Project Partner
Award
Duration
Sep to Dec 2020
Responsibilities
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Survey/Interviews
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Speculative design
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Workshop facilitation
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Visual Design
Challenge
Re-imagine our relationship with work and create new ways of working and work place cultures that support good mental health, to make working life inside and outside work healthier and happier?
How can we do this in a way that is especially attractive to professional women who currently predominate or over-index in common mental disorders like depression, anxiety and somatic complaints?
INVISIBLE VALUE INCOME
More and more woman choose to stay in work now, yet there is a social norm that women are responsible for housework and childcare. Consequently, many women struggle to balance work and house responsibilities or have to choose one over the other. As a speculative design project, the invisible income program imagines a society where the ‘invisible’ work being done at home is recognised by society.
Outcome
Understand users:
To understand the relationship between women and work at a macro level, we sent out questionnaires to women in work across different industries and countries. This helped us to see the big picture and identify their main challenges at work at different life stages.
We later conducted one-on-one anonymous interviews with them to have an open discussion and let them freely talk about their individual difficulties.
Introducing Johanna:
After learning about the daily schedules of six working mothers through our interviews, we created Johanna to be the main persona for our design thinking.
Johanna has just finished her maternity leave break and plans to return to work. She now has very little time for herself as she is swamped every day juggling childcare, housework and work.
While Joanna is on maternity leave, her partner is also working harder because the baby's impending arrival has increased the financial pressure on their family. After the baby arrives, he still needs to work late on weekdays, so Joanna has to do most of the housework and childcare independently.
What does Johanna want？
Based on the previous research, we summarised the six key expectations employees like Johanna have in life and work. Fulfilling these expectations leads us to an ideal scenario where women have freedom at work and have a sense of self-achievement in their life.
The 6 dimensions of workplace wellbeing have been subsequently used in BCG's internal employees’ affiliation workshop to analyse and integrate changes before and after the pandemic.
What does 2040 look like?
Due to technological progress and the diversification of values in society, women's lifestyles have become more diverse, and there are many options for their future.
Based on the results of this research, we created the Future cone for 2040.
Later marriages and aging of the childbearing years are among the trends that will continue, and we can also expect to see more same-sex marriages and new family arrangements.
These developments will create changes in values and lifestyles across society and significantly alter people's attitudes and behaviour.
This is also happening in the workplace. Companies will have to work harder than ever to attract and retain the best employees.
Existing signals:
We found that several progressive policies are already aiming to empower individuals and promote gender equality.
At the company level, attention is also being paid to innovative company policies that cater to employees' unique needs. At the individual level, people around the world are campaigning for equality.
All these signals pointed to a possible future where the government, companies and people are sensitive to individual differences and striving for an inclusive society.
What if invisible value could be valued economically?
“Invisible value” is value created that is not currently measured by any index and its economic value is not fully recognised.
The invisible value income program
We propose a program named the “Invisible Value Income Program” in the public sectors in the preferable and plausible future.
It is a social policy in which the government recognises and pays for the so-called invisible value being contributed by people outside of their work. Invisible Value Income empowers working parents to achieve their goals at home and work without choosing one over the other.
Value proposition
There are various touch points and stakeholders in the IVI program. It creates value for not only the users, the company but for society on four-stage.
The first stage is to collect and visualise users’ contribution at home into income. The second stage is to provide tools that allow the user to perform physical and mental self-examination. The third stage is to help users plan their future work and life with relevant stakeholders according to their expectations. The fourth stage is the financial return of invisible value giving the user more freedom.
What others think about I.V.I Program
We put our program concept through nine in-depth validation sessions (participants included working women, working fathers, company management and HR) and an external workshop organised by our client, Fuzzy Studio.
👩🏻💻Key takeaways:
Companies would benefit from having partial access to the program data, but care would need to be taken to avoid a ‘big brother’ scenario.
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“The idea of being able to measure how your time is used and the flexibility of time would be brilliant as an HR tool”.
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“ It is like a social credit system, you know, there's a danger that this could could end up becoming a little bit dystopian. It can be a nice space to be for good because it could end up becoming a kind of a chain around our neck.”
For individuals, providing a trust-based service and visualisation of invisible value can create conversations at home and at the workplace.
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“The platform might encourage partners to also participate in domestic work”.
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“ This project can benefit more than just women, it could benefit everyone”
Report
Wondering what it would take for something like the IVI program to become a reality? We cover everything in our report:
we understand that it is difficult to imagine something as ambitious as the IVI program becoming a reality any time soon, but we still hope our project can at least start a conversation, and even inspire action that can be taken today.
For example, Couldn’t individuals be more sensitive to the invisible contributions made by their partner and colleagues? Couldn’t employers be more proactive in trying to understand the challenges of employees outside work?
What do you think?
Special Thanks
Many thanks to everyone who helped us with the project, from potential users to leaders in the industry. A huge thanks to our personal tutor Qian Sun for her guidance and mentoring and our client Alex Barclay for his support throughout the project.