The Future of Work: Beyond the Three-Stage Life
The traditional career model of education, work, and retirement is crumbling before our eyes. According to Professor Lynda Gratton
How living to 100 and technological transformation are reshaping careers as we know them
The traditional career model of education, work, and retirement is crumbling before our eyes. According to Professor Lynda Gratton from London Business School, a leading authority on the future of work whose research has influenced millions globally, we’re witnessing the most significant transformation of employment since the industrial revolution.
Gratton, a Professor of Management Practice at London Business School and Fellow of the World Economic Forum, has authored ten books that have sold over a million copies and been translated into more than 20 languages. Her research reveals that as life expectancy increases and technology accelerates, the three-stage life model looks “ridiculous” in today’s context.
The Longevity Revolution
Living to 100 isn’t science fiction; it’s becoming reality. Best practice life expectancy has risen dramatically since the 1850s, and this trend shows no signs of slowing. More importantly, Gratton’s research highlights that people now see their age as “malleable,” creating unprecedented personal agency over their life choices.
“If you think you’re going to live to 100 years, that’s very different than thinking you’re going to live for 60 years,” Gratton explains. This shift fundamentally changes how we approach careers, learning, and life planning.
However, this longevity revolution brings complexity. Within age cohorts, there’s enormous variance. A 70-year-old might be teaching full-time at university or considering themselves “too old” to work. This creates challenges for governments trying to set retirement ages and for organisations designing age-inclusive policies.
The Great Unfreeze: Lessons from the Pandemic
The pandemic created what Gratton calls an “astounding moment”—every organisation “unfroze” simultaneously. Companies like Fujitsu in Japan, traditionally wedded to office culture, sent 60,000 employees home within three days and declared they weren’t going back.
This mass experiment revealed six crucial insights about work:
- We worked harder, not smarter. People switched on computers an hour earlier and off an hour later, with productivity gains primarily from longer hours (clearly unsustainable).
- Managers are in crisis. These “almost unsustainable jobs” have become overwhelming, with managers struggling with massive energy depletion and mental health impacts.
- Networks have constricted. We’ve spent more time with people we know, less with strangers, potentially stifling creativity and serendipity.
- Leaders discovered empathy. The “veil of ignorance was lifted” as managers saw employees’ everyday lives—their children, exhaustion, and human reality.
- Boundary management became critical. Yet we’re still conducting eight-hour Zoom marathons, highlighting our failure to adapt properly.
The Future of Work: Portfolio Careers Emerge
Gratton’s research identifies “social pioneers”—the outliers who are already living multi-stage lives. These are people starting businesses in their 50s, taking gap years at 40, building portfolios in their 30s that combine paid work with volunteering, or taking two years off for family time.
“That’s really what people want,” she notes, “and organisations have an opportunity now to reconfigure to provide that.”
This shift demands new thinking about careers:
- Skills-based progression rather than linear advancement
- Continuous learning as a career necessity, not a nice-to-have
- Portfolio approaches that blend different types of work
- Flexible timing that accommodates life’s various stages
Automation: The Human Skills Premium
Whilst automation anxiety dominates headlines, Gratton’s perspective is refreshingly pragmatic. “I think automation is going to be a very positive thing,” she argues, “but it does mean that we have to really help people develop their human skills.”
The jobs that remain will require distinctly human capabilities:
- Emotional intelligence and empathy
- Creative problem-solving
- Complex relationship management
- Strategic thinking
Crucially, these skills require what Gratton calls “a rested brain”: one that’s focused and not overwhelmed by endless video calls and digital overwhelm.
Redesigning Work: Beyond Remote vs Office
The future of work isn’t simply about location—it’s about reimagining both where and when work happens. Gratton advocates for organisations to consider:
Time Flexibility: The pandemic taught us that synchronous and asynchronous work can coexist. We can coordinate when needed whilst also having time for disconnected, focused work.
Inclusive Flexibility: Not everyone works in an office. Any new work model must consider factory workers, doctors, delivery drivers, and others who can’t work remotely as we shape the future of working arrangements.
Co-creation with Employees: “There isn’t a single company out there that says I got it right,” Gratton observes. The solution requires ongoing dialogue between employers and employees.
Three Pillars for Implementation
Gratton outlines three essential elements for successfully navigating this transformation:
1. Positive Leadership Narratives
Leaders must move beyond rigid rules (“three days in the office”) to articulating principles and values. Fear-based messages stop adults from learning; positive, authentic narratives help people embrace change.
2. Employee Co-creation
The complexity of hybrid work, with teams split between home and office preferences, different time zones, and varying personal needs, requires collaborative problem-solving. Organisations need platforms that enable thousands of employees to contribute to shaping their work experience.
3. Supporting the Management Crisis
Managers are “completely overwhelmed.” Organisations must use AI and automation to remove administrative burdens from managers, allowing them to focus on coaching, counselling, and showing empathy—the distinctly human leadership skills that will matter most.
The Choice Economy
Perhaps most encouragingly, Gratton’s research suggests we’re moving towards a “choice economy” where different organisations offer different deals. Some will compete on salary (like investment banks), others on flexibility and meaning. This diversity creates opportunities for workers to find arrangements that match their life stage and priorities.
As Gratton puts it: “That’s exciting; you can make a choice basically. It means employees have got more choice.”
Building Resilience for the Future of Work
The pandemic was a wake-up call about our collective exhaustion. Moving forward, organisations must put wellbeing and mental health “as part of the productivity equation”: not as a nice-to-have, but as an actual driver of performance.
This means acknowledging that we’ve “pushed things too far” and using this moment to fundamentally change how we work. The Ministry of Justice in the UK, for example, now explicitly includes wellbeing and mental health as productivity drivers in their post-COVID strategy.
The Road Ahead
The transformation of work isn’t happening to us; it’s happening with us. As Gratton emphasises, this is “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to redesign how we work and live. The question isn’t whether change will happen, but whether we’ll learn from this moment and create something better.
For individuals, this means embracing lifelong learning, developing distinctly human skills, and thinking in portfolio terms about careers. For organisations, it means moving beyond traditional structures to create flexible, empathetic, and human-centred work environments.
The three-stage life is dead. The multi-stage life—with its complexity, opportunity, and human potential—is just beginning. As we navigate this transformation, we have the chance to create work that truly serves human flourishing rather than simply economic efficiency.
The future of work isn’t predetermined. It’s ours to create.
