Let us fast forward to 2040 – how would your career have been when you look back? And what would your children's be like? The best bet is that your career would have been a one with various short-term jobs, back-to-back. Many of us will have later in life become independent, hired back by one of our original employers, obviously for a lower fee, and some of us would have had periods of unemployment.
Our children will most probably be partly independent, working part-time in one or more fixed jobs at the same time and will even change jobs more rapidly. Many of them would have known unemployment at the start of their career, forcing them to choose for lesser paid jobs under their education level at a certain time.
It will look like for employers labour heaven will finally bloom. Well, not completely. Although there might be enough people willing to work, as the restitution of labour through technology will go forward as well, the remaining jobs are for highly skilled and experienced people. The war for talent has therefor only just begun. At the same time, the few people that still work in larger companies will have higher responsibilities, more tasks and strain (meaning stress), what also means employers not only seek the most skilled labour but also the most resilient.
The dance between employee and employer will go on for a while and one thing is certain; the tempo will go up and the moves become more complicated. Are you ready?
Igor Moll is EAP Manager at Ascender and a treating psychologist. He is the co-founder and President Elect of the Employee Assistance European Forum (EAEF) and member of the Employee Assistance Professionals Association (EAPA). Igor Moll has worked for 13 years as a specialist in EAP and has considerable international experience and familiarity.
Joris van Goudoever is director of HR4Growth and EAP partner of Ascender. Together, they have developed MKBZeker!, the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for SMEs. With his experience as a HR manager, Joris sees opportunities and possibilities from the EAP in a proactive way to deal with growth and development of people and organisations