Webinar, Panel
Asia Impact: The Future of Work
- The Asia Impact webinar series and subsequent partnerships with the Milken Institute aim to guide global social and economic recovery by exploring how Asia defines a new normal for safer, resilient systems.
- Innovation is accelerating rapidly, with 74% of companies reporting faster innovation speeds, including half of those leaders doubling their pace, while digital transformation is compressed into two months per industry benchmarks.
- Organizational models are shifting toward network structures and cloud adoption, with 95% of Microsoft's operations moved to the cloud over five years, driving a move away from central control to applied intelligence for de-risking and predicting failure.
- Workforce challenges include tens of millions of job losses (peaking at 78 million), a projected deepening of inequality, and a specific risk of women exiting the workforce at higher rates, necessitating immediate data review.
- Future skills will prioritize technology (AI, data, coding), emotional intelligence, and adaptability, with a global ambition to train 25 million people and an expectation that 1.5 million were trained in Asia this year alone.
- Real estate usage is redefining the office as a space for collaboration and connection rather than daily work, with flexible models expected to vary by worker experience, ranging from one day to three days of remote work weekly.
- Supply chains and talent mobility are projected to evolve toward localized models, with businesses preparing to keep supply chains closer to users and jobs becoming increasingly mobile and not geographically limited.
- Benefits and support systems will become more customized regionally and locally, with comprehensive health plans becoming fundamental, alongside the potential for concierge services for remote employees.
- Long-term disruptions are expected to continue, with technology evolving every two to three years and the world potentially facing future crises that require high operational and technological resilience.
- The global landscape may shift to a "COVID 2.0" state of being that is more limiting, making agility and adaptability the defining traits for future business success.