Workplace of the Future: 2020 and Beyond

Workplace of the Future: Looking at the American Work Environment in 2020 and Beyond

By Deborah S. Hildebrand

Introduction

It’s always interesting to speculate about what the American worker has to look forward to and try to envision what the future workplace might hold.

Will there be flying cars or transporters to beam us to international locations to close business deals? Will the generations to come be as frustrated withthe Xers and the Yersas these two groupsseem to be with the Baby Boomers? Will environmental issues be so tightly woven into the fabric of society that it finally becomes a non-topic of discussion?

George Orwell predicted Big Brother in his 1949 dystopian novel1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 envisions a world of firemen burning books. And although in neither case have these futuristic societies come to fruition, people still like to consider what might be.

Depending onwhom you ask the American worker is either becoming a more technically adept knowledge worker or a service-oriented unskilled drone. Globalizing product markets are creating the potential for a worldwide labor pool while increasing the need for experts in the field of international law, taxes and immigration policies. An increasing social and environmental conscience has lead to a growth in sustainability education and associated jobs.

So based on what we currently know about ourselves and the world around us what might we expect to see in the workplace in the decades ahead? This look at the future of the American workforce not only explores possibilities but points out necessities. The necessity of change, flexibility and creativity in our thought and action in order to embrace and best utilize the resources – human, natural, financial – we have available to us.

Background

Diversification of the workforce, continued technological advances and the desire for information at lightning speed, fluidity in job boundaries and traditional work roles and structure, and the need to adapt compensation and benefits programs to meet the needs of the individual employee will require business owners and executives to rethink business as usual.

Change has occurred so rapidly to American society in the past fifty years that it has left us breathless, our heads spinning at the very idea that we may soon find ourselves trekking around the world in a nanosecond to close a business deal or enjoy a vacation.

With the advent of new technologies we have been able to close the gap on differences and open the world to new ways of doing business. Diversity is global. And how we work and live today will need to change tomorrow in order to accommodate the growing diversity, new technology, and environmental needs of the future.

Diversification of the Workforce

Between 1960 and today the demographic transformation of the American workforce has gone from that of predominantly White male to one that offers much more diversity. The White working-age population has declined from 88.6 to 66 percent during this time period while the minority portion of the workforce has risen from obscurity, nearly doubling in the last twenty years alone.

Unfortunately, according to 2006 U.S. Census figures barely more than half (54 percent) of the U.S. adult population has any education beyond the high school level, and as U.S. businesses strive to remain competitive with the international market this educational drought is worrisome.

Figures from the Department of Labor project that the number of woman in the labor force will increase to 48 percent this year, up three percent from just twenty years ago.

The diversity of the American workforce will continue to grow andchange as it relates to gender, race, education and age resulting in the need for continuing flexibility within work structure and occupations.

*Combined with ‘Other’ during this period

**All other ethnicities were approximately 1% combined

This diversification of the workforce requires organizations to continue to consider how to balance the differing needs of this increasingly incongruous labor pool and ensure proper education and training of all workers in order to retain our workplace and business competitiveness.

Technological Advances

Advances in technology have become mind-boggling on a near daily basis. Things not imaginable fifty years ago – wireless, hands-free telephonic devices, digital movie cameras and artificial intelligence –are no longer just a thing of the future. As quickly as someone thinks of what, someone else thinks of how. Can other ideas be far behind?

• New modes of transportation – yes, flying cars – but more importantly expanded mass transportation to reduce overcrowded roads and the impact of emissionsand vehicle scrap metal on the environment as well as to lower our dependence on gasoline.

• The ability to communicate across distant lands, and not just in the form of telephone, email and texting, but improvements to video streaming with a universal translator to bridge the language barrier and a voice recognition system to record the information exchange and convert to written hard copy if required.

• Robotics and artificial intelligence to enhance our ability to manufacture goods and lessen the need for human labor therebycreating a major push for improved education and skilled training of workers who control and design these processes.

Changes to Job Boundaries and Work Structure

The world environment, not just the work environment, has created the need to consider the impact and influence organizations have on issues outside their own brick and mortar walls.

Along with skyrocketing gas prices (projected to be $150/barrel by the year 2020) and the increased awareness of the need to conserve resources through heightened focus on sustainability, American companies continue to reach for foreign shores through international expansion and offshoring.

Positions in sustainability and the environment – green collar jobs –continue to crop up across all industries from roles in science – Air Pollution Analyst and Senior Ecologist -- or engineering -- Environmental Engineer -- to opportunities in advocacy and policy -- Government Relations Program Assistant and ‘Green’ Loan Officer -- or ecotourism – Nature Center Manager.

Not only will new eco jobs continue to grow, businesses will need to consider alternative work schedules and hours as well as alternative work locations. And we’re not talking just about a home office or kicking back slurping a latte at the corner coffee store.

Conflicting time zones, language barriers, international policy and tax issues, environmental concerns and varying business practices in countries around the world have resulted in a need to rethink our concept of the traditional business and standard 40-hour work week.

