2024 Predictions

Thanks to those who joined us to chat live on this. View the conversation here!

We used to talk strategy for the *year*. Now it’s more like the quarter (or the month). I don’t anticipate this reversing—timelines will keep on getting faster as we go. 

So, with that in mind, what can we expect to see in the world of hiring this year? 

Technology - How will our tools evolve this year? 

Do I think we will see AI eat a bunch of jobs this year? No. But we will see integration and jobs that are AI Enabled vs. Replaced. Overall, that means that jobs will likely be stable~ish but wages will begin to flatten.

Culture - What will ‘normal’ look like this year? 

2024 promises more transactional work. Profitable companies are right sizing and employees are moving on from jobs at a quick pace. Might be a gig, might be a task, could be a smart contract. Flexibility is key. 

With Gen Z outnumbering Boomers, expect increased expectations of transparency and group action. See: Tech workers recording their layoffs.

Compliance - What laws and policies are we watching this year?

Pro-worker and pro-transparency rulings will continue through the election. The FTC non-compete decision will land in April (they are likely to remove them entirely or narrow their use) and court decisions have been trending pro-union and pro-worker. 2024 will also see more demands for transparency around compensation and use of AI in hiring.

Keeping - What’s staying the same? 

Humans still buy from and work with other humans. A huge component of most businesses is relationship based, and I don’t see this changing! Many things that are automatable haven’t been automated. Just because a computer can do something doesn’t mean that’s the most effective way. We’re human and we can adapt!

Remember: These are overall trends—there will always be exceptions! 

First jobs. Uh oh.

What did I learn at my first job? 

Well, quite a bit about tools because I worked at an Ace Hardware. 

Other key lessons for 15 year old me included… 

• You will regret sobbing in the break room over a boy. (And no, he wasn’t worth it. At all.)

• Actual follow through is rare and will get you noticed

• Working with the public is wild and the customer is not always right. So don’t be an asshole.

• How to apply, interview & advocate for myself even if awkward

Since 1980, the percentage of teens working summer jobs has fallen from 51.7% to 30.8% (BLS).

And I am NOT SAYING that no one wants to work anymore. 

Many of these kids are taking extra classes and gearing for college. They are stressed out. This isn't laziness. 

They are learning about how to check boxes and follow a path. A path that’s tiring and pandemic interrupted. They can leverage AI for a paper. They might be in 10 clubs to shape the right existence for a 4 year school they're skeptical about anyway. They’re learning about career tips in 30 punchy seconds on TikTok rather than long nuanced discussions.

All of this means that becomes more and more about the answer instead of the thought process. About the impression more than the reality. 

Before we get all “kids these days" - as a millennial I can confirm that I never gave myself a participation trophy. Neither did my peers. 

And these new grads didn’t create the systems they’re coming up in. 

New and recent grads largely came up in a hot hiring market (exception only early 2023) where they could find another role seemingly with a Tinder-like swipe. There’s another one around the corner. There’s another “we’re hiring” sign down the street. 

Add:

+ that stress to show achievement

+ an unending stream of seemingly glamorous career options like influencer 

+ underlying sense of depression under "humor" in #worktok 

+ grand expectations to find meaning and full alignment with their work and employer 

It’s easy to see how ideas about what “work” means can take a life of their own.

Bad managers and soulless leaders become the enemy (rightfully so). But if you’ve never had a manager, you’re not quite equipped to gauge managers from "just ok" to truly terrible.

If you’ve never worked with a lot of adults - it’s so dang easy to attribute mistakes to malice. With experience comes awareness of good ole incompetence.  Even worse, I’m worried about early workers finding themselves naive to more insidiously subtle abuse or harassment. 

On this new path, early workers are not learning how to muddle through unclear expectations. Or (horrified gasp) talk on the phone to a stranger. They’re not getting to cry in the break room at 15. Some of these lessons don’t arrive at 15 or 18. They’re showing up at 23+ when the stakes are higher and the work is more complex. 

So am I saying I was ready for the workplace because I spent 4 years at an Ace Hardware? 

Ummmm NO. But that kernel of experience paved the way for my internships to be more about polishing. And it made every subsequent step an easier one.

So what happens when we skip the “first job” right to the internship? And wohoo, big perk…it’s remote.

Or we skip the internship and jump into a full-time role at a company? 

Or what about the students who work out of necessity but aren’t coming in with a network or professional advice from their personal life? 

