Building our own success strategies means planning ahead; it means introducing small changes now that help guide us in the right direction towards a successful future. The problem, of course, is that we don’t have a crystal ball, which makes it difficult to fully understand exactly what little changes we need to make today to help us tomorrow. 

But that doesn’t mean that we need to head into the future blind. By taking a look at today’s emerging trends that are already showing signs of having an impact on tomorrow, it becomes easier to align your current actions with your future goals. 

So what are the top trends that are shaping the future of tomorrow’s work landscape?

1. Remote Working

Let’s start with the obvious: remote working. Mobility has been slowly creeping in for the past few years, but the COVID-19 outbreak has fast tracked this right to the frontier of change. Organisations that have previously been wary of remote working have been forced to implement greater flexibility… and they’re finding that it’s not quite as bad as they thought. Research shows that working from home – even for just one day a week – significantly boosts productivity, so it doesn’t look like remote will die out anytime soon. 

2. Wellness & Culture

For many workers, salary is no longer the be-all-and-end-all of employment. In fact, recent reports suggest that the majority of Brits now place more importance on workplace culture than wages. And fortunately, a lot of businesses are listening. The trend for building a strong and nurturing culture that facilitates wellness and supports good mental and emotional health is the very foundation of the future of work. The future of business isn’t what you do; it’s supporting the people that make it happen.

3. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has been teetering on the edge of the norm for some time. And although it’s still seen as somewhat futuristic right now, it is starting to worm its way into many everyday workplace processes. Between 2018 – 2019, the use of AI for standard business processes grew by 25%, and with 44% saying it has directly helped to reduce costs, there’s little doubt it’s going to be sticking around for a while. Common uses for AI today include chatbots, data analysis, forecasting, and data categorisation. 

4. Leadership/Management Separation

Leadership and management have always been two halves of the same coin, grouped together and often used interchangeably to refer to some sort of authority. However, we’re already starting to see this pairing breakdown, and in the future we can reasonably expect to see complete separation of the two as ‘management’ becomes more closely aligned with production, and ‘leadership’ becoming more closely aligned with support and guidance to help employees achieve their goals. 

5. Globalisation

The pandemic may have fast tracked the shift to remote working, but along the way it’s also done something else: it’s made globalisation more achievable than ever. COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation, with many businesses needing to implement new technologies to stay afloat. And through these technologies, many geographic barriers are being broken down. Organisations can reach more people, in more places, and globalisation is expected to become a major trend in the future. 

Embracing Change

If you’ve been resisting change, then you need to know that you can’t hide from it for much longer. Change can be worrying – it can even be terrifying – but by looking at just 5 of the many, many trends that are shaping the future of work, it’s clear to see how there’s a massive gap between what many of us are doing now, and what we will need to do to succeed in the future. We need to change today to succeed tomorrow.