Move over four-day work week: The future of work needs rethinking

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard the recent noise about workplaces trialling and transitioning to the four-day week. It’s been lauded as a welcome change in creating future-proof workplaces. A way to get people to do their best work, while also rewarding them with more to achieve the ideal, elusive, work-life balance. 

And while I agree the four-day week is a step in the right direction, it’s not the answer to truly embracing future-fit work practices. 

If we’re going to solve the big issues of our time, we first need to build work environments that nurture creativity, innovation, imagination and autonomy. This means thinking bigger than four-day work weeks and working from home — it’s about a shift to the way we structure our organisations, the way we support and encourage our people, and the way we lead.

A signpost in the road of work

We’ve reached a critical signpost in the way we work. The pandemic has accelerated some change, but if all we take from it is more flexibility around when and where we work, we’re missing the opportunity to create real and meaningful change. One path ahead is the road well travelled (although perhaps with a few mod cons like online meetings and flexible hours), while the other road could take us in a completely different direction. 

Big, bold change is about setting our GPS in a new direction and thinking about a bigger shift in the way we organise people and work that’s fit for the future. New ways of working mean new ways of collaborating across teams, building in more autonomy for people to run with innovative new ideas, rather than expecting them to innovate and thrive in a rigid job description within a pyramid structure that was created more than 100 years ago and is no longer fit for purpose. 

Because there has been incredible innovation in the way we work, but not in the way we organise people and work, and the tension between those two things is holding us back. 

The future of work is already here

When I talk about big, bold change, I’m often met with initial resistance. It feels too hard, too cumbersome, and too overwhelming. 

But the truth is, there are organisations who are already working in a future-ready way, if you know where to look for them. For example, in The Netherlands, there’s a home nursing organisation with around 10,000 nursing staff, organised in a completely unique way. Instead of a hierarchy of management, you have neighbourhood nursing teams of about 12 people that are completely self-managed, with guidance from about 15 coaches and support from a small back-office team. Each team of nurses is given autonomy around how they schedule and care for their clients, while also being closely aligned with their organisation’s purpose of humanity over bureaucracy. 

Can you imagine? A company of 10,000 without traditional managers?

This is just one example of the many ways progressive leaders are doing things differently around the world. And we know these new ways of structuring organisations are driving amazing results for their businesses, their clients or customers and their people. 

Even 25 years ago, we had a grasp of different ways of working. I know, because I was part of a team with an ambitious goal — we knew ‘what’ we had to do, we just didn’t know ‘how’ to do it — as we pulled together the planning and delivery of the Sydney 2000 Olympics and Paralympic Games. 

We were a team of around 50 people — the starter team for an organisation that would eventually become 150,000 people — who’d been tasked with delivering the best Olympic Games ever. We had no playbook, no tried and tested plan, but we were inspired by a bold purpose and motivated to collaborate and build a Games workforce to enable 10,000 athletes from 200 countries to perform at their best. We had a management team above us, but were given cover and autonomy to execute big ideas. And the outcome was (as we all know) it worked — our team of rookies did indeed deliver the best Games ever. 

So how can we bring this same out-of-the-box thinking to our organisations today? 

Creating space for ideas

Future-proofing your work environment doesn’t have to begin with throwing out your existing structure or starting from scratch. 

While startups are uniquely positioned to start as they mean to go on, with opportunities for autonomy, free-thinking and agility, even traditional organisations can start to drive along the future work road with a few key changes. 

Giving people clarity around ‘why’ they do their work, can often help them get more creative and effective on the ‘how’. 

Ideally, you want to start with clarity around the purpose and intention behind your organisation’s work, and then look at how you can create opportunities for free thinking and innovative ideas, and permission for them to be actioned. 

In a world of AI and automation, it’s the ideas that only our human minds can generate that will create the transformation we need to stay relevant into the future. 

So look at ways to create space for big ideas — whether that’s through regular brainstorming and free-thinking sessions, space outside of the work environment, or actively encouraging people to contribute their ideas in a safe and supportive setting. 

Then once these ideas come together, give people permission to run with them, with guidance and support from leaders, coaches and experts. Don’t just leave them as blue sky thinking, pressure-test them and start to put them into practice, and see what sticks. So often, I see companies sending their people on leadership and innovation courses and boot camps, only for them to get back to work and see their creative solutions stifled by senior management. 

Your sphere of influence

You don’t need to be the CEO to drive change. Look at your sphere of influence — even if that’s just within your own team or division. 

Could you create micro-moments for reflection as part of your weekly rituals? For example, finishing each meeting with a moment to reflect on how effective it was, what you could have done better, and whether or not you even needed to have the meeting in the first place.

Create opportunities for people to question why you work the way you do – for example, do you need that weekly meeting? Is there a better way to communicate and collaborate? Could we streamline our processes?

Facing new challenges

As we face new challenges globally, it’s the organisations who are willing to try new things that will thrive. 

How could you start to shift your workplace’s approach, so that innovation is celebrated, people work with purpose, and out-of-date rigid hours and rigid hierarchies are ditched? 

I’m excited to see the future of work emerge, and it’s not just about a long weekend every week.

Cherie Mylordis is the founder of nextgenify, and a Sydney-based work futurist, speaker, transformation and innovation coach.