The Future of Work: 24 Trends Shaping the Workday in 2024

Buckle up, because the world of work is about to undergo a major transformation! From robots taking over your chores to the continuation of virtual colleagues joining your team from across the globe, the next few years will be filled with exciting and innovative changes.

Here are 24 key trends that are set to revolutionize your workday in 2024:

Tech Takeover:

1. AI Integration: Say goodbye to repetitive tasks and hello to your new AI teammate who'll handle scheduling meetings, crunching numbers, and much more.
Read more about the impact of AI in the workplace 

2. Hyperautomation: Robots are joining the workforce, taking over manual labor and freeing up your time for more creative and strategic tasks.
Learn more about the rise of hyperautomation

3. Decentralized Work Platforms: Blockchain technology is opening up new possibilities for collaboration and project management, allowing you to work with anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Explore the potential of decentralized work platforms

4. The Metaverse for Work: Get ready for immersive virtual and augmented reality environments where you can collaborate, train, and even hold meetings with colleagues from around the world.
Discover the possibilities of the metaverse for work

5. Quantum Computing for Business: Brace yourself for a revolution in complex problem-solving and data analysis. Quantum computing will tackle previously unsolvable problems and accelerate innovation across various industries.
Read more about the potential of quantum computing in business: 

Hybrid Work

Work-Life Remix:

6. The Rise of Remote Work: The daily commute is becoming a thing of the past as remote work continues to rise in popularity. Enjoy the flexibility and freedom of working from anywhere you choose.
Explore the benefits of remote work

7. Hybrid Work Model: Embrace the best of both worlds with the hybrid work model, which combines remote work with occasional in-person collaboration.
Discover the advantages of a hybrid work approach: 

8. The Great Resignation Continues: People are prioritizing their well-being and career fulfillment, leading to increased job-hopping and pushing companies to offer better benefits and flexible work arrangements.
Learn more about the Great Resignation

9. The Gig Economy is Booming: Take control of your career with freelance and temporary work opportunities. The gig economy is booming, offering greater flexibility and autonomy to workers.
Explore the rise of the gig economy 

10. Focus on Employee Well-being: Companies are prioritizing mental health support, flexible schedules, and wellness programs, recognizing that happy employees are productive employees.
Read more about the importance of employee well-being 

Workforce Evolution:

11. Upskilling and Reskilling are Key: Stay competitive in the ever-changing job market by continuously learning and developing new skills. Discover the benefits of upskilling and reskilling: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2022/07/27/evolving-upskilling-and-reskilling-needs-three-tips-for-staying-ahead-of-the-curve/

12. The Rise of the Multigenerational Workforce: Managing a diverse workforce with different work styles and expectations requires inclusive leadership and a focus on creating a sense of belonging.
Learn more about managing a multigenerational workforce

13. Focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Building an inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and respected is a top priority for organizations.
Explore the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace

14. The Rise of the Creator Economy: Employees are leveraging their skills and knowledge to create and monetize their own content, leading to new career paths and entrepreneurial opportunities.
Discover the possibilities of the creator economy

Sustainability and Ethics:

15. Sustainable Work Practices: Companies are adopting sustainable practices like energy efficiency and waste reduction to protect the environment.
Read more about sustainable work practices

16. Focus on Ethical AI: Ensuring AI is developed and used responsibly is crucial to address concerns about bias and fairness.
Learn more about ethical AI

17. The Rise of Gamification: Work is getting a fun twist! Expect to see point systems, badges, and leaderboards incorporated into tasks and activities to boost engagement and motivation.
Link

18. Embracing Biophilic Design: Offices are becoming more nature-inspired, incorporating natural elements like plants, sunlight, and natural materials. This trend improves employee wellbeing, creativity, and productivity.

Link

19. Wellness Wednesdays and Mindfulness Moments: Companies are prioritizing employee well-being by offering dedicated time for mental health and relaxation. This can include meditation sessions, yoga classes, or simply designated "unplug" time.

Link

20. Experiential Learning and Unconventional Training: Forget traditional lectures and PowerPoints. Training is getting creative with immersive simulations, escape rooms, and role-playing scenarios to boost engagement and knowledge retention.
Link

21. Workplace Hackathons and Innovation Days: Unleash your creativity and problem-solving skills through hackathons and innovation days dedicated to collaboration and rapid prototyping.
Link

22. The Rise of the Fractional C-Suite: Get access to top-tier leadership on a part-time or project basis, without the full-time commitment.
Link

23. Gamified Performance Reviews: Performance reviews are getting a makeover with interactive elements, real-time feedback, and self-assessment tools to make them more engaging and transparent.

