Ten Converging Forces Will Change Your Workforce Diane Tunick Morello 1 March 2002 Ten forces — demographic, societal, behavioral, technological, personal — must be factored into how you build your workforce. Prepare now! We identify 10 forces that will permanently change the workforce, and we offer recommendations for each one. Businesses should start now to anticipate and understand the implications of these forces on people, how they work and the technology that they will need to be effective. 1. Diversity of People, Thinking, Styles. In the United States, more than 75 percent of all recent immigrants come from Latin America and Asia, with roughly equal numbers from each region. However, IT specialists are more likely to come from Asia, with its larger supply of trained workers. The scale and scope of diversity will certainly embrace race, age, culture, language, status and sexual orientation, but it will not stop there. It extends further to thinking patterns, personality traits, learning traits, communication styles and work environments, differences all made acute by geographical widening of markets and global connectivity. Work teams will involve not only people who are known, but also people who are distant and whose cultures, backgrounds, languages, manners and thinking patterns differ. Do not expect applause for empowering diversity. Begin now to hire, develop and team up people with the purpose of using visible and intangible differences meaningfully. Failure to do so will limit business innovation, reduce organizational effectiveness and weaken recruitment. 2. Women. The emergence of women in varied roles, professions and ranks is accelerating. In the United States alone, women's involvement in the civilian labor force climbed 44 percent between 1980 and 2000 and will likely grow another 15 percent by 2010. In the European Union, women filled more than half of the jobs created in 2000 and 60 percent of the 10 million jobs created since 1995. According to the Center for Women's Business Research, women in the United States own 6.2 million privately held companies — a number growing at twice the rate of all companies and reflecting $11 trillion in sales. That growth is likely to come at the expense of traditional midsize and large businesses. In the field of IT, women represent only 9 percent of IT professionals, and their enrollment is dropping in advanced-degree programs in computer science, engineering and mathematics. In the European Union, men make up two-thirds of core IT roles. In a recent CIO forum, several women participants speculated that women were largely absent in leadership positions or in decision-making roles because the men around them feared sexual affairs and claims of sexual harassment. Cultivate the leading attractions for women — networking, relationships, other women, flexibility and opportunity. Tune recruitment and promotions to recognizing and advancing women, and do everything possible to subdue progression paths that suggest "boys club" thinking. 3. Consumer Values. Personal fulfillment, flexibility, speed, choice and convenience all are values of 21st-century consumers. Most of those consumers are also workers, and their consumer values will shape not only market behaviors, but also workplace behaviors and expectations. Consumers using sophisticated Web sites and customer-service organizations will expect high levels of speed and service from their corporate Web sites and internal service organizations, and they will be ill-inclined to allow internal service organizations to use traditional excuses to justify weak service. Expectations of personal control, fulfillment, meaning and equity affect every relationship on which an enterprise depends, and those expectations will alter power structures (see Curing E-Biz Culture Clashes With a New Social Contract). Devise programs for adding flexibility, trust and choice to the way in which people work and the tools they use. Extend programs for choice and flexibility to employees. 4. Knowledge Work. As the business landscape shifts toward services, intermediaries, information and the creation of knowledge, the ability to pre-engineer work processes, work outputs or even work success drops substantially. Rapid and dynamic change will turn organizations that are accustomed to structure and routine into organizations that must excel in unstructured and nonlinear situations and that must improvise solutions quickly, correctly and with grace. The greater the complexity and the more unpredictable the situations, the greater people's dependence on tacit knowledge, nonlinear analysis, creativity and innovative solutions. Gradually, nearly every type of worker will be considered a knowledge worker (see What Are Knowledge Workers? What Makes Them Tick?). Clarify the types of knowledge work found within the enterprise (i.e., task-based, skill-based, innovation-focused). Using employee feedback, analyze whether the enterprise provides adequate access to meaningful information and whether it encourages development of new sources of knowledge and learning. 5. Higher Education. Technology and flattened organizations have pushed decision-making power out to front-line workers. People in all roles and at all levels — from consultants through machine oilers through call center agents — will make increasingly sophisticated and complicated decisions. Hiring criteria must reflect the need for know-how, analytical skills, higher education and training. People who lack college degrees might find themselves at a disadvantage in knowledge-intensive industries and service industries, widening the educational and socioeconomic gap between haves and have-nots. Enterprises involved in knowledge work must understand the implications when they choose low labor costs over analytical capabilities and intellectual insight. Finally, businesses must provide continual development opportunities for their people, not only for the sake of retention and recruitment, but also for business strength. Examine whether roles and responsibilities in increasingly complex work environments need higher levels of education. 