The Future of Work

People divide their lives into work and play. But a clever few realize that if you pick the right work it ceases to be work and becomes play. The trick is finding something that you are passionate about and then devoting your life to it. This won't necessarily make you a fortune but it will make you happy. It may also turn you into a successful innovator, because playfulness is an essential prerequisite for invention.

In 1989 58 percent of the UK population said they were happy. By 2003, this figure had fallen to 45 percent despite a 60 percent increase in average incomes. And recently, The Observer newspaper claimed that most Britons would rather have their working hours cut than have their salaries increased. There are various explanations for all of this, but one is that people are doing the wrong kind of work. But what does the 'wrong' kind of work look like? The answer is highly personal, but in my experience it means working with people you dislike, doing something that's too easy, or doing something that's repetitive. It can also mean that you have a job that lacks meaning or doesn't make a difference.

According to author/philosopher Charles Handy there are three forces driving change at work. The first is globalization. As Thomas Friedman argues in his book The World is Flat, there is a single global market emerging for everything from products to people. In theory this means that soon you'll compete against everyone else on the planet for your job -- although in practice there will be a limit on what gets outsourced. Nevertheless, if your job can be done cheaper somewhere else, it might be worth looking at other employment opportunities. The flip side of this global village is that if you're really good at what you do companies will compete globally for your skills, as more jobs become mobile.

The second driver of change is demographics. Most countries face a demographic double-whammy with an ageing workforce colliding with a declining birth rate. According to the Herman Group this means there will be a shortage of 10 million workers in the US by 2010. Employers will have to get smarter at attracting and retaining good people. Because of this, we can expect to see more flexible working practices and the development of initiatives that attract older workers.

For example, B&Q -- a Home Depot style retailer in the UK -- offers jobs to retired tradesmen. The results are improved customer service and lower employee turnover. Similarly, BMW in Germany has designed a factory to attract older workers while Procter & Gamble has developed YourEncore -- a network of retirees that it dips into when it needs to crack a problem. Incidentally, one further idea implemented by P&G is 'reverse mentoring' that helps older workers (especially men) understand the problems faced by newly recruited staff (especially women).

The third driver of change is technology. Thanks to cellphones, laptops, and the Internet, work is becoming less tied to a physical location. Instead we are becoming a tribe of digital nomads working whenever and wherever we choose. This means that in the future employment contracts will have to change. Companies will realize that they are buying people for their ideas, and not their time or physical presence. In this scenario, annual contracts will be related to objectives met instead of hours worked. This will lead to an increase in sabbaticals and a further blurring between what's done at home and what happens 'at work.'

But this is just the beginning. In another twenty or thirty years artificial intelligence and robotics will have displaced another layer of workers. So if your job can be reduced to a set of formal rules that can be learnt by an intelligent and emotionally aware machine it may be worth looking for another career. It's possible that your current profession might disappear.

In other words we are facing a third industrial revolution. The first swapped fields for factories while the second -- the information revolution -- replaced brawn with brains. The third revolution will be the shift from left to right-brain economic production.

During the last century people were paid to accumulate and apply information. In doing work that requires acquisition and analysis of data, workers use logical left-brain activity. But Daniel Pink, author of A WHOLE NEW MINDpoints out that it’s an activity that is disappearing thanks to developments in areas like computing. For instance, speech recognition and GPS systems are replacing people for taxi bookings, and websites are helping people defend themselves in trials, giving mediocre lawyers a run for their money.