This post is by Joshua Plenert, PE, MS, MBA

The full potential of an intelligent workforce is being limited by outdated management systems.

The industrial age brought growth like never before.  It allowed production to be scaled larger.  The manager held all the knowledge, and the workers were given a simple task to perform repeatedly, day after day.  The developed management style was focused entirely on control, and employees were nothing more than expendable cogs in the machine.

Throughout the 1900s, organizations continued to grow, and managers focused more and more on standardizing processes, optimizing outputs, and preventing variation.  Workers were task-oriented, and the relationship between managers and workers was utterly transactional.  But workers were gaining more knowledge and experience in their fields.

The Modern Worker

Modern organizations are still heavily influenced by the long and oppressive shadow the industrial age management style casts.  But the manager-worker relationship is quickly changing.  Workers today are highly educated, experienced experts in their industries.  In most organizations, the expertise of the workers far exceeds that of the manager.  This evolution has moved the manager’s role into a servant leadership role rather than the controlling authoritarian role of the past.  Managers are coaches, mentors, administrators, and facilitators, but the workers are now the experts.

The transactional relationship of the past has changed into a transformational relationship.  Workers expect more than just a paycheck.  They hope to be part of an innovative organization with a genuine purpose.  They expect to be valued members of a healthy community.  They want to be free to be great at what they do without the belittling micromanagement systems of the past.  

This shift is an exciting time for modern organizations.  Workers are intelligent, driven professionals. They take ownership of their work and their careers.  The challenge now is to re-learn what it means to be a manager.  It’s no longer about controlling the individual tasks of the workers and more about providing strategic direction and organizational systems that will support them in their work.

The Modern Workplace

As the way we do work has changed, so has technology.  Most of the actual work done in organizations today is executed in virtual environments rather than physical ones.  Electronic communication allows workers worldwide to cooperate and coordinate their efforts.  The vast majority of the productive work we do is completed on computers tied to worldwide networks, and our physical location has become entirely irrelevant to our ability to be exceptional in our fields.  

Even though technology has created a new virtual working environment, many organizations still hold tight to the physical office.  But the COVID pandemic has disrupted the flow managers had become so used to.  As we’ve learned to maintain high productivity levels while quarantined in our homes, we realized that our dependence on the physical office was a complete misconception.  We’ve entered a new realization that organizations and managers are now frantically trying to cope with.

The reality is that remote work is here to stay.  Intelligent professionals will never be happy encaged in a cubicle doing work they know very well they could be doing from their home office.  They will never be satisfied working for an organization still operating under the micromanaged environment of the physical workplace.  In fact, in recent surveys published by Owl Labs, 1 in 3 employees say they would quit their jobs if they weren’t allowed to continue working remotely.  More than half would expect a pay raise, and nearly half would be less willing to go the extra mile if required to return to the office.  

How Organizations Need to Pivot

It’s time for organizations to stop viewing remote work as a difficult challenge and start viewing it for what it really is, an exciting opportunity.  It’s an opportunity to move your organization into a healthier and more rewarding work environment.  It’s an opportunity to reduce to cost of doing business and enhance the value of a happy, productive workforce.  It’s an opportunity to realize the full potential of modern technology and a global talent pool. 

The competitive advantages of high-performance organizations of the future depend heavily on fully engaging a remote workforce.  The organizations that take too long to figure out how to operate effectively and efficiently with remote teams will undoubtedly be left behind.  But those that embrace this new way of getting work done will have opportunities to enhance their value and expand their operations in ways the world is just now beginning to imagine.

About the Author

Joshua Plenert is highly passionate about the continuous improvement of organizations in the AEC industry.  With more than two decades in the AEC industry, he has held multiple technical and leadership roles in addition to providing consulting services.  He holds a Master’s Degree in Structural Engineering and an MBA.  He has taught engineering, business management, and construction management courses at two different universities, and he is the author of Strategic Excellence in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Industries.