Five upcoming changes in the way we work

Tammy Erickson, Harvard Business Review contributor and author of multiple books, including Retire Retirement and Workforce Crisis, has written about the five key changes she is expecting in the workplace in 2010. What do you think? Do you agree with her?

1. Two-job norm — More people will maintain two sources of income than ever before. Instead of relying on the onetime holy grail of employment — a salaried job with full benefits — workers will create a series of backup options. For many, especially those in creative or knowledge-based work, this is likely to include becoming entrepreneurs. A second job or even a small entrepreneurial venture provides a safety net, giving workers a small measure of control over their fate in an increasingly unstable environment.
2. Less “off hours” work — Recession-management approaches that made full-time employees take a day a week “off” planted some new questions in the minds of employees who had been working virtually 24×7. What is a “day?” Eight hours? Twenty percent of the time I normally work each week? For many, these questions lead inevitably to: If they only want me to work four days a week, why am I working more than 32 hours? Many companies have come to rely on very long work weeks as staffing cuts lead to more work for the remaining individuals and technology facilitated round-the-clock work. I expect to see more push back this year — in part because many individuals will be spending time advancing their second work option.
3. Competition for discretionary energy — Engagement has been a hot topic in talent management circles for the past decade. But its benefits have focused primarily on attracting and retaining employees. Increasingly, managers’ focus will shift to competing for an employee’s discretionary energy — competing with other priorities in the employee’s life, including other options for work — but also competing against employees who are only “going through the motions.” More and more of the work in today’s economy cannot be done rotely — success requires a spark of extra effort, creativity, collaboration, and innovation.
4. More diverse arrangements — By now, most companies have put a variety of flex work options on the books. In 2010, I believe these arrangements will begin to take hold in significant ways, driven by employee preferences, facilitated by new technologies, supported by new managers who themselves are more comfortable with virtual work.
5. Transparent, “adult” arrangements — My favorite change is the growth in what I like to call “communities of adults” — a philosophy of recasting the employment relationship from one of paternalistic care to adult choice. A simple example is offering a menu of benefit options and letting employees choose those that work best. Further along the spectrum would include encouraging employees to “own” their own feedback process or even set their own compensation levels. These sorts of changes won’t settle in this year, but they’re coming. I expect we’ll see more examples as the year progresses.

Source: HBR blogs

A looming retirement crisis for Boomers (with lots of opportunities)

We have argued many times on this blog that the Baby Boomers are going to redefine retirement (for example, here, here and here). In fact, we even thought we were very clever using the phrase “retyrement” to describe what we think will actually happen. We’ve had a presentation called “Prime Time” about it. And one of our colleagues started her own consultancy called the refirement network.

We’ve been saying this for at least the last 6 years, so it’s got very little to do with financial downturn of the last two years. Although the recession allowed us to add one more reason why Boomers were not going to retire in the way we think of retirement now. But maybe the recession will cause some Boomers a big headache in this area.

Because many companies will need to find ways to strip out costs over the next few years as the recovery slowly begins, they will think of removing the high remuneration costs for senior staff. The weak economy could very well result in job losses that will force more people to retire early. This would severely scupper Boomers plans to continue working longer.

However, we would argue strongly that this will simply see Boomers become entrepreneurs. We cannot imagine that they will retire gracefully to the “do nothing” state often associated with retirement. Some will move into the voluntary sector. There is therefore a huge opportunity for charities, non-profits, and faith-based organisations to target recruitment campaigns at this generation. I’d say this could work for any organisation that could use more volunteers, from local schools to the World Cup Football competition.

But, many of the Boomers are likely to try and start up their own companies. The opportunities here are boundless. This is a generation that loves consultants – and they’ll be very happy to use some of the early retirement payout to buy consulting services. They’d pay for anything from IT support to virtual secretarial services, and from business mentoring to outsourcing of warehousing and deliveries. Many of them are used to having teams of people do their bidding, and they’d probably pay to have this setup again in their startup businesses.

Given just a few good experiences, they may be able to get their heads around virtual support (such as eLance), but in general, they are a “hands on” and “face to face” generation.

There are huge challenges ahead for the Boomers. This next decade is likely to be a very frustrating one for them. But there are amazing opportunities as well.

