It’s no secret that what society has long considered a traditional work environment has evolved into something a whole lot different in the 2020s.

And while those who’ve been in the working world for many years might point the finger at the COVID-19 pandemic as the catalyst of change, it’s more likely the pandemic merely sped up the process of workplace evolution.

In fact, this new era of work emerging is part of the generational transition from the youngest of the Baby Boomers and the oldest of Generation X, who are both nearing retirement age, and passing the baton of workplace leadership to Millennials and Generation Z.

This was a phenomenon Seth Mattison witnessed first-hand and which ultimately led to the launch of a successful professional speaking career.

Mattison, who spoke as the keynote speaker today during the General Session—The Future of Work and Pay, sponsored by ADP, as part of the 41st Annual Payroll Congress, shared his vision of this new era of work in his presentation “The Heart of Futuristic Leadership: Reimagining Influence in Times of Transformation.”

“The future of work isn’t happening to us, it’s being created through us," Mattison shared with attendees.  "We need to elevate our awareness of the change that is taking place.”

Mattison, who has been a successful public speaker for more than a decade, was hired in 2006 out of college for a management consulting firm in Minnesota that specialized in internal transformation efforts involving people, processes, and technology.

He gravitated to the people side of the internal transformation process as he learned about the importance of building strategic relationships.

“One of the early challenges that I observed with our clients … was the influx of my generation—Millennials, also known as Gen Y—started pouring into the workplace, creating a fair amount of conflict and confusion,” Mattison said.

This influx of younger workers, Mattison said, created friction among executive leadership who were clamoring for these young talented employees, thus creating a “talent war.”

“For the first time, my age was actually a benefit in some of those conversations. Instead of them looking at me like, ‘You’re 25. What are you going to tell me about transformation at a Fortune 500 company?’ It was like, tell me what your generation wants and needs,” he said.

He started to research that topic, which led to a meeting with thought leaders and generational experts David Stillman and Lynne Lancaster, who’d co-authored the 2002 best-seller, “When Generations Collide: Who They Are. Why They Clash. How to Solve the Generational Puzzle at Work.”

“I took them out for coffee and basically pitched them on the idea of joining forces,” he said. “They had kind of a magical combination. David was a Gen Xer, Lynne was a Baby Boomer, and of course, I was a representation of the next generation.”

Mattison said he saw this eventual partnership as a way to speak on what many considered 15 years ago to be a complicated and challenging subject.

Mattison, however, welcomed the challenge and saw this as an opportunity to speak and teach on a subject he was confident he could own.

In 2009, Mattison began working with Stillman and Lancaster at BridgeWorks, a consulting group that specializes in recruitment and retention to overcome the generational dynamics in the workplace and marketplace.

Lancaster and Stillman mentored Mattison to help him become an amazing public speaker and teacher to business leaders and professionals.

“I was able to step onto a platform with existing research and existing thought leadership, all around this theme of generational dynamics,” he said. “This sort of launched me into the world of professional speaking, coaching, training, and doing research in these key areas of change.”

In 2013, Stillman and Lancaster sold BridgeWorks, which allowed Mattison to launch FutureSight Labs, and continue speaking and teaching on trends related to the future of work, talent innovation, and the theme of generational dynamics in the workplace.

Mattison says those topics were issues that piqued the interest of business leaders and professionals for nearly a decade, but the COVID-19 pandemic added another dynamic to the future of work when businesses went fully remote.

“This larger theme of the future of work, where is work going, and what are the implications for leaders at a high level is usually the primary prompt, but when you think about what that means, when we’re talking about the future of work, we’re really just talking about change,” he said. 

During his presentation, Mattison said this transformative era of work provides us with the freedom to choose the kind of future we all desire.

“There is no one future of work. I can’t give you one single answer about what the future of work will hold. I can give you an idea of some futuristic tasks, but there is no one blueprint for the future of work," he said. "The future of work isn’t being dictated by some far off group of scientists and engineers. The future of work is being created everyday by the decision we make. We are the engineers of the future of work.”

Mattison, who spoke about his preparation for his first Payroll Congress with Congress Today, said the future of work was a fitting presentation for payroll professionals who are the tip of the spear and guiding this fundamental transformation of work.

It was indeed.

In fact, Mattison's message resonated with payroll professionals and attendees during Wednesday's General Session.

"It's clear that the future of work is already here," said Elvira DeJesus, the Sr. Payroll Technician at the City of Palmdale, California. "Payroll professionals are already used to getting specialized education, and we will need more of it going forward as technology continues to evolve." 

Helena Almeida, ADP's Vice President-Counsel, which sponsored Mattison, said there's a certain amount of flexibility that is needed from teams dealing first-hand with this transformation of work.

“A person with agility is a person that everyone wants on their team,” she said.