Change and Diversity in the Future of Work: From Challenges to Opportunities

Workplace relations and business environments will be significantly different in the coming decades. Several drivers of change – among which demographic trends, technological progress, economics and climate change – are transforming the way people live and work. These factors pose new challenges for companies, in front of which they are called to review their own organizations and react in order to transform the current challenges into opportunities for growth, development and competitiveness. In order to tackle these drivers of change, it is thus fundamental for companies to, first of all, fully understand which challenges and opportunities these drivers of change entail (Chapter 1); secondly, foresee how the world of work is likely to evolve in the coming decades (Chapter 2) and, finally, identify those management practices able to guarantee the competitive permanence of enterprises (Chapter 3). Failing to promptly consider and tackle them, companies risk worsening their level of competiveness and productivity and remaining out of the global market. The starting point consisted in two research questions - “How the future of the work will look like given some drivers of change?” and “To what extend companies are preparing themselves for the future scenario?” – which have been addressed through the desk research, further enriched with the Delphi Technique and a set of interviews. The main results indicate that, despite being aware of the current on-going changes, not all Italian companies are fully and promptly tackling them and preparing themselves for the future scenario. Therefore, the present research project, by outlining some guidelines, tries to help companies to get prepared to the future of work and workplace relations.