Future Now

My wife was invited to SIM’s 2008 Annual Management Lecture last August to hear the keynote address by their distinguished speaker Dr James Canton.

Canton is CEO and Chairman of the Institute for Global Futures, a think tank he founded in 1990 that advises business and government on future trends. He has worked with Fortune 1000 firms like IBM, BP, Intel, Philips, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, Boeing, FedEx, and Proctor & Gamble on trends in innovation, financial services, healthcare, population, life sciences, energy, security, workforce, climate change, and globalization.

I found his book The Extreme Future: The Top Trends that will Shape the World in the Next 20 Years, to be insightful, clear and relevant.

Points raised relating to the workforce for 2009, updated from this book, makes for good reading and I have reproduced it here for sharing:-

Top Ten Workforce Trends for 2009

1. A global war for Smart Talent will be the top driver of competitive advantage, as educated, skilled and experienced employees will be in demand.

2. The aging of the population in America and Europe will have dramatic effect on society and the economy impacting productivity, knowledge and growth.

3. An increase in women in the U.S. workforce will change the policies, power and positioning of organizations. Women will alter the strategies of boardrooms, industries and markets.

4. A diversity savvy workforce will be required to understand and align with the diversity in the global marketplace. Diversity will be a critical competency for leaders and employees.

5. Finding, training and retaining high-tech skilled employees from a global talent pool will be the greatest challenge for every organization.

6. Incorporating innovation into the organizational DNA will be a key driver of future competitive advantage.

7. Building a sustainable, healthy and green workplace will be an essential capability for retaining talent and attracting the future workforce

8. Preparing employees to meet the challenges of a complex and stressful future, where accelerated change and risks can be managed effectively with high performance agility, will be vitally important.

9. An organization that is committed to employee development, continual education and training, will return to the organization new skills and new competencies.

10. Attracting the next workforce, or preparing the current one, will require a new workforce culture to better understand trans-national teams, online collaboration, globalization and business process transformation.

Source: Institute for Global Futures

James Canton, Ph.D is a senior fellow at the Centre for Research in Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management and is also an advisor to our Economic Development Board (EDB).

He is also the author of Technofutures: How Leading-Edge Innovations Will Transform Business in the 21st Century.