Group items tagged

Of course an online quiz is no substitute for proper counselling, but this resource can help people to start thinking about whether their work/life balance in working for them or whether they should consider changes so they can get the most from their career. I chose this resource not only because of this week's discussion post topic, but also because of Chapter 6 of The Shift, where a healthy work/life balance is shown to be an essential part of the Crafted Future narrative.

In "The Shift", Lynda Gratton mentions on page 168 that, "... billions of people are choosing to take control of their working lives and to craft them in a way that resonates with their own values and aspirations." I especially liked the metaphor of weaving different threads into your career fabric.

Join a global learning community to create, connect, and collaborate with students around the globe. Skillshare offers online classes to fit your schedule with bite-sized lessons from industry leaders that will help you turn ideas into action. Lynda Gratton mentions in "The Shift" that in the future we will have to differentiate ourselves from the crowd by creating a body of knowledge and skills to achieve mastery, as well as connecting with others around the world.

After finishing up my shift paper this week I thought I'd find a resource that focuses on the future of work and what it holds. This two page article is available in PDF and looks at some issues that Gratton discussed. How technology, demographics and globalization will all impact the working world.

As I was reading through some of The Shift textbook for the case study assignment, I was reminded of the importance of simplicity- of not following all the latest technology trends, trying to live more sustainably, lessening spending/ consumerism/ money driven focus. I came across this post about ideas for living life more simply and thought I'd share.

This article analyses both the positive and negative impacts of technology upon the jobs skills and indutrial working-pattern which The Shift focuses on. The digital technology has added a great deal of quality to productivity and industrial services, official work trends and has also created new jobs such as web designing, internet operator and so on. But it cannot be without negative consequences. The "new technologies have also shrunk or even eliminated other industries and the jobs associated with them 9e.g., electronic typewriter)." This is similar to what Gratton's reference to robot soemwhere in the book.

Salman Sakir's article is relevant to the issues raised in Friedman's book The World is Flat in which Friedman in a sense laments over the impact of globalization upon the developed countries, the USA for him, because the developing countries like Brazil and Asian countries like China and India have a massive work labour influence upon the West. Sakir focuses on both the positive and negative aspects of globalization, one of the five forces in Gratton's The Shift and a form of global economy as discussed by Stanford in his Economics for Everyone. Because of low wage and easy availability of experts/labour in the developing countries, foreign investments have been attracted by those Asian and developing countries where the jobs have been created for the locals. On the other hand, the citizens of the developed counters of the West and the North America have consumed the products from the developing countries in a reasonably lower price. Poverty ratio has been decreased in the developing countries which have also been integrated by the phenomenon of globalization. These are positive impacts. But in the developed countries, manufacturing industries have been moved out. so unemployment rate is ever increasing, Sakir highlights these aspects of globalization in this article.

Theodre Lewis shows his relevant concern with the impacts of technology on work and jobs which Gratton and Fiedman have elaborated in their books The Shift and The World is Flat respectively. Lewis's imperative voice is that the vocational institutions have to incorporate the technological trends to the traditional concepts of education system in order to make students adaptable to current job market. He pinpoints that those whose who are engaged in career designing or teaching now require to focus "on changing skill needs, changing work, changing jobs, and the role that technology plays in such change, there is need for an ongoing related discourse." This information is relevant to the course contents we dealt with.

In part III, Gratton speaks to the positive affects of the five forces on one's lives. Demographics are mentioned. As mandatory retirement has been abolished in many jurisdictions, the changing demographics of workers living longer and thus having the ability to work longer may have positive and negative effects. This link is a survey of UK firms on the impact of mandatory retirement and the specific qualitative issues that may arise, such as enhancing customer service and employee performance, as well as the difficulties including less 'headroom' for younger workers and performance decline

As the globalization trend continues to impact our workforce, there have been many studies and explorations into the preventative strategies for employees to utilize as they continue along their career path. Due to the mass shift towards integration, many individuals have become unemployed because they lack more than one set of skills and knowledge, and do not have a repository of relevant information to rely on. This article provides a few preventative measures for those within the IT industry, but these practices can also be applied to related fields and professions, as it advocates the idea that employees must become competitive and obtain more than 1 specific talent in order to remain ahead of the crowd and stay employed.

As we talk about mastery and transitional learning in order to make one competitive, I present an article on how long one should stay in their jobs and the risks one takes of staying too long. It makes the definition between job hoppers, steady employment and those who cling to their jobs. An interesting read

In "The Shift", Gratton mentions 'the traditional deal at work: to be paid, to consume stuff and bring happiness'. In the future, we need to make choices to live a more balanced life. Our experiences will bring us more satisfaction and happiness than buying things with money. This guide may help us see the benefits of owning and wanting less.

When I was reading The Shift this week, I found my comprehension of Grafton's technological projections somewhat limited because I don't have a very vast knowledge of current technology. Particularly, she mentioned The Cloud often in the text, and its ability to make technology and software much more accessible and affordable for people across the globe. I needed a simple breakdown of what The Cloud really is, so what better place to go then HowStuffWorks? This article breaks down The Cloud as a "web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need for her or his job" and highlighted its key aspects in a way that I could fully understand. I like how it also brings up the Dark Side of cloud computing- the inevitability that it will eliminate the need for many IT jobs (a concern that Grafton has also highlighted for the future), and then the issue of privacy (Grafton mentions mistrust of leadership as prevalent in the future). Since dark projections are the topic of the week, its worth thinking about the implications of posting all of our personal information online... Can we trust our governments and multi-nationals with that kind of information?

Great resource for returning students to start their own business over the summer.

This interesting article looks at how the demand for a bachelor's degree is reshaping the workforce. It ties in to what Lynda Gratton mentions in "The Shift", that there is a need for 'mastery' skills, self-marketing, and creating credentials as so many people are now pursuing postsecondary education.

This is a video from a TV show called The News Room. ** There is some bad language. A girl asked the panel "Why is America the best country in the world?" I feel his answer epitomizes the idea of a shift. A lot of what he says reflects on how our economy only cares about money and making the most profit and not the person anymore. I know this is not the typical article we reflect on, but I feel we can benefit from listening to this. We might be Canadians but we can listen to this and understand. Our education is not the best; we do not have the most well-off middle class. We can all learn from this. Jillian

Richard Paul's article is about the increasing need, in this intertwined, globalized world for us to foster critical thinking in our children. As we have already learned from both 'The World is Flat' and 'The Shift', in this flattened world, simply obtaining basic skills or knowing the answers to certain questions will not be enough. Paul argues that our current K-12 school system is not breeding creative students, and is not giving students a chance in the ever-changing work landscape. He maintains that in order to keep up with globalization, we need to be fostering in our children the ability to problem solve creatively, to anticipate patterns and meanings, to think abstractly, to ask 'why', and to be able to communicate, collaborate, and negotiate with others.