Work different: 10 truths for winning in the people age 

Well, Ilya, as you know, we've just come off writing a book together along with Kai Anderson. It's been a year labor of love. I wonder if you want to kick us off with a bit of an overview of what the book's about.

I'd be happy to. So Work Different addresses the issue that traditional workforce models and talent strategies, they no longer fit for purpose in an age where businesses, economies, governments, countries lurch from one anticipated crisis to the next.

We're seeing a greater need for rebalancing the employer-employee relationship than ever before. We need a different set of solutions now to deliver the right outcomes. So the book acknowledges these changes by outlining 10 new truths about work.

It's written in a language and in a form that's super accessible for employers, for leaders, managers, HR professionals, and workers, helping them make sense of these significant changes, understand how others are responding and work in different, more successful way going forward.

Mm, fascinating. Well, 10 truths obviously means that there must have been choices about what 10 truths got in there.

Yeah.

And I know we will have an opportunity to dive more deeper into that. But I just be curious, which truth were you surprised made it into the book?

If you know about Mercer, one of the things that we're famous for is being one of the leading compensation consulting firms in the world. We have a chapter in there called It Doesn't Pay to Stay. I don't think that's something you'd expect to hear from Mercer. But really, it acknowledges that employers need to be aware that it's easier for employees to get paid more by leaving their company than by staying.

So what that means is competitive pay has never been a more crucial factor in the employee value proposition. But at the same time, it's only one of several critical factors for attracting and retaining employees.

Mm-hmm, fascinating. It certainly does make a big difference to how people feel about how they're valued.

It does. And what about you, Kate? Were there any things that you felt should have been in the book or didn't make it in the book, anything that surprised you that way?

Well, I know that when we started the book, we talked a lot about the demographic time bomb that was happening and aging workforce and workforce participation rates. And we talked a lot about the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion that we both feel were really passionate about.

And yet, neither of those topics ended up getting their own truth in the book. And I think for good reason. [LAUGHS] They didn't get their own truth because they actually weave their way into every single one of those 10 chapters.

And I think that's the right way of talking about it because it's much more interesting, I think, to write about diversity and equity in the context of running out of people. And what does that mean to looking at supply? So we've got a whole chapter on Supply Unchained.

And that allows us to tap into more diverse pools. We've also got one where we talk about skills being the currency of work, which again is another way of getting across some of the barriers that hold back people from full workforce participation. We also talk about it in the context of generative AI, which I think is really exciting.

How are different generations-- how are different gender is leaning in? And what are the implications for the future of work? So I thought we would definitely have those chapters. But they ended up, I think, just informing probably some of those recommendations coming out the other end.

And, Kate, what about your hopes for the book? What can you tell us about that?

We mentioned earlier there about trying to make the language accessible. And I think we worked really hard to not be our typical HR techies that we are. [CHUCKLES] And so I really do hope the book appeals to a wider audience-- lots of case studies, lots of anecdotes, and lots and lots of musical references.

I think, actually, if you don't like music, that might be the most offensive part of the book. And also, I think, we've got three musical tastes in there. So that might be really diversive. But we will see.

All right, that's great.

So, Ilya, remind me. We've got this LinkedIn Live coming up. What date?

November 28, Kate. And I believe that's just a few days before the book is released. And the book is already available on Amazon if you'd like to check it out.

Excellent. Well, that should be a lot of fun. I think it's a chance for us to maybe share some of the creative tension and discussions that we have with the book. And I know Kai Anderson will be joining that. So that'll be super fun. And I hope other people will enjoy hearing about the truths but also some of the recommendations that we have in the book.

Definitely. See you all on LinkedIn Live.

Well, Kai, thank you for taking a couple of minutes out to chat on our upcoming book. It's been a labor of love over the last year.

It was a blaze.

[LAUGHS] Yeah, and so now, we've got the fun part of promoting it, and I just had a couple of questions that I wanted to ask you today. When you think back on the process of writing the book, what were some of the surprises that happened along the way? [LAUGHS]

I think, when we started the book, we were all overwhelmed still by the pandemic, that kind of incident that accelerated a lot of trends, that brought us into a new age, which we call The People Age. And the big surprise was, like just a few months later, after that pandemic, we saw generative AI coming up in the form of ChatGPT, right? And that was the second major event, right, as we all know, that will shape the future work like hardly anything before. So having these two events together came as a surprise.

And it did mean that we had to pivot as well, because it was right bang in the middle of writing. And we were like, yeah, it's going to change everything. [LAUGHS]

But it's quite interesting, because I think a lot of people might be saying, well, why didn't we call it The Digital Age? And think if we'd have released a book six months ago, they might have thought that. But now everyone's realized, it is about how humans will adapt that I think is the exciting part.

That is. It will always be humans that are interacting with these kind of tools, that are experimenting. And I think it's a great time to be in, right? It's giving us great chances. But it came as a surprise. We knew it would happen like between 2020 and 2030, but that it was so powerful probably nobody ever thought.

And it actually accelerated a lot of the trends that we were talking about in the book already, and it also accelerated our writing of the book, because we actually used it. We fed the whole 10 chapters through, and asked our digital colleague to tell us what they would put in their conclusions, which was fascinating.

One last question I have for you, Kai. Now the book is out, what do you hope readers will take away from it and what do you hope they might do different?

The book is about an underlying philosophy, which is a new relationship between employees-- or contributors, as we now say-- and employers. And think if there's something that I would love to have people take away from it, especially non-HR people, is like we're in a different kind of world, right? We're in a world where we are on eye level with each other, where we need to find the balance of organizational needs versus individual needs, right?

And that is accelerated by all the trends, like a labor shortage that will stay, the change of preferences. So if there is something that people should take away with them, it's like understanding this kind of fundamental shift.

Yeah. Well, I do hope people who are outside of the HR function do get an opportunity to read the book, because we'd love to have conversations with them.

We need to.

Yeah. All right, thank you, Kai. Great to have you sharing some words on it. [LAUGHS]