The current economic crisis has created a tipping point for American business. While change is a normal and healthy part of growth, overwhelming economic forces are combining with powerful social forces to force major upheavals in the U.S. business paradigm. Economic necessity has eroded the normal inertia that usually slows change. Economically unviable businesses are failing, the weak are being culled from the competitive pack, and even the strong are struggling, forcing business owners to make hard decisions to ensure their survival. For the first time in decades, labor unions and their members are willing to reconsider compensation and benefit packages to save jobs. Add to this the looming retirement of America’s largest-ever workforce — the Baby Boomer generation — and its replacement with a new generation of tech-savvy workers ready to blow traditional business practices out of the water, and you have a potent climate for change.
Today, we continue our discussion begun last week of the coming forces that will change American business.
- Today’s hierarchical management structures will all but disappear. Growing entrepreneurship will shift more tasks to contract workers. Changing priorities about work/life balance are already impacting corporate structure with more workers telecommuting and job sharing. The creative experiments implemented to save jobs and money during the recession — unpaid furloughs, reduced hours, lateral advancement — are likely to be retained, allowing for the more flexible career paths sought by the next generation of workers.
- Women will finally crash through the glass ceiling and come into their own. Time foresees an 8% growth for women in the workforce, compared to 5% for men, and much of that growth will be at the management level. Backlash from the economic crises of the last two years is creating demand for the female management style. Studies indicate that female managers are more cautious about risk-taking than their male counterparts and are collaborative consensus-builders who practice transformational leadership that engages and motivates.
- Rising health care and pension costs are already forcing a major change in corporate benefit packages. The current model of employer as provider has become unsustainable. Employees are already being asked to share the burden of health care and retirement costs with their employers, a trend expected to increase. While this naturally concerns Baby Boomers nearing retirement age, benefits are of far less concern to the next generation of workers. In its May 25, 2009 issue, Time magazine reported that among 18- to-34-year-olds, base pay and career advancement were the top-ranked concerns. To decrease health care costs, both businesses and workers will support wellness initiatives and adoption of ergonomic equipment and practices in the workplace.