Ten Business & A Few Other Predictions for The Decade Ahead...

People do one of two things during the first week of January; they either share their New Year's Resolutions or they provide their predictions for the year ahead. I figured since we are at the start of a new decade and because half of my crazy Resolutions will be dead by February 2nd, I would go with the prediction side of the house. Here are some of my business, tech, media, leadership and other work-related predictions for the new decade. These are just my thoughts and are not the predictions of my company, colleagues and friends. Most likely many of them will call me crazy and may disagree. 

1.) Centralized Platforms To Scale "Gig" Workforces:

According to Deloitte, more than 40% of workers are currently employed in alternative work arrangements, such as “gig” and contract work. Over the next decade, that number will increase dramatically. Companies will begin to centralize larger pools of highly skilled free lancers and “gig” workers to scale their operations. This white collar on-demand workforce will support many different customer facing businesses. Strategic teams will be quickly spun up for marketing, operations, sales support, and seasonal needs. Existing career and employment platforms like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed and dare I even say Amazon will create new membership features that will make this process more cost effective for employers and placements more seamless for workers. It is as simple as a platform like LinkedIn creating a "Free Agent" feature where the worker shares their availability, their compensation expectation, and skill set. The platform will pool the eligible workers together into clusters and place them with the companies that are looking for talent. Staffing firms and temp agencies beware! If the 2010's taught us anything, it is that the power is in the platform. Companies that will have an edge in this trend will be the ones that know how to make the “gig” workers feel as if they are a part of a special culture and have a purpose for their respective short-term project. 

2.) “Work Hours” Will Shift to 4 Ten Hour Days:

Employee burnout, mental wellbeing, mindfulness, and work-life balance will continue to be major focus areas for employees and employers. Companies will adopt a more creative approach to providing employees greater flexibility with their work schedules. Workforce optimization platforms and advancements in AI will help teams become more productive and collaborate more effectively. According to a 2018 survey by the Kronos Workforce Institute, 30% of workers globally and 40% in the U.S. already prefer a four-day week. Additional research from the Future Workplace shows that white collar employees do about four hours of actual work a day and that a compressed four day work week would help minimize workplace distractions.

3.) Discussing Politics Will Polarize Workforces More Than Office Politics Itself:

In the general election years of 2020, 2024, and 2028, feelings will be hurt, team members will feel left out or mocked, political topics will be debated and time will get wasted. Boutique HR and consulting firms will create products and services that help companies become less polarized. My advice is to talk about the weather.    

4.) Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Actually Will Train People To Be Empathetic: 

Leading brands like Hilton and Fidelity are already using Virtual Reality to help their associates see the world through their customer's perspective. This new form of training content will resonate with customer facing associates and will be a major instructional tool for corporate L&D training programs. The companies that can create training content in a rapid fashion and customize it for their operations will have an edge in retaining their employees. The impact of this training will be measured in employee satisfaction, lowered employee attrition rates, CSI, ancillary sales per transaction, and customer retention. Gamification strategies will be deployed to help companies keep their teams motivated to utilize the new technology.

5.) Facial and Voice Recognition – Bio Metrics:

Companies will utilize facial and voice recognition to immediately monitor customer pain points and will have operational strategies in place to intervene in service redemption and sales situations. Customer facing associates will be held accountable for building rapport with their customers and ensure that every customer leaves on a positive note. Although some call centers have this type of biometric tech in place, I believe the first industry to adopt this type of technology for face to face feedback will be the travel and financial services industries.

6.) E-Chat Will Lead The Customer’s First Impression In Retail, Hospitality, and Other Industries:

Companies will learn how to make the most of digital first impressions (DFIs) within their chat process and will measure length of chat, sales conversion rate, and total products sold more effectively. New updates to both Apple IOS and Android platforms will enable businesses to interact with their customer base via chat in a more seamless fashion. For some customer facing industries E-Chat as a sales channel will represent to over 60% of total sales. 

7.) Welcome Digital Anthropologists:

Digital anthropology as an area of study refers directly to the relationship that exists between humans and digital-era technology and how humans use technology to find meaning. UI, UX, CX, customer lifecycle studies, and digital branding strategies will evolve and will need dedicated teams to study how customers and employees use technology to have a meaningful relationship with a company. Digital Anthropologists will be to the 2020's what Data Scientists were to the 2010's. The companies that can blend theses two disciplines together and harness their research to develop a better understanding of their customer will have an edge.

8.) Corporate Backed Higher Education Tuition and Time Benefits Will Rise:

Nearly 45 million US citizens have student debt. They collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student loans. Students will need to take a different approach to how they pay for and attend college. Higher education as an employee benefit will be more common for large publicly traded companies. Progressive state universities, like Arizona State University, will continue to grow their student base by creating hybrid on-line courses that are customized for working students. Companies like, Guild Education, will strengthen their relationships with blue chip firms like Disney, Lyft and Walmart to offer higher education as a benefit to their employees.

9.) “Edutainment” Content Will Become A New Weapon In The Streaming Wars: 

Although the streaming side of the entertainment industry has been established it is still in its early stages. Only 15% of the global viewer market has been engaged and it is estimated that revenue growth via subscriptions in the next five years will grow at 12-17% annual rate. Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, HBO Max and other streaming services will begin to create original short form content focused on lifelong learning and personal passion topics like; cooking, gardening, travel, sports, writing, etc. Eventually the content will evolve into work related content that can help older workers learn new professional skills and make a transition into a second or third career much easier. The content will not be boring technical or instructional material. It will be produced in an entertaining and edgy way that engages the viewer and makes learning fun. Just think of the success that online education providers like Master Class, Udemy, Coursera, and Skillshare achieved. Imagine one of them being acquired by a company like Disney. Now imagine their content being “re-imaged” and produced to intoxicate an audience like Disney does.         

10.) Full Scale / Mass Market Autonomous Cars Will Be A Reality In the 2030s:

For our friends looking to see their drive to work eradicated in the next decade, I suggest you quell your expectations. There are too many non-tech challenges that have to come into play for full autonomy to be a reality. A few for example at a government level are state by state cooperation, regulatory support, digital infrastructure, and simply passing new traffic laws. I can think of at least ten states that can hardly pave their roads, let alone create an infrastructure that will support full autotomy. (Shout out to my home state of Illinois for being one of the ten states and for my venom on this topic.) Here is a crumb for our Jetson minded friends who are passionate about this topic; I believe commercial use of drones will make faster strides than autonomous vehicles. If you don't believe me on the drone side of this, just check out some of the work Bobby Healy is doing with drone delivery company Manna.

Thank you for taking the time to read these predictions. Perhaps some of these are already in play, perhaps some won't make it to 2021, perhaps some are too U.S. centric, and perhaps some are way off, regardless of what happens I wanted to get my predictions down now so I can see where they will fall. Please let me know your thoughts, if you are in complete disagreement about any of them please contact me on January 6th of 2030 so we can discuss them in greater detail. If you don't want to wait that long, you can always email me at kstellon@frontlinepg.com, InMail me via LinkedIn, or leave some comments below. Have a great 2020 and incredible decade. - Ken Stellon