Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

6 Workplace Realities Women Will Face In 2040

My 4-year-old daughter Serena will be 30 in 2041. Assuming that she has a college degree and eight years of work experience, how might she fare in a world dominated by contract workers, fluid teams, human-centered work, persistent pay gaps, blurred work-life boundaries, and biases that have been around since the beginning of time? Well, let’s investigate.

1. INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Serena was born in 2011, the year the U.S. birth rate dipped to its lowest recorded level. As the U.S. birth rate keeps trending below 2.0 births per woman, that doesn’t mean young women will face less competition for school acceptance and jobs in the coming decades.

As the U.S. birth rate keeps trending below 2.0 births per woman, that doesn’t mean young women will face less competition for school acceptance and jobs in the coming decades.

Instead of vying with other Americans her age, my daughter will fight for a place among hyper-qualified professionals from around the world. While her generation struggles to support the population of adults over 65—projected to triple by mid-century—it will face a global talent pool from which companies can hire the best people no matter where they're based.

2. CONTINUING GENDER GAPS IN LEADERSHIP

Will my daughter preside over her own company? She probably won't, and yours isn't likely to either—unless current trends make a dramatic turnaround.

According to Judith Warner at the Center for American Progress, women’s presence in top management positions today remains below 9%, and their percentage on all U.S. corporate boards has been stuck in the 12.1–12.3% range over the past decade. A 2014 Babson College study showed that, on average, just 60 female CEOs got VC funding in the years 2011–2013. This is surprising given that women are the majority owners in 36% of all businesses in the U.S.

It’s been estimated that at the current rate of change, it will take until 2085 for women to reach parity with men in leadership roles. That’s too late for Serena.

3. REVOLVING DOORS OF EMPLOYMENT

Rather than heading up her own venture, Serena is far more likely to be a contract worker—a segment of the workforce that's been projected to overtake the single-employer workforce by 2040. And she won’t just have to compete for jobs every few years. She will be in a constant cycle of promoting her services, securing a project, and promoting her services again.

"Businesses will consist of owners, talent assemblers, and contract workers for everything else," the writer Tad Milbourne has argued on Techcrunch. "Platforms will spring up that know what contractors have certain skills, what they’ve done, and whether they’re available. Contractors will get instantly matched with talent assemblers.

For my daughter's generation of working women, networking with these "talent assemblers" will likely become a top priority.

4. SHORT-TERM VIRTUAL TEAMS

In preschool, Serena likes to flit from station to station, playing with a different group of kids every five minutes. That’s good, because in 2040 she'll work on a variety of remote project teams that form and disband quickly after accomplishing a specific business outcome. She will have no physical office outside her home, yet she’ll interact with thousands of professionals of all ages and across many cultures each year.

What will Serena do on these teams? Your guess is as good as mine, but according to futurist Gerd Leonhard, she’d be smart to pursue something related to growing technology segments like data science, artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, deep learning, and robotics.

It’s pretty clear than hundreds of millions of jobs that are primarily routine-based, repetitive, and rules-based will increasingly be done by machines.

Or she could pursue a career that makes good use of human skills like imagination, curiosity, understanding, empathy, and social and emotional intelligence—like design, therapy, negotiation, or invention.

What will she want to avoid? "It’s pretty clear than hundreds of millions of jobs that are primarily routine-based, repetitive, and rules-based will increasingly be done by machines," writes Leonhard.

5. AGE-OLD GENDER BIAS

And in the narrowing breadth of roles reserved for people, women are set to continue lagging behind men despite equal educational opportunities. How come? One reason is that "unconscious bias", or the implicit people-preferences we form through socialization, is deeply embedded in the human experience. It starts early, too—research shows that it’s present in children by the age of three or four—and enters the workplace already deeply rooted in each of us.

While some companies are now pioneering new methods for controlling for it in their recruitment and management processes, unconscious gender bias has proved a tough nut to crack.

A recent study by VitalSmarts researchers Joseph Grenny and David Maxwell found that women’s perceived competency drops by 35% and their perceived deserved compensation by $15,000 when they're seen to be assertive or forceful—violating ingrained cultural expectations for women to be caring and nurturing.

