Gregg Response

In recent years, flexibility and the ability to deal with change have become increasingly valuable in the workplace, even more so than knowledge or services, Gregg argues. This is because employment of today’s age in most settings requires lifelong learning, due to the business cycle and technological advancements, among other things. Thus the security associated with salaried jobs has been slipping away due to the constant changes in the environment and need for adaptability, and with it the interchangeable nature of workers. Workplace interactions, too, have become increasingly impersonal, especially with the rise of e-mail, a preferred method of workplace communication that includes the incentive of increasing efficiency/productivity, while also enabling human contact and face-to-face interaction to diminish, with the claim that in person communication has incredible potential to waste time.

Though there is a certain value to personal interactions, e-mail and other more removed forms of communication are at times criticized more than necessary, as in reality they bring benefits to the workplace and other social interactions. Networking has been made easier in the 21st century due to the acceptance of interaction in a more removed sense, which has made long-distance and remote communication and quick exchanges exponentially more convenient and efficient. However, the explanation that human contact can lead to wasted time fails to acknowledge the attention scattering and time wasted on the internet, part of which e-mail can contribute to. When it comes to communication, the human attention span can always be diverted, plus e-mail culture today entails a specific etiquette in which everything is claimed to be “urgent,” to which an employee cannot accurately handle, and instead must prioritize and determine which messages actually possess urgency.

The emotional detachment from one’s work is a trend seen increasingly often, as employment is a necessity but not regularly something that is looked forward to. This seems to be increasingly true among millennials, who have shifted the workplace culture, yet it seems that today’s generation has a focus on informality, rather than impersonality, though they may wish to keep their work and personal lives distinctive, as Gregg mentions. Though some may be standoffish towards this new functioning of workplace environments, ultimately the needs/demands of employees will overpower the system; if this method is popular it will remain as such, but if not, like all things, with time it will be washed out and replaced with a system favored by the people who exist within it.