{"id":2368,"date":"2024-03-25T16:41:45","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog?p=2368"},"modified":"2024-03-25T16:41:45","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:41:45","slug":"the-future-of-work-also-relevant-for-the-legal-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog\/en\/the-future-of-work-also-relevant-for-the-legal-market","title":{"rendered":"The future of work \u2013 also relevant for the legal market?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aspects of future work<\/strong><\/p>\n

The future of work is, amongst other powerful drivers, particularly marked by an ongoing transformation of the world of work through automation and the integration of technological innovations (#digitalization, #AI), flexible working models (#workation, #remote work, #home office, #part-time work, #job sharing, #top sharing), lifelong learning (#executive education), and a changing workplace culture (#diversity, #inclusion, #collaboration, #gig economy).<\/p>\n

Considering human beings remains key<\/strong><\/p>\n

When we look at the work environment, we should keep in mind that there is a key element: the #human factor. And the fact that despite all mankind\u2019s technological achievements, we still react like #cavemen. This is also relevant for the legal sector. Lawyers often forget that providing correct legal advice is of course key \u2013 for them (#liability) \u2013 but that the consulting industry must still be seen as a people\u2019s business (#service). To establish and maintain a close relationship with colleagues and customers, we need to accept that it is not sufficient to meet each other in Teams or Zoom. This shows the sheer impossibility of the situation lawyers are stuck in, i.e. to simultaneously please all stakeholders. This mercilessly reveals the core problem: lawyers, customers, and CFOs in particular (#lease optimization, #cost reduction), all want to benefit from the new working conditions in their own working environment (#freedom). However, our human nature and needs are diametrically opposed to this (#proximity bias). How can we harmonize the two conflicting interests?<\/p>\n

Starting is more important than perfectionism<\/strong><\/p>\n

The key ingredients for future work are the same: amount of work, flexibility, and remote working. However, there is a huge grey area between working as a farmer, or as a blue-collar worker on the assembly line, or as a (knowledge) worker who is now being completely released from work due to being replaced by AI. This does not make it easy to find the right solution for a company. Of course, we can apply the well-known Swiss compromise: we permit employees to work remotely for two days if they want to and if their work allows for it.<\/p>\n

Why is it important? Employees want to be heard, and the recruitment market needs a signal that an employer is flexible and open to adapting to new possibilities, at least within limits. Such a compromise seems a good beginning to provide some security to the market and subsequently to apply a trial and learning approach. We need to accept that this is a journey we have just embarked on, and that this can no longer be argued away, even if some people would love to do so for good reasons. Therefore we had better embrace it somehow rather than fighting it (#war for talent, #motivation, #productivity).<\/p>\n

Recommendations for managers<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does change for managers? I think not much, except for the fact, of course, that they lose direct \u201caccess\u201d to their employees (#control), they should have more confidence in them (#trust), and they need to be successful in managing this process (#change). The well-known leadership rules and styles continue to apply in the future work situation, too. Employees still want to have a meaningful job, regardless of whether they work in the office or at home. And what now ensues in addition is the challenge that more employees want to work for a company and industry which is important for society and creates a positive #impact (#purpose).<\/p>\n

My recommendation is to #empower employees, to demand more #accountability from them and to expect them to claim #ownership for their areas of responsibility. Incidentally, this has an additional side-effect: it will also increase employees\u2019 satisfaction and the meaningfulness of their work. Furthermore, managers will need to become a bit more relaxed with regard to physical presence and place trust in the new skills we learnt during the pandemic. However, we also need to keep a critical eye on the next technological temptations; just because something is (technically) possible does not automatically mean that it is good and should be blindly implemented as a matter of principle.<\/p>\n

Outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n

What is left? We haven\u2019t yet addressed the question as to what work will look like in the future. Will work still play an important role in the future, be it as a provider of a \u201cmeaning to life\u201d or merely a means of \u201cfinancing our lives\u201d? And will there be any work left to be done at all in the future if AI really might relieve us of this burdensome activity, as the doomsday merchants will have us believe?<\/p>\n

I am curious to see what the future will bring. And we shouldn\u2019t forget that even if we can’t control everything, we can control some of it ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aspects of future work The future of work is, amongst other powerful drivers, particularly marked by an ongoing transformation of the world of work through automation and the integration of technological innovations (#digitalization, #AI), flexible working models (#workation, #remote work, #home office, #part-time work, #job sharing, #top sharing), lifelong learning (#executive education), and a changing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":2358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"acf":{"excerpt":"

The legal market is considered a traditional one in many ways. However, the pan-demic also triggered new forms of work in this market, which had been impossible to imagine before: \u201cworking from home\u201d with its strongest expression in \u201cworking from anywhere\u201d. Looking at the \"recall campaigns\" by companies to get their employees to return to the workplace on site, it seems an impossible endeavour to get the released genie back into the bottle. We may like it or not, but future forms of work have also arrived in the legal market. And in this regard law firms and legal departments are not different. Both are part of a consulting and service industry challenged to find new ways of integrating the new developments in the working area.<\/p>\n","school":{"ID":166,"post_author":"1","post_date":"2017-12-04 17:17:12","post_date_gmt":"2017-12-04 16:17:12","post_content":"The Law & Management department provides world-class executive education at the intersection of law and business management. The programmes are designed for legal professionals interested in acquiring management skills and executives keen to learn about commercial law.","post_title":"Law & Management","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"law-management","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2017-12-04 17:17:12","post_modified_gmt":"2017-12-04 16:17:12","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog?post_type=school&p=166","menu_order":3,"post_type":"school","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lam.unisg.ch\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}