Institute for the Future for the University of Phoenix Research Institute
University Avenue, 2nd Floor, Palo Alto, CA 94301 650.854.6322 www.iftf.org
about the …
I n S t I t U t e F o R t h e F U t U R e
The Institute for the Future (IFTF) is an independent, nonprofit strategic research group with more than 40 years of forecasting experience. The core of our work is identifying emerging trends and discontinuities that will transform global society and the global marketplace. We provide our members with insights into business strategy, design process, innova- tion, and social dilemmas. Our research spans a broad territory of deeply transformative trends, from health and health care to technology, the workplace, and human identity. The Institute for the Future is located in Palo Alto, California.
U n I v e R S I t y o F P h o e n I x R e S e A R C h I n S t I t U t e
The University of Phoenix Research Institute conducts scholarly research on working learners, higher education, and industry to improve educational outcomes and promote a more prepared workforce.
The University of Phoenix Research Institute sponsored this piece of research to increase understanding of the skills workers will need over the next decade in a technologically advanced and changing world.
In the 1990s, IBM’s Deep Blue beat grandmaster Gary Kasparov in chess; today IBM’s Watson supercomputer is beating contestants on Jeopardy. A decade ago, workers worried about jobs being outsourced overseas; today companies such as ODesk and LiveOps can assemble teams “in the cloud” to do sales, customer support, and many other tasks. Five years ago, it would have taken years for NASA to tag millions of photo- graphs taken by its telescope, but with the power of its collaborative platforms, the task can be accomplished in a few months with the help of thousands of human volunteers.
Global connectivity, smart machines, and new media are just some of the drivers reshaping how we think about work, what constitutes work, and the skills we will need to be productive contributors in the future.
This report analyzes key drivers that will reshape the landscape of work and identifies key work skills needed in the next 10 years. It does not consider what will be the jobs of the future. Many studies have tried to predict specific job categories and labor require- ments. Consistently over the years, however, it has been shown that such predictions are difficult and many of the past predictions have been proven wrong. Rather than focusing on future jobs, this report looks at future work skills—proficiencies and abilities required across different jobs and work settings.
M e t h o d o Lo G y
Over its history, the Institute for the Future (IFTF) has been a leader in advancing foresight methodologies, from the Delphi technique, a method of aggregating expert opinions to develop plausible foresight, to integrating ethnographic methods into the discipline of forecasting, and recently to using gaming platforms to crowdsource foresights. We have used these methodologies with an illustrious roster of organizations—from Fortune 500 companies to governments and foundations—to address issues as diverse as future science and technology, the future of organizations, and the future of education.
IFTF uses foresight as a starting point for a process we call Foresight to Insight to Action, a process that enables people to take future visions and convert them into meaningful in-
sights and actions they can take to be successful in the future.
In writing this report, we drew on IFTF’s foundational forecasts in areas as diverse as education, technology, demographics, work, and health, as well as our annual Ten-Year Forecast. The Ten-Year Forecast is developed using IFTF’s signals methodology—an extension of de- cades of practice aggregating data, expert opinion, and
trends research to understand patterns of change. A signal is typically a small or local innovation or disruption that
has the potential to grow in scale and geographic distribu- tion. A signal can be a new product, a new practice, a new market strategy, a new policy, or new technology. In short, it is something that catches our attention at one scale and in one locale and points to larger implications for other locales or even globally. Signals are useful for people who are try- ing to anticipate a highly uncertain future, since they tend
to capture emergent phenomenon sooner than traditional social science methods.
We enriched and vetted this research at an expert workshop held at our headquarters in Palo Alto, where we brought together experts in a diverse range of disciplines and professional backgrounds, engaging them in brainstorming exercises to identify key drivers of change and how these will shape work skill requirements. Finally, we analyzed and filtered all of this data in order to identify the six key drivers and ten skills areas that will be most relevant to the work- force of the future.
