Issue 110: The Future of Work is Now
Welcome to Backstory, a weekly newsletter turning global technology shifts into a three-minute read. This week, we’re thinking about work – Mary Ames, Director of Strategy
THE BIG TAKE
The Future of Work is Now
The Covid-19 pandemic changed the way we work forever. The opportunity to work from home upended traditional office culture and productivity benchmarks. While some workers are returning to the office (some faster than others), many want the flexibility that remote work offers. As companies navigate this balancing act, new data has come to light confirming that the traditional five day workweek is too long and doesn’t help productivity.
Four better than five? In one of the largest ever studies of the four-day work week, over 3,300 employees from 70 different companies have been taking part in a UK trial of the four-day work week. The trial is run by 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit examining cutting one day of work. The recent experiment was the biggest pilot program of its kind and enabled employees to maintain 100% of their salary while working 80% of the traditional work week as long as their productivity didn’t dip.
Confirmation instead of revelation: It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the study has been an overwhelming success. Gizmodo reports that “the pilot program has now reached its halfway point, and 4 Day Global is reporting overwhelmingly positive results. More specifically, 88% of surveyed participants said that the four-day work week is working well for their business.” When you give employees more agency over their time and productivity, job performance improves and everyone is happier. The remote trend adds to this sentiment. The question now is how much impact these studies will have on the mainstream work force.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
– Aristotle
CHART OF THE WEEK
In this week’s chart of the week, we are looking at remote work around the world. According to recent research, workers would take a 5% pay cut in exchange for more days working from home.
OUR VIEWS THIS WEEK
The future of digital culture: Writing in The National in 2020, Xische’s director of strategy, Mary Ames, addressed the question of digital culture. We’ve all experienced the power of technology, from Zoom calls to the ability to stream millions of hours of content during the crisis. We’ve also read about the myriad privacy issues surrounding platforms like Zoom. The challenge is striking the right balance between innovative technology and data privacy, and the perfect time is now.
WFH forever? During the Covid pandemic, the technology world warmly embraced remote work. From Google to Facebook, the major tech giants were encouraging their staff to stay home permanently. What if countries adopted a similar mindset? In this piece from the Xische archive, we considered how Gulf nations can borrow a page from Silicon Valley’s handbook and shift to more remote work. Thinking outside the box in these subtle ways is key to finding opportunities in the future marketplace.
SPOTTED ELSEWHERE
Let the art burn? We pay close attention to the NFT market and so the current trend of artists burning their physical works in favor of NFTs is quite striking. British artist Damien Hirst, NPR reports, is among the many art-world giants who have set fire to their work, having burned 1,000 of his artworks in recent weeks. The stunt is part of his project "The Currency", which consists of a collection of 10,000 NFTs. Each non-fungible token corresponds to a physical painting featuring his signature multicolored dots, made from enamel paint on handmade paper.
Global energy. Energy prices are spiking in the West leading to economic contraction and other maladies. This primer posted on Medium is an excellent synobis of what exactly is happening in global energy markets. Obviously, it’s much more complicated than it appears on the surface. This story isn’t going anywhere soon, so best to understand its foundations now.