This is how I started exploring the future of work

Hi, my name is Angelique Slob, and I am an Explorer of the Future of Work.

Today, I would like to share my journey with you; a journey that started with looking for improvement while working in corporate HR and that ended with founding Hello Monday Club, my own consultancy agency specializing in 21st-century organizations.

The journey about how I started exploring The Future of Work

While working in senior HR roles in the corporate world for over 15 years, I got frustrated seeing how corporate structures keep people ‘small’.

In many corporate structures, it is difficult for people to develop themselves, to live up to their full potential, to make an impact, to have a good work-life balance. To get into a flow, to connect deeply with their teammates and to, well, be happy at work and thus in their life.

To me, keeping people small in that way, seemed like a waste of someone’s talent, motivation and capacity; and so a huge waste for both employees as the employer.

‘Great companies are grown by great people. Great people grow in great companies’

 

 

Looking for solutions, the so-called New Way of Working in the Netherlands had drawn my attention. The concept of The New Way of Working aims to optimize workspaces and implement more flexibility both in time and place. It is a fairly broad concept that peaked in popularity in the first decade of the 21st century.

Despite its promising potential, I noticed that many companies that had implemented it didn’t show real changes in management or even misinterpreted what giving more freedom and flexibility meant.

In addition, people were rather skeptical about the possible effects of The New Way of Working, often stating it was doomed to fail because “management cannot let go of control; or because “employees need to be in the office to really be productive”.

As a freedom fighter by heart; these kinds of statements made me ask: is that true, and if so, why is that?

This fascinated me and so my journey began.

Looking for answers, I went back to university to study Organisational Sociology and wrote a thesis about “the most effective way to manage innovative professionals”. One of my major findings was that innovative professionals need a lot of autonomy, a higher purpose, and the right kind of leadership, something they couldn’t find in most companies. (Click here to download the summary of the full thesis).

After finalizing my thesis, I began studying new school companies that, often intuitively, had implemented the (what I now call) 21st-century organizational concepts. Many of these organizations are startups or tech companies, but I also came across more traditional organizations with visionary leaders that had successfully transitioned.

The Future of Work became the leading subject in my further writings.

And the more I explored, read and learned, the more I got approached for advice and support. I started to help CEO’s and startup founders to find a new holistic and result driven approach  – their own approach – that suited their teams, themselves and their business objectives.

In 2018 I founded Hello Monday, a consulting service that supports founders and CEO’s with creating their own Future of Work  – the one that will work best for their unique business needs.

My services are focused on leadership, work-culture, teams, organizational design and people processes, all suitable for the challenges of this 21st century that we are living in. With the development of innovative and new work solutions for startups and businesses, I am now changing the Future of Work.

Are you, like me, curious about the most effective management style for innovative professionals and The Future of Work? Download the whitepaper and join Hello Monday Club!