“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.”
The Workforce 2020 Report from the Hudson Institute indicates that the U.S. workforce will be 6% Asian, 14% Latino, 11% black and 68% non-Latino white (down from 76% today). Key additional trends in the workforce include increasing the participation of women, increasing telecommuting and the aging of the workforce.
The service sector grew at a rate twice as fast as employment in the whole economy. And its well known fact within the healthcare industry that health services (hospitals, insurance companies, HMOs, drug firms, medical equipment, nursing homes, personal care centers, etc.) provided 1 in 7 jobs in the economy.
We are seeing companies with fewer layers of management and greater use of teams that are self-managing to a degree.
The largest gains in managerial ranks for women in the last two decades have been in the computer industry--software and data segment. Representation jumped from 15% to 30%.
It's important to know the risks of being a general manager. Middle managers have been affected disproportionately by downsizing. Annual surveys taken by the American Management Association show that two-thirds of their member firms downsized between 1988 and 1993, and that while middle managers make up 8 percent of the workforce, they have accounted for 19 percent of the cuts.
A crucial skill to have in the future is the ability to manage yourself. You may find yourself in a management position where you have no day to day reporting responsibilities to your superior. Your job will be to define, execute and evaluate your tasks and objectives. This is an opportunity and a burden. Practice establishing goals and evaluating your performance today to prepare now.
Companies are utilizing part-time work, outsourcing, contract-leased based employees, flexible work schedules, computer networking, faxing etc. allowing employees to live far away from work. We live in the era of CraigsList contracting where talented information workers pick up "gigs".
According to workforce.com: "In the coming years, most cubicle-dwelling employees probably won’t have a room--or a door--of their own. There is an office movement toward more shared work space coupled with private desk areas, especially in creative industries..."
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