- Mobile devices are set to become the point or means of access to education more than computers.
- Another of the trends in education is the Marketplace model, as has already been embraced in the retail sector.
- The research highlights some of the challenges of teleworking: time management, remote leadership and monitoring productivity.
- The study reveals that future professionals will have a mixed humanities and technology profile.
- Collaborative action and working for the common good will become one of the key trends, as we have already seen in the case of the Covid-19 vaccines.
EAE Business School has published the key results of the study “Strategic Trends: The future of education and work. Outlook for 2021-2030”, drafted and led by the director of the consultancy Nethunting, Gema Requena. The research analyses the trends that are going to shape the path of education, training and work over the coming years.
The report reveals that future trends in the field of training and education include enhancing competences to the detriment of knowledge; the hybrid model, striking a balance between practicality and the cognitive development gained through in-person groups; delocalization, through which the classroom will lose its identity and transform in the same way as other concepts such as the street, the museum, the company, etc.; continuous updating, with a growing role for the figure of the mentor and modular, stackable models.
“Training has undergone an accelerated process of dematerialization and delocalization, giving rise to a constant dialectic between online and offline. In 2020, rather than changes, education underwent an acceleration, particularly influenced by all the digital sphere that was working on the design of the models of the future”, explained Gema Requena, a collaborator of EAE Business School and Director of the consultancy Nethunting.
The research highlights the development of a phygital reality, using applications that provide virtual experiences online, teaming up with technology suppliers to recreate physical, in-person occasions that take place remotely in the user’s home. Mobile devices are set to become the point or means of access to education more than computers. “With mobile learning, accessibility is enhanced by mobility”, emphasized Requena.
Another key trend is the Marketplace model, as the retail sector has already embraced, in which the business is based both on the group of “properties” distributed across many platforms and on the platform which brings together many shared “properties”.
TELEWORKING AND THE REMOTE OFFICE
The research shows that our lifestyle has changed, as well as our working environment and the way we interact with other people (bosses, colleagues, collaborators). We are all becoming digital nomads to a certain extent, the lessons learned from such professionals now provide a competitive advantage and a starting point. We have to adapt our environment, redesign our home offices or consider working remotely from other cities (zoom cities).
Time management is one of the aspects that generates “the biggest mental health issues” among workers. In this respect, the research underlines the need to adapt our time management, establish new interaction models and gain a command of technological tools.
The challenges of this new model include redesigning skills development for remote leadership and teleworking; developing personal training that enables us to manage our workers’ well-being; monitoring productivity, a complex issue as it conflicts with ensuring privacy; and remote management, which requires software, human skills and transparency.
“Surveillance using digital tools is growing on the street, but also in work settings, especially within the context of remote working. This is a dangerous aspect that is unregulated as yet and will progress in relation to the ethical and legal frameworks that certain technologies and their developments will carry out over the coming years”, explained Requena.
The tools that facilitate change are the people themselves and, to achieve this change, we need critical thinking, analysis, self-management, active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility. “Investing in a flexible mindset by continuously acquiring a lot of diverse knowledge, skills and a critical spirit”.
DIGITAL HUMANITIES, PURPOSE AND ZEBRA ENTREPRENEURS
The study emphasizes that future professionals will have “mixed humanities and technology profiles”. “A more humanistic perspective is growing, which facilitates the development of technological applications and the innovation of the present and the future. Society and the law are demanding a response to the dehumanization of technology, which requires training and/or complementing profiles with these disciplines in order to work with people at the heart, not technology, to be more inclusive and contribute towards sustainable development”, added Requena.
There is a growing number of educational initiatives focusing on generating a positive social and environmental impact. In this respect, there is expected to be a rise in “professionals specializing in the climate and sustainable development”.
Moreover, Covid-19 has given companies the opportunity to build back better, develop emotional connections with their consumers and support the most vulnerable groups of the population, as this research shows. Consumers expect brands to continue acting with purpose once the pandemic is over, with protective measures such as greater flexibility in the workplace become the new normal.
The great leap that has been taken is realizing that companies are NOT people, but rather that companies are made up of people. Now, we have to focus on these people’s value and their purpose. Therefore, leaders with purpose have to train from a personal perspective, rather than a standard approach. Within this context, “zebra entrepreneurs” are emerging as a consequence, aiming to create “startups with a social purpose”.
PRO-COMPETITIVENESS AND STRATEGIC MYOPIA
Using the example of the collaborative efforts to develop the Covid vaccines, the trend hunter and information catalyst Requena explained that “collaborative action and working for the common good is one of the key trends”. She emphasized that “people have to be prepared to be competitive within a framework of more in-depth collaborative working. This not only applies to small structures or startups, but also at the level of large companies. Learning and experience in working in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams are and will continue to be a necessity”.
Lastly, the research highlights that “as well as blind faith in data, the situation has been compounded by isolation and working in confinement, which is a big risk for professionals in terms of decision-making”. To avoid “strategic myopia”, it is important to “focus less on the data and/or use it only as another source of information that needs enriching”, explained Requena. She finished by mentioning other profiles and tools more related to skills and human capacities, such as the “Future Dialogues” initiative, one of the qualitative tools (created by Nethunting) that formed part of the methodology of this report.