OpenRoadOpenRoles - Reflections on the Road Behind and the Road Ahead

[Andy Gladstone]

Recently I was reflecting back on Hurricane Sandy which made landfall in New York City almost ten years ago. So many thoughts crossed my mind. 

• How much the world has changed in the past ten years.
• How companies and individuals are more prepared today for remote work today than they were then.
• How distributed workforces have fueled an economy that can no longer only be affected by local events, and can weather events on a global scale.

I reminisced on some of the lessons learned during that time on LinkedIn. Those are only the tip of the iceberg considering the hand that a global pandemic dealt us and the lessons we have learned from living through the unimaginable. Those have been well documented here on the Community, and even today almost every conference I attend has sessions focused on how #WorkLife has changed since February 2020.

That is the road behind, but what does the road ahead look like? Are we at the apex of #OpenRoadOpenRoles already?

I don't believe so. 

So what lessons are we yet to learn, and what improvements should we still be making?

Here are a few thoughts of my own.

1. #OpenRoadOpenRoles and the concept of #TeamAnywhere won't be a true reality until we figure out as a society how to make affordable internet and computing available to everyone, everywhere. Only 63.5% of the populated world has internet access as of October 2022. YoY growth of internet access is at 3.5%, outpacing the population expansion rate of 0.3%. There are companies focusing on providing access across the globe, but governments need to recognize that internet access is no longer a luxury, but a necessity, to push the costs down and access levels up.
2. Training opportunities are still limited. The education landscape in the United States has shifted with more high school graduates opting not to attend high priced universities and instead enroll in specialized programs that concentrate on a specific skill or industry. Coding, Product Management, R&D are all roles that can be done without the confines of an office or team within immediate reach. What roles will be in most demand, and what can the global community do to prepare current and future members of the workforce for them? And most importantly, how can this be affordable and available to all?
3. DEI. A hot topic for sure. How can DEI programs be better tailored towards including underrepresented groups in the workforce? Are HR managers focusing on the fact that their talent pool has expanded from candidates with local proximity to a global recruitment effort? There are some interesting notes that can be taken on this subject from the 2022 Atlassian Sustainability Report. As an organization who's growth is representative of other trends in the global economy, what lessons can we learn?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Road Ahead. Please post them in the comments below.

[Patty Land]

The age of the internet, which ushered in a more "connected" world, and later the age of social media, which took that connectedness to another level, have both come with consequences to our emotional needs for togetherness. During the Covid era and in the time since, it has become ever more apparent that digital connectedness can't yet fulfill the need for authentic togetherness.

We now work from home, but live online. 

I believe that we still have a ways to go with learning how to cultivate our best selves in a digital world, and in order for software to become more human, we must remember what it is we need to be human ourselves.

[Summer Hogan]

Hi @Andy Gladstone I think the road ahead has more flexible working alternatives than one may think. My company is 88% WFH now and it really works for us! In the 2 years since we have been offered full time WFH, we have made great strides in determining "how to work" and also in developing new products and meeting our corporate goals. It has definitely proven to be working. Now, to help with this my company pays each full time WFH employee a monthly stipend for internet and workplace equipment. I do agree with you though that affordable internet and computing must be available to everyone everywhere, but that seems like a lofty goal! 

On one of your other topics about DEI, I believe that our HR managers and recruiters have changed their mindset and approach and are now focusing on expanding from where we have physical offices to where the talent is! We used to only have employees in 7 US states and now we have employees in over 24 US states, India, Brazil, Canada, etc. We have absolutely become a global workforce and all this happened in only 2 years! I also believe I work for one of the most inclusive companies in the US. We have numerous ERG's focused on DEI and I am part of one of them. ERG's I feel are important to have in an organization, especially if those groups have the authority to make changes that better the organization. 

Thanks for sharing this and starting this important conversation!