Starting the Conversation About the Agile Workforce

We are now at a point in history where many tasks and repeatable processes can be done better by machines than humans. While this has been true in some industries for decades (think car manufacturing), it will soon be true across the board in every industry imaginable.

While many see this as a doomsday prophecy, I see it as an opportunity for humanity to transcend the grunt work and tasks that many have found themselves doing to make ends meet, and to instead gain an agency and freedom over how they earn their living.

Yet this more utopian vision is not without its challenges. As I pointed out several times in my last book in the Agile series, The Agile Consumer, there isn’t so much a gap as there is a huge chasm between those who are privileged enough to envision their place in a world where machines help humans with daily tasks, and those whose very livelihoods will get replaced by them. Despite this challenge, I believe there is a path forward for everyone, but it will take solving many challenges, and we must all be willing to do so.

Living in this agile world, one of the things that affects us most is our ability to make a living, and to provide for ourselves and our families. Work is how we in the white-collar, salaried-position world define this in the abstract, but that word simply doesn’t do the topic justice. For better or worse, and for too many, work isn’t something we can just leave behind at the end of our shift. We’ve woken up at 2 a.m. and checked our phones, only to see a work email that caused enough of a startle to get us out of bed. We’ve missed our friend’s important moments because things were “rough at the office.” We’ve put off making important personal decisions because “it’s just not a good time at work right now.”

In short, we’ve sacrificed much in order to get a raise, a promotion, or a bonus; to get ahead, or in far too many cases, to just stay employed in the first place.

In return, what have we traded for this? Stability of work every day of the week, assurance that our bills will be paid (in full or at least in part) steadily each month. The ability to take time off, or see a doctor or specialist, and potentially many other perks.

While this is true for many, how true is it for even the majority of knowledge workers or others with office jobs?  And this says nothing of those who don’t have the privilege of a salaried job that supports their lifestyle. Hourly workers, temporary workers, independent or self-employed workers, and others don’t have those luxuries to begin with.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen what a thin line there is between the ability for companies to support a steady payroll and furloughing or laying off mass amounts of employees. We saw this a decade earlier in 2009, and the same in 2001. Each time, we seem surprised as a collective, yet the numbers tell a different story. Those who work independently are part of a growing population set to reach 80% of the global workforce by 2030.

What is certain, is that the world continues to iterate and evolve, and its workforce is certainly no exception. Just as I’ve explored this evolution with the brand-consumer relationship in my books The Agile Brand and The Agile Consumer, this is the focus of my latest book, The Agile Workforce.

There are already many good books on the gig economy, and the shifting economy and workplace. So why did I decide to write a book in a crowded field?

I believe that our society lies at a pivotal point in its existence. We can maintain the status quo in the world of business and the global economy for only so much longer before automation, globalization, decentralization, and many other things will forever change the way that individuals find, perform, and complete work.

Now is the time to have a conversation about the kind of society we are becoming and the one we want to be. The workforce of the future will in many ways look different from the one of today, but my hope is that it will be one in which individuals can thrive while companies can remain successful and profitable.

Let’s continue this conversation together and make a better world of work for all.

You can learn more about my latest book, The Agile Workforce, here.