Nature and Balance Will Determine The Future Of Work

In Past decade the quest for innovation has been centered around reason, big becoming bigger whether it is access, information, money , influence, or power. The countries are boasting of new billionaires produced and organizations having market capitalization of more than GDP of countries. It is reasonable for organizations to focus on generating value for shareholders and customers in similar fashion as It is for professionals to see growth in terms of their individual earning and purchasing and influencing power. If we apply 80:20 principle to contribution to GDP, not surprising that the national level policies are influenced by 20% wealthy influencers.  

The technology advantage keeps on increasing the gap between have’s and have-not’s. Accessibility of technology is still limited, and real world problems of hunger, health, shelter, still continue. The products for masses are created with number game and earning potential in mind. 

Future will belong to unreasonable human who has courage to change the world. Someone who does not believe in conventional wisdom, challenges the status quo and norms, dares to dream and has crazy ideas. The world will only change when we design and innovate for 80% and more so bottom 50% population to benefit. We need to go beyond constantly iterating the need for inclusion and ensure that everyone has access to all the resources to compete in this world. Everyone deserves an opportunity to bring our their best, and thats the true spirit of the development. I know I am sounding like a dreamer, but isn’t that we need ? The dreamers and ideators to bring in the change..

Workplace of Future :  

1. Nature inspired human centric workplaces where human productivity and creativity is as its best. 
2. The need for employees to work from offices will be minimized, wherever the physical presence is not mandatory. The new workplaces will have extension to home, hostels, hotels, co-working spaces. The workplace design ideas will have to be supported not only with technology and but also in creating workspace and environment that is conducive for productivity
3. The offices will have more space free and look at human centric design inspired by nature. We will see more vertical and terrace farms in offices where employees can grow the organic vegetable and herbs, walk and relax in the green meadows, breathe fresh air. The natural surrounding will have positive impact on well being. 
4. Sustainable energy will be a focus and we will see offices investing in renewable energy sources ( solar/ wind), recycling of waste, rainwater harvesting . The governments will push for the office complexes to be licensed as green buildings.
5. There will be no construction of new buildings for offices bringing down the pollution levels, The sharing and collaboration on office spaces for utilization of already constructed offices will be normal
6. There will be Collaboration to use facilities and resources so it is optimized.

Workforce of Future :

1. Organizations will not be boasting of the number of millionaires they have in the employee force and the highest salaries paid in the annual reports. The investors, boards and government will be asking for Minimum Wellbeing Guaranteed (MWG) to the lowest salaried employee or partner. Minimum wellbeing Guaranteed will be determined by pay that gives them access and affordability to safe and hygienic place to stay, good quality education for kids, hospitalization and healthcare for family, life insurance and pension. 
2. Home based and contactless transactions will continue to be the preference. As many homebound consumers work, shop, and socialize remotely, organizations will an opportunity to identify new opportunities that transcend their physical locations, such as offering home-based hairstyling, pet grooming, and car detailing services — and perhaps even old-fashioned bedside medical care. Logistics management will play crucial role in ensuring door to door delivery of products and services and will be major source of employment. Delivery services in most cases is not a specialized skills jobs , has the danger of stagnancy and burnout. Organizations will have to focus on safety, health and continued education and skill building to manage career.
3. Networking : The informal and formal networks build around mutual interests and purpose will become way of doing business and delivering the results. It will be normal for everyone to proactively tap into their network for expertise, mentoring, funding, influence, building other connections.
4. Salaries will be determined on the basis of number of hours worked, and employees will have option to work lesser number of hours for lesser pay. With reduced expenditures on travel, entertainment, …….. and need for work life balance most of the professionals will be opting for lesser work. This will create more opportunities for employment.
5. Availability of Flexible skilled workforce and individual experts for project , will influence more and more organizations to experiment with flexible workforce.
6. Physical and Mental health care will become mandatory benefit and the workforce in both organized and unorganized actor will expect the same as benefit provided to them.
7. There will be huge demand for skilling and re-skilling of workforce to meet the changing business needs creating a demand for teachers and trainers across industries.

Society of Future: (Imagine Year 2025)

Environment :Everyone is environment conscious. Individuals are recognized by the green currency they have earned being Nature Warrior, reducing the carbon foot print and practicing sustainable living habits. Youth is oriented towards making the difference and is inventing green solutions to clean the oceans and sky and pausing the climate change. Social and family events are around tree plantations, cleaning hills, forest walks, recycling, saving wild life, creating awareness about environment. Good ecology of products and services that are green and local. It is fashionable to develop habitual patterns around healthy living. There are large global interconnected communities built around sustainable living, life without medicine, healthy life styles, service to humanity. The question everyone is answering for themselves is : 

     What does sustainability means to you and what are you willing to do?

Education : Right to good quality education is human right. Everyone does their bit to contribute towards eduction in the form of Philanthropy, volunteering, creating awareness, creating content, connecting thought leaders on education and actually be part of education system. Role of education is to build good quality citizenship and equipping students and learners with life skills that not only ensures livelihood but also contributes to invention and excellence. Teaching and training is considered one of the most respected professions and the best students opt for the profession. There are large communities of educators , teacher and thought leaders who handhold and coach new teachers. One of the most popular stream of research is neurosciences exploring how people learn and innovate. Scientists are developing deeper understanding of nature to establish natural brain development and learning patterns, so the same can be incorporated in the field of education.

Health : The world has realized prevention is better than cure and Mental health is as important as physical health. Preventive health care is of greater coverage and impact than curative health care. Public and private enterprises focus on both preventive and curative health as part of the benefit coverage. There is increased awareness of mental health and there is complete social ecosystem being created to identify and help individuals cope up with the challenge.There is proven goodness of alternative medicines with natural remedies and Ayurveda . Telehealth and video consultations has created accessibility to best of doctors and medical consultation across the globe. A mental health counselor who previously focused on a particular city may now be able to follow up with previous clients who have moved elsewhere. Specialists based in cities now meet the diverse needs of patients in more rural areas who would normally rely on local general practitioners to provide all of their medical care.

Leadership of Future :

Purpose : Every organization would be forced to re-examine their need for existence and it will be leadership imperative to define a powerful purpose that is customer centric, had unique proposition and offering and is inspiring for the workforce. With flexible and diverse workforce operating from homes and other places with staggered timelines Purpose will become the core to bind them together. Purpose will play important role in influencing and inspiring the people who are now more demanding for meaning , mastery, autonomy.

Mindfulness : Empathy, care and compassion will be mandatory for the leaders as they connect and work with people to bring out their best. The employees prefer to work with the leaders who will invest in personal growth. The concern of humanity , sustainability and environment will be a clear expectation and differentiator.

Decisiveness : Computational intelligence will play important role decision making. With exponential growth the data availability and insight the leaders need to be taking the decisions based on the data intelligence supported with their own intuition. In the agile world the time to take decisions and experiment with them will be shortened, one will be expected to display agility with precision.

There has never been a better opportunity to shape the future than now, lets take the baton in building a better tommorow for ourselves and our future generations.