Chapter 1

Meeting the Challenges of the
21st Century

Are you approaching your career from a 20th-century perspective, or are your career choices based on the workplace realities of the new millennium?

As a professional in training, HRD, and workplace learning and performance, you frequently have to focus on immediate issues as they occur in your workplace. But you'll also need to do more if you want to position yourself for success in your career. You'll also need to make good use of the powerful marketplace trends discussed in this chapter. Our brief look at these trends will show you social, cultural, work-related, and technological perspectives of our evolving world, and show you how these changes are altering the nature of your profession fundamentally. You may be familiar with these trends, but try to look at them with “new eyes”—a term that futurist Edith Wiener uses to describe the ability to see things in ways that you may not have noticed before. Pay attention to the aspects of each trend that you haven't considered previously, and look for new opportunities to shape your own future.

Keep these questions in mind as you review each trend:

• How will this trend affect the way I work in the days ahead?
• How might this trend affect the people I work with—those I serve; my training, HRD, and workplace learning and performance colleagues; and those to whom I report?
• What influence might this trend have on the direction of my organization or of my own business (if I am or may become self-employed)?
• Are there activities I need to become more involved in or is there further learning and skill building I need to pursue to take advantage of this trend?

If you're wondering how you can make the first step to advance your career or take it in a new direction, reading this chapter will give you the critical information to get started. By being savvy about the cutting-edge issues, trends, challenges, and opportunities in today's workplace, you'll know what to focus on in your work. You'll also know how to position yourself to take advantage of the great new opportunities you'll read about throughout this book. Professionals in our field are truly making a difference like never before. Why not position yourself for success by applying the important information in this chapter to the way you go about your daily work?

Trend 1: Shifting Demographics

Workplace demographics are changing. In the near term, the number of employees leaving the workforce and the number and makeup of those entering it will have a remarkable impact on our work environments.

The Aging Workforce

It's no news flash that millions of baby boomers are poised to retire during the next two decades. What will be the overall impact of this shift? Consider these figures:

• By 2005, the median age of the U.S. workforce will be 40.6 years—the oldest since 1970 (U.S. Department of Labor, 1999).
• The U.S. baby boomer generation is 76 million people strong (Ernest, 1996).
• Boomers are turning 50 at the rate of one every 7.5 minutes and that rate will last until 2015 (Ernest, 1996).

The United States is not the only nation with an aging workforce—other developed nations, such as Japan and the countries of Europe, are trying to anticipate and address this issue. The bottom line of an aging workforce is this: The generation that provided the industrialized labor force with the largest number of workers over the last 35-plus years will begin to leave the labor force in equally large numbers during the coming decades, and the economy that relied on those workers to fill its job vacancies will need to look elsewhere for replacements to fill an increasing number of slots in all the emerging labor sectors. Further, the marketplace will need to accomplish that refill at a time when unemployment is at its lowest level in 30 years.

Although a significantly large number of workers is expected to exit the work-force, worries about decreasing social security benefits will motivate many potential retirees to find ways to continue working. Research advisory groups, think tanks, and associations tracking these trends are trying to educate the public about the large segment of older workers wanting or needing to remain in the workforce. Groups like the New York-based Committee on Economic Development are encouraging lawmakers and the business community to launch a pro-work agenda for older workers by making it easier for them to continue working. The Committee has suggested that the federal government eliminate rules that discourage social security recipients from continuing to work, and that employers rethink pension plans that encourage early retirement. It has urged employers to find ways to make staying on the job more attractive to older workers, perhaps through policies such as “phased retirement” in which an older employee may continue working but at a reduced number of hours. Implementing ideas like these could make many people who are nearing retirement reconsider their decision to leave the workforce.

In both their departures from the workplace and their efforts to stay in it, the boomer generation will raise questions and pose challenges to training, HRD, and workplace learning and performance professionals.

New Workforce Entrants

People joining the 21st-century workforce will produce a highly diverse employee pool as the percentage of white and male workers continues to fall, and as the share of women and ethnic and racial minority workers continues to grow (“Trends in Demographics,” 1999). Here's a snapshot of our emerging workforce.

