Future of Work

The world of work is changing. Artificial intelligence and automation will make this shift as significant as the mechanization in prior generations of agriculture and manufacturing. While some jobs will be lost, and many others created, almost all will change. The COVID-19 crisis accelerated existing trends and caused organizations to reevaluate many aspects of work. This regularly updated collection of articles draws together our latest perspectives on the future of work, workforce, and workplace.

Work

Article

Raising the resilience of your organization
– Repeatedly rebounding from disruption is tough, but some companies have a recipe for success: a systems mindset emphasizing agility,... psychological safety, adaptable leadership, and cohesive culture.
Blog Post

How to lead in a hybrid environment
– Work has changed—and so must leaders. These four management shifts are making the biggest impact in today’s hybrid work environment.
Blog Post

The brave new (business) world
– Our Great Attrition research found that 31 percent of employees who left their job in the past six months did so to start a new... business. What can organizations do to engage and retain these employees?
Podcast

Back and forth: COVID-19’s impact on business in 2021—and today
– The years-long pandemic persists. How can companies continue to adapt?
Blog Post

Getting skills transformations right: The nine-ingredient recipe for success
– These nine best practices will help ensure the successful design and implementation of a holistic reskilling program.
Blog Post

The future of work: Understanding what’s temporary and what’s transformative
– Organizations must evaluate three key areas to not only emerge from the COVID-19 crisis but thrive in the post-pandemic world.
Podcast

Grabbing hold of the new future of work
– The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped existing workforce trends and catalyzed new ones. Here’s the latest on what’s next—and... what to do about it.
Report - McKinsey Global Institute

The future of work after COVID-19
– The pandemic accelerated existing trends in remote work, e-commerce, and automation, with up to 25 percent more workers than previously... estimated potentially needing to switch occupations.

Workforce

Report - McKinsey Global Institute

Performance through people: Transforming human capital into competitive advantage
– A dual focus on developing people and managing them well gives a select group of companies a long-term performance edge.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

The Great Attrition is making hiring harder. Are you searching the right talent pools?
– People keep quitting at record levels, yet companies are still trying to attract and retain them the same old ways. New research identifies five types of workers that employers can reach to fill jobs.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

Meet the psychological needs of your people—all your people
– Too many employers pay too little heed to the needs of the lower earners in their company. Here’s why—and how—they should shift gears.
Report - McKinsey Global Institute

Human capital at work: The value of experience
– Human capital represents two-thirds of wealth for the average individual—and work experience contributes almost half of that value.
Podcast

Stave off attrition with an internal talent marketplace
– Is your best talent hiding in plain sight? An internal talent marketplace helps match existing employees to open roles—in novel and sometimes unexpected ways.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

Hybrid work: Making it fit with your diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy
– New research details what empowered employees love about hybrid work models and the risks to diversity, equity, and inclusion if managers get the evolving flexible workplace wrong.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

Gone for now, or gone for good? How to play the new talent game and win back workers
– Nearly half of the employees who voluntarily left the workforce during the pandemic aren’t coming back on their own. Employers must go and get them. Here’s how to start.
Article

Reimagining HR: Insights from people leaders
– Human resources is playing a critical role in helping organizations respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief human resources officers expect that influence to persist.
Podcast

Talent at a turning point: How people analytics can help
– Rising resignations. Hybrid work. The diversity imperative. Leaders are navigating a talent market in flux. Here’s how people analytics can help.
Article

Married to the job no more: Craving flexibility, parents are quitting to get it
– Working parents are among the record number of employees leaving their jobs or thinking about doing so. To keep this crucial group, organizations must address why they’re drawn to other options.
Blog Post

The Great Attrition: Same turnover, but the “why” differs by industry
– In the Great Attrition, specific drivers of attrition vary by sector. Employers must address their industry’s unique circumstances to turn attrition into attraction.
Article

This time it’s personal: Shaping the ‘new possible’ through employee experience
– In an era of workplace upheaval, companies that create tailored, authentic experiences strengthen employee purpose, ignite energy, and elevate organization-wide performance.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

‘Great Attrition’ or ‘Great Attraction’? The choice is yours
– A record number of employees are quitting or thinking about doing so. Organizations that take the time to learn why—and act thoughtfully—will have an edge in attracting and retaining talent.
Blog Post

Piecing together the talent puzzle: When to redeploy, upskill, or reskill
– As organizations look to the future of work, redeploying, reskilling, and upskilling employees will be key to success.
Report - McKinsey Global Institute

The economic state of Black America: What is and what could be
– Closing racial gaps across the economy is not only about righting historic wrongs. It is also about choosing a more dynamic future and realizing the full potential of a massively underutilized source of talent, to the benefit of all Americans.
Blog Post

The future of the workforce: Investing in talent to prepare for uncertainty
– Exploring significant shifts in how organizations approach the talent they have, the talent they need, and the expectations their talent has of them.
Podcast

The search for purpose at work
– Purpose is personal, but companies play a critical role in how we express it.
Podcast

The elusive inclusive workplace
– In the wake of the pandemic, you’ve committed to fast action on diversity. The first step is a new, more inclusive lens on talent management—straight through the life cycle.
Podcast

