Future Of Work

A Return To Office mandate is a funny thing. A trade-off of lower workforce productivity, morale, retention, engagement, and trust in exchange for...managers feeling more in control. It's more a sign of insecurity and incompetence than sound decision-making. The fact that 80% of executives who have pushed for RTO mandates have later regretted their decision only makes the point further, and yet every few months more leaders line up to pad this statistic. In case your leaders have forgotten, return to office mandates are associated with: 🔻 16% lower intent to stay among the highest-performing employees (Gartner) 🔻 10% less trust, psychological safety, and relationship quality between workers and their managers (Great Place to Work) 🔻 22% of employees from marginalized groups becoming more likely to search for new jobs (Greenhouse) 🔻 No significant change in financial performance while guaranteeing damage to employee satisfaction (Ding and Ma, 2024) The thing is, we KNOW how to do hybrid work well at this point. 🎯 Allow teams to decide on in-person expectations, and hold people accountable to it—high flexibility; high accountability. 🎯 Make in-person time unique and valuable, with brainstorming, events, and culture-building activities—not video calls all day in the office. 🎯 Value outcomes, not appearances, of productivity—reward those who get their work done regardless of where they do it. 🎯 Train inclusive managers, not micromanagers—build in them the skills and confidence to lead with trust rather than fear and insecurity. Leaders that fly in the face of all this data to insist that workers return to office "OR ELSE" communicate one thing: they are the kinds of leaders that place their own egos and comfort above their shareholders and employees alike. Faced with the very real test of how to design the hybrid workforce of the future, these leaders chose to throw a tantrum in their bid to return to the past, and their organizations will suffer for it. The leaders that will thrive in this time? Those that are willing to do the work. Those that are willing to listen to their workforce, skill up to meet new needs, and claim their rewards in the form of the best talent, higher productivity, and the highest level of worker loyalty and trust. Will that be you?

Louder for the people at the back 🎤 Many organisations today seem to have shifted from being institutions that develop great talent to those that primarily seek ready-made talent. This trend overlooks the immense value of individuals who, despite lacking experience, possess a great attitude, commitment, and a team-oriented mindset. These qualities often outweigh the drawbacks of hiring experienced individuals with a fixed and toxic mindset. The best organisations attract talent with their best years ahead of them, focusing on potential rather than past achievements. Let’s be clear this is more about mindset and willingness to learn and unlearn as apposed to age. To realise the incredible potential return, organisations must commit to creating an environment where continuous development is possible. This requires a multi-faceted approach: 1. Robust Training Programmes: Employers should invest in comprehensive training programmes that equip employees with the necessary skills for their roles. This includes on-the-job training, mentorship programmes, online courses, and workshops. 2. Redefining Hiring Criteria: Organisations should revise their hiring criteria to focus more on candidates’ potential and willingness to learn rather than solely on prior experience or formal qualifications. Behavioural interviews, aptitude tests, and probationary periods can help assess a candidate's ability to learn and adapt. 3. Partnerships with Educational Institutions: Companies can collaborate with educational institutions to design curricula that align with industry needs. Apprenticeship programmes, internships, and cooperative education can bridge the gap between academic learning and practical job skills. 4. Lifelong Learning Culture: Encouraging a culture of lifelong learning within organisations is crucial. Employers should provide ongoing education opportunities and support for professional development. This includes continuous skills assessment and access to resources for upskilling and reskilling. 5. Inclusive Recruitment Practices: Employers should implement inclusive recruitment practices that remove biases and barriers. Blind recruitment, diversity quotas, and targeted outreach programmes can help ensure that diverse candidates are given a fair chance. By implementing these measures, organisations can develop a workforce that is adaptable, innovative, and resilient, ensuring sustainable success and growth.

