When it comes to the workday, aim for better, not fewer

Six-hour workdays. Four-day workweeks. Unlimited vacation. To hear our LinkedIn feeds tell it, this recent mass telecommuting experiment has thrust an entire white-collar workforce into a potential revolution of labor arrangements.

In all honesty, the previous bar was set pretty low. We can get much more creative — and since the “future of work” is actually many futures (it wouldn’t be progress if we all had to follow the same path), there’s no time like the present to be thinking out loud. The reshaping of corporate culture can’t happen without a restructuring of working arrangements.

Below are several alternative flexwork scenarios — all of which address the notion that our problem at hand isn’t necessarily that we work too much, but that poorly structured work doesn’t work for us. Notice, crucially, how these arrangements require a foundation of strong teamwork platforms and processes, as any healthy work environment does.

PAR (Part-Time, Asynchronous, Remote)

Part-time contract laborers arguably represent the earliest iteration of remote work, yet the once-tenuous communications aspect of such arrangements has made significant strides towards normalcy in the workplace as asynchronous tools have improved. Of course, not everyone is willing or able to work on a part-time contract in exchange for the freedoms of being a digital nomad, but the implications of this growing worker population creates food for thought…