The Intersection Between Work and Life

by ray stasieczko June 19, 2021

Today's technologies are destroying the status quo of one's life and one's work. I believe our work lives and our personal lives are intersecting through technology in ways that were unimaginable just a few short years ago.

For way too long, the silliness of "Work-Life Balance"​ has hijacked the great intentions of intersecting people's work and people's lives.  

Regardless of its grand intentions, the Work-Life Balance talk track has made a contest of one's life with one's work. When the workers become focused on what's owed to them, they quickly lose focus on what's good for the customers they serve.

Over the last decade, I have been intrigued by how many corporations have built corporate cultures weighted so heavily on employee happiness. Don't get me wrong; I think a happy worker is, in fact, more productive.

However, it does seem as there is an extreme out of alignment between the worker's definition of happiness while they work and their employer's perception of what makes their workers happy. I assure you it's not ping pong tables!

The workers were thrown so much lunacy in ways we would see kindergarten classes attempt to make all the kids happy and play together nicely.

This attempt to coral employees into some assimilation of happiness has led to a contest between employers to win over the workers - hoping that happy workers will stay and produce more. 

Unfortunately, many of these environments have also become breeding grounds for the status quo. I explain this way, as the employee happiness camps grew so, did unaccountability. Employers became so obsessed with gratifying their perception of employee happiness they rarely raised the bar. 

"The leader who brags about how great everyone gets along and never raises the bar - is instead foolishly being led."​ 

What's worse, the reality that these happy places also would exclude anyone or anything that would potentially disrupt the assimilation of sameness these organizations cherish above all. 

"The organizations who refuse to disrupt themselves will never be the organization that disrupts the marketplace."​

History will say the pandemic of 2020 changed life and work forever. I will say that, for the most part, that's correct. However, innovators and the progress made in technology were already running over most of the 20th-century leftovers.       

The pandemic has brought great awareness to all leaders that people can function exceptionally well, and businesses can prosper through a remote workforce.

This awareness also reveals that the Monday through Friday 9-5 work rules built for a different era are now obsolete. With its obsolescence, leaders will be forced to rethink their strategies in the how, the where, and the way work gets done.

In the past, the most complicated technologies were found only at the office. However, today people have tremendous power in the palm of their hand, and the power of cloud technologies has changed the world forever. 

Today people don't have to coral in office environments as they did in 1950-1999. The world of work could have shifted 20 years ago. In many cases, the technologies in workers'​ home life exceed the technologies they use in the office.

The modern worker continues to embrace the realities between the digital and physical worlds, in many cases far ahead of the organizations they work for. These workers realize that it's not about the location where you work; it's about what you do for work and how you get it done.

Returning to the 1950-1999 workplace will not be an option for many, and many more will run from these outdated business leaders over the next few years.  

The technologies people use are quickly integrating work and life in ways unimaginable to so many hitting retirement age. The good thing is - they are hitting retirement age.

Ironically, those retiring over the next decade will discover that technology will allow our seniors to remain productive in a world where the digital landscape expands, creating once unimaginable opportunities.

Leaders will soon discover that talented people will achieve astonishing things, and gifted people won't value a workplace designed as a consortium of complacency. Technology will continue to expand the number of people who will embrace the challenging of the status quo.  

Employers will discover that the toys and perks to hold workers in these workplace environments built to do business in a far-gone world are no longer relevant to their workers'​ happiness. Instead, workers will demand clear business objectives and the ability to reach those objectives through a remote landscape.

Today's workers are at the intersection between the past and future of work, so are their leaders. The workers will not continue in an obsolete business model due to their leader's insecurities of their own place in the future.

As I discussed in my last article, there is no reason to procrastinate the remote worker reality by implementing some nonsensical hybrid approach. All leaders must empower their people with the right tools to do the required job and if that job can be accomplished remotely, then let it be remote.

Remember, the office was once the only place where technology existed, causing the worker to travel there. However, over the last two decades, technology has moved far past the doors leading to the cubicle farms built for the now 40-year-old millennials, great great great grandparents. 

Ray Stasieczko

CEO/Founder TEASRA,The Innovation Channel and Host of The End of The Day With Ray! https://www.endofthedaywithray.com/

I welcome everyone to subscribe to my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCULKZDBCR1ozWXmu4Tob66A?view_as=subscriber

If not already Let's connect here on Linkedin  

---

---

Leave a comment

Comments will be approved before showing up.

Name *

Email *

Comment *

---

Also in Ray's Hot Topics