Bill Kerr is a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and the co-director of Harvard’s Managing the Future of Work initiative, a project that considers how technology changes and demographic changes are reshaping the workplace. “One important manifestation of these trends will be a fight for talent given rapid changes in required skills, increased competition across sectors for digital talent, greater care responsibilities that workers will have, etc.,” Kerr says. “COVID accelerated these trends by 5-7 years, and few organizations expected to need to scramble as much as they are right now for workers—signing bonuses, promises of continued or enhanced flexibility, etc. The imbalances will persist for decades to come due to their structural roots, and employers will need to think much more carefully about their access to and nurturing of talent. We are still in the early parts of the future of work journey, and the taste we are getting right now will become much stronger.”

Meagan Johnson, a generational expert, speaker, and author, suggests the COVID pandemic has already proven to be a defining moment in younger generations’ careers. “Post- COVID, what I’m witnessing is that more and more of the younger generation—younger millennials, Generation Z—they’re having what I call a ‘middle-aged moment’ … where you start to question the choices you’ve made career-wise and asking yourself what is important,” Johnson says. “The younger generations have always put a priority on work/life balance. But now it’s going even a step further; it’s ‘I want my life to have meaning.’ Meaning that the companies I’m going to work for, the career path I’m going to be on, I want it to have significance beyond just my backyard.”

Going forward, the people who will make up the bulk of the workforce will be looking to join forces with employers that align with their personal values and ethical frameworks. They want to contribute to the bigger societal picture. “And they’re also going to look at how companies and organizations have responded to COVID and are responding to climate change and what has happened in the United States politically,” Johnson adds. “What are those organizations doing (about these issues), and how have they taken a stand?”

To enter the future of work, employers must understand that the generation coming in is different than the generation that’s currently at the helm. Companies must see the progress that’s been made in the last 18 months toward remote and hybrid work as exactly that—progress. They will need to make room for dispersed work models and new types of collaboration models that engage all generations and personality types, and they must leverage technology to facilitate these processes.

Facilitating the Future of Work

Jennifer Chang, HR knowledge advisor for the SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management), says remote work and flexible work arrangements increased exponentially during the pandemic out of necessity, but this has jumpstarted what will probably become a permanent trend as businesses realize they can be just as effective with a dispersed workforce. She says SHRM research has shown that remote-work arrangements will be a “talent magnet” in coming years and companies must view these arrangements as a long-term investment.

“The future of work will also look different from today as corporations adjust their business models to increase their focus on corporate social responsibility, a self-regulating business model that helps a company be socially accountable and conscious of the impact they are having on society, including economic, social, and environmental concerns,” Chang adds. “For instance, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death and the social justice protests that followed, many businesses are taking a hard look at their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.”

Upskilling, Reskilling, and Preserving Inter-Generational Knowledge

To prepare for the future of work, Aaron Elder, CEO and cofounder of Crelate, a provider of staffing and recruiting software, says companies must be first movers in developing corporate training, reskilling, and upskilling. “Traditional education systems are bloated and not living up to the promise for many,” he says. “Students entering the workforce with mountains of debt and no marketable skills are proof that traditional methods are failing.”

Elder encourages businesses to instill entrepreneurship and a growth mindset in every employee at every level. “Business and workers need to work together to adapt to change,” he says. “Workers, however, need to understand that the trend is to automate, and they must also be responsible for growing and changing with the times. ‘Embrace the change’ will become a mantra at successful organizations.”

Harvard Business School’s Kerr suggests organizations will need to devote extensive effort to upskilling and reskilling workers to prepare for the future of work. “Leaders can only transform their business for the future of work if they have first brought their employee base into the future of work,” he explains. “Due to the scale of the challenge and the tacit knowledge and firm-specific insights that incumbent workers hold, a naïve strategy to simply replace all the workers with new ones will fail. Additionally, the transformation that lies ahead is not a once-and-done-for task, but organizations instead need to develop processes to navigate and manage through multiple technology waves that we will experience.”

Future employers will focus much less on a static credential like a college degree and more on the aptitude and capacity of individuals to work with the company for the skillsets of the future. “Organizations need to share with employees their vision of the future skill needs of the organization, help the employees understand the steps that they need personally take to be aligned with these future roles, and provide the platform and resources for the employees to obtain those skills,” Kerr says. Companies don’t need to guarantee lifetime employment, but they should invest in employees who are motivated to be with them long term.

Crelate’s Elder says inter-generational knowledge transfer is something that must happen organically over time. “Technology should focus on fostering the relationships, empowering the people, and maximizing the time of everyone involved for this organic transfer to occur,” he says. “The push for hybrid and remote work situations will be hardest on new workers entering the workforce. Without face time, hallway conversations, breakout sessions, and over-the-shoulder support, new workers will struggle to make connections and forge relationships essential for success and inter-generational knowledge transfer.”