10 key trends that will change your future of work (2 from 2)
The future of work asks us to consider the biggest questions of our age. What influence will the continuing march of technology, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) have on where we work and how we work? Will we need to work at all? What is our place in an automated world? Many purely focus on technology and the role that automation is predicted to have on jobs and the workplace. The real story is far more complicated. This is not only about technological innovation, but merely about the manner in which humans decide to use that technology.
The changes in society partly due to the technology disruption lead to a significant amount of changes in the way we work.
These are the 10 changes I think are the most impactful. In my first blog I have covered the first 5 in random order. This blog will cover the remainder key trends that will completely change the way you work.
In business world skinny is the new norm
The organizations that talked about shareholder value and were very hierarchical are gone or will cease to exist. There is more focus on employee next to shareholder and customer. With the rise of big data and data analytics people in all levels of the organization have access to more or less the same data. Information does not flow down as a basic way of working. Everybody in the organisation has immediate access to relevant data.
Organizations are becoming flatter, and managers are often at the same level as their employees being the so called “scrum master of a team”, a type of role which we know van agile projects. As a consequence they are more the coach than the hierarchical manager. As the organisation need to adopt quickly to changing needs it needs to be lean and quick, meaning a collection of autonomous “speedboats” is better to quickly adjust than a “tall ship”.
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” – Bill Gates
Flexibility is key
Research shows that over 30% of people in US work full or part time as freelancer. In Europe this is roughly 16%. More than half of them made a deliberate choice because they want more freedom to choose what to do. Also, they can combine multiple assignments. These percentages will go further up. After the lifelong employment now the permanent or temporary employment contracts will become more and more flexible. Consequently more jobs will move to the so called “gig’ economy. Many employees won’t move for a new job unless there is also hope for a better life, especially with more jobs that welcome telecommuting and flexible work schedules. Work plays still a significant role in employees’ lives, but it isn’t the only thing they consider when making life changes.
“You must always be able to predict what’s next and then have the flexibility to evolve.” – Marc Benioff
From production driven to innovation focus
In this period with exponential change driven by technology, innovation is key to business success. We will be moving away from jobs in offices and factories. These were focused purely on efficiency by getting out as much products as possible. Consequently due to the changes we move to environments where employees can experiment and find the best new solutions to problems. Jacob Morgan calls this the move from office environment run like factories to environments that run like laboratories. Successful laboratory companies have cultures of innovation and welcome experimentation and failure, as innovation is their lifeline.
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
Life-long learning
We move from a phase dominated by distinct life phasing of education-work-retirement, towards a period where people are having lifelong learning in order to learn new skills and keep up to date with their skills. Gone are the days of being able to show up with a diploma from a good university and automatically get a job that would last the rest of your career. It is essential to keep learning continuous, which also requires a complete redesign of our educational system. Being able to find answers and continuously build and adopt skills will be key differentatiors for success.
This will have a significant impact on the future of learning. Although education is developing and some good initiatives are underway, it remains to be linear. The last real disruption of education has been the introduction of books. The future of learning will be a combination of online learning and offline collaborative experiences. In these experiences real-life examples will be dominant. Education will be fully personalized and the focus will more and more shift to more right brain activation as routine tasks will be automated. In the discussions a lot of discussion is about technologies and methodologies, like Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality and MOOC’s. However the real discussion should not be primary on technologies, but more how we structurally want to set up our educational system. This requires a joint initiative from policy makers, universities, learning experts and companies.
“The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice.”― Brian Herbert
The data-driven world
Managers in the past were partly relying on gut feel and emotions to base decisions on. Contrary, through the internet of things and data analytics we will be “drowning” in data and information. Consequently, this information will drive strategic internal and external decisions. More and more companies are moving to data analytics to rely decisions on. As a result there is an exponential demand for the role of Data Scientist. This is a person that to analyzes and interprets complex digital data, especially in order to assist a business in its decision-making.
“In God we Trust, all others bring data” – Deming
Summary
Every aspect of work is evolving. It is key for leaders, managers and game changers to understand what is going on and actively act on this. Understanding the future needs or people and organizations is instrumental for future growth. The companies that can adjust to the work evolution will be the ones who are most prepared and competitive in the future of work.
In these two blogs I have given my perspective on the biggest 10 themes around the future of work. In separate blogs I will describe more detailed perspectives on particular areas and technology trends driving them.
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CIAO, Carlo
Carlo Schreurs is business group CIO and digital officer, trendviewer, speaker and regularly writes on digital and technology, the future of work and leadership in the digital age. Through short 5 minute blogs he provides busy people with key insights. You can follow Carlo on Twitter and Facebook.
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