BCG Henderson Institute and Harvard Business School have presented Future Positive: How Companies Can Tap Into Employee Optimism to Navigate Tomorrow's Workplacea research project detailing a global forecast of the perceptions of 6,500 business leaders and 11,000 employees. middle-skill on the future of work. At a time when public debate about the future of work seems to be dominated by widespread fear of change, BCG and HBS research has found that, in general, workers see opportunities in change and are optimistic about their future job prospects.
Of the 11 countries analysed in the report, Spanish workers are, after the French, the ones who assign the greatest responsibility to the government for preparing them for the future. Even so, they consider that they themselves are primarily responsible for training themselves.
The report's findings reveal that business leaders underestimate the optimism of a workforce that claims to be happy in their jobs and is eager to make the necessary adjustments when it comes to transforming their organisations to fit the future of work. To successfully meet this challenge, business leaders need to set aside preconceived ideas and bridge the gap between their perceptions and the positive vision of the workforce.
"The workers who are shaping and will shape work environments in the years ahead are diverse. What the findings of this report demonstrate is that business leaders are overlooking a key partner in their efforts to prepare for the future: their own workforce," says Joseph Fuller, Harvard Business School professor and co-chair of the Managing the Future of Work project. "Instead of fearing the future of work, employees around the world are absolutely willing to embrace change and take action. It is up to business leaders to recognise this opportunity and be proactive in supporting their employees and generating concrete action plans."
"It may come as a surprise, but across all the countries surveyed, employees do not see technology as a culprit for an uncertain future, but as an opportunity. The employees who participated in our research are optimistic and look to the future with confidence, and believe that technology can be part of the solution," notes Judith Wallenstein, Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Director of the BCG Henderson Institute Europe. "Business leaders need to harness the goodwill of their workforce to create a forward-looking learning and advancement organisation.
The report's investigators asked workers middle-skill and business leaders to describe their views on the trends and forces that may influence their work in the coming years. These topics include, for example, new technologies, telework, government accountability and regulatory changes.
The report includes concrete recommendations for companies, highlighting a number of innovative companies that are already leading the way in preparing their workers and adapting their companies for the future. Examples of initiatives that companies have undertaken include: using artificial intelligence tools to determine whether a candidate has the cognitive capacity to be a high-performing worker, committing to training workers to learn new skills through disruptive training, and using technology to provide a fully service-oriented business model.
Data from the report
Managers have a misperception of their employees' approach to the future of work.
- 39% of business leaders believe that the lack of employees with new skills is already having an impact on their organisations. In addition, they most frequently (29%) cite employees' fear of change as the reason that most prevents them from preparing for the future.
- Nearly half of global workers (46%) consider themselves personally responsible for preparing for change and 45% believe that changes in the work environment will result in better pay. 75% say they will probably or definitely need to prepare for future trends in work.
The workers middle-skill (without a university education) are happy in their current jobs.
- 52% of workers without a university education are happy in their current jobs.
- Swedish workers are the happiest with their current employment situation (66%), ahead of Americans (64%).
- In addition, 45% of workers worldwide indicate that their employment situation has improved over the last 5 years.
As business leaders try to figure out which trends will be key to the future of companies, the most common themes identified as significant have been:
- Workforce development and training (30%)
- Sudden changes in customer needs (27%)
- Employee expectations regarding flexible work arrangements (27%)
Business leaders raise a number of reasons why their organisations are not preparing for the future.
- Half of business leaders (50%) believe that their organisations have other strategic priorities.
- 39% believe that the impact of change on their organisation is still far off.
- More than a third (34%) of business leaders say their organisation lacks visibility on future trends and their specific impacts.
Workers believe that the changes and technology will have a positive effect.
- Almost half of workers (45%) believe that changes in the workplace will result in better wages.
- Overall, 61% of workers are optimistic about the impact technology will have on their future employment.
Workers and business leaders agree that they do not perceive the impact of technology as a priority issue.
Future Positive: How Companies Can Tap Into Employee Optimism to Navigate Tomorrow's Workplace
Methodology
In order to understand the readiness of companies and workers to adapt to the broad array of forces affecting the workplace - beyond technology- Harvard Business School's Project on Managing the Future of Work and Boston Consulting Group's Henderson Institute conducted two global surveys. The first canvassed 11,000 middle-skills workers from 11 countries to learn how those with education levels less than a four-year bachelor's degree perceive the effect of 15 forces of change (see Table I) on their future prospects. The second polled 6,500 C-suite and senior leaders in 8 countries to understand how prepared companies and their workforces were to tackle the 17 tectonic shifts (see Table 2) underway.
