The Need to Redesign Working Life with Current Developments

Bora ERESICI
7 min readMar 14, 2023

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Working Life has been forced to transform and redesign rapidly with current developments. First, the necessity of implementing remote working very quickly and compulsorily with the Pandemic, then the economic difficulties on a global scale and the Earthquake disaster in our country showed us all that related issues such as the transformation of organizations and the review of personnel profiles should be evaluated more heavily.

Although the differentiation of our working life is not a new process, the need for organizational transformation has been in the process of change globally for a long time. Still, it has come to the agenda in our country mainly with the Pandemic.

As we will discuss in a moment, it is important to elaborate and evaluate the issue under different headings in order to get a clearer picture.

The ossified basic assumption in business life has not changed much since the time of H. ford with the belt system that came out of production, the standard of T-Model production has evolved, but has not changed.

At this very point, the need for reformatting; as a result of the speed of development of technology, urbanization and growth, the increase in jobs that require standardization and automation, and the formation of demographic & social changes with different factors, the duration of working life has lengthened, and the life in front of the eyes has become controversial with the diversification of jobs and positions.

As such, it has become imperative, if not preferred, for companies to move out of their comfort zone in order to rapidly gain competence, protect what has been gained and discuss change.

The biggest reason that gave birth to the harmony I mentioned was that the pandemic showed us that “the sense of survival and freedom” was felt again and this whole discussion was triggered.

And the pandemic has forced companies to raise their perspective on change and the bar of change they accept.

Let’s take a closer look at the relevant headings and their impacts. (It should be noted that even if we reduce the impacts to headings, all headings are very closely related and intertwined in terms of functionality).

Carbon Footprint — Transportation challenges and time planning

As it is known, Carbon footprint is used to describe the amount of Carbon that each person causes to be emitted into the atmosphere as a result of transportation, heating, energy consumption or any kind of product purchased.

Depending on the city and location, research shows that the average commute time between home and office each day is 3h.

The point of view here should be to increase the life expectancy of the Earth by reducing the carbon footprint according to the modes of transportation, as well as the macro need to increase the life expectancy of the Earth by reducing the carbon footprint, to ensure that the psychological and physical fatigue of the time spent on the employee is turned into a positive effect on productivity and to increase the effectiveness of the result by directing the time that should be planned to personal development.

Online training programs, which have evolved with the equality of opportunity and diversity created by technology, have been shown to increase the development curve of individuals by close to 60%. (2021–2022)

It was observed that teleworking resulted in an increase of 1–2h/24h in working hours compared to normal working.

In its simplest form, using the time spent in transportation together with the motivational leverage that will result from training and the acquisition of new competencies can be used to make a major contribution to increasing productivity.

Corporate Purpose Change

At this point, Globalization is becoming the most important factor. Access to every point of the world provides a diversity of opportunities.

An increase in job opportunities means an increase in the number of employees, and an increase in employee diversity means a change in employee quality and employee expectations.

From the company’s perspective, involvement in different projects globally leads to income diversification, while different perspectives such as diversity and the number of employees, productivity and quality lead to increased needs.

From an employee perspective, the need for increased demand power with a diversity of opportunities, access from different locations, time and planning flexibility, as well as the need to increase accumulation and productivity are predominant.

In addition to all these needs, the urge to feel free brought by the pandemic outweighs all other reasons, especially for employees with a certain seniority.

“Updating Working Methods” becomes a necessity for all the reasons mentioned to meet the win-win formula when mutually evaluated.

Updating Working Methods

The need to feel free on the employee side has increased and with the diversity of opportunities, the concept of Digital Nomad (DigiNomad) has become more recognized and realized.

Employee behaviour has shown the need to reduce bureaucracy in working life with the “need for Agile and Flexible working” brought about by Globalization and pointed out that there may be a need for simplification in existing organizations.

For the phase of updating working methods, it is important to first define the job description correctly and to recognize the employees correctly (persona).

One of the most critical points that companies miss is that even though the position is one, there are many different types of employees and the needs differ according to these types. Especially when it comes to expanding the position, companies mainly look at the need from a financial point of view, especially at this point in time, generational differences come into play and it is seen that there are other points to be considered in the position-personnel relationship.

Staff and Institutional Influence and Relationship

Employee candidates and employees adopt a freer and simpler, clearer way of working with the last generation. It is undeniable that the Generational Effect (Generational Differences) of companies has a great impact on the way of working and positioning.

Employee persona has become much more important for organizations. There are extreme differences between a newly graduated candidate and a senior candidate. The effects of job descriptions and conditions on employees, which can be exemplified as follows, should be analyzed and expectations clarified.

For example; while the expectation of a senior employee is to work from home by planning with his/her family and not to spend valuable time on the road, to provide management with easy access to the experience network, the close contact process of a new graduate employee for a new network acquisition is more predominant. Even at this point, though, with the Digital Nomad concept, new-generation employees can work from any campus, minimizing health risks and expecting to work. Even this example shows that even the expectations of junior employees should be separated within themselves.

⦁ Individual Impact (Psychological and Physical)

⦁ Health problems

⦁ Energy Conservation

⦁ Focus

⦁ Coordination and Trust

⦁ Time Planning

⦁ Time spent with family

With the pandemic that triggered the issue, there were many points that had to be implemented very quickly for companies.

In order to meet expectations, it is obvious that the approach on the technology side (Technology and Infrastructure Impact) needs to be revised to focus on issues that also touch on internal value exchange, such as providing remote working infrastructure, sharing the information transferred in close contact with employees (Knowledgebase), and measurement (Expectations, Motivation and Performance).

It should not be forgotten here that value change is not a one-sided phenomenon, so the experience of creating personas, redefining positions and processes, and implementing and maintaining them together with the internal customer will reduce the error rate, accelerate acceptance and increase gains.

For the topic of redesigning the process, which I have tried to mention briefly, other sub-headings such as Other Impact Areas and Change in Consumption Habits, Company Positioning and Financial Reflection of the Change should be increased to provide a clearer picture.

In any case, the process we are going through has been a “call to action” and the necessity to take action has been confirmed. For this reason, there are many studies, researches and consultancies that show that companies will benefit from reviewing the organizational structure and shaping the working methodology according to themselves, as an example of the gains in companies that change the way they work.

The future is shaping very fast, and employees and companies that keep up with the speed are gaining in direct proportion.

I hope it has been a helpful article with a different perspective.

Sources

· “Redesigning Work: How to Transform Your Organisation and Make Hybrid Work for Everyone” Lynda GRATTON

· “Business Model Generation” Alexander Osterwalder

· “Thinking Fast and Slow” Daniel KAHNEMAN

· “Impact of Remote Working on Human Resource Management: The Role of IT in the COVID-19 ERA” M. Rahman, S. Rahman (Asian Journal of Economics, Business and Accounting)

· “New Normal” at work in a post-COVID world: work-life balance and labour markets” L. Vyas (Policy and Society)

· “Covid-19 shelter-at-home and work, lifestyle and well-being in desk workers” B. Barone Gibbs, C. Kline, K. Huber, J. Paley, S. Perera (Occupational Medicine (Oxford, England))

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Bora ERESICI
Bora ERESICI

Written by Bora ERESICI

Co-Founder BASEQ AI | IT Professional | Consultant | Entrepreneur

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