Expected changes in Managerial World in Next Ten Years
Current trends in business and technology show that the way employees work
where, when, why and with whom will change completely over the next decade and
bear little resemblance to work as it stands today .Some of the important changes
which will be affecting manager-employees relation ship in future are as follows.
“We Working” will eliminate middle management
Currently, teams comprise a group of people pulled together by reporting structure or in
an ad hoc fashion. Teamwork is therefore considered more of a behavioral necessity to
foster team spirit and collaboration than a legitimate organizational principle. However,
in 2028, the complexity and scale of business objectives will demand the involvement of
brain power and expertise across boundaries in more intricate ways. By 2028,
employees will use avatars, language software, conversational interfaces and real-time
dialect translation to work and speak with team members Organizations will therefore
gravitate toward a new work philosophy called We Working. This philosophy involves
designing small and flexible teams in response to fluctuating workloads, shrinking time
frames, and intense flurries of information exchange and coordination. We Working will
encourage businesses to create small, autonomous and high-performing teams that
form, converge, act and dismantle as assignments change. Fueled by autonomy and
trust among teammates, We Working reduces the need for human managers to
assemble teams and monitor performance. Effective change leadership requires
leaders to work with HR to invest in algorithms that identify worker skills and
competencies, and modify worker profile tools to display portfolios of work rather than
job titles. Leaders will also need to consider human capital management (HCM)
technologies to keep pace with talent demands and realities.
Constant upskilling and digital dexterity will outweigh tenure and experience
By 2028, the most high-value work will be cognitive in nature. Employees will have to
apply creativity, critical thinking and constant digital upskilling to solve complex
problems. “The demand for digital skills has grown by 60% over the past several years.
In today’s digital economy, the demand for new ideas, new information and new
business models that continually expand, combine and shift into new ventures and new
businesses will increase. For HR leaders, this means a growing proportion of jobs will
require postgraduate education. HR will have to establish and promote a continuous
learning environment, meaning knowledge acquisition and transparency across the
organization must become a part of the day-to-day operations.
Extreme work choices will blur boundaries, businesses and buddies
Digital business, built on vast networks and ecosystems, will increase the distribution of
work across communities of people and across businesses globally. By 2028,
employees will use avatars, language software, conversational interfaces and real-time
dialect translation to work and speak with team members across languages, borders
and cultures, with almost no loss of context or meaning. In this kind of system where
people may not know one another everyone will be rating each other on trust,
competence and ethical behavior, much as people rate buyers and sellers on
purchasing platforms. Technology will assess when people have worked too much
and when they need to recharge by monitoring their biorhythms, nutritional
requirements and exercise needs And as the business landscape changes, leaders
must use technology and information to build a hybrid workplace — physical and
digital — that embraces the work styles of all their employees, not just those who are
permanently employed or have strong digital skills. Leaders must consider the impact
on the organizational values and culture while managing the influx of new and
transitioning talent. They will need to be clear about critical roles, which need longerterm continuity and organizational knowledge, and distinguish them from other roles that
may be filled by temporary employees.
Smart machines will be our co-workers
Smart machines are getting smarter and more ubiquitous, not only completing tasks
previously reserved for humans, but also what was thought to be impossible for
machines.By 2028, companies will start to increase the functions of smart machines,
software, apps and avatars. Proactive leaders must investigate how the regular use of
AI, smart software and robots will invigorate work strategy, and to drive a competitive
advantage, high performing employees should be encouraged to create and share AI
tools or personalized portfolios of apps, tools and smart technology to raise the bar for
extreme digital dexterity.
Work for purpose and passion, not just money
Increasingly, employees want to make a meaningful social impact, and they will do this
earlier in their lives instead of waiting for retirement. In 2028, people will actively seek
opportunities to tie their impact and value in their work to their mission, purpose and
passions. Viewing others’ posts on social media will motivate people to get more
involved and contribute to social innovation and equitability. Smart companies will make
themselves more attractive not solely by money, but by offering employees an
opportunity to have socially meaningful impact through work. HR should build a
message that resonates and drives engagement by creating initiatives for employees to
come forward with personal stories, experiences and successes in various social
causes.