Just out in Harvard Business Review, summary of the Hybrid Experiment results and lessons on how to make hybrid succeed. Experiment: randomize 1600 graduate employees in marketing, finance, accounting and engineering at Trip.com into 5-days a week in office, or 3-days a week in office and 2-days a week WFH. Analyzed 2 years of data. Two key results A) Hybrid and fully-in-office showed no differences in productivity, performance review grade, promotion, learning or innovation. B) Hybrid had a higher satisfaction rate, and 35% lower attrition. Quit-rate reductions were largest for female employees. Four managerial lessons 1) Hybrid needs a strong performance management system so managers don’t need to hover over employees at their desks to check their progress. Trip.com had an extensive performance review process every six months. 2) Coordinate in-office days at the team or company level. Schedule clarity prevents the frustration of coming to an empty office only to participate in Zoom calls. Trip.com coordinated WFH on Wednesday and Friday. 3) Having leadership buy-in is critical (as with most management practices). Trip.com’s CEO and C-suite all support the hybrid policy. 4) A/B test new policies (as well as products) if possible. Often new policies turn out to be unexpectedly profitable. Trip.com made millions of dollars more profits from hybrid by cutting expensive turnover.

Early in my facilitation career, I made a big mistake. Spent hours crafting engaging activities and perfecting every little detail… Thinking that amazing learning design is what would make my workshops stand out and get me rehired. Some went great. Some bombed. You know the ones, sessions where: - One participant dominated the conversation. - People quietly disengaged, barely participating. - half the group visibly frustrated but not saying anything. I would push through, hoping things would course-correct. But by the end, it was a bit… meh. I knew my learning design was great so... What was I missing? Why the inconsistency between sessions? 💡I relied too much on implicit agreements. I realised that I either skipped or rushed the 'working agreements'. Treating it like a 'tick' box exercise. And it's here I needed to invest more time Other names for this: Contract, Culture or Design Alliance, etc... Now, I never start a session without setting a working agreement. And the longer I'm with the group, the longer I spend on it. 25 years of doing this. Here are my go-to Qs: 🔹 What would make this session a valuable use of your time? → This sets the north star. It ensures participants express their needs, not just my agenda. 🔹 What atmosphere do we want to create? → This sets the mood. Do they want an energising space? A reflective one? Let them decide. 🔹 What behaviours will support this? → This makes things concrete. It turns abstract hopes into tangible agreements. 🔹 How do we want to handle disagreement? → This makes it practical. Conflict isn’t the problem—how we navigate it is. ... The result? - More engaged participants. - Smoother facilitation. - Ultimately, a reputation as the go-to person for high-impact sessions. You probably already know this. But if things don't go smoothly in your session. Might be worth investing a bit more time at the start to prevent problems later on. Great facilitation doesn't just happen, It's intentional, and it's designed. ~~ ♻️ Share if this is a useful reminder ✍️ Have you ever used a working agreement in your workshops? What’s one question you always ask? Drop it in the comments!

Last week, I described four design patterns for AI agentic workflows that I believe will drive significant progress: Reflection, Tool use, Planning and Multi-agent collaboration. Instead of having an LLM generate its final output directly, an agentic workflow prompts the LLM multiple times, giving it opportunities to build step by step to higher-quality output. Here, I'd like to discuss Reflection. It's relatively quick to implement, and I've seen it lead to surprising performance gains. You may have had the experience of prompting ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini, receiving unsatisfactory output, delivering critical feedback to help the LLM improve its response, and then getting a better response. What if you automate the step of delivering critical feedback, so the model automatically criticizes its own output and improves its response? This is the crux of Reflection. Take the task of asking an LLM to write code. We can prompt it to generate the desired code directly to carry out some task X. Then, we can prompt it to reflect on its own output, perhaps as follows: Here’s code intended for task X: [previously generated code] Check the code carefully for correctness, style, and efficiency, and give constructive criticism for how to improve it. Sometimes this causes the LLM to spot problems and come up with constructive suggestions. Next, we can prompt the LLM with context including (i) the previously generated code and (ii) the constructive feedback, and ask it to use the feedback to rewrite the code. This can lead to a better response. Repeating the criticism/rewrite process might yield further improvements. This self-reflection process allows the LLM to spot gaps and improve its output on a variety of tasks including producing code, writing text, and answering questions. And we can go beyond self-reflection by giving the LLM tools that help evaluate its output; for example, running its code through a few unit tests to check whether it generates correct results on test cases or searching the web to double-check text output. Then it can reflect on any errors it found and come up with ideas for improvement. Further, we can implement Reflection using a multi-agent framework. I've found it convenient to create two agents, one prompted to generate good outputs and the other prompted to give constructive criticism of the first agent's output. The resulting discussion between the two agents leads to improved responses. Reflection is a relatively basic type of agentic workflow, but I've been delighted by how much it improved my applications’ results. If you’re interested in learning more about reflection, I recommend: - Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedback, by Madaan et al. (2023) - Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learning, by Shinn et al. (2023) - CRITIC: Large Language Models Can Self-Correct with Tool-Interactive Critiquing, by Gou et al. (2024) [Original text: https://lnkd.in/g4bTuWtU ]

