It's hard to believe that crystal ball gazers once predicted today's workforce would be overburdened with leisure time. But although looking into the future is notoriously difficult, it still makes sense to listen when Lynda Gratton, professor of management practice at the London Business School, writes about how the world of work will look in 2025.
Selected by the Financial Times in 2008 as the business thinker most likely to make a real difference over the next decade, Gratton is also the author of several successful books on people in organisations. Her current analysis and predictions are based on a recent research project involving 200 executives from around the world.
According to Gratton, the project determined that five forces would shape our working future. The first of these is 'technological developments' involving robotics and the digitalisation and processing of information. The second force is 'rapid globalisation' and the emergence of a new wave of economies. The third is 'demographics' and the ageing population. The fourth - 'changes in society and family structures' - will lead to a higher number of families in which both parents work and men take a more active role in childcare. Finally, carbon-footprint concerns will encourage more localised production and working.
So how can workers prepare for this brave new world? 'I see three broad shifts in the way we think about working and careers,' says Gratton.
She believes employees will have to focus on 'developing specialist skills and mastery'. Even as they stand out from the crowd, workers will also need to be skilled collaborators, she adds.
'And finally, you, your friends and children will need to think very hard about what sort of working life you want,' she concludes. In the future, 'quality of experiences will trump quantity of consumption every time'.