I shudder to picture 20 year old me working remotely. Not because I was lazy or stupid. But because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I didn’t know about professional subtext. Or what it means to build or lose credibility or capitol within a company. 

In those early jobs, I could see how leaders they carried themselves. I could watch them solve problems in front of me. I *absorbed* the norms rather than having to practice them from a computer. 

We’ve already had a shortage of senior level talent available to mentor the next gen of talent. (Note: this is not because they are unwilling! It’s because the shortage means they are too busy and in demand with urgent priorities!) And many of those leaders who are career-positioned to be the best mentors are life-positioned to want to be at home. 

So, this problem isn’t going anywhere.

This all means that we need to universally redefine “entry level”.

And what if we don’t? If we just decide that kids these days don’t want to work anymore? What if give it the ole sink or swim? 

Something that I’ve seen be a near universal truth is that when you give someone an opportunity (even a fair one) to sink or swim and they don’t swim… they will blame you or blame the company or blame the job. Maybe not forever but it’s certainly easier for humans of all ages and levels to blame the circumstances than to learn the toughest of lessons. 

And then what do we get?

• Turnover rises and tenure falls. 

• TikTok sets the expectations instead of you. 

• We never pace supply to demand as workplace demographics shift and AI eats more of the “entry level” jobs

Not so hot, right? 

So what do we do instead?

• Accept that we will need to give trust and time first. If MasterLube in Billings, MT can change hundreds of lives, I am sure we can give people some ongoing development.

• Focus on onboarding. Assume you’ll need to teach the world of work not just teach the tasks.

• Share stories not just to-dos Leaders who share their own journeys build trust and trust breeds productivity.

Jobs of 2033

Do you still do your job in the *exact* same way you did 10 years ago? Do you even do the same job you did 10 years ago?

Probably not…because work is always evolving.

Consider that 60% of today’s jobs didn’t even exist in 1940 according to an MIT Task Force on the future of work. The work force of 1950 didn’t see jobs like nutritionist, drone operator or social media manager on the horizon. 

And some jobs may never exist again. For example, the alarm clock replaced the “knocker upper” (human alarm clock, not what we might think in today’s slang…)

So, with the pace AI evolving, what will jobs look like in 2030? Or even in 2025?

Nearly all jobs will be impacted at some level by AI but those that I’m predicting will rise (and/or appear - some of these aren’t quite real jobs yet!).

Product Management and UX: Shaping the go-to-market roadmap and strategy of a product, including how users interact with it. 

AI tools shorten the time to build, so more products and product strategy (already critical!) will rise as competition for attention increases. 

Workflow Automation and AI Enablement: build and automate workflows and/or look for spaces to integrate AI.

This expertise will become a job in and of itself. This expert will build unique, custom workflows that hack between systems. This won’t replace all out of the box SaaS solutions but will add a new “hack something ourselves” competitor. 

Having doubts? Consider agile coaches, organizational development specialists and remote work experts whose careers are already built around helping other people work better.

Prompt Engineering: (definition from ChatGPT for fun) designing and refining prompts or instructions to achieve desired outputs from a language model or natural language processing system. It involves crafting specific instructions, queries, or context to elicit the desired response or behavior from the model.

If you ask 10 people to draw a square, you’ll get 8 different squares in response. But if you ask 10 people to draw a square that’s exactly one inch on each side and give them a ruler, the results will be much closer to what you wanted. Same goes for using an AI system - the quality of response is only as good as the quality of the input. 

Change Management: Equip leaders and teams to handle change through expert coaching, detailed communication plans and facilitated process design.

As the pace of change accelerates, so does the fallout. Change experts won’t be reserved for Fortune 500 anymore.

Data Collection Specialists: New jobs around data collection will blend UX, data engineering and compliance. 

These jobs won’t be focused on the advanced analysis of data science or the storage of a DBA but instead be a role shaped around how we collect data and when/how to get more of it. 

Since AI systems are only powerful as their inputs, data earns an extra degree of importance. “Data is the new oil” has long been a refrain for a reason and we’ll only see this grow.

Mental Health & Healthcare Support : Not new at all! Nurses are heroes.

Mental health and healthcare facilities are woefully understaffed especially looking at an aging population.

AI might enable some of these roles but don’t underestimate the personal touch these roles require. Baby Boomers broadly hold quite a bit of wealth that they are likely to spend on care.

