How Our World of Work will look like in 2030....

By Stephen Landry

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Presentation

“We should remember that intellectual complacency is not our friend and that learning - not just new things but new ways of thinking - is a life-long endeavour.” Blair Sheppard Global Leader, Strategy and Leadership Development, PwC

 

Price Waterhouse Coopers have done some extensive research to examine “four possible Worlds of Work” they see (possible) for the year 2030.

 

Do you want a glimpse into the future to plan your (colourful) career path?

Read on my friends…

The Future Worlds will be divided into four colours, each with their own particular strengths, challenges, values and socio-economic features.

 

**Yellow, Red, Blue and Green**

 

Examine each World of Work to help you position, both your current career path and desirable future career management outcome based on these future insights.

 

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In the Yellow World, Humans Come First.

 

Here, workers and companies will seek out greater meaning and relevance in what they do. Social-first and community businesses find the greatest success and prosper. 

 

Crowdfunded capital will flow towards ethical and blameless brands. It will be a world where workers and consumers search for meaning and relevance from organizations, ones with a social heart. If you work as an artisan if you like to make things you will thrive in this area.

 

This is a world where humanness will be highly valued.

 

It is predicted that in 2030, production specifications on things we produce will carry “Made by Me” labels indicating no machines were involved in their production.

 

Like-minded workers will gravitate towards each other, aided by technology platforms. Collaboration will be key, with individuals coming together to work on projects or to deliver on an idea - for as long as it takes.

 

In this world, workers will identify with each other because of their particular skills set, interests and goals.

 

It will be a world where non-financial rewards are assessed fairly in a trade-off for less pay. Work will be a fluid concept and a regimented 9 to 5, Monday to Friday working week will be rare, where borders between home and work are blurred.

 

This will be a time when as more people will be impacted by technical advances and see their skills become obsolete, disaffection and the push-back against policies that favor the elite will grow.

 

But invisible technology, such as AI drives back-office functional support, and the automation of tasks that are damaging/impossible for humans still pervades. A struggle to find a balance out of necessity will prevail.

 

<< The ability to work from anywhere, combined with the advances in telecommunications make us geographically neutral.  >> 

 

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In the Red World, Innovation Rules.

 

The Red World will be a perfect incubator for innovation with organizations and individuals racing to give consumers what they want. Digital platforms and technology will enable those with winning ideas and allow for specialists and niche profit-makers to flourish.

 

Businesses will innovate to create personalization and find new ways to serve these niches. But in a world where ideas rule and innovation outpaces regulation, the risks will be high. Today's winning business could be tomorrow's court case.

 

<< Workers with skills in demand will prosper, those with outdated skills abandoned. >>

 

In this world, in 2030, the number of full-time US workers will drop to 9% of the workforce, an all-time low, as jobs continue to be “fractured” and tasks within jobs farmed out individually, and with quick turnaround time and need.

 

Innovation and people are inseparable in this world. 

 

Organizations will be stripped-down and nimble, supplemented by talent attracted by the next promising opportunity. Workers will know that the most sought-after skills will mean the biggest reward package, with like-minded workers gravitating towards each other, aided by technology, sparking bubbles of innovation.

 

Projects will quickly flourish, evolve and resolve as specialists move frequently and stay only as long as the project or business lasts (think movie set and crew).

 

HR will not exist as a separate function and entrepreneurial leaders will rely on outsourced services and automation for people processes. Larger organizations will scour the world to 'acqui-hire' talent and intellectual property using specialist talent strategists and AI to identify the specialists they want.

 

Technology will encourage the creation of powerful, like-minded, cross-border social "bubbles" allowing serial entrepreneurs to reach far beyond their size. New products and business models will be developed at lightning speed, powered by technology and big data, as businesses find new ways to serve niche markets and individual preferences. 

 

Digital (Applicant Screening) platforms will match workers with employers, innovators with capital, and consumers with suppliers.

 

Future Thoughts from this Future World:

 

 “The idea of spending three years studying one subject, as my parents did when they were at university, seems completely mad to me. I’ve worked hard to build my reputation and make sure that my skills set is exactly on-point – part of the point of checking in with the 3D forums and futurist boards every day is so I can spot developments early and start my research if I think that there might be a gap in my knowledge.”

 

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In the Blue World, Corporate is King

 

In the blue world, capitalism will reign supreme, it will be where bigger will be better. Organizations will see their size and influence as the best way to protect their profit margins against intense competition from their peers and aggressive new market entrants.

 

Corporations will grow to such a scale and exert such influence, that some become more powerful and larger than national economies. It will be a world where individual preferences take precedence over social responsibility.

