EVERYONE WANTS TO WORK HERE MAURA NEVEL THOMAS

ATTRACT THE BEST TALENT, ENERGIZE YOUR TEAM, AND BE THE LEADER IN YOUR MARKET

Copyright © 2023 by Maura Nevel Thomas

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In loving memory of Florence and John Dovidio, whose love, support, and generosity made all the difference. And to my godmother, Marie, whose endless source of support and cheerleading always help to keep my self-doubt in check.

Introduction

The Shift to Knowledge Work

In the Industrial Age, work happened within the walls of a factory. Today, knowledge work is the product of our brains, and that work has increasingly left the confines of an office. Corporate offices have moved to cubicle environments, open floor plans, “hot desks,” and—the biggest and most disruptive shift since the start of the coronavirus pandemic—a variety of remote work options.

In addition, traditional work relationships continue to change. The freelance work platform Upwork reports that in 2021, 51 percent of college graduates were engaged in skilled freelance work, up 6 percent from 2020, and 56 percent of non-freelancers reported that they expect to freelance in the future.i

The most vexing challenge in the wake of the pandemic seems to be the struggle to keep work from becoming all-consuming, with remote work being described less as “working from home” and more as “living where you work.”

Leaders often fail to recognize that high-quality knowledge work is incompatible with the pace and expectations of most work environments. When the optimal work environment is provided, individuals become more successful and more engaged, which allows leaders and organizations to gain a competitive advantage and improvements to the bottom line.

So what is knowledge work?

Knowledge work, for the purposes of this book, is defined as work for which “thinking” is the raw material. The products of knowledge work are intangible brain outputs like communications, information, complex decisions, analysis, planning, and critical thinking.

If thinking is a raw material of knowledge work, then the environment in which that thinking is executed is relevant. The thinking environment is formed by how individual knowledge workers feel about their tasks and their jobs overall and by how well the tool they use to produce the thinking—their brain—is performing. These two things mean that workers’ personal well-being should be attended to. In fact, multiple studies show that caring leaders create better results.ii