Link

24. Focus on the Human-Machine Collaboration: As technology advances, the focus will shift towards understanding how humans and machines can best work together to achieve optimal results. This will involve developing new skills and strategies for collaboration, communication, and trust-building.

These 24 trends paint a vivid picture of the dynamic and exciting future of work. With technology evolving at an unprecedented pace, workplaces are transforming to become more flexible, diverse, sustainable, and, yes, even fun! As we move into 2024, buckle up and embrace the exciting opportunities that arise from this transformative era. The future of work is here, and it's time to make it work for everyone.

Live From SXSW 2019 Trends

Here is a link to the Google Doc.

Top Retail Trends For 2018

Our shopping habits are changing. Retail is becoming even more personalized, efficient, automated, nuanced, intelligent, fresh, virtual and fast. While most changes are positive, others are disrupting our habits and creating transitional discomfort along the way. Below you will find ten exciting retail trends that I believe are important for anyone who does business in 2018.

Global eCommerce sales are expected to increase to 4.5 Trillion by 2021. What the f is a trillion anyhow? How do we even wrap our head around 4.5 of them? It’s massive, increasingly borderless and is quickly becoming the norm for many businesses. Needless to say, it’s an exciting time to shop.

Physical stores are getting smarter, digitized, more personal and overall more relevant by blending into the way we live our lives. Some of the big players like Apple and Nike have consistently lead the way by using data to predict where customers are and what they are more likely to buy. By providing extra services like the genius bar, product training sessions, sneaker bars, drive-through pick-up windows and even an app connected sock vending machine they have been able to stand out, but others are stepping up their game.

Rebecca Minkoff stores have smart mirrors in fitting rooms, allowing you to browse for other sizes or products that might complement whatever you’re trying on. Minority Report-ish smart walls suggest new styles when you walk by and you can even order champagne while you browse.

Lowe’s ‘Lowe Vision: In-Store Navigation’ works in conjunction with Google’s Tango AR technology, it provides indoor mapping, allowing customers to search and quickly find items inside their massive often confusing stores.

There is a lot happening out there in retail land and I’m hopeful and excited for the future of shopping.

MOBILE MONEY MADNESS

Mobile is king and mobile payments are popping up everywhere. Fingerprints, facial recognition and easy one-click payment methods are simplifying the purchase process. Venmo, PayPal, Cash App, Apple Pay and mobile banking are becoming the norm. Tap and pay is taking over and it’s fun. It’s sooo easy and convenient that Starbucks had to reimagine how they serve customers who use their app, as the lines for pickup where becoming longer than the normal line. Growing pains for sure.

NEED IT NOW

Price, Selection and Convenience are Amazon’s core retail values. The best price available, an endless selection of products and the convenience of ordering from anywhere, anytime and having those purchases delivered to you quickly. It’s obviously working, AMZN market cap is almost a trillion dollars. With their recent move into physical Amazon Go stores, their Whole Foods purchase and many new pick up spots for same-day delivery, Amazon is making sure THEY ARE the most convenient and others are following suit.

NEVER ENDING NEW

Shopping is human and humans are complex. Our needs are constantly changing and we must ensure that our store environments are satisfying those needs. People expect new products, new experiences, new spaces and new ways of interacting. Then fairly quickly these new ways become the norm and we must innovate again and create new ways, on top of the “old new ways”, it’s never ending innovation…

PERSISTENT PERSONALIZATION

People want things personalized, but 64 percent of shoppers don’t believe retailers understand who they are and how they shop. Knowing that personalization can lead to a 4.5 times higher cart rate & 5X higher per-visit spend, it’s imperative that retailers increase their ability to recommend the right products to go with our unique personal tastes. Even if it is a unicorn shower head.

ROPO DOPE

With the rise of ROPO — Research Online, Purchase Offline, customers prefer to research products online and then buy them in-store. They can talk to someone, touch the product, get the right price, rub elbows with other shoppers and take the product home immediately. Pure shopping satisfaction all around.

