The 20-hour work week

The idea of a 20-hour work week sounds perfect. But will the road to this utopian dream bring us to nirvana or some darker place?

There are two very different visions for how we arrive at the 20-hour work week, both heavily dependent on technology.

The first one, probably the one most people imagine is the utopian version, with machines replacing the jobs of most humans leaving plenty of time to pursue more ‘noble’ pursuits including those that interest us and benefit society overall.

The second, more dystopian view, also has machines replacing the jobs of most humans but this leads to economic and social collapse. Our current economic systems are based on the notion of employment and income that in turn drives consumer demand. Much of social identity is based around professions and employment. If vast percentages of people are no longer employed, these existing systems break down.

In the past, as jobs were eliminated by machines, new roles and industries replaced them. Yet we may be reaching a tipping point. The point at which technology has advanced enough that most roles performed by humans can be replaced. The fewer remaining roles would require well-educated, highly skilled people to program the machines or perform complex roles machines can’t do.

Globally, the numbers of unemployed people are rising and demand for unskilled labour is decreasing. Social unrest is evident in areas with high unemployment as people are unable to find work and earn income. Long-term unemployment is trending upwards. Are these indicators something other than an economic recession might be happening?

Technological solutions usually arrive before legal, social and economic systems are ready to address the consequences. Due to the often far reaching impact of strategic decisions involving technology, undertaking some strategic thinking to consider both the longer term and broader impacts of any decision can be useful.

Two methods to generate strategic thinking are strategic scenarios and backcasting. Creating strategic scenarios imagining possible alternative futures in some detail can be helpful in placing technology decisions and their impacts in context. The scenarios are narratives, including qualitative details about life, work and broader cultural aspects allowing one to imagine living in this future. Backcasting can be used with each scenario to determine what decisions or milestones could happen to lead to this particular future; either a desired future or one to be avoided.

Using scenarios to evaluate strategic decisions within the wider context of the organisation, industry, markets and even more broadly to include the long-term impacts can highlight the associated risks and opportunities and result in better, more robust decision making. It challenges your current thinking and forces the imagining of alternatives to business as usual.

If it seems far-fetched there may be a link between current workforce reductions, automation and a future 20-hour work week, then perhaps you need to explore how you do envision the future and engage in some strategic thinking. Although it is not a certainty, it is a possibility, and understanding what is possible will prepare you for the future, whatever it may bring, including a 20-hour work week.

Image credit ©iStockphoto.com/A.J. Rich