How Bravely Pros Envision the Future of Work

In many ways, the future of work has never felt more uncertain. In other ways, it’s within our control.

We asked our Pros — the network of professional coaches who are the heart of Bravely — to answer two essential questions about the future of work. Some of their answers are below. May these visions offer hope and inspiration as you and your team plan for 2022!

Q: What is your vision for the future of work?

Culture First

“A future at work where building community for existing employees is as valuable as attracting new talent. Just hiring new talent is never enough, for if the existing culture is poor, people vote with their feet and continue to leave. Community is a critical component in why people stay.”

Anonymous Bravely Pro

Work-life blend

My vision for a future of work that I would want to be part of would be a place of enhanced digitalization and increased flexibility and work-life balance. I believe that the pandemic has pushed several organizations to become more digital and I would hope that this continues and more creative ways of collaborating and connecting would be in place. While a vast majority is still working from home, some are already back to work. I would hope that flexibility on work is still available meaning there are options to work on site, at home or anywhere as long as you deliver and it does not breach any privacy policy or risk. I’m hoping that the flexibility also allows us to improve work-life balance given that stress of not being able to separate work and personal life seems to be rampant.

Tanya Leonor

Collective learning and creativity

I do see and hope that the future will be more about collective learning and collective creativity. In that future, we will need more human values showing up and being used in the work. That will bring some purpose and meaning to people hopefully (which will counterbalance some of the reasons for the Great Resignation!) And to do so we will all need to improve on certain skills, and those skills are pretty much similar to skills a coach would need. Listening, being present for the other, cultivating trust, and facilitating mutual growth.

Ali Gülüm

Embrace uniqueness

I am holding a vision of the future of work that allows individuals and organizations to embrace their uniqueness to allow them to grow to their fullest potential.  That individuals activate lifelong learning and growth to increase life satisfaction. That leaders in organizations recognize their role in shaping an inclusive, vibrant community. And that anyone who wants a coach can have one who is a thoughtful partner with them in both overcoming challenges and seizing opportunities.

Peter Cavanaugh

Q: If you could shift one mindset about the workplace, what would it be?

People over outcomes

Shifting away from an ‘outcomes first’ culture to a ‘people first’ culture. At the end of the day, your people, if happy, will actually drive those amazing outcomes.

Anonymous Bravely Pro

Trust from any location

It’s not about the physical location of the workplace but the relationships you build and strengthen and the trust you receive and convey to your employees, colleagues and strategic partners. The pandemic has started this change in mindset but a lot of organisations are still “waiting” for the “normal” to return so that all their employees can physically return to one location. I believe employees will be more empowered when they are given the trust and autonomy to do the work where they are with trust and flexibility. Organisations should start putting together a framework to enable their employees to do so, if they haven’t already done so

Jenny Toh

Conflict consciousness

Conflict is a phenomenon that is common in our everyday lives, so common it often blends into the background of daily life. Its omnipresence creates a gap that disconnects us from our own role in conflict and the active skills and tools of conflict resolution that we use on a daily basis. Typically, we do not consciously address our relationship with conflict and even identify ourselves as ‘being bad at conflict’ or that ‘we avoid conflict at all costs’ until a conflict gets so big that it demands our attention. Often, we feel shame in identifying as conflict avoidant, as if it is part of our genes making us socially unfit or outcasts. But conflict resolution is a tool, it is learned, it is a muscle, and we can build new muscles. We have to break our mental model connected to conflict to create a new world.

Emily Skinner

Sustainable, even joyful!

Other than coaching, I’m also a corporate facilitator which means I spend a lot of time each week working with groups of professionals from across industries (many are Bravely clients). One thing I’m seeing consistent with nearly all my workshop participants: people are very busy and drained. No one has time, everyone has too much to do, and folks are always looking towards next week when things “will finally slow down” (guess what, they never do!). I’d like to shift the busy mindset to one of sustainability and, gasp, fulfillment/enjoyment. We spend a lot of time at work, often get a lot of identity there, so how can we make this more of a good thing in our lives?

Justin Shaddix

Life/Work, not Work/Life

I’d want to shift the work/life balance mindset to life/work. It’s all life and work is part of our lives! By reframing the current narrative I think we’d find it much easier to set boundaries, which would in turn make us all better off from a mental health perspective. My coaching over the last year has often focused on boundary setting, we all need rest and recharge time!

David Udy

Work doesn’t define us.

Work is something we get to do, not something we have to do. Work comes and goes, it is not who we are. Achievements nor failures define us. And if that resonates, how then shall we define success within the work space, for each human being, for ourselves, in an ongoing experiment in what it means to be human today?

Sophia Schweitzer