The Future World of Work: A Gen Xer’s Perspective

This is a fantastic article copied in full from Wall Street Journal columnist Alexandra Levit. I do not take any credit for this content.

Wall Street Journal columnist Alexandra Levit parses today's and tomorrow's job market for new grads.

For those of us who are members of generations X and Y, (see note) the future I always dreamed about is coming up fast. Our careers are relatively young, and for those still in college, they haven’t even begun yet. But already, technology is changing so quickly that we can easily imagine future work lives that barely resemble the ones we lead today. As our baby-boomer parents age, we will become the leaders in an increasingly complex world.

If we want to create thriving, sustainable careers that will easily withstand the turbulence of the next few decades, we must anticipate the qualities of the future work world. Here are a few ideas based on my own experiences and my conversations with other workplace experts.

• Who we’ll be working with: In the coming decades, the baby boomers will start retiring from their management positions in droves. We will have to contend with the “brain drain” from those who leave the workforce, boomers who remain employed underneath us for money or personal fulfillment, and a large influx of immigrants.

• Who we’ll be working for: In the last decade, as American companies have laid off millions of workers, the ideals of job security and employee loyalty no longer apply. In the knowledge-driven economy of the future, large organizations won’t be needed to create value and our livelihood won’t be connected to a single corporation. We’ll work for much smaller organizations that outsource everything but the business’s core area of expertise, and more than half of us will eventually become contingent workers, employed part time or as freelancers or consultants.

• Where we’ll be working: We’ve already seen the model of everyone at the same place, at the same time, begin to disappear. Now that we can be connected regardless of our physical location, work activities will be distributed across central offices, remote locations, and community locations. The typical eight-hour workday will be spread across a 14 plus-hour window to allow us to attend to needs at home and work with colleagues abroad.

• How we’ll be working: Our future workplace will be one of constant change, innovation, and skill upgrading. Work projects will begin with one set of goals, but will reinvent themselves over and over again, so we’ll be forced to think on the fly. Workers at all levels of the organization will be responsible for devising creative strategies, and cross-functional teams will be assigned for individual projects.

• What we’ll be working on: Future employers will rely on individuals who are willing to work the flexible hours and can leverage the latest technologies associated with an Internet-oriented, nonstop marketplace. Technical skills will only increase in importance, and as organizations continue to flatten, people in all areas of the business will be responsible for administrative skills like budgeting, hiring, and operations. From Generations X and Y, the leaders, organizations will expect individuals who understand human behavior, can engender cooperation, and can bring out the best in workers.

Sounds like an exciting time, doesn’t it? I think I’m going to look forward to “going to work” in 2025.

About the Author

Alexandra Levit is a Wall Street Journal columnist and the author of Success for Hire (ASTD Press 2008) and the forthcoming New Job, New You (Random House, 2010). She speaks to organizations around the globe about generational workplace issues. Web site www.alexandralevit.com .

*Note: demographers William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their book Generations, define Generation X as the cohort born between 1961 and 1980, and Generation Y or the Millennial Generation as being born from 1980 until the early 1990s.

Thanks for reading,

Kevin Love, MBA
Training and Development Professional
Dallas / Fort Worth Area
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