What are your thoughts?

After Shock: the five trends disrupting business in the next 5 years

Updated in March 2010 (now with an added Executive summary in the PDF format)

Download a copy of this article in PDF format – right click here. The contents of this article can be presented as a keynote or a workshop for your team. Contact our UK or South African offices to find out how.

As the world slowly emerges out of recession over the next few years, it will become increasingly clear that this was more than just an economic downturn. Disruptive forces are significantly reshaping the world of work. Some of these changes have been brewing for a decade or more – and now this recession has exacerbated their influence and speeded up their effects. Companies that have survived the downturn need to shift their focus to surviving the upturn. We are not ever going to “get back to normal” – a new normal is emerging for everyone, everywhere.

Understanding the forces that are driving this disruptive change will give an organisation the insights needed to adjust their systems, structures and methods and gain a significant competitive advantage in the next 3 to 5 years. It will also set them up for longer term success in the next few decades. It is therefore essential to provide not just senior leaders, but all staff throughout your company, with a framework of thinking about this “new normal”. You want them to work together to take advantage of the opportunities that will emerge.

There are at least five key drivers of disruptive change that every organisation in every industry and sector needs to track. These are the T.I.D.E.S. of change. (It’s a corny acronym, I know, but hopefully it will help with both remembering the framework, as well as making it easy to use on a regular basis in team meetings and informal conversations throughout your organisation). Here then are the key drivers of disruptive change in the next decade, and some questions to ask yourself and your teams as you plan to respond to them:

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Building your own healthcare community

Many years ago when I was in community development, some of the cutting edge thinkers were promoting the idea of less professionals and more community involvement in ensuring the growth, development, safety, etc of family. It was a simple but profound concept of building a care system less reliant on the ‘usual suspects’ (professionals) by involving people around a particular family who had an interest in them, who spent more time with them, and who, if integrated successfully could provide more useful and meaningful support.

There was a book I remember having to read while studying called ‘The other 23 hours’, that made the point in a residential child care environment. The book was written to encourage Child Care Workers, and to see the value and importance of their role. Social Workers in these setting often got all the glory and were seen to be the most important people in a child’s world. But as the book pointed out, a child may only see a Social Worker for 1 hour each day (and that’s a lot), there were another 23 hours in their day.

FastCompany has recently posted an article (The Future of Healthcare is social), and they’ve done a great job outlining similar thinking for healthcare, with technology as a large enabler. It makes sense in this arena as well. Our health is something that needs 24 hours of proactivity. We can’t afford or expect professionals to be available for all that time. But if we can assemble a community of people around us, who care about us, and who’ll get involved with us, and then enable it all with technology, we may find ourselves in a far healthier place than we currently are.

Even when we do our best to stay healthy, we still get sick. Coping with sickness in our already hectic lives can be challenging. In addition to looking out for her parents, Susan manages the health of her two kids, her husband, and herself, and she looks for ways to save time and money while still getting the care that they need. Recently, for example, Susan’s son woke up with a sore throat and a fever. She used an at-home strep test to rub a swab of her son’s throat culture onto a card. Within minutes, the test results confirmed her son had strep. Through an embedded RFID sensor within the card, the test results were wirelessly transmitted to her computer’s reader. On her computer, she was prompted to connect the incoming test results to her son’s personal health record. Next, she used her personal health network to book the earliest visit for her son within a 10-mile vicinity. Susan elected to electronically send her son’s strep results in advance of her appointment, allowing the receiving retail clinic to accelerate her visit by pre-issuing an e-prescription. Before leaving her computer, Susan selected her son’s classroom network, comprised of his teacher and the parents of other students, and sent out a message that her son had strep throat and would be home for the next several days.

It’s a longish read, but definitely worth it. If not just to see where health care might go, I’m fairly certain the thinking will at least change how you see other parts of your world.

A happiness bank – connecting helpers with those who need help

I am doing some work in Estonia in a few days time, and so have been watching the wires for news reports from that country. One of these really jumped out at me.

“Estonians to lauch world’s first e-Bank of Happiness” – read the story here. The concept is simple: bring together those who are in need of help and those who can help. In the e-bank one can exchange information on needs, offer help and register good deeds. All for free. It’s basically elance.com for volunteers.

