Rewards Online White Paper

A 2007 report commissioned by the Australian Government titled “2020 Vision, The Manager of the 21st Century”, suggested that Australian managers of 2020 will need very different skills compared to today’s business leaders (The Boston Consulting Group). The report identifies major changes in the business environment up to 2020. These are:

  1. There will be 3 very different generations in the workplace for the 1st time. The needs and aspirations of generation X and Gen y are likely to prove very different from those of the baby boomers, which have dominated the workplace for the last 20 years.
  2. The services economy is likely to globalise (possibly following the path of manufacturing during the 1980’s) creating a major change task and a much more complex management environment.
  3. A likely long term structural labour shortage will lead to much more flexible working environments which are more organized to suit employee needs and desires. Flexibility will become the key to attracting and retaining high calibre staff.
  4. The obsession with short term shareholders value which dominated the last decade will be replaced by a much broader perspective on the obligations of a company to a wider range of shareholders.

These changes are likely to have a major impact on the skills and attributes that successful managers will requires.

Managers will need to rethink their role in the years to 2020. They will be asked to balance a wide range of interests, under greater internal and external scrutiny. Managers will still be required to achieve good returns for shareholders, but the results they achieve will also be assessed on the basis of how well they met a wider range of stakeholders needs.

Managers will need to become more team focused. The cult of the CEO, a worldwide phenomenon of the last decade, is likely to decline, with greater focus on the team rather than the individual.

Managers will face greater personal challenges about the balance in their own lives. Dramatic increases in remuneration will give them greater choices than their predecessors. They will need to become much better at managing their personal wealth and will face more tensions and trade offs between work life and personal life. Executives will need to spend more time thinking about their personal choices and managing stress than any previous generations.