TBD Inc.
Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with my friend Dan Nestle, who hosts a killer Podcast called “The Trending Communicator,” we covered a lot of ground between the state of work, AI, and how they relate to each other. Dan and I met during the BC years (Before Covid) in Tokyo, Japan, when I was facilitating a workshop with his then-employer, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It’s always a treat to reconnect and collaborate with peers in different ways. You can listen to the full episode here, and please consider subscribing to Dan’s Podcast, which has some solid conversations related to business communications and beyond. In this week’s newsletter, I will dig into a few of the thoughts we discussed, as I have been exploring under the strategic framing of “TBD” or To Be Determined:
TBD Inc: The Undetermined Future of Work
I don’t consider myself a futurist; I find it folly to undertake the ultimately futile exercise of future prediction. That said, we can pay attention to the signals, breadcrumbs, and early indicators of what may come. We can ponder how these early signals may play out, or we keep our heads down as we move forward.
The reality is we must do both.
I find “TBD” a helpful lens to look at our changing dynamics, specifically from the post-pandemic filter, meaning after March 2020. Since the pandemic, we’ve seen a considerable chunk of office work shift to working from home. Then came “the great resignation,” where so many employees leveraged the uncertainty of work to take a chance and change jobs, creating a short-lived war for talent. We also saw the rise of quiet quitting, a term coined during those early (ish) years, which articulated a passive-aggressive “disconnection” from our work—meaning doing what is required of the job, and not more.
We witnessed a significant hiring spree in the tech sector, which reversed itself into equally significant layoffs, which I call “the great termination.” It was an unprecedented time for the tech industry, where typically layoffs have been low, and job security has historically been high. No longer. The tech sector looks much more fluid in the TBD Inc. era of work. Across many sectors, workers are caught between inflationary economics and somewhat stagnated compensation, which has not kept up with the increasing cost of living. The power balance once shifted from employer to employee, then back to employer (with some notable tension playing out).
Many workers feel “burnt out" and stifled regarding career growth and fulfillment; enter “the great stagnation.” We also have more significant numbers of new workers entering the workforce who are not millennials and are essentially the children of my generation (GenX). This generation is the first to be raised virtually without analog influence, dependent on digital tablets/smartphones, etc., and has endured the trauma of school shutdowns and other disruptions related to the pandemic.
Generative AI and Large Language Models did not explode onto the scene until well into the tail end of the pandemic—another massive transformation after COVID-19. These things have me increasingly looking at the future of work through four territories I’ll be digging into more. Here’s how I break down TBD Inc., the four forces reshaping work:
Our Evolving Relationship With Work
In January of 2024, Ford Motor Company released the results of a work-based survey and amongst the findings, found that 52% of employed people globally would be willing to take a 20% pay cut for better work/life balance:
It shocked us. I’ll be honest," said Jen Brace, chief futurist at Ford who coordinated the 2024 Trend Report and its findings. "A 20% pay cut is a big deal. I didn’t think we’d get the level of response in terms of number of people; 52% is huge.
This quantitative data supports many of the qualitative observations I’ve been making as I scan themes from many of my peers across social media and the dozens of deeper conversations I have had during the past few years. I am paraphrasing the below, but the “quotes” capture many of the themes shared during these conversations:
“We had to prioritize dealing with a mental health issue of one of our kids.”
“I realized I was working too much.”
“I wasn’t doing what I truly wanted to be doing.”
“I was spending too much time away from home.”
These are but a few. One of my broader hypotheses for post-pandemic work and life is that we underestimate how much has changed and is still working itself out. When it comes to work itself, many corporate employees, or white-collar workers especially, have reevaluated the role work plays in their lives, and with that comes the reassessment of the traditional work incentives. Our evolving relationship with work is TBD…
GenZ And The Multigenerational Workforce
The World Economic Forum estimates that 27% of OECD countries will have GenZ employees joining the ranks of millennials, GenXers, and boomers already entrenched in the workforce. There’s nothing new about a multigenerational workforce, but there are some unique things about this specific multigenerational workforce. First, as noted above—this multigenerational workforce will work together in the context and shadow of the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. Secondly, GenZers are unique for several reasons; one is that they are the TRUE first generation amongst us who have ONLY known digital (apologies to millennials). GenZers, in particular, also endured the pandemic during their formative years in grade school and college.
