Six work megatrends for the next 3 years

I was thinking about the big trends that are likely to shape the next 3 years in the world of work. Here are some thoughts.

The future of work is being influenced by several megatrends that are shaping the way individuals and organizations operate. Some of the key megatrends impacting the future of work include:

1. Automation and Artificial Intelligence: The increasing adoption of automation, robotics, and AI technologies is transforming the nature of work. Routine and repetitive tasks are being automated, while AI is being utilized for data analysis, decision-making, and customer interactions. In a service based economy like ours there are a myriad of routine tasks that can be automated - banking services incuding payments, driving and delivery, accounting, routine legal advice, onboarding and HR admin, tokenisation/digitisation, coding, farming, licensing and ownership records, routine lab work, warehouse pick and ship, conveyancing, security monitoring, and so many others. The obvious risk here is that we create an underclass of useless people that can't do anything a machine cannot.

2. Remote Work and Flexible Work Arrangements: The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the embrace of remote work, leading to a shift in attitudes towards flexible work arrangements. Many organizations are expected to continue offering remote and flexible work options, impacting how and where work is performed. Increasingly we will start to realise that work is not somewhere you go, so much as something that you do. This has big implications for feelings of belonging and engagement, new team member integration, loneliness, staff turnover, employee performance assessment and fairness as employers are likely to favour those they can see. There will also be a distinction growing between people who can work remotely (home internet, space) and those who cannot (servicing customers face to face, builders, police, etc).

3. Gig Economy and Independent Workforce: The gig economy is expanding, leading to a rise in independent contractors, freelancers, and project-based workers. This trend is reshaping traditional employment structures and creating new opportunities for flexible employment relationships. Flexibility is the key. These people will come and go from employer to employer, they will need to be able need to learn and adjust fast, be able to deliver results quickly, and be paid a significant margin for doing so. Smart Companies will realise that these people can bring "sprint capacity" and impact and so it is important to keep them in the employers ecosystem somehow or they will wander off to a competitor. Up until now the model has been "manage your employee's" but increasingly some of your more valuable resources will not be employee's. Modern HR Directors know this but still struggle to manage it. These freelancers are also not bound by employee contractual terms and cannot be controlled the same way. As this trend grows "the job" will become less relevant as the primary model for organising and allocating work - and it will become the "task not the job". Employers who master this ecosystem management paradigm are also likely to have a cost advantage over time as they can turn costs on and off as work load dictates. For example, are your Directors really busy for 50 hours a week or is it closer to 20 when you adjust for networking, coffee, ineffective meetings, etc.

4. Skills Evolution and Lifelong Learning: Rapid technological advancements are leading to a continuous evolution of required skills. The half-life of a uni degree used to be 7 years, it's now less than three. Lifelong learning and upskilling are becoming essential for individuals to remain competitive in the job market and for organizations to adapt to changing business needs. This is why "job-hopping" is now a virtue among Gen Y employees (first time in history). They believe you have to keep moving to learn and grow so as to stay relevant. This has big implications for the way talent management is done. We have a low unemployment rate in some part due to the retirement of the Baby Boomers because for every 2 boomers there is only one Gen Z - and they are much less capable. This is why there is also a skills crisis in most of the western world. Things like gamefied micro-learning will be seen more, to accelerate the rate of learning in companies.

5. Diversity, Inclusion, and Employee Well-being: There is a growing focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, as well as an increased emphasis on employee well-being and mental health. Organizations are recognizing the importance of creating inclusive and supportive work environments. Some of this is financial and rational. Psychological injuries are the fastest growing category of compensable injuries and are on average twice as costly as the garden variety work injury. Also because of the move to a service based economy people are more required than ever to be focussed on the quality of their interactions with co-workers and customers. Diversity is an outcome, inclusion is the process and employee well-being is a right and a responsibility. As time goes by the approach to diversity and inclusions will become more sophisticated and move from a focus on C-suite gender balance to include race and disability across the organisation.

6. Environmental Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility: Workplaces are increasingly addressing environmental sustainability and incorporating corporate social responsibility into their operations. This includes efforts to reduce environmental impact, promote ethical business practices, and contribute to community well-being. At the same time, the recent OpenAI scandal shows that when a Board is very focussed on ESG but their executives are more focussed on profit, things can go bad, very quickly. This has possibly wiped out $US86Bn in value. Is it possible that when big money is involved that ESG is a hard concept to sustain. The world may need other forms of governance than Companies making a profit AND self-assessing their ESG footprint at the same time - seems to be a conflict there.

These megatrends are poised to significantly influence the future of work, requiring organizations and individuals to adapt and innovate in order to thrive in the evolving work landscape.