Projections for 2001

As year 2000 comes to a close and 2001 looms shining before us, we think about this coming decade.  What´s ahead for HR and our workplaces?  What will be our greatest challenges?  Successes?  What will leaders need to deal with in this new year and beyond?

Based on our research we offer these seven projections for things you can expect in the new year and beyond.

1.  The pace of change will increase.  Yeah, sure, everybody´s talked about it for a long time.  Change.  We know more is coming.  But be ready for the pace of change to accelerate.  How much?

The World Future Society projects there will be more change in the next ten years than there has been in the past 200 years!

Wow.  Truly, blur is the speed of change.  Here´s another way to look at it.  If we take all the information humankind has researched and accumulated over the centuries, over 90% would have been gleaned in the time it takes us to say "Blur is the speed of change." And the speed of change will increase in this decade. 

This suggests many things for Human Resources.  We must continue to cultivate flexibility and adaptability in people at work . . . increase people´s ability to live with some uncertainty and to absorb change.  It also demands that we make worker selection decisions based not simply on hard skills and education, but also on broader talents, abilities, and potential.  Within our profession, we must step up the pace of our own learning and change to ensure we are current with global best practices.

2.  Technology will expand the fastest.  There is now more computing power in my new PCS phone than in the first computer I used.  Asking for one´s email address is as common as asking for phone number or fax number. 

As long as we can find a phone line we can be connected to anybody, anywhere.  And within a very short time we won´t need a wire-based phone line.  It will be wireless.  No constraints.  No limitations.  But connected.

A few years ago you used the Internet to talk with libraries and researchers.  Now you use it to check the weather, buy just about anything from anywhere, and talk with people around the globe.  Global use of the Internet doubles every 6 weeks.

What does all this mean?  We don´t know, for sure!  What we do know is that the use of technology will increase.  It will have an even greater impact on how work gets done and how life is lived!  The future is being invented right now and we don´t yet know where it´s taking us.  Let´s be sure we´re ready.

3.  Boutiques are returning.  Mega-mergers may be great for a few executives, but by and large they have not been so great for employees or consumers.  There have been layoffs, reduced service, and increased costs.  At the same time, for example, my little home-town boutique bank still provides free checking and the owners still make money. 

Too many of the mergers have not meant lower costs to consumers or increased customer service.  Or even higher stock prices or dividends.  Often, the opposite is true.  Organizations get so large that real change is impossible.  Inertia rules. 

And the boutiques are returning.  Watch for them.  HR may have the greatest impact within such organizations, rather than remaining marginalized within an overgrown corporate structure.

4.  People are working more years.  Maybe it´s my gray beard.  Or maybe I´m just open to the subject.  But I see more and more people in their 60s and 70s who have no intention of "retiring" in the traditional sense.

"I have too much energy," one former executive reports, "and I have too much inside my head to just shut it down."  Now in his 70s he works part-time selling men´s clothing.  He´s the top salesman for an upscale department store chain of 15 stores.

For an increasing number of people the old rocking chair isn´t viable.  They want action.  Challenges.  Something to do other than just sit and smell the roses.  Leaders who want energy and seasoned experience, yet with minds open to change, should be looking to the 60-somethings.  They are ready for still more new challenges.  And they want to work!  It most certainly will be in our best interests to rethink mandatory retirement ages and to seek out older employees to add to our organization´s base of skill and wisdom.

5.  The way work gets done doesn´t look the same.  For some time there´s been a workplace  revolution taking place.  Some leaders have noted and encouraged it, joined it, promoted it.  Some executives don´t even know what´s happening.

The workplace is changing.

Traditional top-down organizations still exist.  There are still managers who yell and swear at employees.  There are still company owners who will pay as little as they can in order to make quotas.  But it´s changing.

Fast Company, that rapidly growing magazine that challenges old ideas and explores new leadership, reports each month on the new workplace.  It´s vital.  Collaborative.  Supportive.  And organizations are realizing that people want more than just work.  They want a place where they can invest their time, energy, and talents.  HR professionals are perhaps best positioned to help the organization respond to the possibilities of the new economy and new work environments.

6.  Downsizings are increasing.   Several years ago WorkLife Design staff predicted that downsizings would increase.  And they have.  Even though research has repeatedly shown that downsizings are only a short-term answer that fail to solve long-term problems.  Downsizings  will continue to increase during this coming decade.  Some will be attempts to reduce costs.  Some will be as a result of lost business.  Some will be due to changing technology or the need to reorganize.

The pain of the 1980s and 1990s massive downsizings will surface again.  As a result of poor leadership, many will experience what their parents and grandparents experienced years earlier.  Downsizings will even further contribute to the demise of "employee loyalty." 

Successful employers, however, will evaluate their human resources and find ways to make use of these people while organizations are re-directed and renewed.  These successful employers realize that the scramble for good people will increase even more in 2001.  They know they can´t afford actions that will only serve to alienate remaining workers or sour the community.

7.  There aren´t enough good people to go around.   We all know leaders who can´t find good people.  They try all kinds of recruiting tricks.  The truth is, though, there just aren´t enough good people to go around.

And it will get worse.

The US Bureau of Labor statistics projects that in 2006 there will be 151 Million jobs in the US but only 141 Million people working.  That´s 10 Million unfilled jobs.  The Information Technology Association predicts that 1.6 Million jobs will be created in the next twelve months.  More than half will go unfilled.  Over the past three decades the nation´s economy has doubled while the birth rate has dropped by 24%. 

There aren´t enough good people to go around.

Leaders will work harder at creating the kind of workplace where there are more applicants than unfilled positions.  Turnover below 5%.    The kind of workplace culture where people want to work.   The only way to recruit and retain top people is to be a successful employer, a place where people want to work.

Is it all gloom for 2001?  No!

There are many challenges ahead for leaders.  And an equal number of opportunities to create new paradigms.  Opportunities to be successful, in the full sense of the word.  It is indeed an exciting time to live and work and make things happen, and to be a part of the expanding profession!

Here´s to leading the way.

Richard S Deems, PhD is president of WorkLife Design.