We have spent a lot of time researching on Future of Work.  We have done a lot of work in this area in 2021 and continuing to do more research on this area.

In his final letter to Shareholders as the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos states the following.  Bezos writes. “I think we need to do a better job for our employees. While the voting results were lopsided and our direct relationship with employees is strong, it’s clear to me that we need a better vision for how we create value for employees — a vision for their success.”

This statement signals a significant change across corporate boardrooms, and job descriptions will have to be relooked to include employee well being and success as a critical responsibility for managers across all levels

Here are some interesting trends and challenges that we see with respect to Workforce 2021 (Only new trends are highlighted in this email, we will publish a consolidated report later)

Many executives with whom we discuss have stated that Employee well-being is on the top of their minds. The recent failed attempt of labor unionization at Amazon, which also made Bezos write the statement above, shows that companies need to take this into account seriously.  At Draup, our analysis shows that there is a spike in Job Descriptions of managers responsibilities showing worker well being

Compared to 2019, we witnessed a 20% to 25% reduction in the growth Software Development Managers talent pool.  Could this be the result of a sustained pandemic?  Many lead engineers who are prime to become managers have not yet been made Software Development Managers due to the unexpected disruption in the way we work

With the remote work here to stay, the Right to Disconnect (a concept introduced in France in 2017) is now getting evaluated.  Twitter recently launched a well-being holiday.  The “right to disconnect” concept, which prompted a 2017 French law limiting the extent to which workers can be required to answer phone calls and emails during non-work hours, recognizes that 24/7 access to emails and texts encourages an expectation of being always available that can compromise worker well-being. An innovative example of how technology can help counteract this problem is optional email functionality that deletes incoming messages while people are taking time off. Many companies have implemented this, but many have stayed away from this capability as well.

There are two types of AI.  Narrow AI, where AI is doing very targeted work like in driving a car.  A strong AI or AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is getting better; You might have noticed that the chatbots in the websites you commonly visit are less annoying and more intelligent.  This is due to the massive success in areas like a chatbot.  Companies will rapidly expand chatbots and many general AI hiring needs

Our analysis shows that reskilling is improving.  Our analysis shows that there is a positive effect of reskilling in the following areas (a rough analysis shows that it went from 18% reskilled labor force to 25% reskilled labor force – not a fully validated model, but we are working on the same)

• Business Data Analyst to IT Data Analyst
• IT Data Analyst to QA Automation
• QA Automation to Software Development
• Data Analyst to Data Engineer
• Data Engineer  to ML Engineer
• DevOps to Backend Engineer
• Systems Engineer to Cloud Engineer
• Software Engineer to Solutions Architect
• Marketing Analyst to Digital Marketing
• Program Managers to Agile Coaches

We hope this trend continues

Digital Marketing is getting nuanced with various roles such as Content Management, SEO, SEM, and campaign management.  A fascinating trend is emerging where even for companies that were disconnected with direct end stakeholders, attempts to connect with end customers are increasing.  As a result, we are seeing a variety of roles being created

This pandemic proved that not only the mega cities have the digital infrastructure, but midsize and smaller cities flare well too.  Many South East Asian locations in Indonesia and Vietnam are growing and becoming good talent hubs.  Not just in emerging countries, even in UK we are seeing a similar trend.  Goldman Sachs Group Inc is opening a new office in Birmingham, marking the investment bank’s second UK location outside London. The new building is set to open in the third quarter of 2021 and will eventually have several hundred staff across a number of divisions, the bank said in a statement on Tuesday. Engineering will be the first business unit to move in, with the build out to involve a mix of transfers from London and new hires. The investment bank cited the West Midlands city’s universities, technology sector, and proximity to the London office as some of the reasons for the decision.

Even if we have the best digital infrastructures, the distributed way of working would mean breaking the teams into smaller sizes.  This will then mean the need for Agile coaches or agile way of working practices.  We are seeing Agile aspects coming into Job Descriptions beginning late 2020 and early 2021.

One of the biggest focus areas for companies will be in the areas of Tech Support.  Few companies are truly focused on ramping up in this area and this is about to become a big area in late 2021 and 2022. As systems and tech architecture explodes, this will be very critical layer.  Important to define the reskilling and as well as talent strategy around this