Atlassian has been fully distributed for almost five years. We don’t have all the answers, but we’ve learned a lot about how to keep teams thriving across time zones—and we’re applying those insights every day.  ➡️ Asynchronous work: Async tools are at the core of how we operate. Confluence is our virtual hub where we share stories, celebrate new hires, and collaborate effortlessly. We also use Loom to share videos and give feedback on our own time—avoiding those dreaded “this could have been an email” moments. In fact, we’ve saved nearly half a million meetings using Loom! ➡️ Designing workdays: We’ve learned to structure workdays for focus, collaboration, and meetings (only when absolutely necessary). Teams work across no more than two time zones, ensuring at least four hours of overlap to get things done together. ➡️ Intentional connection: Data shows that real connection happens when teams meet regularly—not sporadically in an office. We provide Intentional Togetherness Gatherings (ITGs), curated experiences, and focused in-person time to collaborate. ➡️ Adapting for different needs: It’s not one-size-fits-all. For example, new hires and grads often benefit from more frequent in-person meetups, so we make sure to offer opportunities for them to connect early on. https://lnkd.in/g2sSbe3v

I’ve had 4 legal battles since starting my business. Could I have avoided them? Probably. But to be honest, I didn't have the funds to pay a proper lawyer, or the network of founders to ask the right questions to. I don't want that to happen to you. Here are 5 clauses I put in my contracts that might help you protect your work, your business and most importantly.. your sanity ↓ #1 Non-cancellable, non-refundable contracts. This shouldn’t even be an issue if you qualify your clients properly. BUT if someone signs, onboards, and then ghosts? We still get paid. And so should you 🤗 #2 Immediate or short payment terms Most businesses accept 30-to 90-day payment terms. I don’t. You wouldn’t work for 3 months without pay—so why should your business? Cash flow is your business’s lifeline. Protect it. #3 While we’re on payment terms… Your contract should include: → Interest on late invoices. → A clause that stops work if invoices aren’t cleared. → A guarantee that if a client delays the project, you still get paid. Your time isn’t free! #4 Your IP stays YOURS. Anything we bring into the agreement at Klowt stays ours. Anything we create for you is yours. Simple. I once ran a training session, and the client recorded it—then tried to sell it behind a paywall. Now, our contract states a £10,000 fine per breach. (And for that particular case, per breach = per view. 😅) #5 Don't work with d*ckheads. This isn't a legal clause, more legal... advice? 🤣 If someone is giving you red flags in any way at the beginning of your relationship, do not work with them. This could include but not limited to: - Focusing on immediate ROI. - Cost or discounts being a primary concern. - Pushing for work to kick off before contracts or payments. - Reaching out at inappropriate times - or in inappropriate ways. - Delaying initial payments. Legally binding contracts are a good insurance policy, but they're lengthy and expensive to implement if you actually have to go to court. So the best LEGAL advice I can give you as a 2x founder is, don't work with d*ckheads. And learn from my mistakes. It's a lot cheaper than learning from your own... trust me 😂. Was this helpful? 💜 I write a 2x weekly newsletter for founders and freelancers on topics like this. Join us here: https://lnkd.in/ejDbD94R

