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 {#blank#}1{#/blank#} 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 {#blank#}2{#/blank#} 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 {#blank#}3{#/blank#} 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, {#blank#}4{#/blank#} raising children with caring for elderly parents. Therefore, they value a career {#blank#}5{#/blank#} 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 {#blank#}6{#/blank#} to an employer. They actively look for personal development and want employee benefits that help them {#blank#}7{#/blank#} both their personal and professional ambitions. They treat personal commitments and pursuits as {#blank#}8{#/blank#} to professional commitments. Elly Kemp, 31, {#blank#}9{#/blank#} 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 {#blank#}10{#/blank#} 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.”

    Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

    The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery was preparing the wall text in 2014 to accompany an image of the boxer Mayweather Jr. During the process, the Washington museum decided to note that Mr. Mayweather had been“charged with domestic violence on several occasions,” receiving “punishments ranging from community service to jail time.”

    Such context is common for {#blank#}1{#/blank#} subjects in art, but far less so for artists themselves. Men like Picasso or Schiele were known for mistreating women, but their works hang in {#blank#}2{#/blank#} museums without any asterisks（星号）.

    Now, museums around the world are{#blank#}3{#/blank#} with the implications of a decision, by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, to {#blank#}4{#/blank#} postpone a Chuck Close exhibition because of {#blank#}5{#/blank#} of sexual harassment（骚扰）involving potential portrait models that have involved the artist in controversy. Mr. Cloze has called the allegations “lies” and said he is “being severely criticized.”

    The {#blank#}6{#/blank#} has raised difficult questions about what to do with the paintings and photographs of Mr. close—held by museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate in London and the Pompidou in Paris, as well as by high-spending collectors—and whether the work of other artists accused of questionable {#blank#}7{#/blank#} needs to be revisited.

    It is a provocative（引起争论的）moment for the art world, as the public debate about {#blank#}8{#/blank#} creative output from personal behavior moves from popular culture into the realm of major visual artists from different eras and the institutions that have long collected and exhibited their pieces.

“We're very used to having to defend people in the collection, but it's always been for the sitter” rather than the artist, said Kim Sajet, director of the Portrait Gallery, which has a large body of Mr. Close's work. “Now we have to think to ourselves, ‘Do we need to do that about Chuck Close?'”

    “You can't talk about portraiture in America without talking about Chuck Close,” she added. “There are lots of amazing artists who have been less than admirable people.”

    Whatever museums {#blank#}9{#/blank#} decide to do about Mr. Close, some say they can no longer afford to simply present art without {#blank#}10{#/blank#} the issues that surround the artist—that institutions must play a more active role in educating the public about the human beings behind the work.

    A recent troubling study showed that "fake news" spread significantly faster, deeper and more broadly than the truth, and the effect is even more remarkable when regarding news as opposed to reporting on natural disasters, finance or science. So how can we encourage individuals to seek {#blank#}1{#/blank#} online content? Leading scholars are trying hard to deal with this question.

    Processing new information requires a considerable mental effort, especially when that information seems to conflict with your {#blank#}2{#/blank#} worldview. It takes the {#blank#}3{#/blank#} to admit you may be wrong. But with a great amount of conflicting information available, who's to say what's actually true and what's false? If you can't tell, why not just make life easy and go with what supports your current beliefs?

    So what {#blank#}4{#/blank#} do we have? Many suggest that we can {#blank#}5{#/blank#} the issue by reforming adult behavior, but this is aiming too far from source. An alternative solution is using early education to help individuals recognize these problems and {#blank#}6{#/blank#} critical thinking to the information they deal with. Currently, there is a push in the US to include Internet information classes into primary and secondary school curriculums. The movement, which has received some support, aims to make fact-checking seem like second {#blank#}7{#/blank#} to individuals at an early age.

    Primary and secondary school are {#blank#}8{#/blank#} to be supplying students with the skills they need to develop into productive and informed members of our society. As our society develops, the curriculum we are teaching our students needs to develop as well.

    The Internet is an amazing tool, but to use it most effectively we have to accept its benefits while also understanding the ways in which it makes us dangerously {#blank#}9{#/blank#}. If students are still learning the practices such as writing in school, shouldn't they be learning how to {#blank#}10{#/blank#} the Internet responsibly as well?

I {#blank#}1{#/blank#}in my attempt to persuade her.

In a word, his {#blank#}2{#/blank#}in the final exam did not surprise me.