Future of Work: Top Trends of the Decade and Timeless Strategies You Can’t Ignore

The Evolution Of Work

The workforce is going to be impacted by three major areas of change and growth.

Workforce transformation: From Baby boomers to Gen Z, there are many generations now in the workforce working next to each other.

Tech modernization And Digital acceleration: Three intersecting forces shape technology: the physical laws of the universe, our collective history and our individual choice.

2014: Four Types of Work

In 2014, at a lecture at the University of Toronto, Marty Neumeier talked about the Rules of Genius.

Creative: Unique, imaginative, non-routine, and autonomous.
Skilled: Standardized, talent-driven, professional, and directed.
Rote: Interchangeable, routinized, outsourceable, and managed.
Robotic: Algorithmic, computerized, efficient, and purchased.

2017: Careers and Graphs

In 2017, Adam Grant had shown the world how our careers fare in comparison to others.

2017 – Careers Vs. Potential

2018: Drawing The Future

This international survey offers an opportunity to explore who primary-age children ideally want to become, and, what shapes (and often limits) their career aspirations and dreams for the future. The Drawing the Future survey used a simple template to combine drawing alongside a number of key questions to better understand what may be shaping the aspirations which some children hold.

Specifically, the survey asked children aged between 7 and 11-years-old to draw what they wanted to be when they were older, and asked where they heard about that job, for instance was it through their parents or someone they knew? Alternatively, were they influenced by other non-familial and local influences such as the internet, television and/or social media?

Findings include:

• The patterns of jobs chosen by seven-year-olds mirror those selected by 17-year olds
• Gender stereotyping about jobs is set from a young age
• Family, TV, radio and film have the biggest influence on children’s choices
• There is a need for greater access to career role models from a young age
• Children’s career aspirations have little in common with projected workforce needs, which could have serious implications for the UK’s economy
• Children in some developing countries often aspire to more professional jobs than those in some affluent countries.

SOURCE: Find it HERE.

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2020: World Economic Forum Says

2021: Record People Quitting

2022: 4 Day Work Week

Books like The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss along with its dream inspiring tag line of “Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich” have long worked on our psyche to redefine what we think of work in the 21st century.

And the pandemic has now accelerated how to choose to define our boundaries with work and pleasure. We’re becoming a world that chooses to live now rather than work 9-5 building a safety net for the life – we might or might not have the energy and the enthusiasm for in the end.

In June, 2022, a non-profit called the 4 Day Week Global, a think tank, launched a 4 Day work week in a few companies in UK in partnership with researchers from Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College.

The great news is that almost all the companies that adopted these reduced hours kept them, except for a few. Check out the details HERE.

2023: The 9/80 Work Schedule

We started hearing about this from the beginning of 2023. A 9/80 work schedule is a two-week schedule that divides 80 working hours amongst nine days, typically consisting of eight nine-hour days, one eight-hour day, and one day off. Hours can be arranged to have a full day off every other week or to have a four-hour day every week.

What is a 9/80 Work Schedule? Advantages and Disadvantages

Read more HERE.

2023: Quiet Promotions

This is to say, that your next job is going to be on the next floor. It means the company is trying to move some of their best employees into open positions, rather than bringing talent from outside.

Read more HERE.

2023: The Golden Handcuffs

Parallel to the golden handcuffs phenomenon, which describes the notion of staying in a high-paying job due to the paycheck alone, remote workers say they feel trapped by the WFH benefit that’s just too good to lose.

For example, according to businessinsider.com, when you hate your job but you love working from home: and that’s when you’re in remote-work handcuffs.

And here’s another way of looking at golden handcuffs. Golden handcuffs refer to a type of financial incentive offered by employers to retain key employees and incentivize them to stay with the company. The term “golden handcuffs” implies that the incentives are attractive and lucrative, but they also make it difficult for employees to leave the company in that they would lose out on said benefits should they go.

Here’s the SOURCE.

2023: Quiet Cutting: Employers Reassigning More Workers To Cut Jobs

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Focus Areas For Growth

In the end, no matter what the trends, there are some things that don’t change.

Companies will benefit long term if they focus on these 7 areas of transformation.

1. Purpose: mobilizes people in ways that profits alone never will.
2. Strategy: what not to do is as imp as what to do.
3. Customer: not as developer but as user: what products speak to me?
4. Delivery teams: organized by experience, process and technology
5. Culture: human possibilities vs. human resources
6. Data: in god we trust, all others must bring data
7. Execution: best way to do it is to do it.

In the book – What’s Holding You Back, Sam Horn says that there are fears and insecurities that are timeless for both employees and employers. And this is a good reminder.

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The Future Of Work Is Now

The Non-Cognitive Skills Needed For The Future, Our Hybrid Work Life And Much More

If you’re not careful you can follow your passion right into poverty. ~ Srini Rao

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