• Women are more than half of today's labor force entrants, and 62 percent of them are mothers with children under three years of age. The proportion of women in the labor force will continue to increase to 47.5 percent by 2008 (“Workforce Trends,” 1999).
• Ethnic minorities will continue to add more numbers to the workforce in the decades ahead. The Hispanic labor force will grow nearly four times faster than the labor force overall, and by 2020 it will represent 14 percent of the total worker pool (“Workforce Trends,” 1999). Black labor force participation will remain constant at about 11 percent between 1999 and 2020 (“Trends in Demographics,” 1999).
• Immigrants will play the largest role in the growth of the United States population through the middle of the 21st century (U.S. Department of Labor, 1999). Legal immigrants accounted for half of all workforce growth in the 1990s and new immigrants will be a major component of U.S. labor force growth during the next 20 years (“Critical Factors and Trends,”1999). The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that “immigrants into the U.S. from Central and South America will drop off, while immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Africa will increase” (“Demographic Shifts,” 2000). Immigrants from Asian countries will account for 6 percent of the workforce by 2020 (Judy & D'Amico, 1997).

The Demands of Diversity

The increasingly diverse nature of the labor force over the next decades—representing different ages, ethnicities, values, and technological skills—will require learning experiences tailored to workers’ specific needs and learning styles. For instance, workers from the Net generation (those born between 1977 and 1997) will enter the workplace extremely techno-savvy and globally conscious. According to Don Tap-scott, author of Growing Up Digital, (1997), they will bring with them very different perspectives about authority, work, and innovation. At the same time that the Net generation is entering the workforce in greater and greater numbers, aging boomers who have opted to stay in the workplace will demonstrate their unique values, skills, and expectations about work, technological preparedness, and experience. The workplace will include three generations—the Net generation, generation X, and the baby boomers—and that will present both challenges and opportunities for all of us whose job is to ensure a productive workforce and well-running teams. As Claire Raines, an expert on generational issues, has noted about the coming multigenerational workforce: “This means people sitting next to each other on a team could have the same rank and status and be 40 years apart in age” (Ettorre, 2000, p. 9).

One of the big challenges for training, HRD, and workplace learning and performance professionals in the days ahead will be to ensure that workers from these three generations connect and cooperate with one another rather than separate into same-age subgroups who refuse to work together.

The Dwindling Workforce

America's workforce will begin to shrink over the next ten years as baby boomers retire and baby busters (those born between 1965 and 1983) fail to provide enough numbers to replace them. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (1999) projects that by 2006 there will be 141 million people employed—and 151 million jobs in existence. The Trend Letter (“Growing Their Own Labor Force,” 2000) has forecast that by 2013 labor force growth in the United States will be zero (p. 1).

It's not just the reduced number of workers that will affect the workplace. The availability of workers who have the right combination of skills and knowledge to meet the needs of the new economy also will be an issue. As Richard Judy (1999) of the Hudson Institute put it, “Too many members of our present workforce—and too many young people entering the workforce—lack the attitudes, knowledge, and skills to properly fill the jobs that our high-tech economy is offering in rapidly growing numbers” (p. 22).

As we continue to move toward an information-based economy and away from one that is industrial and manufacturing based, different geographical areas will experience varying degrees of worker shortage. Depending on the geographic area, this shortage may be in pure numbers of workers available, in numbers of workers with the right combination of skills for the new workplace, or in both.

Overall, because of a stagnant labor supply and a shortage of workers with the right talent mix to meet the needs of the new economy, many companies will struggle with recruitment, retention, and retraining efforts in order to remain profitable and competitive. The impact of these demographic shifts will alter the workplace significantly and the work of training, HRD, and workplace learning and performance professionals in the decades to come.

In a special issue of Training & Development staff writers Donna Abernathy, Haidee Allerton, Tom Barron, and Jennifer Salopek (1999) observed, “For HRD professionals…[these changes] signal a need for continual training and retraining in order to prolong the workplace longevity of baby boomers and to ensure that following generations are as productive as possible to support the boomers’ lengthy retirement and provide for their own retirements” (p. 38).