The idea is not only to help people out digitally and online, but for this to extend into Estonia, with people in physical need (e.g. elderly people need help to get to the shops, house sitting while on holiday, looking for a gym buddy, etc) can also use the system. “The Bank of Happiness is an initiative to change the way of thinking. It’s a bank for exchanging good deeds. The wish of the Bank is to make people think and act with their heart. The Bank is meant for all those who value good deeds and have the will to make good themselves.”

You can check out the simple user interface here: http://www.onnepank.ee/en.

I’ll watch it closely, and hope it succeeds. A nice idea, well executed. Let’s hope people support it.

Marcus Buckingham takes aim at women

The guy is no fool.

Marcus Buckingham, author and strengths uber-guru, knows what he is doing. He first shot to prominence with a series of books about personal strengths. I think that his book, “Now, Discover Your Strengths” (also sold under the title of “Strengths Finder 2.0″ – see Kalahari or Amazon to buy it) is one of the best personal development books ever written, and I regularly state in my seminars that I think everyone in the world should read it.

Now, he has released his latest book, and it is aimed at the lucrative women’s market (and has gone straight to paperback, too). The book is called, “Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently” (buy it at Kalahari or Amazon). I managed to get an advance copy, and really enjoyed it. It’s typical of his style – maybe even more chatty than previous books. It’s simple, down-to-earth, but amazingly insightful. And I think it will fly off the shelves into the many women’s groups that meet around the world every day.

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Challenges – and solutions – to Work-Life Balance

A recent report from the Corporate Executive Board was summarised by Brian Kropp on the Talent Management blog. Read it online at their site, or an extract below:

Challenges to Work-Life Balance
by Brian Kropp

The uncertain economic environment has placed tremendous personal and workplace pressure on employees. Corporate Executive Board (CEB) analysis has shown a drastic decline in employee engagement since the start of the economic downturn, with the number of disengaged employees having risen dramatically from 1 in 10 in 2006 to 1 in 3 in the first quarter of 2009.

With financial instability fueling growing demands in many areas of employees’ lives, it comes as no surprise that leveraging work-life balance practices provides employees with much needed flexibility and can greatly improve employee engagement overall. In this volatile economic climate, with downsizing and restructuring efforts having left employee morale low and workloads heavy, creating opportunities that can improve employee work-life balance can also have a tangible bottom-line impact for the business. Implementing effective work-life balance initiatives, however, can be challenging, and is directly linked to how well today’s workforce development executives can identify and provide the right mix of benefits that are highly valued by the workforce.

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Climate change: The biggest global-health threat of the 21st century

This is what the top flight medical journal, The Lancet, says. In the latest edition, an article entitled “Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change” makes this claim. See this article, and other similar ones here. The article is a collaboration between Lancet and University College London Institute for Global Health Commission.

It is a 41 page scholarly article, with a four page Executive summary. So I’m not going to reproduce it here – not even the Executive summary. The bottom line, though, is that we need to be taking this issue a lot more seriously than we are. With the mounting scientific evidence, I cannot understand global warming deniers.

I can sort of understand some of the denialism. It is true that human beings are not the only cause of global warming. It may be true that we are not even the primary cause of it. We’re in a natural warming cycle that has been in operation for millions of years (we have data for about 450,000 years of a oscillating hot and cold cycle). That may be true, but human activity nevertheless is a contributor to global warming. And more importantly, it is the only thing we can control. So, given that we MUST do something about it, we can only do what we can actually do (I know that sounds so simple it isn’t worth saying, but this is part of the problem – not enough people are saying it!).

We must do what we can do.

I also sort of understand the attitude that says “why bother”, especially when looking at India and China and other developing nations.

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Healthy happy families

I’m a big fan of Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong foundation. I received an email from them today with “10 steps to a successful family life” and thought I’d share it with you. Although this blog primarily deals with business issues, we often remark that achieving work-life integration is critical for any business success. People with happy family lives bring this energy and positiveness with them to the workplace. Here are ten steps that may help create a happy work environment too… (read between the lines there are some strong messages applicable to business relationships too). We also do some presentations on these issues, including a presentation based on Graeme Codrington’s latest book, “Future-Proof Your Child“.