  

<< The gap between the rich and the poor. Either people will have a high paying job or no job at all. >>

 

This will be a world of extreme talent. Exceptional people will be in high demand, so employers will secure a core group of pivotal high-performers by offering excellent rewards.

 

But workforces will be lean and organizations will bring in flexible talent and skills as and when they're needed. Human effort will be maximized through the sophisticated use of physical and medical enhancement techniques and technology, and along with automation, analytics and innovation, push performance in the workplace to its limits.

 

Workers' performance will be continually measured and analyzed, enabling a new breed of elite super-workers. In this world, a corporate career will divide the haves and have-nots.

 

Extensive use of automation and AI will enhance productivity and quality, but humans will still be in demand. Human effort will be maximized with physical and medical enhancements, sensors and data analytics continually measure, analyze and optimize performance at every step. 

 

Rewards in this world will are high, but the price workers will have to pay is their data. Data will be used to predict performance and anticipate people risk.

 

Future Thoughts from this Future World:

 

“Automation was beginning to have an impact around the time I was born and wanted stability for me. I was aiming for a moving target, of course – my employer didn’t exist when I was born – but it’s worked out. None of us rests on our laurels though – I know that there are thousands of people who would jump into my job in a heartbeat. We get free travel with the group’s auto-cab fleet and an airline – we don’t need to provide ID or anything, our implant gives us instant access. And I feel that I’m constantly stretching myself and as a company, we’re constantly stretching what the human race can achieve. It’s an exciting place to be.”

 

In this world, it is predicted workers will have an implant that will upload your heart rate, blood pressure, sleep patterns and full blood results several times a day to a monitoring company that will analyze and upload information to your employer, assessing (with good results) a healthy performance bonus with work.

 

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In the Green World, Companies Care

 

This is a world where corporate responsibility is not just a nice-to-have but it's a business imperative. 

 

It's characterized by a strong social conscience, a sense of environmental responsibility, a focus on diversity, human rights and a recognition that business has an impact that goes well beyond the financial.  Workers and consumers demand that organizations do right by their employees and the wider world. Trust is the basic currency underpinning business and employment. Companies have to place their societal purpose at the heart of their commercial strategy.

  

<< Climate change [will be the biggest impact on the way we work], we are going to have to change our priorities. >>

 

Workers will be attracted by the opportunity to work for an organization they admire, and whose values match their own. Even so, competition will remain intense for the best talent and therefore financial rewards are still important.

 

The incentives package will become an essential tool in attracting and retaining workers and increasingly inventive. Three weeks' paid leave a year to work on charity and social projects will be standard practice. Workers will be expected to reflect the values of their employer, both at work and at home through organizational pledges.

 

The HR function, renamed ‘People and Society’ will embrace a broad mix of HR, marketing, corporate social responsibility and data analytics. In this world, the idea of a job for life returns to the workplace lexicon. Automation and technology will become essential elements to protect scarce resources and minimize environmental damage. 

 

Technology will be used extensively to replace the need for travel, in turn driving rapid innovation in communications technology. 

 

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In the Green World, technology will be a double-edged sword: allowing organizations to meet their ethical and environmental agenda, but at what cost to humans?

 

Future Thoughts from this Future World:

“We use infrared technology and drones routinely as part of our insurance business.  My division adapts and deploys drones on a benevolent basis for low-income communities in the Drought Belt and around the world to monitor for flood risk and forest fires. We might be just a small part of the world’s biggest Insurance Company – but we can genuinely say that this work is saving lives.”

 

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Final Thoughts:

Examine each World of Work to help you position, both your current career path and desirable future career management outcome based on these future insights. You may find your current career track could be across two colours or intersect in some ways based on your current experience and interests. By examining these predictions, you may be able to guide your current career planning based on these insights to connect with what is ahead. 

Certainly, we already see some or parts of these predictions already, existing in our current labour markets. The increased use of temporary workers, less permanent jobs, contractors out to assist organizations to solve temporary problems are on the rise everywhere.

Generational diversity within the labour sector may have more in common than people think and will increase as more workers join the labour pool, and the importance of organizations having a lower environmental footprint in how they operate is paramount. 

We will see how much of these predictions make their way into the future of workforces and labour market construction as time goes on.

Stay tuned everyone 

See link at https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/people-organisation/publications/workforce-of-the-future.html for more information.

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About the Author: Stephen Landry is a Certified Career Development Practitioner in Canada. He works as an Employment Consultant and has a passion for researching future workforce discussions, AI and Robotics research, local labour market information, career development leadership, job development and case management. Connect with him on LinkedIn @ linkedin.com/in/stevelandry1

 

 

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