According toRusty Weston, chief blogger at myglobalcareer.com in an article at msnbc.nbc.com, as the borders fall away and “workers can travel and collaborate freely,” he expects to see a “rise of the ‘aerotropolis’ — business complexes at airports where jet-setters can fly in, get down to business immediately and stay as long as needed.”

This growingrequirement of flexibility and adaptability – fluidity, if you will – requires the individual as well as the organization they work for to consider new ways to structure old jobs. Showing up nine to five at the same location to do the same job each workday will give way to groups of people who work independently and provide services to multiple business concerns while others work as part of an employee-owned and operated business where income is allbased on negotiation and individual contribution.

Compensation and Benefits

It has long been the dream of many a human resources professional that employee compensation be tied to actual output and productivity. No more being paid just for showing up at work.

Instead, by creating a results-only work environment (R.O.W.E), businesses will be giving employees the trust and freedom they seek. As new generations of workers strive for the work/life balance that many of their parents and grandparents seemed unable to achieve, flexibility in work hours, job assignments, compensation and benefit plans will all be key to workforce retention.

The rising cost of healthcare has seen many a company executive question whether they can afford to continue offering medical, dental, and/or vision insurance to their employees. Generations of hard working Americans have gracefully aged under the constant fear that the social security system won’t be there for them by the time they retire. And as the cost of living continues to climb while wages lag behind, many of the working poor and hopeful retirees wonder how much longer this can go on.

Recommendations

Organizations need to begin considering how they will deal with these changes and challenges over the course of the next 25 years by positioning themselves to meet the new demands of the changing work force.

Therefore, business minds need to consider these possibilities over the next few decades:

• Developing programs to support the increase in free agency as some individuals will multi-task for a variety of organizations – virtual assistants, work-from-home customer service reps, contract work, independent consultants, multi-product sales reps – allowing greater work/life balance through flexible work schedules and increased work choices.
• The need to develop appropriate compensation plans that pay for the specific completion of tasks and projects – piece work, contract work, lump-sum payments, project-oriented pay structures -- much the same way a headhunter is paid a fee to fill a job opening.
• As fewer companiescan afford healthcare for their workforce,backing for nationwide universal health coverage will become vital especially as workers break away from the constraint of traditional work boundaries and become responsible for their own benefits.
• For organizations that continue to hire on-site workers, cafeteria benefit plans that allow choices to meet the needs of individual and their families will continue to grow in popularity. Mixed in with standard benefit plans such as insurance and retirement savings will be choices on how much vacation and sick time employees choose to accrue.
• Encouraging workers to increase focus on independent retirement savings and how best to prepare for a future without the government’s support.
• Adjusting to the flattening of organization hierarchy as the no-frills everyone-is-equal millenials take overleading to moreemployee ownership. Employees become the stakeholdersand contribute to the growth of the company while earning a percentage of the profits.
• Educational outreach to high school students about the importance of pursuing further learning and training beyond high school in the form of formal degreed education, technical training, online learning or other opportunities as well as enhanced training programs sponsored by employers.
• The impact of all these issues on a world-wide labor pool and the need to adapt compensation and benefits plans as well as company-wide policies and procedures to the international market.

Conclusion

Aside from giving commuters further reason to talk on their cell while sipping their morning brew on their drive to work, what purpose could GM’s 2008 Opel Vectra serve? If nothing else, maybe it’s just a reminder of how clever we are and how the inconceivable is actually imaginable.

And while perhaps your future career will not be as a member of the Inner Party in Orwell’s Ministry of Truth or one of Bradbury’s firemen, you may find yourself developing or even working along side artificial intelligent life forms.

Advances in technology, the melting pot of the American workforce, ecological concerns, increased need for educated knowledge workers, further expansion into the international arena and changes to the structure of the traditional idea of employment and what it offers will require all of us to consider that whatever profession we select, the world around us is changing rapidly and that to keep up we all have to change just as fast.

Citations

Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance: Occupational Analysis, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council. 1999.The Changing Nature of Work: Implications for Occupational Analysis. Washington, D.C.NationalAcademy Press.

Hobbs, Frank, and Stoops, Nicole. 2002. Demographic Trends in the 20th Century. Census 2000 Special Reports.

The Institute for the Future. 2007 Ten-Year Forecast: Perspectives.Executive Summary.Menlo Park.

NationalCenter for Public Policy and Higher Education. Policy Alert.November 2005.

News of the Future.Future News for the Year 2020 and Beyond. Oil Price to Reach US$ 180 in Near Future.

Putnam, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of the American Community, Simon & Schuster.

Ressler, Cali and Thompson, Jody. Results-Only Work Environment. Culture RX. 2008.

U.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey. American FactFinder. 2006.

U.S. Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Find It! By Audience – Women.

Zappala, Jenny Lynn. Where Will the Jobs Be in 2012?MSNBC Business. 17 August 2007.