THE FUTURE OF WORK—LIVING THE EXPERIMENT
trust the workforce. “You’ve got to be willing to trust your managers and lead- ers and, in turn, they’ve got to be willing to trust their workforce,” he said. “Tat’s palatable to some people and less palatable to some others, depending on your lead- ership style and your kind of belief and how you got to where you are.”
But anytime he is challenged on DEVCOM’s approach, he said his reply is the same. “We’ll be talking about ‘the great resignation’ even more, if we start telling everyone come back to [the office]. ‘Let’s pretend like this never happened.’ You’ll see people who that just won’t work for.”
BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES It wouldn’t be a true experiment if we didn’t talk about the results. According to Willison, the future-of-work pilot has been well received by the workforce so far and has shown promising outcomes already. Among the many anticipated benefits of this pilot, he said DEVCOM leaders are optimistic that it will help with workforce development, recruiting, retention, diver- sity and collaboration across areas of the command.
“We think that by adopting that ‘where and when’ construct, we’ll be able to open up opportunities for a group of talent that we probably haven’t even been able to track before, and be able to retain the talent that we’ve got.” A broader and more diverse talent base will be a net positive for the organization, he said. “We’re a creative organization, so we want diver- sity of thought, and diversity of thought comes from a diverse workforce,” he said. “It’s always been in our minds and part of our talent management strategy to look at our diversity, equity and inclusion posture, so this was another opportunity to think about how to attract talent that we may not have been able to attract before.”
56 Army AL&T Magazine Spring 2022
CONTRASTING THE PAST AND CURRENT AND THE FUTURE
Past/Current WHY WHAT Objective Remains constant. Remains constant. WHERE Work primarily at official duty location. Work where you are most productive.
•Local, discrete terms operating within constraints of organizational boundaries.
HOW •Linear, requirements-driven process.
•Local management of networks and device data.
•Agile, cross-competency and cross-orga- nization teams rapidly formed to deliver integrated solutions.
•Iterative, Soldier-centered design.
•Enterprise solution enabling broad col- laboration.
•The best talent to "come" to us.
•Reactively filling organizational vacancies.
WHO
•Permanent positions, "career" development.
•Limited, local view of deversity, equity and inclusiton (DE&I).
WHEN •Locally defined "core hours." •Largely synchronous operations.
•The best talent, anywhere.
•Proactively building competency-based talent.
•Movement built into the system.
•Fully inclusive—opportunities with few boundaries.
•Work when you are most produtive.
•Asynchronous operations emphasizing output.
CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
The DEVCOM future-of-work concept advocates for a hybrid workforce, with the employees choosing their most productive work environment. (Graphic by DEVCOM)
With greater flexibility, Willison is also looking forward to creating new profes- sional opportunities for the workforce. “Te part I’m most excited about for the enduring future is providing people opportunities that aren’t constrained to their geography,” he said. “We’ve got over 100 locations worldwide. If I’m sitting somewhere and I see an opportunity in another location that I could potentially
be involved in, that opportunity space now got really broadened for me.”
And so far, he said, the pilot is paying off. Te command has seen new innovation, new collaboration and new thought as a result of these changes. “So, it’s not just that we’re doing this because it makes us feel good,” Willison continued. “I abso- lutely believe it’s going to allow us to
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