Trend 2: Globalization

As access to all parts of the world increases and geographic borders become less important, the workforce and the marketplace will continue to change. For practitioners in training, HRD, and workplace learning and performance, these times are both invigorating and challenging. On the energizing side, technological innovations enable workers from all over the globe to interact more easily, and this interconnectivity will offer new opportunities and mechanisms for giving workers interactive education and continual upgrading of skills and knowledge.

The challenge of globalization for you and your professional colleagues will be to help organizations and their employees successfully position themselves in a worldwide marketplace. Patrick Canavan, senior vice president for global leadership and organizational development at Motorola, has advised that companies who want to profit from the globalization trend need to “Get global, get global fast, and get good at it” (LaGow, 2000, p. 17). His advice extends not only to senior-level decision makers but also to training, HRD, and workplace learning and performance professionals who wish to advance their company employees’ careers—and their own careers as well. Whether you currently work for an organization that is global in scope or for one whose focus is more local, it's essential to understand the impact that globalization can have on workforce development and education.

Here's a sampling of the globalization-related issues that you will face in your field:

• All employees need cultural sensitivity and global etiquette skills.
• Virtual team members need to be trained to hand off projects effectively to team members around the world, around the clock.
• Companies need to hire, train, and retain workers who see themselves in the global context (“Employment Trends,” 1999, p. 2).
• Companywide training efforts must be managed for a global workforce with employees disbursed in dozens of geographically remote work sites.
• Corporate cultures must be integrated successfully following cross-border mergers (“Employment Trends,” 1999, p. 2).
• Workers will have an increasing need for multilingual capabilities (“Foreign Study,” 2000, p. 3).

Trend 3: Emphasis on Nonstop Learning

Learning, so much a part of our lives already, will grow even more crucial in the decades ahead. Our increasing emphasis on learning is obvious everywhere, affecting every child, adolescent, and adult in our society. Learning no longer will be slotted into separate dimensions of one's life, such as learning for school or learning for work; instead, it will be woven into the fabric of our daily lives. Here are some of the signs:

• Hybrid words like edutainment are used to describe the weaving together of education and learning with other domains of life (in this case, with entertainment).
• Terms like intellectual capital, knowledge worker, and accelerated learning are widely accepted, understood, and used in our workplace conversations.
• The ability to learn constantly has become an essential survival skill for doing simple tasks like programming a VCR, using an ATM, pumping and paying for gasoline, or accessing books in the library—and these examples barely scratch the surface of what's to come.
• Technological advances will produce ever-smarter machines and, in turn that will require smarter people to run them. According to an article in the Society for Human Resource Management's Workplace Visions (“Technology Trends,” 1999), “Smarter machines will only increase the need for learning and training, rather than decrease it” (p. 3).
• Educational requirements will continue to rise in an effort to supply our growing business and technology workforce with the skills and knowledge it demands.
• Many organizations now have chief knowledge officers and chief learning officers.
• More and more companies are working to position themselves as learning organizations.

As intellectual capital becomes the most important asset for individuals and companies, several shifts are sure to occur. Organizations will invest more in human capital. Alternative learning options, such as virtual universities, will multiply. The value that workers offer their employers will depend more and more on the knowledge and skills they bring with them to work each day, and on their ability to learn and adapt quickly to new information and technology.

In this environment of learn-adapt-grow or die, all workers within organizations must take responsibility for their ongoing education and learning. But it will fall to training, HRD, and workplace learning and performance professionals to promote and lead the learning agenda.

Trend 4: The Transformation of Training

Training will become a more powerful tool for helping organizations meet the challenges of this new century. According to the authors of “Trendz,” “Training [is] a mission-critical function. Corporate training and education are enjoying increasing respect as low unemployment and a shortage of qualified workers make companies more aware of the need for ongoing training and retraining of the workforce” (Abernathy, Allerton, Barron, and Salopek, 1999, p. 39). Training also is likely to expand its current role in workforce education. As John Challenger (1999), CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, has pointed out, “Training will become the next boom industry as employers are forced to take on the responsibility of educating unskilled workers…. Employers will need to become the public schools of the next generation” (p. 20). The impact of the U.S. model of training also is likely to extend beyond our own geographic borders. According to forecasts in the Trend Letter (“Restructuring Japan, Inc.” 2000), as Japan goes through its own large-scale changes and positions itself for recovery, it “will institute American-style education and training programs” (p. 2).

