How the Future Works

May 9, 2022
Elliott, Subramanian, and Kupp, founders of a Slack consortium “focused on redesigning work for all groups of people,” deliver a helpful guide to moving workplaces into a more flexible model. The nine-to-five never worked, the authors suggest, and there’s no going back to it after the “grand experiment” of remote work brought on by the pandemic. While flexible work arrangements haven’t been universally successful—caregiving responsibilities “often made work harder” and “disproportionally affected women, especially women of color”—overall, remote work has resulted in increased productivity. Using case studies on such companies as Apple and Dropbox, the authors set forth seven steps for leaders to bring workplaces up to speed, among them explicating a company’s reasons for flexibility, ditching the idea of managers as “task-masters,” adopting a culture of experimentation, and reimagining the concept of a headquarters. The authors also urge leaders to get rid of unnecessary meetings by sending general status updates via messages, and to promote asynchronous work with nonrigid hours. The wealth of concrete steps and research to back them up, plus some punchy writing, make this shine. In a sea of surveys on the future of work, this practical guide stands out. Agent: Katherine Flynn, Kneerim & Williams.