Is Flexible Work Dying?

Her Apple Watch buzzes a gentle reminder that it is 10 am, so Grace eases out of her hammock on the beach in Bali, grabs a sip of her cold brew, and checks in on her current assignment. The team in the US needs her to perform a few quick edits on the video you are creating. “Sweet!” thinks Grace. “I can quickly get those done, join my friends for an ocean swim at noon, and even grab some snaps for Instagram while I’m at it!”.

Meanwhile, in her small but well-kept house in Wichita, Kansas, sits Josephine. It’s 9pm and her young kids are finally in bed, as is her ailing mother. So it’s time to begin her third work shift of the day – two hours to get everything outstanding done, before she knew her energy will really begin to flag. Truth be told, she is already exhausted, but Josephine has to push through anyway. Too many people depended on her to do anything different.

On the surface, these two lifestyles are extraordinarily different, yet both take advantage of something many of us take for granted today—flexible work. For some, flexible work is a tool to enable their lifestyle choices. For others, it is a lifeline, allowing them to continue to earn a living while juggling the complexities of modern life.

But flexible work, at least as we’ve known it for the last few years, might be under threat. Today, I will look at why, where we sit today, and what we will need to do if we still value flexible work.

How Flexible Work is Being Challenged

It might seem odd that flexible work could even be under threat. After all, there have been enormous advances in technology over the last few years that support the work of both Grace and Josephine and even allow them to work well together as a team. This isn’t just productivity technology; it’s true flexibility technology – tools that allow us to work from anywhere at any time, and communicate asynchronously as well as we do synchronously. These tools are only going to get better. As futurist and author of Office Shock, Bob Johansen put it to me on our Humanity Working podcast – these technologies will ultimately make it “better than being there”.

And yet, two big forces are colliding that threaten the flexibility movement:

• Companies are pushing back against flexible work, looking to reassert control over where and when people work.
• Many of the jobs that are most associated with flexible lifestyles are being disrupted by AI, robotics, and automation.

So if you’ve built your career around freedom; it’s time to pay attention.

The Great Push-Back

What began as isolated incidents (Tesla, Amazon, JPMorgan Chase) is now starting to look like a trend—a trend that has received a further push with the US Federal government issuing return-to-office mandates.

Even in companies that do not require a return to in-office work, there are other, more subtle signals—tightening expectations around availability, responsiveness, time zone alignment, or preferentially hiring local resources. These companies are not eliminating flexible work entirely, but they’re trying to shape it to their terms.

We’ve seen this shift in our own work. Three years ago, our bestselling programs were helping people adjust their work styles to remote and hybrid environments. Today, we are increasingly selling programs designed to help people adjust to working back in the office.

And while there are still job postings offering fully remote work, it’s becoming clear that competition for those roles is growing. More people want them. Fewer companies are offering them. So that’s a challenge.

The New Technology Wave

It’s not just AI coming for today’s jobs. It’s a confluence of AI, robotics, and automation.

Unfortunately, many of the roles most suited to a flexible lifestyle are also the ones most at risk of being displaced by these technologies. In general, AI is really good at asynchronous, location-independent, and repeatable work. Even customer support, once considered human-first, is now seeing sweeping AI adoption.

This, taken together with the company pushback trend, means it is at least possible that flexible work as we know it will disappear – some roles replaced by technology, and the rest being pulled back into the office by companies with the power to do so.

So Is It All Over?

It’s way too soon to say that. There are still many companies who actively see flexibility, not just as a perk, but as a way of massively expanding the pool of great talent. After all, the best employee doesn’t always live within 20 miles of you. I believe this myself. Our programs are built by people across five different continents – we use them because they are the best people we’ve found.

And even with some organizations pulling back, work today remains a balance between what employers want and what employees desire. Employees are clear on the matter – 21 million Americans say they want to become digital nomads in the next few years and tens of millions more depend on flexibility to fit work into their complicated lives.

So, at least for now, there will still be flexible options. But finding them in a tighter job market – that might be about to get a lot harder.

How to Build a Career Centered on Flexible Work

Before you go any further, if you haven’t already, I’d urge you to go back to my piece from last week on Adaptive Career Planning. This will give you a framework you can use to build any career centered around your needs, including flexibility.

But today, I’ll discuss some special additional steps to consider that will help ensure you remain valuable while retaining your flexibility. The goal here is to ensure you provide visible, irreplaceable value.

To accomplish this, you need to stop thinking just in terms of your job and start acting like a problem solver, through three strategies:

Strategy One: Apply an Innovator’s Mindset

While companies might seem to care too much about the shape of your workday, there is one thing they will care about more.

Results.

So ask yourself:

• What problems do companies have that I’m uniquely positioned to solve?
• How are those problems solved today?
• What would it look like to solve them better, using the tools available now—including AI?

Then build the skills to back that up.

Don’t define yourself by your title. Define yourself by the problems you’re great at solving, which will make you invaluable now and in the future.

Strategy Two: Add Human Layers of Value

Today, many remote workers focus on getting activities done efficiently and without fuss. But over time, AI will become more efficient and create even less fuss.

So, focus on the human layers of value that you can add over AI, such as strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, creativity, and collaboration. These are the things that move you beyond reliably delivering tasks and mean you are seen as someone who adds real value to an organization.

And don’t just work on them in the background – prove you have them. That’s the main reason people do our durable skills certification programs – it allows them to demonstrate they have the human, transferable skills to add value to organizations.

Strategy Three: Collaborate Across People and Technology

This is one of the most profound shifts for many flexible workers. Much of today’s flexible work is solo work that can make you almost invisible.

But the really valuable flexible workers in the future will be the ones who collaborate exceptionally in a team consisting of both humans and AI. They will do so visibly and create outcomes that no tool can achieve alone. They will be masters at both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, effortlessly flexing between the two and seamlessly adjusting their way of work as technology evolves.

The Dream Isn’t Dead. But It Is Evolving

As humans, we strive for flexibility. So, while some organizations are pushing back now, I’d be prepared to bet that factors like improved technology, localized skills shortages, and the cost of real estate will translate into flexible work options remaining available.

But, the version of flexible work relying on simple, repeatable tasks IS going away, about to be automated out of existence.

So, if you want a career that lasts, you have to treat your flexibility as an attribute – a demonstration of your adaptability and something you can build upon to make you invaluable.

If you do that well, you can embed flexibility into the rest of your working life.