In addition to all of these emerging possibilities, one of the most exciting new trends in training is its growing use of new methodologies and delivery systems to provide workers with the knowledge and skills they need when they need it. Here are some examples:

• Technology-delivered training is being adopted so quickly that by 2002 it will account for 55 percent of corporate training, up from 20 percent in 1999 (Abernathy et al., 1999, p. 38).
• Among companies identified by ASTD as “Training Investment Leaders,” 18.3 percent delivered their training via learning technologies (McMurrer, Van Buren, and Woodwell, 2000, p. 47).
• “Push” technology will allow training departments to send customized information automatically to managers and employees just when they need it and in the format they prefer (Sullivan, 1999).

Along with training's transformation, the role and skill set of those doing the training is changing. In the opening lines in an article in Training Magazine (Zielinski, 2000), Dave Zielinski summed up some of the emerging challenges for today's trainers:

Wanted: World-class multitasker and plate-spinner with proven track record of project management. Must be able to generalize and specialize simultaneously and seamlessly…. Consult credibly with line managers on performance challenges across functional boundaries…some experience with authoring, Web-based design, HTML important…must have ability to construct cost-efficient hybrid learning models…. (p. 27)

How's that for a challenge? Given all the ways that training is being transformed, it seems clear that training itself, along with the role of the trainer, will be central to an organization's effectiveness and will offer a competitive advantage. However, only the trainers who can transform themselves and remain on their own cutting edge will succeed. Training won't go away, but it will reshape its look and feel significantly.

Trend 5: The Changing Nature of Work

As long-term, permanent jobs with detailed job descriptions and the promise of job security become more the exception than the norm, several shifts will change the look of the workplace and the roles and practices of professionals in your field. Here are some of the changes that will affect your work.

Where, When, and How Work Is Done

Consider these shifts and imagine their potential impact on the way you go about your own work each day.

• As technology and changing organizational cultures enable people to work wherever they choose to live, jobs will follow individual workers rather than workers moving to follow jobs (“The Century of the Virtual Workforce,” 2000, p. 3).
• Over the next decade, it's likely that half the workforce will become “virtual,” with people working from home or from regional office co-ops shared by several companies (“The Century of the Virtual Workforce,” 2000, p. 3).
• As employees voice more reluctance to relocate for new assignments, telecommunications advances will permit “virtual transfers”—the ability to take on an assignment half a world away without ever leaving your home-town.
• The nine-to-five workplace routine will go the way of the last century and a 24/7 global workplace aided by technology will make it possible for work to be done any hour of any day.
• Virtual team members who may never have met—each with a different worldview, a different culture, and a different work style—will be joined to create products and services of exceptional quality and at lightning-fast speed.
• If human interaction becomes less frequent, training, HRD, and work-place learning and performance professionals may take on one more role—“director of socialization”—charged with helping workers connect (Challenger, 1998).

How Work Is Organized

Author and organizational consultant William Bridges (1994) noted in his book, JobShift, that the emphasis on “jobs” and job descriptions is giving way to an emphasis on “the work that needs doing.” As a result, work often will be project-based, will cross departments and functions, and will be shorter in duration than official “jobs” of the past decades. And it's not just shorter-term assignments that characterize project work. According to management consultant Tom Peters (1999) in his book, Reinventing Work: The Project 50, doing project-based work will mean taking on an assignment and reframing it into work that makes a difference. That's how the best work will be done. This emerging notion of “project work” will continue to grow, according to Peters, and it will be those workers who are willing and able to demonstrate their value who will profit most from this emerging trend.

Who Does the Work

Mergers, downsizings, acquisitions, reengineering efforts, and a host of other factors have combined to alter the picture of who's doing the work in organizations today. The emergence of the “shamrock organization”—a term coined by management educator and author Charles Handy (1989) to describe “an organization based around a core of essential executives and outside workers and part-time help” (p. 32)—will change the shape of an organization's workforce continually.

