Jacob Morgan | Best-Selling Author, Speaker, & Futurist | Leadership | Future of Work | Employee Experience

employees

The Future in 5

Should You Treat Your Employees And Freelancers Differently?

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In this episode of The Future in Five, I explore whether all team members should be treated equally or if it should depend on their employment status. While it is important to discern the difference between employees and freelancers for certain reasons such as data, all should be treated as key members of your team… no matter how infrequent or little their work. Do your employees and freelancers all have access to the same benefits and information?[…]

The Future in 5

How Long Does Organizational Change Actually Take?

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Getting yourself or your organization into shape is a never-ending journey that depends on your goals, your starting condition, your habits, and the like. When organizations ask me how long it takes to change or how long before they can really adapt to the future of work, my response is always “right away and forever.” The future of work is like one giant workout for our organizations. It does not stop or end, as organizations work to maintain the standards they have initiated while trying to keep up with the new world of work.

Employee experience, The Future in 5

Why Your Physical Workspace Is Just As Important As Your Physical Appearance

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First impressions are important. When you meet someone for the first time appearance matters. If they show up disheveled and not “put together” then you get a very different vibe versus if they show up with their hair combed and a nice outfit versus if they show up in something casual. Each appearance gives you a different vibe. The same feelings happen when employees walk into a workspace. If an employee walks into an office and all the walls are stark, everyone is in cubicles, and people are dressed suites and ties then the vibe might be boring, not innovative, and very conservative. Now imagine walking into a different workspace with an open floor plan, touch screens on the walls, and workers buzzing about actively engaging with each other. This typically gives off a vibe that is more about innovation, collaboration, and engagement. […]

The Future in 5

Three Strategies For Closing The Generational Gap At Your Company

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When considering the generation gap that most organizations are seeing, we first have to remember that this is not the first time that we have had multiple generations in the workplace at a single given time. While it may be true that there are indeed some differences between generations, many studies on this topic find there are more similarities than differences. So what are some things organizations should do to close any generational differences that might exist? […]

Future of work

5 Signs You’re Working For A Truly Great Company

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If you were to ask people, “what makes a great company,” you would get quite a variety of responses. It’s one of those things that’s hard to define but easy to identify if you are part of a great company. I’ve had the opportunity to interview, work and speak with some of the world’s top business leaders to find out how they run their respective organizations and have noticed a few things that I wanted to share here. It’s great to see what there are organizations such as Glassdoor and the Great Place To Work Institute that score and rank organizations around being a “best” or “great” place to work. Still, there many organizations that aren’t on that list and are still wonderful places to work. Truly great companies have a “future-proof” advantage. So how can you tell if you are working for a truly great company? Here are five signs to look out for. […]

Employee experience, The Future in 5

Why Giving Employees A Sense Of Purpose Is Not Enough To Drive Engagement

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There’s no doubt that employees who have a sense of purpose at work will be more engaged and productive. We all want to feel like we are contributing to something and that our jobs have meaning. While purpose is indeed a critical factor when thinking about designing employee experiences, it cannot stand alone. In other words, simply giving employees a sense of purpose at work isn’t going to drive engagement. From what I have seen, there are actually three things that are required.

The Future in 5

Are Managers Lying To Us?

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I recently spoke at a conference in Pittsburgh, and while waiting for my flight I started thinking about some recent conversations I’ve had with managers and executives at various organizations. Many of these leaders have stated how much they care about driving change, employee engagement, diversity and modernization in the workplace. However, when we look at many organizations, we see that oftentimes the exact opposite is true; employees are not engaged, work spaces are not modern, there is no diversity and the organization struggles to change at a snail’s pace. So how can these leaders and executives say they care about these things when these things are still prevalent? How can we bridge the gap between what companies want to do, and what they can do?

Employee experience, Future of work

A Framework For How Any Company Can Design Amazing Employee Experiences

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The employee experience is not a static thing, it’s a moving target and in fact there is no single experience for every employee, there are many experiences. So how can organizations create this continuous cycle? The best way to think about designing employee experiences is as a never-ending infinity loop or a type of continuum that has four parts FIDE (but keep in mind they don’t have to follow this order). […]

Future of work

Turning Employees Into Freelancers Inside The Organization

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In our personal lives we play many roles. We look after our homes, we make time for friends, we play sports, have hobbies, play some sort of family role, and much more. In other words we aren’t just one thing or one type of person. Unfortunately, many of our organizations are structured in a way that only allows employees to have one type of role and one type of function. Whether you are in marketing, sales, R&D, IT, or other function, oftentimes you get pigeonholed and tend to get stuck doing the same tasks for the same team. Over time employees get bored or burned out. This is not how humans are wired, in fact this is the perfect scenario for a robot! It’s also important to keep in mind that the employee-employer relationship has fundamentally changed. Pensions are virtually non-existent, tenure for employees it not what it used to be, technology makes it easy to poach employees, the overall war for talent is rather brutal, and talent professionals have to consider the freelancer economy. […]

The Future in 5

The Big Misconception About IBM’s Watson

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The conversation around robots and automation is one that continues to grow and get more attention. However I’ve noticed a growing trend among business publications that cover this topic. Typically IBM’s Watson gets mentioned as one of the key innovations that’s going to replace and automate jobs and I think this is a huge misconception. I have had the opportunity to tour the IBM Watson innovation facility in New York City and speak with people that work on Watson which by the way, was not designed with the intention to replace jobs or take jobs away from humans. Watson was created as a way to assist humans while improving decision making capabilities.

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