What Is The Great Domestication Doing To The Workforce?

• Research emphasizes that employee choice over work location significantly boosts productivity and commitment, debunking traditional RTO mandates.
• Alvin Toffler’s 1970 predictions in “Future Shock” about the internet, telecommuting, and more horizontal organizations have largely come true, reshaping how we work.
• We are in a monumental transition akin to the Industrial Revolution, marked by increased remote work and changes in urban planning.

As Gleb Tsipursky persuasively argues in his recent article, the supposed reasons behind RTO mandates continue to fall apart under close scrutiny. Management pleas for greater productivity and employee commitment fall on deaf ears, as research by Nick Bloom and his team clearly indicates. 

According to Bloom, we have passed “peak office,” a world where Boomer and Gen X managers are simply operating with one hand in the dyke and the other up in the air trying to determine which way the wind will blow.  

The data makes it overwhelmingly clear why: people want choice over when and where they work, and no amount of cajoling or office amenities are likely to make much of a difference. 

We have known for years that happy employees are significantly more productive than their unhappy counterparts. 

Happy employees are significantly more productive than their unhappy counterparts. 

As simple as it may seem, enabling employee happiness may well prove to be the missing link in the search for higher levels of productivity. In fact, domestication of work might be the most powerful workforce change in decades.

Future Shock Is Now

Futurists are often derided as wide-eyed idealists and prognosticators who need to get a “real job.” Today there are even programs where you get certified to see into the future. While that promise might be a bit sketchy, some people do have an uncanny way of understanding the future. 

Fifty four years ago, in his seminal book Future Shock, Alvin Toffler predicted several things that have, alas, come to pass. A 2016 Inc. magazine article celebrates Toffler’s prescience, and is worth a quick read.

Key among Toffler’s predictions are:

1.The Internet

Though he was a bit vague, he suggested that eventually information would flow in between personal commuters, connecting people in new ways. That, of course, happened.

2.Digital Cottages

Toffler extended his observation about the internet to suggest that telecommuting would become a norm, elevating the importance of home offices. 

3.Adhocracies

He also predicted that organizations would become more horizontal and much more flexible than ever before. This one hasn’t penetrated as much as the internet and home offices, but in many technology companies this has clearly been the case.

The Fourth Turning, Launching The Digital Cottage

Post-pandemic, we are simply on the other side of what demographer Neil Howe calls the fourth turning. According to Howe, history unfolds in a series of patterns marked by generations, repeating in sequences of four. 

In his latest book — The Fourth Turning is Here — Howe suggests that the massive political, technological, and ecological upheavals we currently face mark a major turning point for communities globally.

Key among these, as Tsipursky so eloquently articulates, is that the “office party” is nearing its end. 

Corporate real estate firms, and the banks holding debt on office products, keep players in the game hoping to “ride out” the hybrid era. But that is a fool’s errand.

The full-on advent of the digital cottage is here. Home prices across the country reflect this. As another symbol of this, there is a proposed new skyscraper in Oklahoma City that promises to be the tallest building in North America — with no plans to have any office space. It will be mostly residential, with hotels, shopping, fitness and lifestyle options, and restaurants. 

The city is even rebranding its central business district (CBD) as a central living district (CLD), which underscores where we are headed.

The Great Domestication

The fact: People are simply using the technologies and opportunities (suggested by Toffler) to reshape how they build careers and lives, and they like it. What was called The Great Resignation during the early phases of the pandemic was, it turns out, a Great Domestication. 

What was called The Great Resignation during the early phases of the pandemic was, it turns out, a Great Domestication. 

This is a once in a century epochal shift, akin to the Industrial Revolution. 

As is the case with all episodes of monumental change, there are winners and losers. For those in the real estate industry, and their manager-allies who want to look back, the prognosis is not very optimistic. 

For the rest of us, who are now spending more time with our families than at any point in our careers, we are looking forward.