The Great Resignation wasn’t created by the pandemic so much as supersized by it. The unwillingness of workers to rush back into cubicles, behind counters, onto assembly lines, and behind the wheel is a direct result of work cultures that too often default to suspicion, inflexible schedules, and unrealistic workloads. The virtual and flexible work arrangements necessitated by the pandemic were revelatory for many people, but didn’t free them from the 24/7 onslaught of tasks, back-to-back meetings, and emails created by always-on cultures and technologies. But the next wave of digital tech — what we call “smart tech” — has the potential and power to be different and to reverse these trends. Instead of dehumanizing us, smart tech can actually help rehumanize work.
Using Technology to Make Work More Human
The next wave of digital tech, or “smart tech,” has the potential and power to help us rehumanize work. Rather than doing the same work faster and with fewer people, smart tech creates an opportunity to redesign jobs and reengineer workflows to enable people to focus on the parts of work that humans are particularly well-suited for, such as relationship building, intuitive decision making, empathy, and problem solving. But it will require organizational leaders to make informed, careful, strategic decisions to ensure the technology is used to enhance our humanity and enable people to do the kinds of relational, empathetic, problem-solving activities we do best. This article offers some initial steps to get started introducing smart tech within your own organization.