S)T in the News: The Changing Workplace
Social Technologies' founder Tom Conger discussed the forces changing the global workplace at a recent leadership conference hosted by the Society for Human Resource Management.
Conger explained how migration, new wealth, and time pressure are factors driving the shift. His ideas were outlined in a Dec. 7 posting on the SHRM.org website by reporter J.J. Smith, who wrote:
The numbers for annual international migration went from 145 million during the 1990s to 190 million by 2005, said Conger, who is founder of Social Technologies, a global research and consulting firm specializing in the integration of foresight, strategy and innovation. Such mass migration of people will drive new trends in areas such as entertainment, food, social values and language, but a new trend that has been produced is economic, he said while discussing trends and lifestyles that affect global business.
Immigrant workers are sending large parts of their wages to their countries of origin—presumably to support family in those locations—so that about $100 billion per year in migrant workers’ pay is flowing globally, Conger said. Employers can help their workers and the company by allowing the employees to remit money overseas via automatic deposit, he said. While there is a chance some immigrant workers will be illegal aliens, by enabling immigrant employees to remit money overseas, companies will provide a benefit that can help attract and retain employees, he said.
While employers might focus on international migration, domestic migration—mostly urbanization—is another trend which companies need to be aware of, Conger said. A milestone was reached during 2005 when the combined populations of cities surpassed the populations of rural areas, and that is expected to continue until at least 2030 when 61 percent of the world’s population will be urban, he said. However, most population growth is not going to be in the “mega-cities”—cities with at least 10 million inhabitants; more than half of the growth is likely to occur in cities with 500,000 or less inhabitants, he added.
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Hope Katz Gibbs
in Press, Work
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