6. Aging Population. The age of the labor force is rising — projected to be 40.7 in 2008 — and life spans are undeniably lengthening. The aging workforce will have profound and lasting effects. At the simplest level, enterprises must design their Web sites for waning eyesight, pay more attention to building design and ergonomics, add elder care to benefit packages, anticipate higher medical claims and provide work flexibility. An aging population means that retirement will be pushed back in many enterprises, that some people will pursue more diversified career plans and that older people will remain as incumbents in their jobs. Despite the graying of the population, “old” continues to be unattractive. Not long ago, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), a U.S. advocacy group, invited employers to compete to be considered among the best places to work for people 50 and older. Whereas other best-employer competitions attract several hundred applications, only 14 businesses cared to compete for AARP's award. In the field of IT, aging is almost synonymous with "unemployable." IT environments tend to place too little value on leadership and business maturity and too much value on technical curiosity and enthusiasm (see Managing Age Diversity in Enterprises). Recruit for age diversity, emphasizing interesting work, flexibility of work arrangements and contribution of leadership and business acumen. 7. Communities of Meaning. The concept of community is powerful and simple: People will seek and connect with other people through common purpose, peers, goals and interests. Whether face-to-face or virtual, a community of like-minded people creates belonging, trust, passion, learning and relationships — all of which fuel performance, motivation and ingenuity. In the knowledge workplace, community gains momentum as people gravitate toward ideas, peers and informal groups that enrich them intellectually, hasten their learning and keep them sharp. Equally important, because knowledge workers can theoretically move wherever their brainpower takes them, they will seek identity, purpose and belonging not from corporate logos or organizational alignment but rather from communities of meaning (see Make No Mistake: Communities Are About People). Tap into communities of meaning and practice both inside and outside the enterprise. When possible, invite contributors to share new knowledge and lessons learned. 8. Place-Independent Work. Globalization, innovation-focused knowledge work, Web-enabled business processes and digital communication have theoretically freed knowledge workers to move wherever their brainpower takes them. Work becomes place-neutral and collaboration becomes virtually defined rather than physically defined. Place-independent work, however, is new for most enterprises. Its byproducts (i.e., geographically distributed offices, loss of boundaries and absence of physical cues) impose a steep learning curve. For example, although many people feel productive in nonstandard work environments, they also feel centerless, searching for meaning from peers and associates rather than from employers. At the same time, established managers will be challenged by an organizational model that calls for them to lead groups of people who operate independently and remotely (see How Do Virtual Workers Stay Connected?). Be realistic. The move toward place-independent work is not optional. Identify where, why and when place-independent work is emerging, and incorporate it in recruitment and retention campaigns. 9. Pervasive Connectivity. Beepers, cell phones, handhelds, DSL lines, cable lines, laptops, Internet, wireless, wearable computers, land-line phones and Blackberry devices. Gadgets, tools and "cool" applications give people tremendous range of movement and free them to contact friends, family and colleagues anywhere and virtually immediately. On the other hand, pervasive connectivity implies pervasive accessibility and continuous responsiveness, issues of growing concern and certainly the ingredients of backlash. Pervasive connectivity sets the stage for 24x7 support; inhibits people’s freedom to carve out quiet time, vacation and spiritual refreshment; and lays the onus on people to disconnect before they burn out (see Spiritual Disquiet in the New Economy). Define ethical and behavioral guidelines for how and when to contact people. Respect people's need for private time. 10. Security, Safety and Safeguards. Economic turmoil, geopolitical swings and fear of separation will cause people to push back on assuming needlessly high risks, especially those being imposed by employers. People will realign their personal and work priorities, most likely emphasizing safety for themselves and their loved ones (see Safeguarding the Workforce in Uncertain Times). People will steadily redefine what they will do, where they will travel for business, how frequently they will travel and for how long. Many people will concurrently increase their pursuit of "telework" options. If employers' expectations conflict with employees' personal values, employers will force a stand-off in which talented people may comply now but leave later. Focus on how the enterprise can safeguard its people, on site and on the road. Bottom Line Ten external forces will steadily — ultimately, radically — change the profile of the workforce. Executives, managers and human resources directors must take these forces seriously and feed them into their workforce, workplace and strategic planning.