5 trends that will soon impact your organisation

1. Generational shift

By 2025, 85% of your employees will be millennials and Gen Z, so adapt your business strategy accordingly. After all, different generations require different approaches. Today, baby boomers (born between 1945 and 1964) still hold many management positions, but they are gradually retiring. Gen X (born between 1965 and 1979) has experienced a large wave of unemployment and mainly wants a good work-life balance, while Millennials (born between 1980 and 1994) mainly seek a pleasant working atmosphere. Gen Z (born between 1995 and 2010) thinks everything is possible if you work hard.

2. Globalization

Urbanization and globalization will also leave deep marks on your workplace in the coming years. By 2030, as much as two-thirds of the population will live in a city, while the global population keeps increasing. We will be forced to eat more food manufactured in laboratories during our lunch at work, and future generations will be influenced by Asian rather than American trends. The Western success of TikTok, Asian beauty trends and the popular Netflix series ‘Squid Game’ are already initial examples of this.

3. Conviviality
More topical than ever in these post-pandemic days: feeling connected to others. More than half of young people report feeling lonely. In addition, the frequent telecommuting in recent years has led to 'zoombies', with workers starting to feel completely isolated from the outside world. Curiously, architects have been aware of this trend for quite some time, as they were more often asked to create places of connection. As an employer, it will be important in the coming years to focus on pleasant meeting hubs that encourage colleagues' connection.

4. More singles and single parents
Research shows that your future employees will consist of more and more singles, and we will all feel that impact. The four-day workweek will appeal to many single-parent families, people will increasingly use lending services (including for established values such as mobility and furniture) and the number of people having trouble making ends meet will increase. Therefore, employers should for instance bet on flexible forms of (additional) earning, as more and more people will be looking for a second job to pay the bills.

5. More artificial intelligence
Soon, just about every job will be influenced in one way or another by Artificial Intelligence (AI). While older generations may still be reluctant to accept this, we are also seeing a generation that is already fully familiar with robots. Just think of Amazon's Alexa, the increasing use of deepfakes, and self-driving taxis. Does thelatter still seem far from your mind and unrealistic in the short term? Think again. In the previous century, lift attendants had to ensure that people entered the moving cage with peace of mind – an essential task in the early years, but quickly redundant as well.