• Changing nature of work. The nature of work has changed from factory manufacturing and pre-computer office work where each stage in the production process occurred independently of one another and was coordinated by supervisors. Work was organized into silos. Within a silo, work passed from one machine tool station to another, from one desktop to another, until the finished product was completed. Today, jobs require much closer coordination and interaction among the parties involved in producing the service or product. A report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company estimated that 41 percent of the U.S. labor force is now composed of jobs where interaction

(talking, e-mailing, presenting, and persuading) is the primary valueadding activity (McKinsey, 2012). Even in factories, workers today often work in production groups, or pods.