It’s no coincidence that I release my workforce predictions for 2021 on Martin Luther King, Jr Day, a day of hope. Despite all of the uncertainty and chaos lapsing into this new year from last, there are signs of hope – some still faint, but others more apparent. Much of 2021 will be about fixing what went wrong in a most tumultuous 2020. But we’ve a lot more awareness of those problems and that’s where rehabilitation starts. Plus, the fact that you’re reading this means you weathered the most chaos one year has dumped for decades. As my grad school professor and mentor used to say, “Hope springs eternal.”
But I’m not in denial. There are still many, complex and critical issues that don’t (and didn’t) magically “go away” with a new calendar. In statistical terminology, we still have a number of “main effects” exerting considerable and all-encompassing influence on human behavior – including work and the way it’s conducted. Among the most impactful are,
- a relentless, growing, global pandemic that’s been around for over a year,
- a hyper-polarized, angry, and increasingly aggressive, US population divided on, and driven by, political ideology,
- a dramatic increase in technology-enabled communication (substantially driven by #1)
- an increase in technology “hacks,” breaching data and disrupting infrastructure,
- massive unemployment (substantially driven by #1)
These aren’t independent of each other, as noted for a couple, but true of all. Nevertheless, each of these (i.e., 2-5) has evolved as formidable and life changing forces that now exist beyond the pandemic (i.e., they would continue even if the pandemic magically “went away”). Moreover, these main effects have predictable, if not already commenced, domino effects.
So, yes, some predictions for 2021 are almost “no-brainers” because we’ve already seen some of the effects they have had, and will have, for some time.
On the other hand, the impacts of these “main effects,” may not have fully revealed their potential for even further disruption, or mitigation, thus making predictions also tenuous. {I’ve started this list three times since the new year for just this reason.}
Nevertheless, regardless of this era in which we've witnessed the emergence of nearly instantaneous, global chaos, one has to put a stake in the ground.
So, these are my workforce predictions for 2021: