Companies need to do more to prepare employees for the future of work – but employees have a “keen sense of optimism” as to what this future might hold, according to a major survey by the Harvard Business School.
Companies face significant uncertainty as they attempt to prepare for the workplace of the future. In the last two decades, companies across the world have experienced an unprecedented rate and extent of change. Innovation, globalisation, outsourcing and the growth of contingent labour and gig work have resulted in substantial changes in the composition of the workforce, emerging new business models, new competency demands and redefinition of existing jobs. The force that garners most of the media attention - technological change - is often associated with anxiety. Forecasts often portend that technology will obliterate much work as we know it and that new business models will continue to disrupt traditional industry. Combined, they suggests that workers and business leaders alike have much to fear about the future of work.