The most dangerous career strategy in 2025: Following a path that worked for everyone before you. Over the last few weeks, my inbox has been flooded with messages of strife and anxiety from brilliant people blindsided by layoffs. To be honest, there is very little I can say to many. Most played the game of life perfectly. They went to great schools, got good grades, landed prestigious jobs, and worked hard. Their stories raises a critical question: What if it's not just specific jobs disappearing, but a fundamental flaw in how we've viewed careers and success? The linear world we've grown accustomed to is abruptly being disrupted. The ladders that guaranteed safety and success no longer hold their promise. For decades, we've operated under the belief that: → Business success comes from perfect execution → Career paths follow logical progression → Expertise can reliably predict the future My friend Gaetan recently said: "What if success was always more random than we wanted to believe? What if strategic planning was always more about the illusion of control than actual causality?" Navigating uncertainty now requires us to: → Judge the quality of our decisions not just results → Embrace uncertainty over false certainty → Recognize success as probabilistic For individuals navigating this shift: → Build skill portfolios, not linear paths → Combine skills uniquely; avoid single specialties → Design for uncertainty, not control → Test multiple career options → Adapt quickly; don’t chase perfection → Diversify income streams Following these principles won't just help you withstand career shocks, it makes you antifragile, allowing you to grow stronger from volatility and stress. The human cost of layoffs extends beyond financial insecurity; it's the painful realization that playing by the rules perfectly was never a guaranteed protection. Yet within this destabilizing reality lies a massive opportunity: to redefine success itself. Success shouldn't be a singular path to follow, but the freedom to create multiple paths of your own design. The true cost of clinging to old models isn't just stalling your career; it's missing the chance to discover who you might become when you stop following and start creating.

The most important skills today and in the next years will be human capabilities: critical and analytic thinking, resilience, leadership and influence, overlaid with technological literacy and AI skills to amplify these human capacities. World Economic Forum's new Future of Jobs Report provides a deep and broad analysis of the drivers of labour market transformation, the outlook for jobs and skills, and workforce strategies across industries and nations. It's a really worthwhile deep dive if you're interested in the topic (link in comments). Here are some of the highlights from the Skills section, which to my mind is at the heart of it. 🧠 Analytical Thinking Leads Core Skills. Skills like analytical thinking (70%), resilience (66%), and creative thinking (64%) top the list of core abilities for 2025. By 2030, the emphasis shifts even more towards AI and big data proficiency (85%), technological literacy (76%), and curiosity-driven lifelong learning (79%). This shift underscores the critical role of technology and adaptability in future workplaces. 📉 Skill Stability Declines but at a Slower Rate. Employers predict that 39% of workers' core skills will change by 2030, slightly lower than 44% in 2023. This reflects a stabilization in the pace of skill disruption due to increased emphasis on upskilling and reskilling programs. Half of the workforce now engages in training as part of long-term learning strategies compared to 41% in 2023, showcasing the growing adaptation to technological changes . 🌍 Economic Disparities in Skill Disruption. Middle-income economies anticipate higher skill disruption compared to high-income ones. This disparity highlights the uneven challenges of transitioning labor forces across global regions, particularly in economies still grappling with structural changes. 🚀 Tech-Savvy Skills in High Demand. The adoption of frontier technologies, including generative AI and machine learning, is increasing the demand for skills like big data analysis, cybersecurity, and technological literacy. These trends indicate that businesses are aligning workforce strategies to integrate these advancements effectively. 📚 Upskilling Is the Norm, Not the Exception. By 2030, 73% of organizations aim to prioritize workforce upskilling as a response to ongoing disruptions. This reflects a shift in corporate investment priorities towards human capital enhancement to maintain competitiveness.

Frequent job switches can be great for short-term financial gains. I believed that early in my career. I switched roles frequently, chasing better compensation and new challenges. And honestly, it worked - for a while. But over time, I realized something: quick jumps don't always compound well. If your profile shows a pattern of constant movement, it can become a red flag - especially for roles that demand deep ownership or long-term bets. These days, I'm optimizing for career longevity. When you're at your peak earning potential, just a couple of extra years at that level can easily surpass the small hikes you'd gain from frequent moves. Staying relevant in the industry, growing within a role, and building leverage is something that can give me bigger opportunities, and more importantly long-term wealth - not just better paychecks. That said, this doesn't mean settling for something less. If a role stagnates or a company stops evolving, move on. Just don't let short-term gains distract you from long-term relevance. Think in decades, not quarters.