In my previous book that was released in 2014 I talked about the five trends that are shaping the workplace and the future of work. The five trends that I listed in the book were globalization, mobility, technology, millennials/changing demographics, and new behaviors.
Everytime I speak at an event, whether it is front of a small intimate group or a large group with thousands of people, I always ask the audience which of the five trends they think is the most impactful to your business and the world at large. I always have a different type of audience when I ask this question. Sometimes my audience is full of human resource professionals, sometimes executives and CEOs, sometimes IT professionals and sometimes facilities management professionals.
What I have found is that no matter who my audience is or where I speak, the answer to this question is always the same. The audience always say that technology is the trend that has the largest impact on the future of work in their company and the world at large.
I found this very surprising at first. I always thought that the answer would depend on who my audience was. For example, I thought that with a primarily HR audience they would say changing demographics or new behaviors are the most impactful. But after thinking about this and doing some research it actually makes a lot of sense. Technology includes a lot of different elements and it touches every industry in some way. Some people may think that technology is just robots, AI, and automation, but it is much more than that. Technology is video conferencing, virtual reality, wearable devices, augmented reality, new ways of working, new software and much more.
Technology spans across every organization, every team, every region. It is the one thing that impacts companies the most regardless of their location, their industry, or the size of their company. Of course, the other four trends are important as well, but I think that technology is farther ahead in its impact on the way that we work and the way that we think about work than the others.
What do you think? Do you agree that technology is the most impactful trend or do you think it is one of the other four trends? Use #AskTheFuturist on Twitter to share your thoughts. You can also use the hashtag to ask me a question for a future episode.
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Jacob Morgan is a keynote speaker, author, and futurist. You can invite Jacob to keynote your next conference, subscribe to his videos on Youtube, check our his podcast, or subscribe to his newsletter!
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