This is a problem that’s unlikely to be solved in my daughter's lifetime, even though, according to London Business School professor and The Key author Lynda Gratton, we shouldn’t lose hope. "It’s surprising how quickly societal norms can change," she says. "I see my sons being taught not to make any assumptions about what men and women do—and of course, more young people are now being brought up by working mothers. So in some parts of society, gender bias may be seen as something from the past."

Let's hope so.

6. BETTER WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION

According to the 2014 OECD Better Life Index, when compared to 35 other developed nations, the U.S. ranks as the eighth-worst country for work-life balance. The pressure to conform to standards set by countries like Germany and Denmark is likely to grow. As workforces become less global, top U.S. employers may feel more impelled to compete with foreign companies' perks in order to retain the best talent. So we may well have come a long way on work-life issues within the next 25 years.

In the narrowing breadth of roles reserved for people, women are set to continue lagging behind men.

On the other hand, future workers will be even more continuously connected to their work through technology than we are today. But by then we may have worked this way long enough that my daughter's generation will be better equipped to manage it.

Lynda Gratton believes that some work-life conflicts may be alleviated by a longer window for childbearing and more involvement from fathers. "Women may have more leeway in terms of sequencing their family and careers, and we will see more see-saw couples in which both partners take turns supporting one another."

All in all, there are likely to be more opportunities than obstacles for professional women in 2040, but there's plenty that we can do right now to make sure of that.

This piece was originally published on the Fast Company website.

5 Essentials for the “Office” of the Future

Yesterday I traveled to the Gil Hatch Center for Customer Innovation in Rochester, NY to talk with my partner Xerox and visiting press and analysts about the future of work and office technology. Given that the office isn’t a necessary a physical location anymore, both software and hardware must be configured to be used effectively and efficiently by a growing virtual, mobile and contract workforce. Whether you are an enterprise or an SMB, here are the must-haves for your technology.

IoT and mobile operations

Technology must be accessible anytime, anywhere, by both full-time and contract workers. Mobile phones must be able to seamlessly communicate with other devices via the Internet of Things as well as any onsite infrastructures and systems, and users want to automate complex processes with a single touch or action. And, all of this must be done with minimal intervention from IT as these professionals can only assist so many people at once.

Remote collaboration

In 2016, flexwork is king, meaning that the days of the majority of your employees working together in the same location are likely numbered. But technology must facilitate virtual work in which it’s just as easy and productive to engage with your colleague in Japan as it is with the one in the cubicle next door. Technology must be agile, with the ability to support new collaboration apps being developed on the consumer side or via in-house citizen development.

Secure workflow to and from the cloud

When it comes to intellectual property residing in the cloud, security remains the biggest concern. Organizations want their data stored in a central location and accessible by everyone who needs it, but documents must be managed in a way that is controllable and protects them from internal and external threats and breeches.

Customized to the individual

Employees have variable needs and every individual has his or her own way of doing things, so mandating a certain process for using technology is a surefire way to hinder adoption. Tomorrow’s office systems must be personalized so that whether you prefer to print via mobile or manual methods or scan via email or QR codes, you’re covered.

Despite the obviously increasing sophistication of office technology demands, according to IDC, 40 percent of smartphone users and 35 percent of tablet users don’t even know how to print from their device. So, as an example of new office technologies that address these demands while also simplifying solutions for the individual, Xerox has just released the 14 Xerox ConnectKey enabled i-Series multi-function printers (MFPs). In order to accommodate a diverse mobile workforce, the MFPs are designed with an intuitive user display with ready-to-use MFP applications right on the interface.

In particular, the Mobile Link app lets users create one-touch, automated workflows on their mobile devices to remotely control a Xerox MFP and transmit documents to fax, email and cloud-hosted services like Box, Dropbox and Google Drive. And, perhaps most importantly, the new MFPs have secure print and scan encryption so companies can ensure that documents remain confidential.

What new technologies are helping you be more productive at work?

Our 2013 Most Desirable Company Is...Whirlpool!

