Short Discourse — PwC Report, the Workforce of the future and its Challenges.
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Considering each world's view on the future challenges for Leaders, HR, and Employees.
Before getting started with this discourse, learn about the four worlds of future work also known as the different world views here. This discussion is mostly focused on the challenges affecting several groups of the workforce. A preliminary understanding of the four world views will guarantee a better understanding and appreciation of this discussion.
For each group represented (Leaders, HR, and Employees), we will consider each of the four world’s views (Red world, Yellow world, Blue world, and Green world).
Firstly, we will consider the Leaders, the Red world focuses on how quickly a business can be developed and launched, this may cause workforce instability and does not encourage long-term employment.
In the Yellow world, an effort is needed to balance out the requirements for a human-centric organization. They will have to consider the fact that employees may not fraternize with the organization or be loyal to a 40-hour workweek.
However, the Blue world is very big on capitalism. In this world, it is believed that a lot of jobs will be replaced by technology hence forcing the leaders in these organizations to rely less on human abilities which can become a problem.
In the Green world, there is a lot of risk for leaders with respect to sticking to environmental laws and regulations.
We will also consider the future challenges for HR as follows; in the Red world as stated by the PwC report “60% think few people will have stable, long term employment in the future”. Because of how quickly the red world births new ideas, HR will constantly be on the search for new talent. This may cause strain on the HR personnel who is involved in the non-stop recruitment processes.
For the Yellow world, the HR person may have a hard time finding the perfect talent who has the same values as the organization.
In the Blue world, the HR personnel can not manage robots and machine learning software. The human-centric part of the business may slowly dissipate as well with the emergence of artificial intelligence tools and automation.
For the Green world, HR will need to always update the laws and policies that align with the organization’s mission and corporate responsibilities.
Furthermore, these are the future challenges for Employees, in the Red world as implied by the PwC report, they will be under pressure to be very dynamic with their approach to work. There may also be no long-lasting work relationship between employees because of how quickly they work and get things done without doing anything long-term. In the Yellow world, there may be too much reliance on human effort and not enough technology-aided efforts. At some point in the Blue world, employees may need to take performance enhancement drugs and this can cause addiction in the long run. In the Green world, employees are focused on the impact their work is making on the environment, this can limit them when they need the help of advanced technology.
In summary, each worldview possesses its threats and opportunities for businesses and for each of these groups of people — Leaders, HR, and Employees. It is advisable to adjust accordingly when the need arises.
REFERENCE
PwC Report, Workforce of the future — The competing forces shaping 2030 Available at: https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/people-organisation/publications/workforce-of-the-future.html (Accessed: 22 May 2022).