Many thanks to each of our workshop participants:
• Amanda Dutra,Right Management
• Caroline Molina-Ray,
University of Phoenix Research Institute
• David Pescovitz, IFTF
• Devin Fidler,IFTF
• Humera Malik,Electronic Arts
• Jason Tester,IFTF
• Jerry Michalski,IFTF Affiliate
• Jim Spohrer, IBM
• Leslie Miller,University of Phoenix Research Institute
• Marina Gorbis,IFTF
• Martha Russell,Media X at Stanford University
• Micah Arnold,Apollo Group
• Natasha Dalzell-Martinez,University of Phoenix
• Rachel Maguire, IFTF
• Sonny Jandial,Procter & Gamble
• Steve Milovich,The Walt Disney Company
• Tracey Wilen-Daugenti,
University of Phoenix Research Institute
S I x d R I v e R S o F C h A n G e
We begin every foresight exercise with thinking about drivers—big disruptive shifts that are likely to reshape the future landscape. Although each driver in itself is important when thinking about the future,
it is a confluence of several drivers working together that produces true disruptions. We chose the six drivers that emerged from our research as the most important and relevant to future work skills.
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extreme longevity:
Increasing global lifespans change the nature of careers
and learning
rise of smart machines
and systems:
Workplace automation nudges human workers out of rote, repetitive tasks
It is estimated that by 2025, the number of Americans over 60 will increase by 70%. Over the next decade we will see the challenge of an aging population come to the fore. New perceptions of what it means to age, as well as the emerg- ing possibilities for realistic, healthy life-extension, will begin take hold.
Individuals will need to rearrange their approach to their careers, family life, and education to accommodate this de- mographic shift. Increasingly, people will work long past 65 in order to have adequate resources for retirement. Multiple careers will be commonplace and lifelong learning to pre- pare for occupational change will see major growth. To take advantage of this well-experienced and still vital workforce, organizations will have to rethink the traditional career paths in organizations, creating more diversity and flexibility.
Aging individuals will increasingly demand opportunities, products, and medical services to accommodate more healthy and active senior years. As we move toward to a world of healthier lifestyles and holistic approaches to what we eat, how we work, and where we live, much of daily life—and the global economy as a whole—will be viewed through the lens of health.
We are on the cusp of a major transformation in our relationships with our tools. Over the next decade, new smart machines will enter offices, factories, and homes
in numbers we have never seen before. They will become integral to production, teaching, combat, medicine, security, and virtually every domain of our lives. As these machines replace humans in some tasks, and augment them in others, their largest impact may be less obvious: their very presence among us will force us to confront important questions.
What are humans uniquely good at? What is our compara- tive advantage? And what is our place alongside these machines? We will have to rethink the content of our work and our work processes in response.
In some areas, a new generation of automated systems will replace humans, freeing us up to do the things we are good at and actually enjoy. In other domains, the machines will become our collaborators, augmenting our own skills and abilities. Smart machines will also establish new expecta- tions and standards of performance. Of course, some rou- tine jobs will be taken over by machines—this has already happened and will continue. But the real power in robotics technologies lies in their ability to augment and extend
our own capabilities. We will be entering into a new kind of partnership with machines that will build on our mutual strengths, resulting in a new level of human-machine col- laboration and codependence.
I n t R o d U C t I o n
In the 1990s, IBM’s Deep Blue beat grandmaster Gary Kasparov in chess; today IBM’s Watson supercomputer is beating contestants on Jeopardy. A decade ago, workers worried about jobs being outsourced overseas; today companies such as ODesk and LiveOps can assemble teams “in the cloud” to do sales, customer support, and many other tasks. Five years ago, it would have taken years for NASA to tag millions of photo- graphs taken by its telescope, but with the power of its collaborative platforms, the task can be accomplished in a few months with the help of thousands of human volunteers.
M e t h o d o Lo G y
Over its history, the Institute for the Future (IFTF) has been a leader in advancing foresight methodologies, from the Delphi technique, a method of aggregating expert opinions to develop plausible foresight, to integrating ethnographic methods into the discipline of forecasting, and recently to using gaming platforms to crowdsource foresights. We have used these methodologies with an illustrious roster of organizations—from Fortune 500 companies to governments and foundations—to address issues as diverse as future science and technology, the future of organizations, and the future of education.
S I x d R I v e R S o F C h A n G e
We begin every foresight exercise with thinking about drivers—big disruptive shifts that are likely to reshape the future landscape. Although each driver in itself is important when thinking about the future,
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rise of smart machines
S I x d R I v e R S o F C h A n G e