MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Five Insights From Davos on the Future of Work

At the recent gathering of the World Economic Forum, re-skilling and flexible work emerged as key components of the future of work.

In the 10 years since I launched the Future of Work Consortium, the topic has become increasingly important to the agenda at Davos, the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. During that time, we have gained clarity about some aspects of the future of work (for instance, that technology will have an impact on tasks, not jobs), become more optimistic about others (for instance, that there will be relentless job creation), and have grown certainly more fearful about the significance of growing threats (for instance, the impact of mid-level job destruction on the rise of “popularism.”)

This year, as a steward of the World Economic Forum’s System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Education, Gender and Work, I attended council meetings and stopped by many other presentations and panels on this topic.

About the Author

Lynda Gratton is a professor of management practice at London Business School and director of the school’s Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Companies program. She is coauthor of The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity (Bloomsbury, 2016). She tweets @lyndagratton.

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