______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________
Subject: Workplace Trends (fwd)
Author: /DT rfc-822/DV root@wolfnet.com/ADMD telemax/PRMD internet/C no at x400
Date: 7.4.96 19:35
/* Written 4:26 PM Apr 4, 1996 by shniad@SFU.CA in igc:list.labor */
/* ---------- "Workplace Trends (fwd)" ---------- */
From: D Shniad <shniad@SFU.CA>
> ÆThis message encapsulates the conventional wisdom that managers are being
> told about the future of work. The whole scenario, much of it unpleasant,
> is treated as inevitable -- and of course if vast numbers of managers do
> treat it as inevitable then the prophesy is more likely to fulfill itself.
> Another way to understand this document is as an agenda or manifesto
> or political platform -- a matter of choice, the intended outcome of
> a campaign. These "trends" are not just something that's happening to
> someone else; this is you and me and your kids and everyone else's kids
> that he's talking about here. It's worth a thought.Å
>
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> Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 07:23:27 -0500
> From: James L Morrison <morrison@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>
> To: horizonlist <horizon@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>
> Subject: Workplace Trends
>
> **********************************************************************
> The article below is submitted for publication consideration in On the
> Horizon and will be archived on Horizon Home Page
> (http://sunsite.unc.edu/horizon) under the author's name, the subject,
> and the date posted. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or
> all of this work for personal use, posting to other lists, or for
> classroom use is hereby granted provided that copies include this notice.
> To republish in print form requires specific permission; please write me
> for details. Please consider posting your comment/response to the article
> to Horizon List.
> **********************************************************************
> 21st Century Workplace Trends
>
> Joseph H. Boyett
> Boyett and Associates
> Alpharetta, GA
>
>
> Since the late 1980s, three workplace trends have emerged in the United
> States that are already having a profound impact on American workers.
>
> Trend # 1: The Growing Contingent Workforce
>
> The social contract that promised job security in exchange for employee
> loyalty has been broken. American companies continue to downsize,
> restructure, and lay off thousands of workers. Work that is not
> considered to be part of the "core competency" of the corporation is
> being outsourced or performed by temporary, part-time, or contract
> workers. If this trend continues, many Americans--perhaps half of the
> workforce by some estimates--will be contingent workers employed in
> part-time, temporary, contract or other non-traditional jobs within the
> next five years. Many will be self-employed solo-professionals. Full-time
> permanent jobs and the benefits associated with them will be reserved to
> a select few highly skilled "core" employees.
>
> Trend # 2: Telecommuting
>
> The number of employees telecommuting, or working at non-traditional work
> sites such as "satellite" offices, has been growing at the rate of 20% or
> more per year throughout most of this decade. New technology is making it
> possible to perform many jobs anywhere. The geographic
> same-time-same-place workplace is being replaced by anytime, anywhere
> workspaces. Within a few years the phrase "going to work" will become
> meaningless for most Americans. Work, for them, will be what they do; not
> the place they go to.
>
> Trend # 3: Self-led Teams
>
> Finally, we are seeing rapid growth in the use of temporary,
> cross-functional, multi-disciplinary teams with globally- and
> ethnically-diverse memberships. These teams have no traditional boss or
> supervisor. Team members take on responsibility for planning, organizing,
> staffing, scheduling, directing, monitoring, and controlling their own
> work. Perhaps more importantly, these teams are increasingly linked, via
> global networks or just the internet, with instantaneous and unrestricted
> flow of information within and between teams and team members.
>
> Implications
>
> These trends have enormous social, economic, and political implications.
> Here are just a few: Implications for Individuals
>
> * In order to succeed in the new workplace, American workers will need
> skills to add value quickly. The new workplace will reward the
> "specialized generalist" who has both a solid basic education plus
> professional and technical skills in demand across a range of companies
> and even industries. The SCANS competencies will no longer be enough.
> Everyone will have to be able to do something that adds value now in
> order to be considered for employment in all but the most marginal jobs.
>
> * American companies no longer will provide mentors or career counseling
> to their workers. Americans will be responsible for managing their own
> careers. As Charles Handy has written, we will all need an "agent."
> Temporary staffing services, career counselors, and employment agencies
> in particular will rapidly redefine their missions and marketing to
> stress their role as "agents."
>
> * Since most Americans will not have full-time permanent jobs and even
> those who do will have no real job security, most workers will be
> financially insecure. Americans will be forced to build and maintain
> liquid savings equivalent to a year or more of income as a shield against
> periods of unemployment or underemployment. Home ownership will become
> difficult for most people since their incomes will fluctuate.
>
> * Americans will begin working earlier and continue working longer. The
> concept of retirement will disappear, since most Americans will have to
> work most of their lives.
>
> * The barrier that since the 1800s has separated work and the rest of
> life will be shattered. Work will intrude into every aspect of life.
>
> * Housing will change dramatically. All homes will be wired for commerce
> as well as for recreation. Houses and apartments will become both homes,
> work sites and education centers.
>
> * Everyone will be expected to demonstrate strong team skills and to have
> the ability to function effectively in a new team from the start.
> Companies will no longer accept or tolerate 6 to 12 months of "team
> building." Like a second- or third-string tail back, everyone will be
> expected to come off the bench on short notice, and help the team gain
> yardage right away.