Coaching:  Act as a sounding board and resource to help people get from where they are to where they want to be in a specific area for example health or finances.

Doulas, guides, mentors and coaches are not a new idea for humans. But their application and popularity has been growing and my bet is that it will only expand especially around specific spaces -- finances (not an investor for you but a money mindset coach), health including specifics like screen time management, dating and more.

Purveyors of Novelty: Jobs built purely around entertaining, surprising or delighting other people with novel experiences. 

Entertainment as an industry is not new. But as we live more online, in person *experience* becomes a more premium novelty. These could range from hosting murder mystery parties, building escape rooms or bringing goats for yoga. There’s a reason malls are becoming amusement parks.

Artisan Crafting: Niche, specialized services usually around physical goods. like watch repair, polaroid camera film sales, fish tank install + maintenance. 

With more climate awareness comes more skepticism about our disposable lifestyles. With that comes growing interest in repair over replacement. Some of these spaces are also high on nostalgia (something people LOVE during times of change) and come with a cool factor. 

As mega-stores continue to wipe out smaller shops and product discovery remains a core e-commerce challenge, people will look for more ways to express themselves as individuals. 

Relationship Building:  People buy from people especially when you’re talking about B2B. (see: every startup who tried to build only self serve SaaS) So, success requires community management and business development.

As things get even noisier with AI generated content, the ability to cut through that noise in a personal, relationship driven way will increase in value. Experts in this space like CharismaQ are blending coaching with technology to help teams expand their skills in this area.

What am I missing? How might these impact Hiring Leverage?

4 Rare Skills: How to Become a Decider

In the past, most jobs were about “doing” and success was attainable by executing on a list of tasks. 

Filing reports, spreadsheets, and following established processes was considered valuable. Reliable execution alone was enough. 

But the rise of faster, smarter, and easier-to-use AI is changing how people provide value at work. 

The technology is already an exceptional “doer”. And it’s getting better everyday.

There is good news though: success in the next-gen, AI-powered workplace can be achieved by doing what humans do best…

Evolving. 

People who evolve from “doers” to “deciders” - capable of setting strategy and direction - will have the leverage at work.

When AI completes the tasks while you set the direction, the technology stops being your competition and becomes your engine.

So, how do you become a decider? 

You become exceptional at:

1. General Business + Industry Context 

Too many employees can tell you what their company ‘does’ but not how their company makes money. What product lines are important? What shifts are happening in the way your customers buy? Why? When we were just completing tasks, we didn’t necessarily need that info. But smart decisions require context. 

These generalist/strategy mindsets were previously reserved for Exec and BizOps teams. But that was when the deciding was reserved for them too.

Role model: Shellye Archambeau

2. Attention Management

When the noise feels endless, winning deciders manage themselves and their attention. They prioritize effectively in and out of the office - including consideration about their health. They bring efficiency to problem solving because they’ve planned ahead.

Role models: John Zeratsky & Jake Knapp of Make Time

3. Creative Thinking

True strategy and problem solving are like tests. But they’re more like the essay section than multiple choice. Options are open-ended and you don’t know whether you made the right call or not without a little experimentation and revision.  Deciders explore.

Role model: Rick Rubin & The Creative Act

4. Tech Intuition (Not just for software engineers!)

Broadly, this means you know both when and how to fully leverage technology throughout your day. Does your heart sink when you see someone copy and pasting a bunch of rows instead of building a Zapier? Do you sit down at most new systems and just kinda know how they work at a basic level? Or at least take the initiative to find out? Then you might already have strong “tech intuition.” 

Deciders don’t just use technology every day. They leverage technology every day.

Role model: Steph Smith of a16z Podcast 

Even today, these skills are more rare than you might expect and highly valued. By evolving from a doer to a decider you get to decide (pun-ish intended) what the future will hold.

AI AT WORK.

The shift from doing to deciding.

So far, we’ve built the bulk of jobs to be about doing. Is the task achieved? Is the feature built? Is the report there?

A much smaller group of people have jobs that are about navigating. What direction are we heading? Who stays and who goes? Why?

Let’s not squabble over how well AI can *do* or *decide* something today. Instead, let's look at how fast it's learning. We'll have AI coworkers in our lives sooner than later.

Your invitation to learn more about this shift in our upcoming (free!) debate:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/what-to-expect-when-youre-expecting-ai-at-work-tickets-590161748677

Building Trust When Onboarding New Talent

One of my favorite parts of onboarding a new team member is seeing their User Manual.