Meanwhile, Boomers, especially GenXers, face record-low prospects of an economically secure retirement where benefits and preparedness is fragile. GenXers, in particular, are facing challenges where they are balancing careers with caregiving for aging parents. Subsequently, millennials are inheriting both the middle management and executive leadership levels at work, while dealing with the unique challenges of both. Essentially, we’re entering one big social experiment regarding this specific generational mix combined with the socio-economic and global trends. The future of this particular multigenerational workforce remains TBD…
Where And How Work Gets Done
While it may feel like an eternity since many office workers shifted to working from home full time, we are, at best, in the gangly, awkward teenage phase in terms of netting out somewhere between return to office, hybrid, and work from home. Amazon’s recent decision to force a mandatory, five-day-a-week return to the office has coined yet another term in post-pandemic work: soft quitting, where employees detach from work while they look for other jobs. However, the issue of where and how work gets done is less binary than flexibility vs. mandatory return to office; it also has a lot to do with the technology and geographical advancements that have been building steadily for decades. Mobile devices have invaded our personal lives, making it possible to be connected to work as long as they are within our reach. While the U.S. does not have “right to disconnect” laws, the conversations around such legislation have been raised more frequently. The pandemic and the widespread adoption of video-based collaboration platforms, including Zoom, Teams, and a revamped Slack, have reduced the friction of working across decentralized and distributed geographic locations and keep us even more connected to work.
These dynamics create friction between corporate leadership and rank-and-file employees. Some employees benefit from and need in-person work environments more than others, including many of the younger members of the workforce, who sometimes struggle with in-person interactions:
A stunning 46% of Gen Z workers say they have had uncomfortable in-person interactions with colleagues after returning to the office, some of which they describe as “creepy,” saying such encounters have even made them fearful.
In short, where and how work will be done in the near future is still being determined and is very much TBD.
The Automation/Innovation of Work + AI Integration
As I’ve discussed, we are reaching “peak AI BS,” or the apex of the AI hype cycle. It’s not a question of when it will burst but rather what the post-bubble phase of AI looks like. I had a front-row seat during the Dot.com bubble burst during the early 2000s, and unlike some of my peers back then, I worked without any resume gaps pre-, during, and post-bubble. That’s because many established companies picked up the commercialization of the Web when the heady start-ups and poorly conceived business models faded away, and we worked with those companies. Once the irrational euphoria was gone, the business of steady, incremental integration of digital business commercialization took root. It wasn’t sexy; it took time but paid off over the years for many of these organizations.
When it comes to the future of work, we should be closely watching AI's impact on culture, consumer applications, and society. Still, we mustn’t lose sight of its consequential business applications, which can be considered in four key facets:
Organizational
Enterprise AI: How AI ultimately integrates across different functions of an enterprise, from sales to marketing to HR, product/services etc.
Economical
How does the enterprise benefit from increased efficiencies, scale, innovation, etc., directly or indirectly attributed to Enterprise AI integration?
Ethical
The responsibilities associated with Enterprise AI integration range from job creation/reduction to societal impact. On the impact side, we now have data points to reference from previous innovations, such as mobile and social media, and the negative implications for society that accompany the positive.
Functional
After peak AI/BS comes the beginnings of a focus on AI's functional application, meaning the purpose it serves. Is AI being used to predict (and prevent disease) more accurately? Is it increasing the quality of content instead of merely making more of it? Is it improving our work, craft, knowledge, and areas of expertise? In other words, does it serve an actual, viable, and valuable purpose?
I’ll be writing more about the above forces while synthesizing insights through words and visuals, of course. I invite you to follow along.
Visually yours,
