Each week I’m going to provide a round up of what I consider to be important and interesting articles on the future of work (not authored by me). These will include a variety of sources and topics ranging from workplace practices to robots and automation to leadership and everything in between. There’s a lot of information out there so I’m hoping that these weekly round ups will help make life a bit easier for you by giving you just the good stuff. Let’s get into it!
Employers in Sweden introduce six-hour work day
Do you think you would be more productive at work and happier in life if you could have a shorter work day and more time for a personal life? Well, that is what many employers in Sweden believe. Several Swedish companies are testing out a 6 hour work day to see if it will improve morale and productivity.
So how are they able to get their work done in 2 hours less per day than usual? Well, the idea is that since the employees have more time for their personal lives and less time at work they are required cut down on a lot of the wasted time that usually takes place during the work day. Instead of taking little breaks here and there, having long meetings, and getting distracted by text messages and social media the employees are required to buckle down and focus solely on the work at hand.
While the article did mention one company, Toyota, that implemented this change 13 years ago, it sounds like most of the companies have made this change much more recently. Time will tell if this change will make as much of a profound difference as these employers think.
Productive & Happy: 3 Critical Ways to Keep Employees Engaged
Over the years there has been a lot of research done on the subject of how to make a company successful or what factors play into building a successful business. In all of this research it has been concluded that one of the top factors in a successful company is having engaged employees. This article by Shlomo Wiesen discusses three ways to improve employee engagement.
According to him, in order to have engaged employees, and thus a successful business, companies need specific goal setting, a gamified workplace, and transparency from the top.
While goal setting is nothing new, this article touches on the importance of very specific short term goals as well as long term goals. The idea behind it is that employees feel more engaged and excited about work when they can hit goals several times a month instead of just once or twice a year.
In creating a gamified workplace, Wiesen states that it is not about making work a game, rather it is about incorporating elements of gameplay into different tasks at work in order to make the work more relatable and enjoyable to the employees. In doing so employees become more motivated and engaged in what they are doing.
Lastly, Wiesen discusses the importance of transparency from the top. He talks about research that has been done that shows transparency creates a healthier and more productive workplace. When upper level management becomes actively involved and takes an interest in having discussions with employees it has an impact on productivity and employee morale.
All three of these strategies seem to be becoming more popular in trend setting companies today. All three seem to be straightforward and commonsensical, but unfortunately most companies don’t put in the time or effort needed to incorporate them.
In this article Peter Suderman uses Apple’s newest phone as an example of how we don’t always fully see the effect of innovation when it first happens. He begins by laying out the differences between Apple’s newest iPhone and the older versions. He talks about how there aren’t many huge changes and that, to some, it may point to the slowing down of innovation altogether.
But he goes on to argue that while this newest phone may not appear to be much different than the last one at the moment, it doesn’t mean that one or more of the changes won’t have a huge effect on something big in the future.
He brings up the point that when iPhones first came out the App Store was seen by many as something small that would basically make the iPhones into nothing more than a handheld gaming device. However, now many years later, the App store has made it possible for many huge innovations such as Uber, PokemonGo, and food delivery apps.
Even if people feel that the newest iPhone isn’t much greater than the last version, we never know what next innovation will be brought about by these seemingly small changes.
7 Reasons You Should Be Excited About the Future of Learning
Did you know that in the last 200 years our life expectancy has gone from 35 years to 70 years? How about the fact that in 1820 less than 20% of the population was literate and today over 80% of people are literate. In this article AJ Juliani explains why we should be excited about the future of learning and shows us how far we have come in the last 200 years. His premise is that technology has made learning much easier and more widespread than it used to be and therefore human progress has been building at a rapid rate. He believes it will only get better from here.
This article lists out seven reasons why Juliani is very excited about the future of learning and why we should be too. The seven reasons he listed are artificial intelligence, augmented reality, powerful mobile and wearable devices, 3D printing, space is back and virtual reality.
Juliani states that this article is the first part of an eight part series he is launching on the future of learning. During this series he is going to go into more detail on all seven areas that he touched on in this article.
Jacob Morgan is a keynote speaker, author, and futurist. You can invite Jacob to keynote your next conference, subscribe to his videos on Youtube, check our his podcast, or subscribe to his newsletter!
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