As companies focus on their core competencies and take on more characteristics of this shamrock configuration, they'll move to new staffing strategies that include long-term full-time workers, temporary workers, independent contractors, and contingent workers to get their work accomplished. Evidence of this shift to different staffing strategies is already apparent as temporary staffing firms top the Department of Labor's list of industries posting the biggest job gains. A good example of this trend is Manpower, Inc., the largest private employer in the United States.

To make the picture even more interesting, technology will enable employers to tap into a worldwide labor supply. This means that “electronic immigrants” living around the globe now can compete for the same positions as local candidates. Imagine how that prospect raises the ante for American workers who already face competition for jobs across all occupational categories. Imagine also the challenges to professionals in your field who must harness the resources of a growing global, virtual, and often temporary workforce.

Redefining “Career”

The changing employment contract, well known to every worker today, continues to challenge the old definition of “career.” The absence of career ladders and long-term job security doesn't spell the end of careers—just the end of our traditional ideas about them. In their place, innovative and exciting definitions of careers are emerging, shaped by individuals’ goals, life circumstances, and values.

As John McMorrow (1999), president and CEO of Talent Alliance, explained in HR Focus, “When we think of careers, we must think more broadly. While we should always be attentive to traditional career milestones [such as job entry, promotion, and retirement], we also must focus on the realities of how people work now” (p. 17). Those “realities” are that employees still will need assistance with entry into jobs, but they also will need support in finding ways to advance and discover ongoing opportunities for growth in flatter, networked organizations. And they'll need support during times of transition, such as mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations. They'll need support and information as they examine their retirement options, especially in years when the word retirement will have a much broader definition and will be shaped in very individual ways.

Trend 6: Technology

It's likely that technology's dominant role will continue to affect American corporations in the years to come. A survey published in 1999 by HR Magazine confirmed this belief. When asked what development they thought would have the most impact on the workplace of the future, 47 percent of HRD professionals who were surveyed listed technology.

As explained in “Trendz” (Abernathy et al., 1999), “Whereas the resources of the industrial economy were coal, oil, and steel, the resources of the knowledge economy are brain power and the ability to acquire, deliver and process information effectively” (p. 38). And the techno-savvy people, the ones who are most comfortable with technology, will have the edge in commanding and capitalizing on these vital resources. Consequently, the growing divide between workers with computer skills and those without them will lead to sharp divisions in career options.

Here are a few of the ways that technology will make a difference.

• According to the U.S. Commerce Department, by 2006 companies that either produce information technology or use it intensively will employ half of the U.S. workforce. The Trend Letter, which cited that statistic, suggested that the Commerce Department's figure might be conservative. The Trend Letter sees the number as closer to two-thirds of the workforce (“Perpetual Motion,” 2000, p. 1).
• Technology's impact will cross industries, occupational titles, and job responsibilities as well. As John Challenger (1999) has written, “Today's factories are becoming laboratories of technology. There are technical jobs in manufacturing that did not exist ten years ago” (p. 20). The Trend Letter emphasized this point even more when it noted, “Technological innovation will introduce dramatic changes in every single economic sector” (“Perpetual Motion,” 2000, p. 1).
• Assistive technologies are providing increased access and opening up career opportunities in the workplace to individuals with disabilities.
• Emerging technologies have the potential to “shrink distance, create new market niches, reduce the significance of ‘going to work’ and replace face- to-face contact” (“Critical Factors and Trends,” 1999, p. 4).

Technology offers both possibilities and challenges. Professionals who succeed in their careers will be the ones who know how to capitalize on the best that technology has to offer for themselves and their organizations. As Patricia McLagan (1999) pointed out, “We need to be able to function fully in the information-knowledge world and use its technologies” (p. 30).

Trend 7: Organizational Shifts

As more and more organizations move away from older hierarchical models, newer models are taking shape. A focus on speed, quality, innovation, and customer service is prompting organizations to explore new structures and new ways of doing business that work best for them, their workers, and their customers. And that changes almost everything.

