Work has always been one of the three pillars of human fulfilment – alongside relationships and health. When it’s organise and done well, meaningful work doesn’t just pay the bills; it keeps us healthier, helps us live longer, and fuels a sense of purpose. But the way we define, organise, and experience work is shifting faster than ever.
At O.C. Tanner‘s Influence Greatness conference this week I sat in a session by Rishad Tobaccowala, from the The Rethinking Work Platform, which got me thinking. The session was billed as ‘How to Lead in the Age of AI’ but his observations and research went much deeper than that.
He started with the observation that between 2019 and 2029, work has been – and is currently – projected to change more than it did over the previous 50 years. This is not just evolution – it’s a tectonic shift. Yet many leaders are still looking backward, focusing on office returns and outdated structures, metrics and roles, while the ground beneath them is moving. How forward thinking are todays business managers and leaders whilst the world of work around them shifts?
The Five Shifts Reshaping Work
- Demographics: Populations are shrinking in many developed countries, birth rates are falling, and societies are aging. This will create pressure to keep older workers engaged and to design flexible arrangements for those balancing work with caregiving. At the same time, generational attitudes toward work and capitalism are diverging sharply. Gen Z, in particular, wants independence, flexibility, and purpose – and not to replicate the lives of their parents.
- Technology: AI is widely misunderstood. Far from just hype, it will quietly strip the value of “knowledge for knowledge’s sake.” Around 20% of current work tasks can already be automated, saving up to 40% of time. This won’t eliminate work; it will change how we create and measure value. The winners will be those who redeploy saved time into innovation and new ideas.
- Marketplaces: Platforms like Uber, Etsy, Upwork, and Shopify are normalising side hustles and gig work. Increasingly, people will hold both W2 (earned income in the UK) jobs and 1099 income (unearned income in the UK) streams. Work is diversifying beyond traditional employment.
- COVID’s Legacy: The pandemic didn’t just change where we work – it changed why. Employees no longer want “bosses.” They want leaders, mentors, and guides. The authority of command-and-control is fading fast.
- Declassification of Work: Perhaps the most profound shift: jobs and work are not the same thing. There will be fewer jobs, but no shortage of work. Systems built around employment – healthcare, pensions, identity – must evolve as people assemble income from multiple streams.
A New Worker Ecosystem
The workforce of the future will be more diverse than ever, with five types of workers:
- Full-time employees
- Contract workers
- Freelancers
- Fractionalized employees (working 60–80% of the time with prorated pay and benefits)
- Agentic employees (self-directed workers who leverage AI and platforms for autonomy)
This new mix will make “headcount” a less meaningful measure. Instead, revenue per worker will become the key performance metric. Agility – through more flexible, ‘plug-and-play’ teams – will separate resilient organisations from those still organised around outdated hierarchies.
A Crisis of Leadership, Not Culture
Many leaders talk about “bringing people back to the office for culture.” But culture has never been confined to an office. Collaboration, learning, and relationship-building often happened elsewhere – off-sites, conferences, even restaurants. The water cooler myth has long been just that.
What’s really at stake is leadership. Bosses who allocate, monitor, and control are out of sync with today’s workforce. Leadership in the future looks more like jazz than a classical orchestra: improvisational, responsive, and collaborative. Leaders must create conditions for excellence, growth, and trust – not try to control every note.
How We Adapt: New Mindsets and Practices
Rishad was clear – the future won’t adapt to us; we must adapt to it. That means upgrading our “mental operating systems.” Just as our smartphones update every year, we must commit to learning daily – at least one hour a day – to stay relevant and resilient.
Equally important is adopting what he calls the ‘immigrant mindset’:
- Think like outsiders, questioning assumptions and seeing opportunities others miss
- Act like underdogs, prepared to disrupt established “castles and moats”
- Invest long-term, trading short-term comfort for long-term gain
The Human Centre of the Future
For all the talk about AI and automation, the future of work isn’t really about technology. It’s about people. Companies don’t transform – people do. Organisations that invest in leadership, flexibility, and meaning will thrive.
Work, in its essence, is not disappearing – it is being redefined. The challenge for leaders, workers, and society alike is to uncouple work from jobs, embrace new worker types, and design systems that give people both purpose and flexibility.
The future is an undiscovered country. To navigate it, we’ll need adaptability, courage, and above all, leadership that sees people as the centre of every transformation.
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