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Making Your Job Work for You

With the coming labor shortage, you'll have more freedom, more flexibility, and maybe even a fatter paycheck.

By Maria Bartiromo
From Reader's Digest

Building Flexibility

To get a glimpse of the future of work, all you have to do is look back ten years. The Internet was still new; e-mail had yet to be accepted as a widespread form of communication. "Outsourcing" wasn't a word you heard nearly every day, and no one gave a second thought to competing for jobs with workers in India or China. Diversity in the workplace was a relatively new concept, and practices like flextime or job cycling were available only to a lucky few.

If so much could change so quickly, imagine the transformations coming during the next five or ten years. We're on the verge of a breakthrough in the whole idea of work, one that will give employees added flexibility and control. Flexibility works two ways though: Along with more freedom, each of us will need to become careful managers of our careers -- or risk getting left behind.

We've identified five big trends for the coming years. They touch on nearly every aspect of our work and our lives -- demographics, technology, globalization, training and productivity. How each company and worker responds to these trends will determine who prospers and who falls behind -- and their cumulative effect will reshape work as we know it.

The first trend is all about numbers. There were 76 million people born between 1946 and 1964, and in just three years the oldest of those boomers turn 62, the earliest age of eligibility for retired workers' benefits under Social Security. Many employers worry they'll see a huge and experienced workforce walk out the door.

More troubling, in the next generation there simply aren't enough skilled employees. "The workforce will be smaller," says Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao. "Companies are getting to the point where they realize we have a shortage of workers and, to be competitive, a company has to respond."

That means more people can now write their own job tickets, a trend that's likely to increase. One of the top goals most people have is building flexibility into their jobs, so they can work where and when they choose. "In 2001, there were 28.7 million Americans, or 29 percent of full-time workers, who maintained flexible schedules," says John Challenger, president of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas. "That's a 96 percent increase since the last reading in 1991." JetBlue may be the ultimate example: All the airline's 1,000 or so reservation agents work from computers in their homes.

When workers do finally decide to retire, more companies are offering not just a handshake and a so-long party but also a part-time job. Barbara Sailer, 62, retired from Procter & Gamble in 2001 and now works for her former employer through YourEncore, a firm that matches retired science professionals and engineers with companies that need project workers. Sailer is part of a demographic sub-trend: Surveys indicate that more than half of all boomers intend to work at least part-time after they leave their core careers.

For some, the reason comes down to cash, pure and simple. "There is a tremendous increase in [monthly] Social Security benefits working until you are 70," says Sara Rix, senior policy advisor at AARP. A typical employee retiring at 62 would get Social Security benefits of around $8,500 a year; if she works until 70, she'll get $16,000.

For many boomers, "retirement" offers not an endless vacation but a chance to reinvent themselves. A survey by Merrill Lynch found that 56 percent of boomers plan to launch a new line of work after a retirement "turning point" in their early 60s. "People don't want to sit on the beach just because they have hit 70," says Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, and co-author of the recently published Winning. "They want action. They are too vibrant; 70 is the new 55." Welch should know: After 20 years running GE, the 69-year-old now runs his own schedule, consulting, speaking and writing bestsellers -- two so far.

If demand is driving flexible schedules, technology is what enables the transformation. "We work in a 24/7 world," says Challenger. "As we get more global, we will be less confined to the same office and the same worker pool. Workers will be working at all hours, from all over the world."

Aerospace and engineering giant Honeywell typifies the way technology lets companies make the most of a nonstop workday. At the end of their shifts, design and engineering teams in the United States now routinely hand off work to counterparts in Asia, who are just getting to the office.

"To remain competitive as a company, you have to find and use the best, most efficient people in the world, no matter where they are," says Todd Thomson, chairman and CEO of Citigroup Global Wealth Management. "If the best design people are in Italy, you put your design center in Italy. If manufacturing is better in China, you put your factory in China."


Learn and Adapt

With a single global workforce, many workers fear that U.S. companies will outsource jobs to countries with cheaper labor. And indeed that has happened in many industries, with sometimes devastating results. But cheaper doesn't always mean better -- and by no means does cheaper trump smarter. While real wages continue to drop for routine jobs that can be mechanized or don't require sophisticated training, the value of intellectual capital -- meaning brainpower -- keeps going up.

On a national scale, that sort of globalization and technological change keeps our economy competitive and makes smart companies more efficient. "But it also means that as employees, we must continually learn and adapt," warns Citigroup's Thomson. "Education and training are paramount. They're the only way to stay ahead of the game."

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman makes the same case in The World Is Flat, his recent bestseller about the globalization of work and culture. He contends that technological advances have created a flat world in which everyone competes for the same jobs. To distinguish yourself, says Friedman, it's critical to have a specialty that allows you to "look around and say, ' This can't just be done from anywhere. This has to be done from here, by me.'

"You have to think of yourself competing with other individuals all over the world, and you'd better be preparing yourself or your kid for that kind of competition. That's why I tell my girls, ' Girls, when I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, "Tom, finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving." ' And what I say is, 'Girls, finish your homework. People in China and India are starving for your jobs.' And in a flat world, they can have them."

In the knowledge-based workplace Friedman describes, winners will be people with agility, skills and training. The demands will stretch across the economy from industries that require a high level of education -- biotech, IT, energy, defense, security. But they'll also touch the skilled trades: health care and construction workers, electricians, plumbers and car mechanics.

Automotive services has become a particularly hot career. "Virtually everything in your car is controlled by a computer -- antilock brakes, power train, fuel injection systems, emission controls. Your average auto technician goes through a training process that is very much like an engineering course," says Tony Molla, a vice president of the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence. A top skilled mechanic can make up to $100,000 a year.

That still astonishes Michele Winn, 34. Bored with college classes, Winn switched to trade school, where her 14 months of courses included advanced automotive electronics and engine performance. That was 11 years ago. Now she's manager for Linder Technical Services in Indianapolis. "I'm sitting in a shop where you can eat off the floor. We specialize in fuel injection and electronics diagnostics, and we are picky about the cars we work on."

She continues to take classes, and sees the payoff in every paycheck. "I'll make $75,000 to $80,000 this year. I was just looking at my pay stub and I said, ' Holy cow, how is this happening?' "

Skilled workers are at such a premium that employers have begun offering training as a perk to ensure their loyalty. United Technologies Employee Scholar Program takes this concept to the limit. It pays for any employee to go to college, all expenses in advance. Scholars get three hours off a week for study -- and $10,000 in company stock after graduation day. More than 16,000 UT employees have taken part. "To me, cheap work should go offshore and the good skilled work should stay in America," says George David, United Technologies chairman and CEO.

Which is exactly what's happening in the real world. "You will see a continued diminishing of the jobs that everyone and anyone can do," says Steve Pogorzelski, president of Monster.com, the online job-search company. "We will see a smaller decline than in the past, but jobs in manufacturing will go away because you can have the same people do it elsewhere for lower costs. You can be trained in a very short period of time for any of those jobs."

More than ever, performance will dictate success. And companies are assessing and tracking employees' performance in a way that was unimaginable five years ago. "Everyone is being graded, and that grade is tied to promotion and pay," says Challenger. Even the definition of "performance" is changing. Once we were graded on how many widgets we made; today it's more about the good ideas we generate and the problems we solve.

The brains-driven workplace will be a better deal for everyone, Challenger says. "While it is not the death knell, it will begin to push out the inequities in compensation for women and minorities. You won't be able to get ahead on politics alone in the future."

In short, while the future of work will be different, there's every reason to be optimistic. No matter what your age or background, if you've got the goods, the opportunities are out there waiting

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