Shifts in structure play out in many different ways. For instance:

• Consolidations through mergers and acquisitions hit an all-time high in 1998. Listing consolidation as one of the megatrends affecting training, “Trendz” (Abernathy et al., 1999) noted, “The ability to offer a complete training solution to corporations taking a more comprehensive and proactive approach to training will encourage consolidation” (p. 39).
• Partnerships are on the rise. Organizations are likely to explore more partnering possibilities as they strive to position themselves to greater advantage to provide specific expertise that may be gained through collaborations with others. Some futurists are predicting that global competition will give way to more global cooperation. One example of this trend was the recent coming together globally of corporations and governments to share ideas and discuss contingency plans related to the Y2K concerns. The bonds that formed as the world sought to deal with potential millennial techno-glitches have resulted in improved cooperation across national borders (“Was Y2K Worth the Effort?” 2000).
• Outsourcing is on the rise as organizations choose to highlight their core competencies and bring others in to do the rest. Nicki Artese, vice president of communication for Reserves Network, a Cleveland-based staffing firm, has suggested, “There is a growing business trend toward the outsourcing of noncore competencies, whether marketing, telecommunications, accounting, payroll—you name it. As a result, outsourcing of training will also be on the rise, reshaping internal training departments and functions.”
• Whole new entities—virtual organizations—are challenging the definition of the word company as they present new issues and opportunities to training, HRD, and workplace learning and performance professionals.

Trend 8: Quality-of-Life Issues

As workdays lengthen and intensify, boundaries between work and nonwork blur, and stress levels rise, one of the challenges for professionals in the field will be to help employees guard against “technology creep” and develop healthy strategies to ensure a healthy work/ life balance (“Employment Trends,” 1999, p. 3). The desire for balance between one's work life and non-work life isn't merely for small segments of the labor force. It's a reality for just about every worker today. Work/life balance is reported to be a high priority for young professionals considering new jobs. The companies cited as among the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in Fortune magazine (“America's Most Admired Companies,” 1999) all have some initiative meant to help workers better manage the demands of their nonwork lives.

In addition to the call for balance, in the near future many workers will add elder-care responsibilities to their already overcrowded list of tasks and concerns. Not only do those responsibilities add stress to the personal dimension of workers’ lives; they also take a toll on their career opportunities. Research done by the National Center for Women and Aging and the National Alliance for Caregiving (“The 1999 MetLife Juggling Act Study,” 1999) has shown that two-thirds of the people who act as caregivers for elderly relatives miss out on promotions, pay raises, and training opportunities.

The growing need for greater attention to work/life issues is reflected in figures like this: In 1999 the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the percentage of employers with Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) has risen recently to 48 percent of companies employing more than 100 workers. So many companies responding to concerns with work/life initiatives and increased use of EAPs suggests that organizations are getting the message. They know that employees who get support and services likely will feel less tension and worry less about handling their nonwork and family responsibilities, and they'll be better workers whose performance and commitment to their companies will rise accordingly.

Issues of time, balance, and attention to the wholeness of life will increase in the decades ahead. As a result, training, HRD, and workplace learning and performance professionals will need to support workers by addressing concerns that keep them from contributing less than their best. To retain quality workers, organizations will need to offer programs and services that acknowledge and support the full spectrum of workers’ lives.

Now that you've read the top challenges facing our field today, focus on how you can use this information to move your career ahead. Do this by putting these trends to work for you. For instance, begin by asking yourself questions like these:

• How can I use the trend toward an emphasis on technology to update the programs I'm delivering right now?
• How can I use the information from the trend on changing demographics to better meet the learning needs of everyone in my organization?
• How can I use the trend toward nonstop learning to stimulate some new thinking at the next department meeting I attend?
• Based on the trend toward globalization, how can I reshape my own job description to capitalize on my organization's desire to become a world-class company in our industry?

In other words, think possibilities.

The next chapter will help you do just that. It explores the variety of exciting positions available in our evolving field and it invites you to take the information you've gained in chapter 1, combine it with your skills and expertise, and use the knowledge to consider one of the many opportunities you'll read about there. Your career options are limitless once you get the big picture of all the possibilities opening up today in HRD, training, and workplace learning and performance.