Inspired by this user manual by Pete Vowles, we ask and share:

• What are some honest, unfiltered things about you?

• What drives you nuts?

• What are your quirks?

• What are some things that people might misunderstand about you that you should clarify?

• What are you working on improving?

We receive candor by giving it first. Here’s the user manual I share on day 1.

2023 Word of the Year - Texture

Managing to energy and soul fulfillment rather than task achievement. 

What are some honest, unfiltered things about you?

• I am driven by exceeding our client’s expectations and I detest anything that feels “just ok”. I always want to be aiming towards (but I do understand it won’t always happen!) exceptional. I was the client once. We are not always smarter or better than them and that attitude is unproductive. 

• I care more about the results than the “how” but if the results aren’t there - I will be extremely directive on the “how”. 

• I know we can’t control everything about our results - I get upset when we’re not owning the parts that we do control. That’s how we win.

• I am open and frank, reflective of my own failings. Feedback is a 2 way street and I’m as open to hearing it as I am to giving it.

• I can be critical. This is not due to a negative attitude but the fact that when I see problems - I want to fix them right away.

• I am comfortable changing direction, shifting and adapting. I think of an established process as intended for  “most of the time” with room for good judgment. 

• I most enjoy working at a really really high pace, with lots going on. Conversely, I lose energy in long-turnaround times/ extended deadlines where there is no sense of urgency.

• I get energy from thinking about how we could do things differently. This can make me appear impatient. Sometimes I am just a raging combination of perfectionism & impatience - not a lovely combo and if you feel what I’m asking for is impossible - I definitely want to hear that from you!

What drives you nuts?

• People saying they’re going to do something and not doing it. I don’t care much about the intention to do it.

• People thinking one thing and saying another. For example, saying they like something and secretly thinking it’s awful. That’s unproductive and annoys me A LOT.

• People being territorial, putting their interests over our collective ones.

• People thinking only about what’s right in front of them -- I like thinking that includes steps 1, 2 & 3.

• Flakiness, tardiness.

• Making excuses or blaming others.

• Finding problems and not taking responsibility for finding solutions.

• People holding back ideas, trying to perfect things on their own, rather than engaging early for thoughts and feedback.

• Professional people acting like victims of change and not seeing & using their own power and agency to lead change. (FYI ← I never see this on this team and love that!)

What are your quirks?

• I thrive on challenge and discussion and love brainstorming ideas. 

• I like a clear and simple narrative, based on what things look like in practice. This is the best way to get me to understand things and grasp high-level concepts.

• I love trusting people to get on with things, but I do like to be involved at key points and kept up to speed, enabling me to increase my confidence and trust in people.

• Equally, I can lose confidence if I don’t hear about progress. When this happens I can start to get into details, which can feel disempowering for people.

• I worry about my reputation and brand in the industry. Sometimes too much.

• When I am pulled too deep into the weeds on delivery/recruitment, it makes me very cranky. Sometimes it’s very *necessary* for that to happen but it makes me feel stuck on my broader goals for the business and frustrates me.

What are some things that people might misunderstand about you that you should clarify?

• Sometimes I’m giving an idea and it comes off as a directive. Sometimes I’m giving a directive and it comes off as just an idea. 

• Despite seeming like an extrovert, I am an introvert and days of 10 hours of meetings drain me a lot. Sometimes I’m not irritated even though I sound like it - I’m just tired.

• When I challenge projects or ideas people can think I am challenging them or saying they’re doing a bad job — I don’t mean to; I am trying to provoke debate and discussion.

• I don’t want to hold people back: life and careers are more important than any task we have in front of us today; I will always support people to move upwards and onward.

• I genuinely want to know what people think and I can sometimes take silence from people as a sign of a lack of interest.

• I thrive off change at all levels. This even applies to even the most basic things like where I sit, how I take notes, my routines etc. Sometimes I need to be told to back down and let things settle in.

What are you working on improving?

• Not interrupting you all so much and waiting for the agreed upon touchpoints (ex - checking RF before firing off a slack message). This is a HARD habit to break and one that I really want to! This has nothing to do with you or your work -this is that I’m flying through doing stuff as it occurs to me but it’s disruptive and unhelpful. I must work on this. If I ask for something and you’re in a good state of flow - it’s ok & encouraged to tell me when you’ll follow up on it. You don’t have to stop everything!