>
> * As we move increasingly to self-managed teams, everyone will be
> expected to perform one or more of the following critical leadership
> roles: envisioning (facilitating idea generation and innovation in the
> team and helping the team members think conceptually and creatively);
> organizing (helping the team focus on details, deadlines, efficiency and
> structure so the team gets its work done); spanning (maintaining
> relationships with outside groups and people, networking, presentation
> management, developing and maintaining a strong team image, intelligence
> gathering, locating and securing critical team resources); and
> socializing (uncovering the needs and concerns of individuals in the
> group, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to present his or her
> views, injecting humor when it is need to relieve tensions, taking care
> of the social and psychological needs of group members).
>
> * Since most teams will be cross-functional and international, everyone
> will require strong language skills (fluency in at least one language
> other than English) and the ability to appreciate differences and work
> effectiv ely with diverse cultures.
>
> Implications for Organizations
>
> * Every business--indeed every organization whether public or private,
> profit or non-profit--will be forced to clarify its core competencies and
> reason for existence. Those groups which fail to identify and guard what
> is truly "core" will keep inside the wrong things and outsource those
> things that make them unique and vital. By doing so they will condemn
> themselves to becoming hollow, unnecessary, untenable shells.
>
> * As continuous learning becomes the norm, educational institutions will
> be swamped with demand. The new student will expect value, quality, speed
> of delivery and effectiveness in addition to availability and convenience
> . Education will be a critical personal investment for which the consumer
> will demand an exceptionally high return. Expect technology to play an
> increasingly important role in the delivery of education with 50% or more
> of students never entering a classroom.
>
> * Traditional methods of management and motivation such as "employee of
> the month awards" and the promise of a future promotion will not work
> with the new employees. Highly skilled contingent workers will be more
> loyal to their discipline than their employer of the moment. Threats of
> job loss will be meaningless to these workers since they expect no job
> security. Instead, these new workers will demand: respect, interesting
> and challenging work, the chance to further develop their skills, freedom
> and resources to use their talents and knowledge to do the work they were
> hired to do and enjoy doing, and an equitable share in the financial
> rewards that flow from their contribution.
>
> * As work is increasingly performed away from the traditional work site,
> the few managers and supervisors who remain will have to learn to manage
> without depending upon "face time" as an indicator of contribution.
> Performance goals will become more explicit, and measurement will become
> more sophisticated and objective. Results will count more than
> activities.
>
> * Increasingly, the value of a company will be based upon its core
> knowledge. As we move to global teams, telecommuting, and contingent
> employment, information security issues will become a major concern to
> most companie s.
>
> * A key role of leaders will be to create a shared vision to which both
> permanent and contingent team members can commit. We are building
> organizations that are, in reality, enterprise constellations. The
> gravity that holds the constellation of teams together and keeps them
> from spinning out of control or colliding with each other is the shared
> and unifying vision of who "WE" are, even if "WE" are acknowledged to be
> finite. Without such a unifying vision and specific team goals and
> mission statements that link teams to the overriding vision, there is
> perpetual conflict, competition for resources, and misdirected energy.
>
> * Organizations will succeed or fail based upon the ability of the
> leadership to assemble teams with the right mix of talent quickly. Just
> one missing technical or leadership skill may doom a team and the
> organization th at depends upon its success to failure.
>
> Implications for Society as a Whole
>
> * As we move to the new economy, businesses will increasingly resist
> taking on responsibility for delivering social services, particularly to
> the fifty percent of the workforce who are non-core employees. The
> argument will be that the business of business is not to provide
> healthcare insurance or child care or elder care or education and
> training. Healthcare, child care, elder care, education, and so on, it
> will be argued, are individual problems, not business problems, and
> should be addressed by individuals or governments (the collective "We").
> The U.S. will be forced to uncouple social support mechanisms from
> full-time employment or risk abandoning h alf the nation to no access to
> such benefits.
>
> * As more workers telecommute or use satellite offices, cities no longer
> will be a center of commerce. High-rise office buildings will sit half
> empty. We will be forced to find non-commercial purposes for our cities
> or witness their slow but inevitable decline to filthy, dangerous, shells
> of abandoned concrete and steel.
>
> * The decline of cities will mean the revival of small towns. No longer
> tied to geography for employment, Americans will seek more pristine
> surroundings. Rural areas will boom as we see a migration back to the
> countrys ide.
>
> * As Americans increasingly work on cross-functional , diverse,
> multi-national teams, they will become more global in outlook. This
> globalization of individuals will make the nation-state irrelevant as
> people everywhere i dentify more closely with their professionals peers
> than their fellow countrymen.
>
> The Greatest Implication of All
>
> We are about to enter a new wave of change that will crash upon us with a
> force we haven't known before. This time everyone will change and
> everything will change. These changes will touch not just our daily
> tasks, but who we are. This time we will change not just what we know,
> but how we think. This time we will change not just how we view the
> world, but how we live in it.
>
> ***********************************************************************
> The purpose of Horizon List is to identify and discuss current or
> potential developments that can affect the future of education. Please
> comment on this article by posting your note to Horizon List, to the
> author, or to the editor (morrison@unc.edu).
> ************************************************************************
>
>
>
>
> --
> James L. Morrison Morrison@unc.edu
> Editor, On the Horizon 919 962-2517 (office)
> Professor of Educational Leadership 919 962-1533 (fax)
> CB 3500 Peabody Hall UNC-CH Chapel Hill, NC 27599
> Horizon Home Page http://sunsite.unc.edu/horizon
>
>
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