One of the biggest dangers in any disaster is a premature plan for normalcy. As vaccine programs roll out worldwide, organizations and governments are preparing for economic recovery, a return to offices, corporate travel, and a resumption of business as usual. We all need a little optimism, but nostalgia can be as dangerous as disruption. Some doors are one-way only. What if the pandemic was not a crisis but rather a chrysalis?

Should we stay, or should we go? The post-pandemic return to work is fast becoming a controversial and complex issue for leaders to navigate. Everyone has an opinion on the subject. Some are desperate to escape months of Zoom fatigue, while others see little point in commuting for an hour to sit in front of another screen. If that seems like a tough choice, it is because it is a false one. The real issue is not remote vs. office work - it is how do we reinvent the workplace for a new era of AI-powered competition?

Automation is a controversial topic - many leaders are enthusiastic about the potential to cut costs and increase efficiency, while others fear for their jobs and the impact on company culture. Both perspectives are flawed. It is dangerous to reduce the automation debate to simplistic cliches, whether it be defending outdated human jobs or wishing for an AI-powered utopia where all our needs are met. Automation, AI, and algorithms are here to stay. The real question is: how do we make sure the future of work fits the world we want to live in?

We work for many reasons. For some, it is the need to pay bills and put food on the table, for others - a desire to fund certain lifestyle choices. But if you take a step back and look at human civilization as a whole, you’ll realize that there are infinite ways that our needs and desires can be taken care of without us working, in some cases, an eighty-hour week. But would we be happy in an automated, AI-powered world where human labour was no longer required? Not necessarily.

The risks of algorithmic discrimination and bias have received much attention and scrutiny, and rightly so. Yet there is another more insidious side-effect of our increasingly AI-powered society — the systematic inequality created by the changing nature of work itself. We fear a future where robots take our jobs, but what happens when a significant portion of the workforce ends up in algorithmically managed jobs with little future and few possibilities for advancement?