• Showing you how to own the client/messaging vs. being a filter -- I’m here to support you and it needs to be done well but me checking all of the work all of the time isn’t sustainable or scalable. Since I am not a good trainer I tend to fall back into directing rather than teaching without meaning to. This is typically more about my feelings & habits than your work. CALL ME OUT ON THIS.

TEAM - I want to hear about you! Please reflect & share the following. Your user guide will be shared with the team. We won’t always be perfect about not driving each other nuts -- but we will try!

Use 1-2-4-All To Hear From Everyone In A Large Group.

Try: 1-2-4-All by Keith McCandless and Henri Lipmanowicz.

Ask your team a question, giving time for:

• 1 min of individual reflection 

• 2 mins to generate ideas in pairs, building on ideas from self-reflection

• 4 mins of four people looking for similarities and differences

• 5 min of idea share from each group

Three Elements For Stronger Meetings.

The 3 elements for meeting that don’t suck:

Novel: At least one part of this meeting is facilitated in a new or interesting way. This could range from a new brainstorming technique to unexpected snacks or just a big announcement.

Useful: The intended outcome of the meeting is clear and easy to understand. This purpose is clearly written for and said out loud. It’s clear that this should be a meeting (and not an email).

Reliable: An agenda is sent in advance including any context or supplemental info.

Align Incentives To Save Money.

Aligned incentives are a real thing of beauty.

For roles that don’t require daily coverage, consider what a position could look like at 80% of time, salary, benefits & responsibilities.

Many travelers, parents & side hustlers would gladly trade a 100k job for a 4-day week at 80k with benefits and a commensurate cut in responsibilities.

Is it right for everyone and every job?

Nope.

Is it a huge win/win when it’s right?

Yep.

Yeah, People Aren’t Going To Do That.

Why 70% of goals fail to happen.

Too many excellent goals fail because execution relies on people (aka fallible humans) to:

• work harder than they’re working now

• remember all of the things that they’ve never remembered before

The most important planning step is to plan for how we’ll make it:

1. easy for people to do what we want

   • automate

   • remove barriers

   • share information + wins

   • incentivize + remind

   • clear ownership + decision making responsibility

2. hard for people do what we don’t want

   • See: guide from 1944 CIA Field Guide for sabotaging Nazi organizations:

     • For organizations and Conferences

       • Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken to expedite decisions

       • Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length.

       • When possible, refer all matters to committees for “further study." Make the committees as large as possible.

       • Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible

       • Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, and resolutions

       • Re-open matters that were closed at the last meeting

       • Advocate “caution” and avoid haste which might result in difficulties later

       • Worry about propriety of any decision. Raise questions about jurisdiction and conflict with other policy

The Gift Of Giving

A semi-unorthodox way to approach to gifts.

Here’s how to keep it fun and easy:

1. Give a clear budget ($100+ recommended) and a deadline for purchase. Be clear on parameters like tax implications for gift cards.

2. Assign people or do a drawing for gift BFFs (Secret Santa isn’t an inclusive term, sorry). It’s important every person only have 1 so that this isn’t overwhelming.

3. Provide either a corporate card or a point person who will purchase the gifts. Outlaying cash/awaiting reimbursement will really kinda ruin this.

4. Be clear that it’s totally ok to just ask the gift receiver what they want. Optional but again ease + the joy of giving + personalized gifts are your goals here.

5. Plan a fun time to exchange!

Cultivate vs. Control

This is a mindset shift for leaders.

You can’t control your way to an exceptional team. You can only cultivate, even if it means letting your team make a few mistakes.

Cultivating is a longer but ultimately more rewarding journey.

A Better Question Than "How Are You?"

When you ask your team member “how are you?” a lifetime of habits, conditioning and professionalism will deliver an immediate “Fine/Good/Ok”.

Instead try, “How have you been feeling as you wrap up the day lately?”

Listen for signs of fatigue, frustration or fear. 

If you hear pride and accomplishment, add fuel to that by reinforcing the good momentum.

Better Reference Check Questions

How to get the real tea from a reference.

What does this person do that you find remarkable? What do you think they should spend more time bragging about?

Assuming they’re already great, what could this person need to work on to be twice as effective in their role?

What kind of environment would this person find really frustrating?

What job would you never give them? Why is that?

What advice would you give to their next manager?