Workforce of the Future

    The workplace is changing rapidly. Rather than the standard working day of nine to five, employees are working more flexibly to meet their busy home lives. Advances in technology are  the very nature of the tasks and skills required in the workplace.

    To gain a full perspective of how the workplace is set to change over the next decade, employee benefits provider Unum UK  with The Future Laboratory to survey 3,000 workers across several industries. They also interviewed industry experts and business leaders on topics from artificial intelligence and robotics to the increase of flexible working and an ageing workforce.

    The result outlines some of the employment changes that businesses can expect to see over the next decade and predicts the  of two worker cultures which will dominate the workforce. They are the obligated and the self-fulfilled workers.

    “Obligated workers” refer to people with dependents and the sandwich generation,  raising children with caring for elderly parents. Therefore, they value a career  to life stages and events and financial security. Joel Defries, 33, father of one kid and partner at London Vodka said, “A flexible employer will allow me to have a long paternity leave (陪产假) and to value my family just as much as I value my job.”

    Self-fulfilled workers are committed to life-long learning and acquiring new skills rather than  to an employer. They actively look for personal development and want employee benefits that help them  both their personal and professional ambitions. They treat personal commitments and pursuits as  to professional commitments. Elly Kemp, 31,  a full-time employee, now working part-time in a caféand also assisting with her grandmother's care said, “My approach to work allows me the freedom to  my career at my own pace. I want my work to be fluid so I can change it when I want and do whatever makes me happy at the time.”