A hearty congratulations to Whirlpool, which is Water Cooler Wisdom’s Most Desirable Company for 2013!  This award will now be given annually to one of my partner companies with the happiest employees and the most innovative strategies for transforming the world of work.

Whirlpool Corporation is the global leader of the $110 billion home appliance manufacturing industry. The company markets Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Amana and other major brand names to consumers in nearly every country around the world.  Whirlpool, which is headquartered in Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Michigan, just recently celebrated a century of leadership and success. 

In part because of its leadership practices, community impact, business performance, and reputation, Whirlpool has been selected #9 globally among Fortune Magazine's Top Companies for Leaders, one of the world's Most Admired Companies, and Fast Company’s Top 50 Most Innovative Companies.  Among other strengths, these profiles noted Whirlpool’s commitment to open communication, flexible work, and competitive pay, benefits, and employee perks.

Whirlpool is host to numerous diversity groups, including a Young Professionals Network of more than 700 local members who are active in volunteering in corporate social responsibility commitments like Habitat for Humanity, Cook for the Cure, United Way, and the Boys and Girls Clubs. 

Whirlpool is thoroughly invested in the long-term training and development of its employees – its RealWhirled program, for instance, is an intense leadership initiative for recent college graduates. The mixed-gender group of twenty-somethings lives together for 10 weeks: cooking, cleaning, and entertaining customers and executives. The grads secret-shop at stores to see how salespeople peddle Whirlpool products and listen to the questions and complaints coming into the company’s call centers, and when the program is over, are recruited into national sales positions.

Whirlpool plays on the global stage as well, with 67 global manufacturing and technology centers around the world and regional headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Comerio, Italy, and Shanghai, China.  Want to learn more or potentially work at Whirlpool? Check out www.whirlpoolcareers.com.

What Will Young Workers in 2030 Be Like?

Did you know that there’s another baby boom on?  Since the mid 2000s, the fertility rate in the U.S. has been at its highest since 1971, meaning that the generation preliminarily known as Generation Z is actually larger than its predecessor, the mammoth Generation Y. 

The new boom is thought to be caused by a confluence of factors including a greater number of procreating immigrants and a high population of childbearing-age women – including those who have put off having children until their 40s.

Generational expert Neil Howe coined the term “Homelanders” to describe today’s children, stating that they are growing up in a time of “greater public urgency and emergency, both at home and around the world.”

For more about the Homelanders and what they'll be like as workers in 2030, check out my post on Intuit's Quickbase blog.

 

Could Google+ Be a Useful Work Tool?

The online world is buzzing about Google+ (or Google Plus), which is purported to be Google’s answer to Facebook.  Since it’s not available to the public, I haven’t used it yet, but I have seen the news coverage and Google’s promo video.  I’m excited to check out Google+ because I think it could have some interesting applications for us professional folk.

Help Keeping Work and Personal Groups Separate

Google+ aims to differentiate itself from Facebook by creating separate spaces to interact with business and personal contacts. I’m momentarily intrigued by this prospect since I’m never quite sure what to do with my Facebook network.  I’d rather have separate pages to reflect my work and personal lives, but the concept of a “fan page” makes me a little uncomfortable.

Maybe Google+ is the answer. Google+’s Social Circles allow you to effectively and easily segment your colleagues, professional associates, partners, friends, and family members on the same network.

Instantaneous Collaboration

Google+ can be viewed as a next generation wiki, which many work groups already use to keep everyone up to date. The Sparks feature encourages members of Social Circles to share and talk about relevant news and information, using a smartphone to quickly upload videos, photos, and documents.

The Hangouts feature could be handy because it alerts your circles when you’re online and ready for collaboration, and also provides the ability to automatically launch a video chat with multiple participants. This can be a terrific way to gather a bunch of colleagues in far-flung geographic together for a meeting, presentation, or last minute brainstorm.

Long & Short of It

Clearly Google+ isn’t trying to recreate the Facebook environment. Facebook indisputably has the feel of a community, and Google+ is really just offering new additions to Google’s growing suite of tools. They also didn’t design Google+ as web-based software for solving the collaboration needs of work groups. Only time will tell if it will actually catch on and make a more lasting impact in people’s personal and professional lives than previous attempts Google Wave and Google Buzz.

