Over the past 10 years, I have been fortunate enough to live and work in different countries. What is surprising is that despite very different cultures, the labour standards are really similar and... never adapted.
Do you ever feel like you are in a hut that was not intended for you? You are not alone.
Existing working models are no longer adequate
Why, in large tropical cities such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta or Bangkok, where it is more than 30 degrees all year round, does the clerk wear a tie suit?
It takes courage to admit it: The models our parents have passed on to us no longer work. The industrial revolution changed and regulated work. We have seen the emergence of office hours, regulations on the maximum number of hours worked, and so on. These standards emerged in the 19th century and never changed.
Generation Y is completely out of step with labour standards. Let us be honest: they are brilliant and ask very legitimate questions:
Why does the day start at 9:00 and end at 6:00?
The answer is simple: In an industrial chain, if the person in front of you is not on time, you won't be able to do your share of the work... Yes, but... Is it always appropriate in a service company?
I'm early in the morning. I love to get up in the morning around 6:30 a. m., and work with my coffee. I will then work very efficiently until 11am. In the early afternoon however I like to take a nap, and without this nap my afternoon is very unproductive.
On the other hand, I had the opportunity to work with freelance developers who will find their ideas and be effective after 11:30 pm. They will work all night, sleep in the morning to get up only around 12:30.
Every city in the world has the same problem: the whole population goes to the city centre in the morning and leaves for the suburbs in the evening, creating traffic jams. How many hours of efficient work are lost on the road? Some trades such as sales require travel, but for many it's just a waste of time and energy.
Why do I have to come work in an office?
Over the last few years there has been an explosion of open spaces. It is an extraordinary environment for collaborative work. But collaboration is necessary for the creative part of the work only. The rest of the time an open office is a hindrance to concentration. The solution found by many is the headphones, which you stick to your ears with or without music to make people understand that you need concentration.
The world of work is undergoing a revolution
It is no longer time to try to understand Generation Y. They are already the current workforce. They are the leaders for the next 10 years. They ARE the revolution. An invisible revolution because they didn't take the cobblestones or the beach. They use the weapons they are familiar with: Computers, laptops, social media, content.
We can see that banks and other traditionalist institutions are slowly beginning to offer packages copied from the startup models.
The fastest adapting companies are also the most successful.
Slowly, the world awakens and understands that there are other ways of working.
The revolution is underway.
That was very interesting!
I believe there is a refutation for the oft-heard phrase that people don’t want to work, and that is the success of video games. Video games require people to engage in what can be pretty repetitive labour (repeatedly pressing buttons). Despite this fact, video games are enormously popular. People are not just working for free when they play video games, they often pay to be able to engage in this kind of work.
I believe this happens because we pay businesses to do video game work, and so those businesses are motivated to make that work as creative, social, rewarding and fun as possible. In contrast, in the world of employment the business pays you to work. You are considered a cost and there is often a motivation to reduce the qualities of work that make it rewarding, so that savings can be passed onto the owners and consumers.