In the year 2030 technology will dominate the workplace with artificial intelligence and smart assistants being common place while the use of augmented and virtual reality continues to increase. Everything will be connected, "smart," and data driven. Jobs will still exist and the vast majority of us will continue working the same way we are today, but the types of jobs will be ones that haven't yet been invented yet. Emotional intelligence and "human" skills such as perpetual learning will be crucial for leaders to possess as well as having technological fluency.
Work will increasingly become more dynamic as some employees will be virtual, some will be full-time, some employees will be bots, and we will all be working non-fixed hours. As with any kind of change, including technology, there will be both pros and cons. Those who work in routine jobs will likely struggle to make sure they can stay relevant in the new world of work. The advantage is that this will give us more time to focus on the human aspects of work such as building relationships, being creative, deep thinking, and practicing human skills like empathy and self awareness. We need to make organizations more human and interestingly enough, I think technology will help us do that! This of course also means that we need to get more comfortable with using technology such as bots and AI as a regular part of how we work, something which will definitely cause some tension and fear. Ultimately I'm an optimist and I think technology will allow us to solve more problems.
And what about non-fixed ours? It depends on if you're talking about knowledge workers vs those who work in industries like retail. Flexible work arrangements are already a huge topic of discussion and are being implemented at organizations around the world currently. The advantages are many ranging from improving employee satisfaction, productivity, and tenure, to being able to attract and retain top talent. The potential disadvantages here are making sure that employees can stay accountable for delivering high quality work, making sure they still feel like they are a part of the team, dealing with loneliness, and ensuring effective communication and collaboration. But here to, I think the pros outweigh the cons and when done effectively, flexible work arrangements can be a huge asset to any organization.
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