You can read the ten steps below or visit the Livestrong website

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Perspective: A Helpful Framework for Leaders

Erik Erikson, the renown Danish Developmental Psychologist believed that balance in life was dependent upon paying attention to three critical areas of one’s life: Work, Play & Love.

Erikson argued that maintaining a balance in these three areas was essential for the healthy negotiation of the latter stages of one’s life. It is a nice and simple framework through which to examine one’s life. Each of these areas poses its own relevant questions that once articulated need to be answered and I suspect should be subject to constant revision. It is the lack of balance in these essential areas of life that leads to burnout, stress, fragmented relationships and a general dislocation of purpose and fulfillment. The long-term consequences of this can be devastating. I suspect that there are no simple answers or formula to follow, although many may peddle such. Such peddlers promote easy access to the secret of balancing these life domains and I think that suspicion here is not merely warranted but advisable. Doubtless there are reliable guides who can help point the way and finding such guides is the reward of an intentional seeking and openness to learning.

Leaders would do well to shape the questions that they need to be asking in these three life domains: Work, play and love. Perspective is such an important aspect of effective leadership and finding a workable framework which will help achieve and maintain the desire perspective is well worth exploring.

A new way of looking at inheritance is needed

If you read this blog regularly, you might have spotted that last week’s Spectator magazine has been on my reading list. It just happened to be a fairly thought provoking edition. Here is another thought it sparked for me.

When the world changes, we need to change too. As demographics change, the institutions of the world also need to change. We are living in an era of unprecedented change. I mean fundamental shifts, not just technological changes or infrastructural improvements. One example of demographic change is that we are now living longer on average than at any time in recorded history. An example of a change in institutions this requires is that we should be rethinking inheritance.

My grandmother is 95 years old, and still going strong. She spent most of her life in Christian ministry, and so doesn’t have much of a nest egg to pass on as an inheritance. But, if she did, who would it go to? The current system means my aunt and father would receive the inheritance. But aunt is retired, as is her husband, and my father is certainly of retirement age. As the oldest grandchild, I am nearing 40 with three children under 10 years old, while the youngest cousin of my generation has just become a father for the first time.

Surely it is my generation that would gain much more benefit from an inheritance from her?

As the demographics of longevity have changed, should we not change our practices, so that inheritance is passed onto the grandchildren? Once this is established, each generation will receive an inheritance. The only generation to be affected would be the current middle aged generation who would need to forgo an inheritance in favour of their children.

And there lies the problem. To implement such a change, the Baby Boomers would need to forgo their inheritance. But, this seems unlikely. The Boomers have spent their lives not only being selfish about hoarding and spending their money, but also whittling away the inheritance they could leave to their children. There is a danger that many of them will take the inheritances they should start to receive soon, and use these up. I don’t think, then, that they’re likely to look favourably on the idea of giving up their inheritance rights altogether.

But, it would make sense if they did.

Read the Spectator article that got me thinking about this online here, or below.

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What Gen Y Really Wants – And Why We Should Care

A nice post from some young people who really do know what their peers would like at the workplace. Read the original here. Or an extract below:

While conducting research on the work-life balance outlooks of crème de la crème Gen Y-ers (highly educated young people around the world, what we like to call Gen Y-Fi), we asked forty American college students and young professionals what kind of benefits they were looking for from potential employers. By far the most common response was simply “health insurance.” When we asked a similar cohort of Gen Y Europeans the same question they came up with a whole score of desirable work-live benefits: flexible working hours, in-house child care facilities, freedom to work from home or a different country even, respect for family life…the list went on. Why were responses from America’s college-educated youngsters so uniform and unimaginative, while their European counterparts could shoot off an entire wish-list?

A recent survey of graduating college seniors by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) sheds some light on the matter. The NACE survey reports that out of fifteen possible job attributes, the top three chosen by American students were: opportunity for advancement, job security, and a good insurance package. Assuming young grads would choose attributes stressing flexibility and creativity (especially since work-life balance has become a “mantra for characterizing Generation Y”), researchers were perplexed that Gen Yers were so zealous about job security. The NACE report concludes that Gen Yers are looking for a company that provides steady salary increases along with life-long benefits — think General Motors circa 1950. Unfortunately, that kind of employer no longer exists, as the current economic recession has made abundantly clear.

