This is the November issue of our free monthly newsletter, Future of Work Agenda. We welcome comments on any of these articles. You can also access the newsletter directly on our website, at this link.
It’s hard to believe the extended “holiday season” is just about upon us. It’s been a tough year for just about everyone. However, we’re seeing some encouraging signs of a genuine recovery. [continue reading...]
Just found out about a good article in The Futurist magazine about the future of the job market. In the current economy we’re all concerned about creating enough jobs to get back to something resembling full employment. But given the demographics of the work force, employers who think long term may have a very different challenge ahead of them.
This isn’t new news, but it does serve as an important reminder: ignore demographics at your peril. [continue reading...]
We recently completed a research project in partnership with World at Work. Titled “Flexible Work Arrangements for Nonexempt Employees,” it is now available for download from the Word at Work website at this link (the link also includes an embedded video of Ryan Johnson, Director of Public Affairs, interviewing WDC’s Charlie Grantham about the research. The section on our research is about halfway down the page; click on “View the Complete Results” to download the report). [continue reading...]
Here’s a rare chance for me to give you tomorrow’s news today. There’s a good article in tomorrow morning’s Washington Post (July 26, 2009) about the rise of “digital nomads,” otherwise known as mobile workers.
The article (“Digital Nomads Ditch Cubes for Diners and Pool Decks“), by Michael Rosenwald, opens this way:
[continue reading...]Frank Gruber’s workstation at AOL in Dulles could be in any cubicle farm from here to Bangalore — push-pin board for reminders, computer on Formica desk, stifling fluorescent lighting.
Rebecca Ryan is one the smartest, most “with-it” people we know. She’s the founder of NextGenerationConsulting and also of the NextCities research program.
Recently Rebecca started up a series of podcasts (in addition to her ongoing series of webcasts, white papers, and related rich-content stuff – see her Library for details). If you want to know anything about managing younger workers, creating communities that attract young folks, or just how to be an effective manager, you need to pay attention to Rebecca. [continue reading...]
Time Magazine has just discovered that the future of work will be very different from the world that we’ve all grown up with.
The May 25 print edition actually has “The Future of Work” as it’s cover story:
And if you click on that image you’ll go right to the (free) online version of the story. It starts like this:
[continue reading...]Ten years ago, Facebook didn’t exist.
[This is the “Notes from the Field” article from the March issue of our Future of Work Agenda newsletter. You can also read it in the newsletter format at this link.]
By Jim Horan
If you have not lost your job, it’s likely you are in fear that you will. If you have lost your job recently, I truly understand the pain you are feeling, I have been there.
April 1st nineteen years ago I was a CFO in a Fortune 500 company until 9:30am, when the phone rang and I was summoned to the executive suite to learn that my job had just been eliminated.
I was shocked and stunned; but it turned out to be the best possible thing that has happened to me in this life. It caused me, with a substantial amount of pain over several years, to discover who I really was, and then to go out and find the right work for me.
The news on the unemployment front lines just continues to be bad – and getting worse. See, for example, this report in Business Week today: “Jobs: Another 651,000 lost in February.”
And, as I’ve contended for ages, that data – as discouraging as it is – doesn’t include all the small businesses and “free agents” who are struggling to find new business; the formal jobs report is only the tip of the iceberg.
And today the New York Times carried an insightful article about the realities and our highly uncertain future (“Crushing Job Losses May Signal Economic Shift“).
The Big Message: lots of those jobs will never come back; and it’s time to start talking about putting money into retraining and reskilling programs.
Back to the future. There’s lots of current data about “working anywhere,” but I also just unearthed a 2005 study in the U.K. suggesting the “end of the desk” as a core component of the workplace.
The report, “Working in the Twenty-First Century,” was published by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Tomorrow Project, a charity studying future trends. The researchers found that almost a fifth of UK-based workers, over 5 million in total , were already (in 2005) spending some time working at home or on the move.