The vanishing middle manager
– Flatter. Faster. Leaner. The COVID-19 crisis has once again trained a spotlight on the value of middle management. What happens after the pandemic ends?
Podcast

Today’s skills, tomorrow’s jobs: How will your team fare in the future of work?
– Automation will leave few roles untouched—and not everyone will be reskilled or redeployed successfully. Here’s what leaders can do now to give their talent, and their organizations, the best opportunity to thrive in an uncertain future.
Blog Post

Foster individual purpose within your organization
– The more you can connect purpose to recruiting, onboarding, and performance management, the more likely the benefits will build upon one another.
Article - McKinsey Global Institute

COVID-19 and gender equality: Countering the regressive effects
– What is good for gender equality is good for the economy and society as well. The COVID-19 pandemic puts that truth into stark relief and raises critically important choices.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

Are we long—or short—on talent?
– By looking at their supply of skills and talent in a new light today, organizations can take actions that better prepare their companies for tomorrow’s challenges.

Workplace

Article

Network effects: How to rebuild social capital and improve corporate performance
– People’s professional networks have shrunk since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, while companies’ attrition and hiring challenges are growing. To help reverse these trends, people and organizations will need to manage workplace interactions more intentionally. Here’s how.
Blog Post

Returning to the office can be a choice, not a challenge
– By applying behavioral science and choice architecture to the post-pandemic workplace, organizations can “nudge” employees to embrace flexible work, avoiding mandates altogether.
Podcast

The office of the future: A whole new (floor) plan
– Revisiting your talent strategy for a hybrid world? Think hard about the purpose and design of your office space.
Blog Post

Designing the workplace of tomorrow: lessons from life sciences
– Business leaders now face a once-in-a-century opportunity to completely reinvent the workplace.
Blog Post

It’s not about the office, it’s about belonging
– To retain employees, organizations need to evolve their approach to building community, cohesion, and a sense of belonging at work.
Podcast

Talent at a turning point: How people analytics can help
– Rising resignations. Hybrid work. The diversity imperative. Leaders are navigating a talent market in flux. Here’s how people analytics can help.
Blog Post

Your return-to-office announcements are missing the mark: Here’s how to get them right
– While there is no singular right way to communicate return-to-office announcements, there are many wrong ways. We’ve seen five strategies work effectively.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

Return as a muscle: How lessons from COVID-19 can shape a robust operating model for hybrid and beyond
– New research shows how resilient organizations thrived through the pandemic. Here’s how to use those lessons to craft a better approach to how work gets done across time (real and asynchronous) and space (digital and physical).
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

It’s time for leaders to get real about hybrid
– Employers are ready to get back to significant in-person presence. Employees aren’t. The disconnect is deeper than most employers believe, and a spike in attrition and disengagement may be imminent.
Podcast

LGBTQ+ inclusion in the workplace
– How to take action to support LGBTQ+ employees—not just during Pride Month, but year-round.
Blog Post

The future of the workplace: Embracing change and fostering connectivity
– Organizations must take three key actions to reimagine the workplace and its purpose in the future of work.
Podcast

Culture in the hybrid workplace
– Hybrid work is happening. Your culture will need to catch up—fast.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

Reimagining the postpandemic workforce
– Pandemic-style working from home may not translate easily to a “next normal” mix of on-site and remote working.
Article

Reimagining the office and work life after COVID-19
– The pandemic has forced the adoption of new ways of working. Organizations must reimagine their work and the role of offices in creating safe, productive, and enjoyable jobs and lives for employees.

Featured experts

André Dua
Senior Partner, Miami
Provides strategic counsel and advises on performance transformation to state and local governments as well as public and private...
Leads Industries
Scott Rutherford
Senior Partner, Washington DC
Helps defense and security agencies, financial institutions, and executives in a range of sectors tackle strategic, organizational,...
Angelika Reich
Partner, Vienna
Drives impact from large-scale organizational transformation while addressing workforce challenges created by industry disruption...
Aaron De Smet
Senior Partner, New Jersey
Delivers growth, innovation, and organizational agility and is an expert on culture change, leadership development, team effectiveness,...
Neel Gandhi
Partner, New York
Advises leading organizations on how to strengthen their talent-management capabilities and build an HR function that operates...
Leads Talent Value Leader Academy
Bryan Hancock
Partner, Washington DC
Supports private, public, and social sector clients through expertise in talent management, organizational design, and workforce...
Emily Field
Partner, Seattle
Shapes organizational strategies to establish talent management as a distinctive advantage, preparing leaders to manage the workforce...
Bill Schaninger
Senior Partner, Philadelphia
Designs and manages large-scale organizational transformations, strengthening business performance through enhanced culture, values,...
Asmus Komm
Partner, Hamburg
Unites diverse teams across the globe on their talent management, leadership, organization design, and change-management initiatives
Anu Madgavkar
McKinsey Global Institute Partner, New Jersey
Leads global research focused on labor markets and human capital, technology’s economic impact, gender economics, digital and...
Florian Pollner
Partner, Zurich
Helps leaders enhance their personal effectiveness, manage talent globally, and drive cultural change in their organizations

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