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Pleased to meet you. What do you do for a living?

When you meet new people at a function, what is one of the first things they ask you?  Every time I am introduced to new people, we generally say ‘hello’ and ‘pleased to meet you’.  Then, we ask each other, ‘what do you do for a living?’

I can understand why people ask this because it breaks the ice and keeps the conversation moving.  It is assumed that the question ‘what do you do for a living’ will reveal something about who you are and then encourage more discussion.

I am an accountant.  This has been my most succinct response to the ‘what do you do for a living’ question.  The problem is that this short answer gave people a false impression of the real me. The field I studied is no longer congruent with the dreams and aspirations I have for my life.  I have never fitted the stereotypical accountant profile so I always wanted to qualify the statement and say ‘I am an accountant BUT…’ Sometimes a BBQ, wedding or light-hearted cocktail party is not the place to get too philosophical and intense.  So, I generally left my response as a brief ‘I am an accountant’ but felt something was missing from my answer, just like I felt something was missing in my career in general.

I have always wondered whether other people feel the same way as me.  Do people’s jobs and the companies they work for define who they really are? – ‘I am a doctor’, ‘I work for IBM’, ‘I am in the oil industry’, ‘I am an engineer’, ‘I am in project management’.  Recently, I have made it my mission at functions to subtly probe whether people’s jobs are congruent with their passion and who they feel they really are. 

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Office 2.0 Database

I’m a great fan of so-called Web 2.0, and what it’s going to mean to our way of interacting and doing business.

Today I came across a wonderful database of Office 2.0 apps nicely arranged into useful categories. For those who are dabbling in this world, or would like to, you need to take a look at this database.

About the Office 2.0 Database:

The Office 2.0 Database is developed and maintained by Ismael Ghalimi [LinkedIn], a passionate entrepreneur and fervent industry observer, founder and CEO of Intalio, creator of BPMI.org, initiator of Office 2.0, and author of IT|Redux. Ismael is an advisor to several high-tech companies, including AdventNet (a.k.a. Zoho), EchoSign, EveryTrail, Open IT Works, ThinkFree, and 3TERA.

The best companies to work for…if you are a parent

Not many people think about maternity benefits when applying for a job, and yet organisations differ hugely in what they provide for parents. Some offer the bare legal minimum, others offer a year’s maternity leave on full pay. In an era of increased awareness of the importance of work-life integration, The Guardian argues, following a study of 250 organisations, that it is the smart organisations that take maternity benefits seriously who will attract and retain talented staff.

The survey discovered that companies often treat family life as being entirely separate from the workplace rather than being, as they are in the lives of most employees, tightly bound together. Very few corporations showcase strong parental benefits among their recruitment incentives or as evidence of high corporate ethics. And yet any working parent knows how damaging it is to productivity, creativity and mental health to work for organisations that blank out or are hostile to the beating family heart of its staff.

The Guardian argues that good support to parents is a social contribution as important as a companies charitable donations, recycling or carbon footprint reduction efforts.

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Some wisdom from Warren Buffett

I received this in an e-mail today….

There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffett, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity Here are some very
interesting aspects of his life:

1. He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!
2. He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.
3. He still lives in the same small 3-bedroom house in mid-town Omaha, that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence.
4. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him.
5. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world’s largest private jet company.
6. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals  for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis.  He has given his CEO’s only two rules. Rule number 1: do not lose any of your share holder’s money. Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.
7. He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch Television.
8. Bill Gates, the world’s richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffett.
9. Warren Buffett does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.

 
His advice to young people: “Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself and Remember:

  A.  Money doesn’t create man but it is the man who created money.
  B.  Live your life as simple as you are.
  C.  Don’t do what others say, just listen to them, but do what you feel is good.
  D.  Don’t go on brand name; just wear those things in which u feel  comfortable.
  E.  Don’t waste your money on unnecessary things; just spend on them  who are really in need rather.
  F.  After all it’s your life then why give chance to others to rule our  life.”

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IBM to spend $50 million on staff financial education

The China Post is reporting this morning that IBM has announced a $50 million staff development initiative specifically aimed at improving their staff member’s financial education.