What do you think?  Is Google just in time or unfashionably late for the social networking dinner party?

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.

Bells and Whistles in the Workplace?

A reporter recently asked me about creative solutions for beating the mid-winter corporate blahs, such as changes to workplace set-ups like free-range work spaces without offices and cubicles, nap rooms, and X-box lounges.

Extreme amenities like video game lounges are still fairly rare, and this is not necessarily a bad thing.  Unless you work in a design firm (for example) where a foosball machine is an expected accessory of the culture, these types of offerings are really more of a distraction.

It's important to provide a pleasant environment, but let's not forget that there's a reason this place you go every day is called “work” and not “fun.”  It’s not smart to go so far that you undermine the jobs that people are there to do.

There’s also a danger inherent to jumping on board with any new fad.  Free-range office space was all the rage a few years ago, and a lot of companies spent a ton of cash remodeling only to realize that most employees don’t actually like this set-up.  Everyone from entry-level staffers to senior executives prefers some modicum of privacy.

I think it’s better for organizations to try to beat the blahs by planning communal activities like happy hours or after-work socializing, motivating employees through rewards and recognition for a job well done and continuous exposure to new responsibilities and challenges.

 

Learning from my Journey to Brazil

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Sao Paulo and Rio De Janeiro Brazil as part of a conference I was keynoting for Latin American HR executives on the future of the global workplace.  I had a wonderful experience learning about what it's like to be a citizen in Brazil today (exciting, stressful, expensive), and where Brazilians see their careers going in the future (multiple jobs, more traveling).

I also had the chance to ask two young professionals, Marcelo Cuellar, Manager of Human Resources for Michael Page International Brasil, and Alexandre Ma Ling, a freelance tour guide in Rio, about the fastest growing industries in Brazil.  Here's what they had to say:

Marcelo in Sao Paulo:

Alex in Rio:

Impressions from DeVry University's Career Conference

I arrived in New York City last week for what would become one of the most exciting events of my career as a business and workplace author and speaker.  On August 19th, DeVry University brought together 10 influential members of the online media, as well as a panel of career experts from the academic, corporate, and think-tank sides, to discuss the challenges job seekers face in the current economic climate and strategies they can utilize to build successful careers in the twenty-first century.

After a brief networking breakfast, we launched the morning with some remarks – grounded in research – about the fastest growing fields in the U.S: healthcare management and technology, accounting, and information security.  I shared with the audience what the careers entail as well as action steps people can take to transition into them.  I explored how additional education at a flexible, online/offline university like DeVry can facilitate a career change in a way that is manageable for the average busy American.

We then proceeded to the highlight of the morning – a panel discussion led by DeVry’s Michelle Mercutio, the National Associate Dean for Career Services.  Through an engaging discussion with the audience, panel members Lindsay Lindstrom of Microsoft, Erica Orange of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc (leading futurist firm), Kathleen Frawley of DeVry, and I touched on a diverse range of career-related topics from “on the side” entrepreneurship and mid-career internships to generational differences and the new language of technology. 

After the panel reluctantly concluded, audience members filmed one-on-one interviews with panelists, viewed a smartphone career assessment and an online course demonstration, and networked with one another.  The event was so inspiring that the attendees agreed to meet as a group on a regular basis to continue the discussion. 

When I was speaking to audience members prior to the event, few were aware of just how far DeVry has come in recent years.  They certainly left with the perception that DeVry is a thought-leader in career and workplace education that is front and center in helping people of all ages find and succeed in their dream careers. 

 

Why Office Popularity Matters

In high school, didn’t a part of you always wonder how the cool kids did it? Popularity remained an enigmatic aspect of human existence that ceased to be relevant once we threw our caps in the air…right?

There are scores of research studies on popularity in schools, and most have indicated that popular children are viewed as better students and make and maintain friendships more easily. In 2009, however, organizational psychologists Timothy Judge and B.A. Scott at the University of Florida demonstrated that popularity plays a significant role on success in the workplace. They defined popularity as being “accepted by one’s peers” and conceptualized it as a function of both an employee’s personality and the situational position within his group.

