Helping You Shape Your Future
Where to Look for Jobs and What to Expect in the “New Normal” Workplace
By by Caitlin Williams, Ph.D.
If you ’re interested in knowing where the jobs will be and what the workplace will look like in the near future, then recent information from two respected sources, T & D Magazine (published by the American Society for Training and Development) and the e-newsletter, The Herman Trend Alert (published by The Herman Group) will give you a good picture of what to expect. This information can help us, as career development professionals, better prepare our clients for the opportunities - as well as the challenges - in the emerging global workplace.
In June, the Herman Trend Alert noted that job growth in the technical fields is likely to outpace jobs in the non-technical fields in the near future. This shift, which has been going on for a while now, underscores the value of training and education in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) areas, which an earlier Trend Alert (June 16, 2010) noted as being a good bet for college grads looking for more job possibilities and higher pay.
In addition to the trend emphasizing growth in technology, demographic trends including the aging boomers, and the growing emphasis on healthcare will likely lead to more jobs in health information technology, health law, geriatric healthcare, occupational health and safety, and the pharmaceutical industry. Reflect on this information for just a few minutes, and you can easily come up with a list of at least a dozen related occupations that are likely to be in demand.
Earlier this month, the Trend Alert described additional jobs in other sectors and industries that are likely to be in demand due to the exploding growth of the Web, including the need for graphic designers, videographers, casual game/application developers, and software engineers. Further, changing demographics and workplace needs will emphasize the importance of other occupations. For instance, the increased number of people in the US who speak Spanish will likely increase the need for Spanish/English translators. And the workplace expectation of a more educated and trained workforce will likely increase the number of adults who will need further education to find jobs - which means an increase in the need for teachers and trainers with a background and skills in adult learning.
The urgent need to address environmental issues will continue to translate into growth in jobs that have a “green” component, and those that highlight conservation and protection of the environment (for example, consider all the different types of workers who are needed to aid in the recovery following the recent Gulf oil spill). Workers with training as “marine toxicologists, conservation scientists, marine ecologists, fisheries scientists, and policy makers for the oceans will be hired in record numbers” in the near future, according to The Herman Trend Alert (July 7, 2010).
While these Trend Alerts give us a broad view of some of the up-and-coming occupations in our emerging workplace, a feature story from the July 2010 issue of T & D Magazine gives us a “heads-up” on some of the expectations from employers inside this workplace. In the article “Managing the Matrix in the New Normal”, author Marjorie Derven explains that companies are moving from the older, traditional command-and-control structure to a more flexible matrix structure to better address their challenges to do more with less and, at the same time, to become super agile to remain globally competitive and highly efficient.
Derven suggests that this new matrix structure relies on both horizontal and vertical management. And it will have implications for every aspect of an organization including its ’ design, reward system and learning solutions. As a result of implementing a matrix structure a company will have the ability to: more quickly deploy expertise as it is needed across the organization, promote cross-functional problem solving, accelerate the process of getting products and services to market and foster innovation. As career professionals, we need to help our clients understand the impact of this shift - a shift that will likely result in workers who need to be even more agile, accountable and constantly ready to respond to new challenges.
Derven ’s article also discusses the “new normal” in today ’s workplace. Described in this article by Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, the “new normal” is the result of the significant changes in our economy and it calls for organizations to focus even more intently on cost savings, productivity increases and innovation. Consider for a moment what that means for job seekers and employees we serve. Job seekers and successful candidates for jobs in the new normal workplace will need to be prepared to help their employers reach their goals of saving money, producing more and spurring innovation. We can help those we work with translate these somewhat abstract goals into language they can use to describe specific ways they can add value in these three areas.
We can help our clients meet the demands of the “new normal” workplace by asking them to reflect on just how they have done these things in the past, or how they can contribute to a spirit of innovation in the future. Of course we urge our clients to list their accomplishments in their resumes, and add quantifiable results of their achievements whenever possible. But we can go a step further. We can help them think about this “new normal” as a new fact of life. If this is the new reality of the workplace, then job seekers need to communicate their value in terms of how they can help address the challenges that accompany this reality.
Some questions we may want to consider in our work with our clients right now:
- Are we helping them “read between the lines” of job announcements to notice the underlying needs the company has?
- The matrix structure relies on collaboration and teamwork. Are our clients regularly offering examples of their strengths in these areas to the people they network with and to the organizations that invite them in for interviews?
- One more thought about collaboration - since collaboration is key, are we helping our clients highlight and demonstrate their skills in listening and communicating (which are both important to effective collaboration) during their interviews?
- Given that current economic challenges are pushing all of us to do more with less - are we helping our job seeking clients describe specific instances in which they ’ve achieved cost savings for their employers in the past? Or, can we coach our employed clients who are positioning themselves for advancement to come up with strategies to help their current employer become more efficient with fewer resources right now?
- In what ways can a job seeker research a company so as to understand the company ’s most pressing challenges around innovation?
Finally, here is the question we need to address: are we doing all we can to prepare our clients for this emerging workplace? Are we helping them understand that the “new normal” with its emphasis on doing more with less is likely to be around for the foreseeable future? If they understand this fact, our clients can think creatively about solving the problems of potential employers in ways they might not have considered in the past. Are we helping them explore all their options - including career possibilities that might not be identical to what they ’ve done before? Even if their previous job titles are not among the list of occupations that are on the rise, there is a good chance that our clients ’ combined education, training and experience can position them for newer jobs that will need many of the strengths they can bring. Some key challenges for our clients here include the fact that they may not know about these newer job titles, they might not know how to do the research to learn more about them, or they might not know how to translate the work they ’ve done before into the requirements of the newer jobs being advertised. That is where we can help.
Likewise, we can be a key resource for them in identifying the expectations of the emerging global workplace, with its emphasis on higher accountability for all workers, increased needs for collaboration rather than a focus on independent contributions, super-flexibility and agility, and an emphasis on relationships.
What a fantastic opportunity we have to coach our clients to thrive in this challenging workplace!
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