Employees, as well as their spouses or domestic partners, will be offered a series of live and Web-based investment seminars starting this month. Employees will be able to get unlimited one-on-one personal financial planning and counseling by phone through [external financial services companies]. Financial planners from Fidelity and Ayco will be trained in all of IBM’s benefits programs and will receive no additional pay or commissions for selling their companies’ products.

“No other company that I’m aware of has ever done anything this comprehensive for its employees,” said Randy MacDonald, IBM Senior Vice President, Human Resources.

The move comes at a time when IBM and other companies are shifting retirement planning responsibility from the company to the employee. Traditional pensions, which promised an employee a guaranteed retirement income, are being replaced with “defined contribution” plans, in which employees put aside money for retirement, often with a partial match by employers. IBM, for instance, closed its traditional pension to new hires starting in 2005 and said last year that employees hired earlier will have their benefits frozen after 2007.

This type of investment makes sense on many different levels:

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Crime – Where Facts, Politics And Emotions Clash

South Africa, a young democracy, is experiencing what almost every young democracy has experienced: an increase in crime, and other issues that threaten hard won freedoms. It often takes a tipping point, and an escalation to almost unbearable limits, in these situations, until society is shaken from its sleepiness and starts to fight back. I sense that this is where South Africa now finds itself. There is a feeling that crime, especially violent robbery, has increased dramatically in just the past few months, and I sense a heaviness in people’s hearts. But, is this the reality?

One of my favourite political analysts, JP Landman, has written on the topic. He is retained by BOE, a really future thinking bank, as an analyst and commentator. His thoughts on crime are really worth reading – not just for South Africans, but for everyone. He has some interesting comments on generations, and how countries with lots of young men also have high crime rates… But let me not steal his thunder. Read on.
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Downshifting – Changing the gears

Tired of the constant pressure of corporate life Bruce decided he no longer needed this kind of life. With no dependents he and his wife sold-up house and business and moved into a rustic coastal cottage they now call home. Turning to what they love, voluntarily dabbling in a variety of ventures of their choice and simplifying their lifestyle will be the new context in which they life and work.

In different shapes and forms, thousands are doing the same. And it is not only those with the financial muscle or those close to the end of their careers who are doing so!
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The biggest killers in the world

I am sitting at the Liquified Petroleum Gas South African annual convention. The global marketing head, Michael Kelly, from the World body just presented a fascinating study of indoor pollution in Africa. I thought I wouldn’t be interested, but then he started with this fact:

Indoor smoke inhalation kills one person every 30 seconds in Africa. 1.9 million people are killed worldwide by smoke inhalation every year. Put another way, smoke inhalation and its complications account for more deaths than malaria, which is the biggest killer disease in Africa. It is the fourth biggest cause of death in developing nations.

LP Gas advocates the use of gas rather than wood/coal/oil (carbon/biomass)-based fuels. Its easy to use, easy to transport and store, and safe (much safer than paraffin/kerosene). It seems that a lot of work has to be done to get this fuel to Africa.

Just one of the ways we could upgrade Africa to be world class…

Creating a culture for engagement

Tomorrow, I am speaking at South Africa’s “Best Company to Work For 2006” awards ceremony (live on Summit TV from about 8am). In preparation for this, the organisers sent me information on “Employee Engagement”, the theme of this year’s awards.

They sent an excellent article by Rich Wellins and Jim Concelman, “Creating a culture for engagement”. (Read it in full here, or download the PDF here.)

Some of the key points:

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Taking Time Off

The Vancouver Sun, Canada, recently reported on a trend of younger generations of workers taking sabbaticals from their work. We’re talking about young people working for 3 or 4 years, and then resigning to take a 6 month break – normally involving travel and adventure. The report (read it here), quoted a larger study:

According to the Families and Work Institute (FWI), Gen-Y employees were very likely to leave their current job in 2002 (70%) compared to their counterparts in 1977 (52%). Comparing data from its National Study of the Changing Workforce conducted in 1992, 1997 and 2002 to the 1977 Quality of Employment Survey by the U.S. Department of Labor, the FWI discovered how employees have changed over generations.

Employees belonging to Generation X (age 23 to 37) and Generation Y (age 18 to 22) are drastically different than the baby boomers who preceded them, reports the FWI. Many Generation Xers and Yers come from households where one or both parents work, and many of these young employees have known someone who has lost their job because of workplace downsizing.

