How to cope with the ever-changing workplace

Anytime-anywhere qualifications and learning platforms will need to be accessible and be mixed with other methods, such as peer to peer learning.

5. Role and power of government

Strains on governments are diminishing their ability to make significant investments in areas such as education, infrastructure, health and social care.

Policies over the last decade have already started to shift a lot of responsibility to the individual, such as funding your degree and your pension. 

Trust in governments globally is decreasing as shown in the Edelman Trust Barometer graph below.

Figure 1: Trust in government in decline

Several large corporations, with balance sheets that some countries envy, have the potential to turn themselves into mini-states.

This in turn would drive these organisations to consider their role and responsibilities within a potential global society, not just a local one, as they compete for talent and resources.

6. Human capital

In order to stay competitive, keep performance high and attract the right skills, employers will need to start to value and invest in their human capital.

Highly skilled talent will be valued and employers will need to provide incentives beyond monetary benefits to keep these top skilled workers. 

Work life balance and flexible working patterns will become more important.

Millennials, which will make up 60 per cent of the workforce by 2030, value flexibility in the workplace as their top priority when selecting an employer. 

From the financial services industry perspective, it is easy to see how the requirements around benefit packages may need to change and be a lot more flexible and all-encompassing to the employee’s life.

Traditional benefit providers will need to change their offering accordingly and technology providers will need to enable and support new and blended products.

7. Ageless culture

A multi-generational workforce and an aging workforce will soon become the norm. Four to five generations will be working together, as most people will need to work for longer as they simply won’t be able to afford to retire.

Companies will need to ensure that teams and structures are set up to accommodate and make best use of the differences, while removing or challenging the previously perceived silos, ceilings and biases.

Once greater empathy, acceptance and understanding of race, age, gender, religion and languages have been adopted across the workforce, employees will expect to be treated the same across the generations leading to an ageless culture.

While the needs for each individual may vary significantly based on their age, income, skill level and life stage, available benefits packages should be seen as having an equivalent value whatever their differences.