Work-life challenges will reveal a dark side
Employees working independently or in remote locations will face a dilemma to fuel
upskilling and manage better projects they’ll take on more work assignments, potentially
to a point where they will feel like they are working around the clock. In response,
achieving work-life balance will no longer be enough; employees will strive to
emphasize life over work.Eventually, technology will assess when people have worked
too much and when they need to recharge by monitoring their biorhythms, nutritional
requirements and exercise needs.But there are shadowy aspects of the work-life
balance in 2028. As technology closes the divide between geographically separate
people, it introduces cracks in relationships and cultures. The remote distribution
of work means that many employees will not build social relationships in the workplace,
leading to issues of disengagement and loneliness.
HR leaders must work together to ensure work-life balance swings back and forth
for each employee as their work distribution, time and life stages change. The ability to
peer into the future will make work infinitely easier for HR leaders.
Managerial Skills Required for next Ten Years
. The jobs that will be in demand are shifting as more are automated by artificial
intelligence, machine learning, and robots. Teams are becoming more disparate and
globalization has added new collaboration challenges. At the same time, more
millennials are taking on management roles, and even our work spaces will undergo
changes between now and 2025. Change will be happening so quickly that 50% of the
occupations that exist today will not exist 10 years from now. Amid all of this flux,
managers are going to need new skills. The staid, hierarchical structures of the past
aren’t going to work. Therefore for future managerial career, following skills must be
kept at the forefront.
1.
Technology Management Skills
Technology is going to “grow alongside of us,”. That will create new challenges,
conflicts, and opportunities related to skill building, workplace roles, data management,
privacy, and others. Managers will need to understand technology enough to keep
abreast of and anticipate emerging issues. Some technological developments will work,
some won’t, and some will evolve. But the constant is that managers will be needed to
not only be comfortable with embracing new technology, but they’ll also have to be
adept at managing the changing relationship between people and emerging tech.
2.
Out centric Leadership Skills
Effective managers and leaders are going to need to be less egocentric. “I’m the leader
and you will listen to me,” approaches aren’t going to work in a tight labor market made
up primarily of millennials. Managers will need to be more “out centric,” focusing on
developing the people and teams around them to be active and valued contributors. The
best managers will look at the overarching need, and then build and develop a team to
meet that need with input from the team instead of dictating what the team needs.
3.
Soft-Skill Assessment
Effective managers are going to have to be as good at evaluating candidates and
employees for soft skills as they are for technical skills. The best employees are going
to have strong critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills as the pace of the
workplace continues to accelerate. Managers are going to have to be both inherently
able to spot those abilities in others, and also stay abreast of emerging tools and
assessments that more accurately evaluate them in candidates and developing
employees.
4.
ROWE Focus
Companies will adopt more elements of Results-Only Work Environments (ROWEs).
This HR management strategy, created by workplace consultants Cali Ressler and Jody
Thompson, focuses on autonomy and accountability. In other words, effective managers
will create environments that focus less on where and how people work, but which
measure success based on results and output. The use of contractors will continue to
rise, and managers will need to think differently about how they assemble the skills
necessary to meet their objectives. Focus will need to shift away from process, except
in terms of how to optimize it for better results. As workforce performance is based on
the results they create, not the hours they work, managers will have to focus more on
the communication aspects and relationship management.
5.
Tension-Tolerant Collaboration
Being able to lead collaborative teams with the appropriate level of tension and
constructive debate that will lead to innovative ideas and timely results that can get to
market at the time when consumers are looking for solutions: That’s a critical skill for
future managers. As teams become more disparate with contractors, consultants,
remote employees, and office-based employees working together, managers are going
to need to learn how to build culture in nontraditional environments. In addition, teams
will increasingly become more diverse. Generation Z will be entering the workforce,
while baby boomers work until well past traditional retirement age. Globalization will
create more cross-border teams. Shifting demographics will make team diversity
essential to capitalize on changes in the market. Leaders are going to need to be
sensitive to cultural differences. Sometimes, leaders confuse collaboration with
consensus and harmony, which can slow teams’ progress and make them less
effective. Especially as change technological, demographic, and other types of change
hit workplaces and markets, being able to challenge the status quo will be the difference
between exceptional and mediocre managers.
6.
Transparency
Being effective at building cultures in nontraditional teams will require new levels of
transparency and communication, Currency adds. This has traditionally been hard for
managers to navigate. For disparate teams to work, they need managers they can
trust—even when they can’t be face-to-face. Managers will need to be able to foster that
trust to build cultures that retain good team members.
