We’ve identified the key meta-trends most likely to reshape work in the mid-2020s and beyond. We’ve then split these into two sets of five meta-trends, and in this post, we’ll look at why it’s pivotal to stay abreast of shifts and undercurrents emanating from the first of these groups.
As foresight specialists helping organisations harness opportunity in the future of work, we track and analyse the key over-arching (or 'meta-') trends we believe are fundamentally reshaping our working lives.
Since 2016, we’ve documented the significant shifts, undercurrents and key predictions shaping work’s perpetually evolving future, reflecting a catholic range of trends, viewpoints, as well as likely or potential outcomes.
Trends can be described as changes or developments in how things are, or how people are behaving. They tend to emerge slowly, over time. But certain trigger events can act as a catalyst, changing the shape of socio-cultural behaviours faster than the most intelligent mind can make sense of.
The pandemic accelerated a range of work trends – planting them firmly in the spotlight. And in a short space of time, war has laid bare the vulnerabilities of global supply chains and unleashed and escalated a catalogue of complex and deeply interconnected challenges that threaten the way we live and work in the 21st Century.
Thanks to the climate emergency, ‘polycrisis’ and ‘permacrisis’ have entered mainstream discourse, and in multiple ways, the ‘future of work’ has indisputably now become the ‘now of work’.
After detailed analysis, we’ve identified ten key meta-trends most likely to reshape work in the mid-2020s and beyond. We’ve split these largely into two sets of five meta-trends, and in this post, we’ll look at why it’s pivotal to stay abreast of shifts and undercurrents emanating from the first of these groups (those that aren't greyed-out in the infographic to the right), namely:
1] Digital technology
2] Globalisation & geopolitics
3] Attention deficit
4] Rethinking 21st Century leadership
5] Climate change & resource depletion
1] DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
The pace and range of new technologies accelerating 21st Century business is transforming the very nature of work itself.
Since its arrival at the tail end of the 1980s, the World Wide Web, coupled with the deployment of increasingly ubiquitous highspeed broadband, has underpinned game-changing advances in technological evolution.
The Internet heralded a new era of globalisation, allowing people and businesses from all corners of the globe to connect with one another like never before. This in turn has fuelled unprecedented levels of collaboration, innovation, growth and prosperity.
The triumvirate of networked technology, ever-increasing computing power and decreasing hardware costs led rapidly to Web 2.0 – an era where anyone with access to the Internet could both consume, create and share web page content. This intrinsically links with the rise of social media and is responsible for some of our greatest societal gains, alongside some of our most complex emergent challenges.
In addition, the proliferation of AI, automation, robotics et al is set to fundamentally alter the nature of task allocation and completion within all organisations.
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Register for our free webinars exploring the meta-trends transforming the future of work.
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2] GLOBALISATION & GEOPOLITICS
As tectonic shifts in economic power continue, how value is created requires reconsideration.
There’s no doubt the impact of the Internet and mobile broadband on international trade has been extraordinary. The past few decades have fuelled the link between global trade and technology, ushering in an era of ‘capitalism-on-steroids’ globalisation.
Every person on the planet with access to a smart device has, by default, access to information, knowledge, education, and the possibility of economic advancement.
The trade body for international mobile network operators, the GSMA, predicts there will be 8 billion smartphone connections globally by 2027, and 90% of the global population using smartphones to access the Internet by 2029.
In thirty years, transformative digital technologies such as worldwide Internet connectivity have eliminated physical borders, creating multiple new market opportunities, triggering an entire rethink of commercial value and market parameters.
3] ATTENTION DEFICIT
Perhaps the most under-estimated challenge of our times is the extent to which technology reshapes brain wiring.
Since the arrival of the commercial Internet, the dynamics of society, culture, business and work have been transformed.
The way we access information and, arguably, the way we approach our relationships have been entirely upturned by our access to online.
It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that there’s something going on with our ability to concentrate.
In the age of skim culture and the battle for focus, designing work for creativity, innovation and optimum mental performance will be one of the preeminent challenges of the 2020s.
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Download an executive summary of our Foresight Focus report containing the ten meta-trends we track.
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4] RETHINKING 21STCENTURY LEADERSHIP
As markets shift and transform, entirely new leadership mindsets and competencies are required.
Modern workers want to work for inspiring leaders that role-model the positive actions and behaviours required to solve the great challenges of our times.
For this reason, ambitious leaders need to be visible. Whether you like it or not, transparency is mandatory in our hyperconnected age. As more ‘digital natives’ enter the workforce, they expect their leaders to have online presence AND be a force for good in the world. As the boundaries between consumers and workers blur, so ‘employer brand’ becomes centre stage.
So, with so much change afoot, there’s an urgent need to revisit the vital attributes required for effective leadership in the 21st Century – to navigate, lead and manage organisations, a palpably more human-centred approach is required.
5] CLIMATE CHANGE & RESOURCE DEPLETION
The black elephant of our age. In a world of continued population growth and accelerating resource depletion, how do organisations provide sustainable value?
“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.”
The headline statement of the August 2021 report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is its starkest yet. It leaves no doubt that planet Earth faces catastrophic damage, due to mass over-consumption.
In the past year, newsfeeds have consistently reported record-breaking temperatures and extreme climatic events so regularly that one could easily be forgiven for feeling a sense of helplessness.
Except doing nothing simply isn’t an option, of course – building business sustainability within this disruptive context is already one of the key commercial challenges of our time.
SO WHY IS FORESIGHT NOW MISSION-CRITICAL?
Business leaders today face a continuous barrage of market change and ambiguity. While staying in business in the 2020s is already a full-time job, it’s increasingly challenging to consider market disruptors that lie downstream.
Foresight provides the enhanced ability to strategically identify, anticipate and plan for factors that will impact the way 21st Century organisations are structured, led and managed.
To stay ahead, ambitious businesses need access to a wider suite of trend data and expert-mediated market intelligence, so as to pre-empt commercial threats and foresee opportunities.
Understanding emergent market contexts as they take shape is key to organisational resilience in the 2020s.
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Business transformation isn’t the latest software or project tool. Lasting organisational change happens conversation by conversation...
So, if you’d like to explore anything we've touched on in this blog or discuss any other aspects of the future of work, please do get in touch.
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