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Could this be it?

Ever since I can remember (although in reality its probably only since the late 1980s), I have lived with the grim warnings about the scourge of HIV/AIDS. Futurists have been warning of the dire consequences of having as much as 20% of the workforce taken out. Health care professionals have been warning of the dangers of such a communicable disease and have been trying to change sexual habits (remember when condoms were used to stop life? Now they’re used to safe life!). (Aside: not everyone has maintained this line – South Africa’s Minister of Health has rather spent her time increasing the sales of beetroot, garlic and onion). Churches have used the disease as an excuse to spread their own brand of sexual health (“sex is dirty, so keep it for marriage”). And NGO’s the world over have proliferated, as they try to deal with the health issues, the “dying with dignity” issues and the problem of orphans (2 million orphans expected by 2010 in South Africa alone).

Yet, with all this fuss, I must confess that I have been relatively untouched by AIDS at the moment. It is true that anyone CAN get AIDS, but the reality is that rich, educated people are unlikely to actually contract it, except if we’re exceptionally stupid or amazingly unlucky. AIDS continues to be the scourge of the lower class and the most vulnerable.

The first person that I actually knew who died of AIDS passed away about 10 years ago. She was the vivacious and upbeat receptionist at a computer training company I worked for. In a six month period she wasted away in front of our eyes, to a mere shadow of herself, and then the end came swiftly. Since then, I have known only a few people who have died of AIDS. Most of them have been contractors who have worked in my home.

But now, in the past few weeks, the spectre of a killer has emerged. XDR TB (Extra Drug Resistant Tuberculosis) has been diagnosed in South Africa. This strain is the result of people not following through with their full 6 month course of treatment. People do not die of AIDS. They die when HIV/AIDS has destroyed their immune system, and then they get hit with what would otherwise be a curable disease. The biggest such killer is TB. Its curable, even if you have AIDS, as long as take the drugs for 6 months. However, after 3 or 4 months, you feel 100% better. Some people therefore stopped the treatment, and TB developed immunity to these drugs and mutated into a horrible, untreatable disease. Already over 50 people have died.

Could this be it? Could this be the time bomb that explodes and rips through the HIV+ community, destroying all in its wake? It certainly looks as if it has the potential to bring the devastastion we have all feared since I was a child.

Understanding Health from a Generational Perspective

Sue Grant-Marshall, co-author with me of “Mind the Gap”, our book about the generation gap, has written a nice primer on generational attitudes to health. It was published in the Business Day on 30 August 2006 – read it here.

Maybe, more than any other personal factor, health care and attitudes to health are influenced by a person’s generation. Massive advances in medical science over the last 80 years have resulted in huge shifts in people’s expectations for their lives, and this has in turn impacted on their values and aspirations.

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Motorola – creating flexibility

Motorola, (in South Africa at least) has reportedly been experimenting with a shift to more work-life balance in their working hours and office inhabitation requirements.

Apparently, non-traditional working hours are the norm, driven by a vision of seamless mobility where what you do is more important than where you’re at. They also have a “Mobile Zone”, which brings the workplace closer to home via seamlessly connected workstations, thus making the daily commute an option rather than a “must do”.

I’d be interested in finding out more, if anyone knows. Typical of pretty much every company I know, Motorola do not develop their “employer brand” on their website (they know how to market their products, but not themselves as an employer of choice). They have a fairly imposing webpage, entitled “Ethics and Code of Business Conduct“, but this is a dry and imposing document, and not attractive at all. So, their website is no help in learning about their employment approach to work-life balance.

Ah well, I suppose I shouldn’t complain. Helping companies build their employer brands is part of how I make a living, so it should probably be exciting that I have such a huge market of companies who just don’t get it. But, to be honest – it sometimes depresses me…

Boomer Women, Grandmas and Second Wave Feminism

It was the Baby Boomer women that fuelled the feminist revolution of the 1960s and 70s. Their focus may have shifted, but they’re still revolutionaries. Kay S. Hymowitz writes an excellent piece in the City Journal of the Manhattan Institute (read the very long piece here). Some selected quotes:

Boomers—especially feminist-influenced women of a certain class who are now publishing their philosophy of life after 50—will not be growing old. … They’re busy, busy, busy! They go to the gym! They work in animal shelters! They travel! They get divorced! And yes (Yes! Yes!), they have orgasms!