7.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence has gotten a fair amount of attention lately, but it will only become
more important as the workplace changes over the next eight to 10 years. “If IQ is a
measure of intelligence quotient, EQ is a measure of emotional intelligence. A high EQ
is synonymous with being self-aware, of knowing own strengths and weaknesses, or
seeking the assistance of colleagues and mentors to help find them, which in turn
allows to identify areas to improve. People with high EQ tend to have greater empathy,
allowing managers to gain greater perspective and evaluate what isn’t working within
their teams, because they can see the situation from others’ point of view.
Suggested Strategies For Effective Implementation of strategic
Leadership
Industrial societies and the commercial enterprises operating within them have been
focused primarily on activities intended to create wealth. Technological and scientific
advances were the primary means through which wealth was created in such sectors as
medicine, agriculture, communications, energy and transportation. The inherent
characteristics of the postindustrial era create more risk for firms that attempt to create
wealth by competing in multiple marketplaces. Strategic leaders face challenges that
may become pervasive as more market democratization processes occur throughout
the world. Following important strategies will enable future managers to coupe up with
future challenges.
1. Growth orientation
The realities of competition in the global economy demand a corporate focus on growth
rather than on downsizing and cost reductions. A variety of strategic approaches can be
used in the pursuit of growth, including acquisition, innovation and product
development, extreme decentralization, and concentration on product line extensions to
provide customers with additional value. The means are less critical than the desired
outcome. The most effective strategic leaders will be capable of working with all
organizational citizens to find ways to match the firm's resources, capabilities, and core
competencies with relevant growth oriented opportunities.
2. Knowledge management
Strategic leaders must enable their organizations to develop exploit, and protect the
intellectual capital contained in their citizens' knowledge bases. They are challenged to
develop pathways through which knowledge can be transferred to people and units
where it can be further developed and used to pursue strategic competitiveness.
Managing knowledge in this manner challenges conventional thinking and increases the
likelihood that the firm will be able to create new competitive spaces in its markets. The
key to competitive advantages in the 21st century will be the capacity of leadership to
create the social architecture that generates intellectual capital. Success will belong to
those who find ways to keep it there. Through voluntary arrangements such as strategic
alliances, joint ventures, technology exchange, and licensing agreements, firms pool
their resources to create goods and services with economic value. They create
knowledge that facilitates the development of competitively valuable goods. Strategic
leaders who learn how to manage such collaborations will become a source of
competitive advantages for their organizations. The most effective strategic leaders will
develop the skills required to engage simultaneously in competitive and cooperative
behaviors. Companies that both effectively cooperate and compete with other
enterprises will earn above average financial returns.
3. Mobilization of human capital
Implied throughout this paper is the need for companies to adapt to the significant
changes in the global economy. To cope with changes in the world's societies,
technologies, and markets, 21st century strategic leaders will be challenged to mobilize
citizens in ways that increase their adaptive abilities. Leaders should refrain from
providing answers. Instead, their focus should be on asking challenging questions.
They should request that citizens working as members of great groups consider
relevant information to determine how the firm can use its knowledge base to achieve
strategic competitiveness. Asking organizational citizens to accept their roles as leaders
and colleagues while working in great groups can be expected to mobilize their effort s
around key strategic issues. Facilitating employees' efforts to challenge the historical
conduct of business in the firm also can stimulate them as they seek to accomplish
relevant goals. The development and mobilization of human capital is vital if the firm
wants to achieve the strategic flexibility that is linked with success in the new
competitive landscape.
4.
Developing an effective organizational culture
Corporate culture is the social energy that drives or destroys the firm and exerts a
strong influence on the firm's performance. To facilitate the development of values
oriented to growth and success, 21s century strategic leaders should commit to being
open, honest, and forthright in their interactions with all stakeholders, including
organizational citizens.
5.
Remaining focused on the future
There will be significant differences between effective strategic leadership practices in
the 20th and the 21st centuries. CEOs who apply practices associated with 21st century
strategic leadership can create sources of competitive advantages for their
organizations. The competitive advantage resulting from the work of CEOs as chief
leaders and the contributions of great groups as members of organizational
communities will allow firms to improve their global competitiveness. Strategic
collaborations, with host governments and other companies, are a valuable means of
dealing with changing conditions in emerging economic structures. By aligning their
strategies with an emerging country’s best interests, firms increase their chances of
competitive success in volatile situations. Failure to develop these understandings will
inhibit strategic leaders' efforts to lead their firms effectively in the 21st century.