Photo: Paul Charpentier
Farewell to‘ 9-to-5’?
Researcher Kiti Müller from Nokia Technologies is one of the experts who believes that’ 9 to 5’ is very much a thing of the past.” Especially in the creative industries one can go“ full steam” for about four hours, or six hours at the most,” she says. ping centre could earn you an e-coupon, for instance. Shopping centres could come up with new ways to communicate with the customers.”
Sooner or later, Marjanen expects to see applications which build profiles of the patrons and use that data to suggest routes via the shopping centre.
“ Knowing what the patron likes and does not like will become increasingly important.” l
Sami J. Anteroinen
T he employers, however, are largely
playing the old game, where you pay for a warm body in the office chair, instead of results. On the other hand, many employees are going through the motions as well – nobody is really challenging the status quo at the office.
” It would be useful to identify the way you yourself like to work and pursue that,” she says, adding that companies are not stupid, and, for instance, the role of seemingly never-ending in-house meetings has been questioned in many places.
Müller believes that in the future smart organisations recognise the importance of” just hanging out”.“ When people get together in a more spontaneous context, new ideas may emerge. They can’ t be forced,” she points out.
Still,” hanging out” is a luxury few can afford. For those struggling to keep up with the beeping calendar, Müller offers this piece of advice: learning how to prioritise – via a semi-ruthless process of elimination – will help in managing the every-day chaos.
But here’ s another problem: if your brain is spinning like roulette wheel, it’ s hard to take the time to assess what things are important and what are not. Müller says that the inability to focus may be a sign of serious fatigue, and should be dealt with accordingly – by finally slowing down.
Hitting the brake instead of the gas, of course, is rarely desirable from the perspective of productivity. Müller champions the notion that both pedals are needed:
“ I am sick and tired of mantras that say‘ be creative and effective’ or something to that effect. It’ s impossible to be both creative and effective, because you need a degree of idleness to get to that creative stage in the first place.”
Müller allows that good ideas may grab you even during a hectic work phase, but you rarely have time to follow up on them.“ The ideal situation would be that you have some time to develop ideas also during the execution phase,” she says, adding that no day should be“ air-tight” – there must always be at least some room left for creativity.
Müller has a track record of almost 25 years of researching into the nature of work. Looking back, she names digitalisation as the single biggest thing that has shook up the foundations of companies, nationally and globally.
“ It took a while for information technology to really get going – but once it did, it was suddenly everywhere,” she points out. l
Sami J. Anteroinen Nordicum
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