IMAGE OVER EVERYTHING

It goes the other direction as well. Take a picture of something in a store, upload it to eBay and see if that product is cheaper online and buy it. Image search and product recognition tools are everywhere and it’s important to give people the option to search and shop by images. Make sure that you have great photos of your store, your products and everything in between, otherwise someones bad photos will represent your brand. 
Pinterest’s Shop the Look feature takes this a step further. You see an image of a style you like, you find details about clothing directly within the Pinterest app and then you seamlessly purchase. Boom.

V IS FOR VIDEO

In addition to great imagery, your product videos also need to be great. They should connect to the lifestyle of your customer and answer key questions about how the product looks, works, and make their lives easier. Video is one of the best tools to deliver this critical information. When people can’t feel and touch the product, a video can ease their concerns and help close the deal. Whatever you spend on video at the moment it’s not enough. True investment is needed.

HEART HEALTH

Brands that stand for something tend to do better both financially and socially. People want to contribute to the greater good and offering a way to give back to the community is not only a nice thing to do, it’s now expected.

LOYALTY > LOYALTY > LOYALTY

They say that 80% of your sales come from only 20% of your customers and keeping your base loyal is what keeps your business stable. 57% of people join to save money and 38% join to receive rewards. Points, rewards, miles, coupons, bonuses, deals and everything in between — having a sustained loyalty program increases the average customer spend by 67%.

VOICE COMMANDING COMMERCE

Voice Commerce is picking up steam with smart speaker owners. 70 percent have used a voice assistant “at least” once in something shopping-related. Most of the time it’s “Where’s my order?” but it’s slowly becoming an important user interface to the shopping experience. We have a long way to go, but it’s important to get in early as it will be ubiquitous before we know it.

What a time...

To be alive...

I headed to SF last week to enjoy the wine country and spend time with my best friends and instead I landed to a new reality and got pulled into some real shit. My best friend works for mayors office and so I spent the week helping him shape a community based plan of social impact and resolve for the city in the midsts of demonstrations and Trump effigy burning. It was eye opening and it got me thinking about changes in our society, new expectations, how our behaviors should change and what this means for people, marketers and brands. Brand missions must now stand for issues that connect us to each other and the communities we live in. We must go beyond the wedge issues that divide us and focus on what makes us all interconnected. Brands have focused a lot on individual issues like self-esteem, empowerment and stereotypes - which are all amazing issues and shouldn’t be neglected, but what we need right now as a country are more community based programs that brands can help lead. Connecting us to opinions outside of our bubble and getting people to stand together is critical. It’s up to us as marketers to ensure that our brands are prepared to get involved with helping people and communities connect with each other in a productive not destructive two-way conversation. True dialogue is needed and it’s up to all of us to foster that dialogue in the face of a new political reality. 

Apple - Here's To The Crazy Ones 1997

31 Flavors of Mayonnaise on THE FIVE

Hi Everyone! I wanted to share my latest post on everyone favorite condiment - mayonnaise! If you haven't heard their is a "Mini-Niche" revolution happening out there and this post on THE FIVE breaks it all down for you.

Money making bloggers have always known that people search for super specific things. If they tailor their blog content to answer the specific need of the searcher, they can ensure that their post will be among the top five search results. This hooks the searcher in and then targeted ads drive them further down the funnel, providing Google with a click and the advertiser with a potential customer or sale. They call these super-focused sites “Mini-Niche” and they are everywhere online. The offline equivalent of this would be walking down the street and on the way you ask someone - “Excuse me? - Where is the nearest  grocery store, I need to buy some mayonnaise?” and they smile and say “You don’t need to go to the grocery store, because there is a mayonnaise store right there and they have every mayonnaise flavor you could dream of!”  Wow! Who knew that mayonnaise came in different flavors? and that there were stores that sold just mayonnaise. For most of you the thought of 31 flavors Baskin Robbins Ice Cream store for mayonnaise may be scary, but for others this would be a dream come true. The truth is that this mayonnaise store is real and is soon opening on Vanderbilt Ave in Brooklyn. Yes, I know that Brooklyn is a “Mini-Niche” lovers paradise, in fact the sign coming over the bridge says “ Welcome to Brooklyn, Name it... We Got It”, but that’s not my point...or is it?

Read the rest of the post on THE FIVE

What motivates us?

You may have seen Dan Pink's Ted Talk on what motivates people as I have posted on this blog a while back. This lively video from RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

"Pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table"