn’t just shorten the week by a few hours and call it a day. They thoughtfully re-designed their work experiences in the form of new delegation practices, task prioritization, and meeting rituals. As a result of the trial, 86% of the nation’s entire workforce now enjoys a shorter work week or the right to decrease their overall hours.
Workplace experiments like these are happening around the world. A few months back, The New York Times reported on the innovations Google is trying on to reinvent their office spaces. For example, they’ve created meeting spaces they call “campfires” where in-person attendees sit in a circle interspersed with large, real-time displays of their remote-work colleagues. They’ve also been experimenting with on-the-spot privacy at desks in open spaces. With the push of a button, an employee can call over an R2-D2-like robot that will inflate a translucent balloon wall to provide privacy from curious desk mates.
The inflatable robot wall in action. Image:Cayce Clifford forThe New York TimesEfforts like these are about experimenting with bold ideas. Sometimes uncomfortable ideas. And they’re proving successful.
You’re probably thinking, “that’s great, but my organization can’t afford (or culturally embrace) balloon privacy walls, campfires, or shorter work weeks.” And you won’t be alone. No offense to our friends at Google and in Iceland – but while most organizations need to invent a path forward, they don’t always have the resource and backing needed to attempt the change.
It’s just not as easy for some companies as it is for others. And that’s 100 percent okay… but keeping change on the workplace experience agenda is essential to your growth moving forward. For most companies this means creating a vision for what that means and blueprinting a path forward that doesn’t demand massive, immediate investments.
As organizational leaders, we must take a long hard look at how we’re developing our managers as leaders of human beings… are we even really doing it? We must re-think team rituals like how we meet, collaborate and socialize. Are these activities, in truth, as effective as we think? And we must explore how effectively teams and individuals use their time at work. Are we allowing for the right amount of time to focus on getting work done, or are we caught in meetings we believe are needed to keep work going? The smartest way to answer these questions is to pilot and experiment… just as you would a new customer experience.
Google and Iceland teach us that experimenting to evolve our mindset, methods and places will get us to a more adaptive workplace faster than trying to transform all at once.
Robots that blow up balloon walls aren’t the answer to our workplace experience challenges (even though they’re pretty bad ass). But experimenting to evolve our mindset, methods and places can get us to a more adaptive workplace faster than trying to transform all at once. Planning for your incremental evolution is a path you can start down today.
At Amphibian, we help companies explore how to create their future workplace experience in a way that is equally inspiring and realistic to their situation. That means looking at the challenges holistically, with an open mind and in a way that can ultimately drive new behaviors.
If you’re interested in how we approach workplace experience evolutions, check out our free Adaptive Code Playbook here.
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