Reality Check – Are You Ready For The Future of Work?- Valutrics
The Future of Work
Moving out of the endless search for the familiar past and bellying-up to meeting the challenges of the new workplace is as much a mind-shift as it is a reality-check for all workers – young, old and in-between.
For the past 10 years, I have studied changing demographics, economics and societal shifts as they particularly apply to the revolutionary U.S. workforce. A few of the realities of the emergent U.S. workplace are shared here with you today.
Here are a few of the realities of the emergent U.S. workplace.
No private sector organization will hire you full-time if they don’t need you full time.
Likewise, public sector organizations/institutions cannot afford to ignore pension costs and they too must curb hiring you full-time if they don’t need you full-time.
Temp gigs are booming but, unlike the old days, temporary “jobs” are no longer the harbinger of so-called permanent jobs toe.
Temp jobs today are the way many people work by choice or by necessity. Call this temping; call it free agency; call it project work; call it what you will but know that well over 30% of us work this way today. By the next turn of the decade clock, the number of temp workers is expected to reach 50%.
No largepany is any safer than a smallerpany in terms of providing job security.
Fortune’s 100 biggestpanies, for example, have had more than double the number of layoffs than Fortune’s 100 bestpanies. What is the lesson? Security is found in only one place; within you!
No end is in sight for the economic change the U.S. is facing.
The world has changed; the very nature of work has changed and it is these changes themselves that will determine when we will work, how we will work, where and if we will work. You can’t ignore the fact that thousands of U.S. “jobs” have been, (and will be) lost and gained as the result of emerging technologies and global surprises from around the very next corner of time.
Expect more abrupt change and plan for it by paying attention to emerging products and services. In other words, we all must begin to learn our lessons from the future and to unlearn many of the lessons from our past.
You may not count on yesterday’spetencies and skills to get you to the future.
If you don’t continue to learn, it is unlikely you will continue to earn. Between a million and, some say, two million “open jobs” are not being filled because ourpetencies/skills fall short of employer’s requirements.
Jobs themselves, andpensation for all forms of work, are no longer longevity-driven.
In today’s economy, jobs are market-driven by need andpetitive value. Study the market. The wind has changed. Learn to adjust your sails and engage in relevant conversations about value in today’s market!
None of us, of any age, can afford to overlook the fact that we are an aging nation.
Put this in perspective: In the U.S. there are more people 65 and older than in each of the entire Canadian and Australian populations. This demographic will double by 2030 from the first year of the 21st century. We cannot sustain ourselves economically if we do not continue to work, in some capacity, later in life, regardless of our age today.
Conducted by the Employment Benefit Research Institute, a recent survey reveals a startling fact: A mere 13% of workers – of any age – are “very confident” when ites to having enough money to discontinue earning at the mythological traditional age of 65. You don’t have to be one of the rest of the folks.
The likelihood is strong that you will cycle with increasing frequency between various ways to work throughout your working years.
Running your career as your business – not as your job – is the bottom-line of change that we all must embrace.
000000;”Your challenge today is to ask yourself just one question… If these changes are true, am I ready for my future?
Art by: lineacurva