The changing world of work

Compared to the last century, where a person would hold down a single job in the same profession for much of their working life, work in the 21^st century involves a person’s career actually belonging to them, and not the organisation in which they are employed.

Transitions and job changes happen much more frequently when compared to the past and more and more people are showing a life commitment to learning at all ages and stages.

More and more people are showing a life commitment to learning at all ages and stages

Many employees enjoy the added flexibility to working conditions, especially remote working which has seen a makable increase since the global pandemic. Additionally, we are also seeing the increasing importance of employee & employer respecting and adhering to the psychological contract.

This involves treating people with trust & fairness (works both ways), respecting both the task and human requirements of their particular role, and moving away from a traditional transactional style working environment.

The global pandemic has very much influenced the already changing world of work.

General trends have been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, both in and out of sport.

Recently, there has been increases in remote working, digitisation and e-commerce (platforms) which relates to how goods are both bought and sold.

Trends have shown that future work is moving away from the high proximity ways of working, to being more remote and much lower physical proximity strategies being employed.

The graphic below shows what industries and sectors are going to be in demand in the future, and what is not.

Predicted, there is to be a big reduction in sectors such as office support, customer service and sales, this could correlate with the ever-developing phenomenon of artificial intelligence (AI).

Additionally, big increases are predicted in sectors such as health professionals, health aides and wellness, hopefully as more and more people become familiar with the importance of wellbeing and self care.

In their June 2021 report, McKinsey & Company identified 56 foundational skills or DELTAS (Distinct Elements of Talent) that will help people thrive in the future of work.

These DELTAS were categorised into four groups: Thinking Skills, Relationship Skills, Leadership Skills and Digital Skills.

It could be argued that outside of the section that incorporates Digital Skills (which may require additional specialist training), athletes already possess a large amount of the interpersonal skills which make up the remaining three groups, and these are the skills that will be in demand in the future. Therefore, it is accurate to say that athletes are prepared for the future work of work.

Outside of maybe the skills associated with Digital Collaboration and Smart Systems, it could again be strongly argued that athletes have these transferrable skills in abundance when focussed upon the skills that are associated with an increased likelihood of employment.

People who work in roles that gives them a greater sense of meaning and purpose, feelings of making a positive difference to others generally experience increased feelings of job satisfaction. Excluding maybe Programming Literacy, athletes once again all have these associated transferrable DELTA skills in abundance, and can in turn, achieve high levels of job satisfaction.