You are what you do

What would you do if you won the Lotto? It’s a common and often entertaining diversion, a wander into the imagination of fancy yachts, endless holidays, and (given Sydney house prices) a modest 3-bed terrace.

Inevitably, the conversation turns to whether you’d ever bother to work again. 

This is less a question of cash, and more about the role a job plays in your own identity. It’s also a topic we’re all going to have to think much more about.

A major new study of 896 employees across 141 organisations in six countries found that a four-day work week boosts performance, reduces burnout, and improves the physical and mental health of employees.

For anyone that isn’t a ‘996’ workaholic, this sounds like great news. Who doesn’t love a long weekend?

But for companies, it’s also part of a broader trend - the hunt for productivity and efficiency gains. And yes, that also means AI.

IBM recently cut 8,000 workers globally, using AI to remove 40 per cent of the costs of career chats, training schedules, promotion tracking and other basic HR tasks. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei thinks AI could eliminate nearly half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in five years. And a recent study by ServiceNow found 670,000 Australian roles could be automated by 2030.

For communicators, this is a problem, and not just because our own jobs could be on the chopping block. 

A huge part of effective communication is about identifying who people are, and therefore what appeals to them. Work is a fundamental tenet of this. Remove or weaken this, and a key means of understanding your audience disappears. 

Plus, what would you ask about during awkward silences at parties?