As we are starting 2020, which also marks the beginning of a new decade, we wanted in this first post of the year to reflect on our relationship with work, even the relationship to our lifestyles, which is currently changing.
It is very hard to argue currently that the period 2010-2020 has seen many societal transformations, as a result of the increasingly widespread use of new technologies.
In 2020, it is impossible:
To ignore the existence of certain problems on the planet such as climate change,…
To lead a country as before, judging by the new political relations that have emerged…
To think that the status-quo will continue
Especially the increase in trade, and the speed at which it takes place, have in turn generated a change in perception by the population in many areas such as food, consumption, tourism….
In this blog, we will focus on the relationship to work, and the desire for young (and not so young) generations to have 1 better balance between sight and work.
Indeed, the last decade has seen, as we have already said in previous posts, the massive development of new technologies, and the increasing use of solutions such as Video conferencing, shared documents…
Above all, these new technologies have completely torn down the barriers between private and professional life, leading to a complete questioning of the organization of work as our parents and grandparents practiced it.
For the record, it was usually based on 1 9am-5am organization, taking place in 1 office, or production unit…
Above all, there was, at the time, a real barrier between private and professional life, since very few people took work home. This organization was followed religiously by the employee until the retirement age, which was then the period during which one felt that life could be enjoyed after hard work.
With the development of smartphones and new technologies, and the disappearance of the privacy-public life barrier, it is now relatively normal for an employee to work outside of his office hours.
This has led to the questioning of the organisation of work in companies, but also and above all of the relationship to work.
This translate into the emergence of coworking spaces, the development of agile working methods, both in the organization of work (horizontal methods such as the Scrum method) and in the location (Flex-office), the possibility of living remotely from the workplace….
This phenomenon of questioning known models, is visible in the numerous surveys into the plebiscite of medium-sized cities, when people are asked about the cities where it is good to live.
A good example of this phenomenon is the Plebiscit of Annecy, a town in the French Alps, next to a Lake, with great connections. Annecy which came out best place to live in the survey published recently in the JDD, a French Sunday Newspaper.
This ranking reflects the desire by individuals to be able to combine the quality of personal life with a fulfilling professional career, resulting in the mixtures of different periods of life in contrast to the old vertical organization that determined each period (educational period, then professional, then leisure)
A phenomenon visible also in the U.K, where newspapers display, on regular basis, articles on the benefit of life outisde London. No doubt, this movement can certainly to be correlated with climate change, longer life expectancy……
In short, 2020 seems to open a period of change, which will not doubt that we will impact our relationship to work, hopefully in a positive way, through the return of the individual to the heart of the concerns, and on this note of hope, the whole agilea team sends you its best wishes for the year 2020.