As a result of studying two samples of employee populations, professors Judge and Scott reported that co-workers reliably agreed about who was popular on their team – and who wasn’t. Co-workers also felt that an employee’s popularity was associated with receiving more favorable treatment at work. Why? Judge and Scott suggest that popular employees are rewarding to interact with for both emotional and instrumental reasons. In addition to being “fun to be with,” popular individuals are thought to increase co-worker status by association and make it easier to get things done.

Meg Cabot just wrote a book for teens called How to Be Popular, but rest assured, I’m not going to make you read it. Instead, here are some painless tips for increasing your popularity on the office social circuit.

• Be interested in other people: Human beings love to talk about themselves and be listened to. By taking the time to learn about what a co-worker deems important and inquiring about those things, you’ll make her happy and encourage her to like you.
• Shift attention away from yourself: Don’t chat on endlessly about what you and your boyfriend or girlfriend did over the weekend, and if a co-worker broaches a particular topic, don’t immediately turn the discussion to your own experiences. Instead of trying to be admired, be admiring.
• Eradicate self-consciousness: People who lack confidence make others feel nervous and awkward. When conversing with co-workers, try to be natural and relaxed, without worrying about how you’re being perceived.
• Organize team building activities: You don’t have to be your department’s cheerleader, but it’s nice to occasionally take charge of getting the group together for drinks or another fun activity after work or during the holidays. Most people like to be social, and the individual who takes responsibility for being the organizer usually gets popularity points.
• Help whenever you can: Always be generous with your knowledge, expertise, and time without expecting anything in return. People like those who they can count on in times of stress and who are willing to pitch in without making a big production out of it.

 

Millennials Are Still Optimistic About the Future

Against a backdrop of economic volatility, the vast majority of young professional women believe they will have rewarding careers balanced with fulfilling personal lives, according to research just released by Accenture.  The research also generated the Accenture Millennial Women Workplace Success Index, which identified two primary qualities as key to workplace success – the ability to balance personal and professional lives and a job where they can make a difference.

Ultimately, more than half of the respondents define success as doing meaningful work, while maintaining balance between their personal and professional lives (cited by 66 percent and 59 percent, respectively).  Other factors of workplace success include stable employment that provides financial security, a positive work environment, open and honest communication with supervisors and opportunities to grow professionally.

Almost all of the respondents – 94 percent – believe they can achieve a balance between a satisfying professional life and a gratifying personal life.  Similarly, when asked to list typical qualities of a successful female business leader, seven in 10 (70 percent) cited “maintains work/life balance,” followed by “is flexible” and “is able to make an impact” (reported by 66 percent and 64 percent, respectively).  At the same time, almost six in ten (59 percent) report being at least somewhat negatively affected by the current economic downturn, and one-third (33 percent) are more concerned with keeping their jobs than achieving work/life balance.

For these respondents, quality of life is often more important than their career growth.  Seven in ten (70 percent) reported that they believe they will be successful, and fully one-third of these young female professionals said they believe they will reach the top of their professions.  However, they cited medical benefits and flexible hours (reported by 63 percent and 50 percent, respectively) as drivers of professional success, compared to classes and training for professional advancement (37 percent).  Similarly, when asked about what is important to them, 66 percent cited family life, compared to 29 percent who cited career success.

Perhaps fueling confidence in their future, respondents reported that barriers to professional success are changing.  When asked to rank barriers to their careers, just 12 percent cited marriage, and 19 percent mentioned maternity policies, compared to 30 percent who cited pay scale for women.   Respondents also reported that women are increasingly joining the ranks of senior executives.  Fewer than one in ten (seven percent) reported that fewer women are being appointed to C-suite positions and boards of directors than five years ago.  

Yet gender barriers have not disappeared completely.  According to respondents, ongoing gender obstacles include a corporate culture that favors men, general stereotypes/ preconceptions and sexism (reported by 28 percent, 26 percent and 22 percent, respectively).