Diversity 2035

Imagine its 2035.

Now, look around.

Almost half your coworkers are female and 37 per cent belong to ‘minority’ groups, a term that now seems quaint and retro.
Your colleagues live in different countries and represent different ethnicities, different religions and different sexual orientations. For the first in history, four distinct generations work side by side.

But they’re not really nearby. The workplace is a constellation of teams that coalesce around overlapping assignments and then vanish, only to reconstitute themselves a hundred, a thousand times in a career. Working for the few remaining full-time, salaried managers – what’s left of yesterday’s megacorporations – the ever-changing teams meld a myriad of  individuals together, taking them momentarily from their orbit around many different employers.

These diverse workers share a singular responsibility. They are all the CEOs of themselves, functioning as personal brand-builders, salespeople, business managers and strategists. They are members of guru Malcolm Gladwell’s  ’more thoughtful’ workforce.
Individuals, not employers, design and determine, control and cart their own pensions, healthcare benefits college savings plans, schedules, investment portfolios, and career goals from place to place. Without the benevolent (malevolent?) corporation protecting (threatening?) them, they are free to succeed or fail all by themselves.

But they are not solitary.

With the social networking of 2035 completely ubiquitous and invisible, career nomads voluntarily create and join new communities. These landing pads offer wandering workers solace and support in the company – virtual or real – of people who look, act and work like them.

This is the new diversity; a byproduct of the unconventional workplace. It’s where I’m aiming my virtual pen.

Join me on my journey.