Not so long ago, enlightened women of the boomer generation were known for worrying about equal rights, equal pay, Roe v. Wade, Title IX, and the location of the Masters Golf Tournament. Today, not so much. As they shuffle off into their golden years, many appear to be turning inward. As the title of a catalog that arrived in my mailbox recently put it, they want “Time for Me”—time that appears to involve a lot of anti-aging formulas, herbal supplements, figure-shaping undergarments, and vibrators. Don’t get me wrong. Boomer fems continue to be enemies of the patriarchy. They still want men to do the laundry. Their tone remains defiant. But their personal is no longer very political; even their political isn’t very political. Nobody’s putting it this way, but it seems that liberation politics have become irrelevant to what is now their most pressing concern, which—depending on your emphasis—is: how to bring meaning to their dwindling years, or how to avoid being mistaken for their grandmothers.

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Slow down on those fast foods

We all do it, our busy schedules and run around lifestyles mean that we eat more take away and fast foods now than we ever did…ITS TRUE. How many times after a busy day, do you just say ” I think I’ll just grab something on the way home”. Its jsut the way it is, but we will pay in time for this. According to a New Scientist Article, fast foods even in moderation are dangerous. Why? According to research done on monkeys, diets high in trans fats (the kind of fat found in fast foods) caused the subjects to grow bellies faster and to become insulin resistant, a first sign of diabetes. However, and this is the interesting part, other monkeys were fed the same amount of calories but the fat was from mono unsaturated fats and had gained significantly less weight. So, in this fast paced time, think twice before you stop off and indulge in some of that deep fried, fat saturated and sauce basted take away. It could mean the difference between diabetes or not.

Its not just a “glass ceiling”, its a “maternal wall” too

“We have to stop letting businesses off the hook who talk about family values, but create policies where the employee, who puts caring for a sick child a higher priority than work, risks a promotion or their job”. So says, Ellen Bravo, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor (read full report here).

Bravo declared, “Now, repeat after me, ‘Housework is work to be done by people who live in the house. It is not mom’s work, with occasional assistance from others.’” She noted the major shift in American family structure. In the 1960s about 70 percent of families had a stay-at-home parent, almost always the woman – and dad was the sole wage earner. “Today, about 70 percent of families have both parents working and longer hours than other developed countries,” Bravo said. Men work an average of 48 hours a week and women 42, and that includes the 24 percent of women who work “part-time.”

Bravo urged companies to perform an internal audit to examine policies that may show a lack of flexibility when employees try to balance their work and family responsibilities. “This isn’t about doing a favor to women, but developing a better way of doing things and not losing talented women,” Bravo said.

Read more here.

Cryonics founders cremated

This article was posted on www.iol.co.za sourced from Ananova.com

These people were frozen while they waited for medical science to discover two things:
1) How to cure the disease that killed them.
2) How to resuscitate people who have been cryogenically frozen.

As I read the article I wondered if the son ever thought that by the time they had discovered the solutions to these two things they will probably also be able to deal will a little temporary defrosting. And as he realised that….how much of a prat did he feel like for pushing the ‘Ignite’ button

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Capitalising on Ageing Boomers

In an article entitled “New ideas to ease into old age“, Roxana Popescu in the International Herald Tribune of 17 March, 2006, addresses the issue of what ageing Boomers are looking for in healthcare, and some of the trends and products and services emerging in this field. But she makes some great points that are applicable to every industry:

Unobtrusive, preventive, personalized and remote: Welcome to the future of geriatric health care. Increased life spans, more education and more disposable income than any preceding generation means that the baby boomers – those born between 1946 and 1965, the elder members of which are standing on the threshold of retirement – will demand technology as sophisticated as their expectations about aging.

According to estimates by the Metlife Mature Market Institute, the 78 million boomers in the United States are spending more than $1 trillion annually on housing, insurance, pensions, transportation and health care. And they are eager to invest in products that will allow them to feel younger and remain active longer, analysts are finding.

There’s hardly a business that can’t capitalize on the aging of the boomer population.