The global logistics hub will impact jobs and work of the future - Part 3

This is the conclusion of a three-part article on the logistic hub by Dr Fritz Pinnock.

Ongoing passion for self-renewal

A passion for constant self-renewal will be a 'must' in the future. Individuals will not only have to be passionate about the work they do, but also passionate about lifelong learning and permanent exploring of new knowledge and opportunities.

Taking risks, thinking critically, and looking at things with new eyes will be essential in the future.

Reinventing themselves, individuals will need to be able to work independently and with others with minimal supervision. Equally, it will be important to be part of a wider community that embraces not only those in their immediate social and professional neighbourhoods, but also those who share similar interests globally.

For many individuals, learning to enjoy work and yet celebrate life concurrently in a highly turbulent world will be the biggest challenge in reinventing themselves.

Critical to embrace cultural intelligence

As the populations of many countries become more multicultural and multi-ethnic, there will be an increasing demand for cross-cultural people skills. The demand for cultural intelligence and sensitivity will increasingly gain importance in the next decade as workforces become more culturally diverse. Cultural intelligence involves understanding the fundamentals of intercultural interaction, and developing a mindful approach to intercultural communication. As well, it involves building adaptive skills and a repertoire of behaviours so that an individual is effective in different intercultural situations.

As the world of work becomes more global and workforces become more international, individuals will not be able to ignore developing cultural intelligence for achieving career success.

The new design of workspace

With so many people working from their own facilities, maybe at home or on the road or elsewhere, the future of work and jobs will also see major changes to corporate office facilities.

The roles of architects and facilities managers will be radically redesigned. These professionals will not be focused on creating and managing space. Their emphasis will be more on enabling or facilitating work. Architects will approach their challenges from a different point of view - not primarily looking at space, but primarily looking at work.

Within a house, every room is designed for a specific purpose - either as a kitchen or bedroom, and so on. Each is customised for optimised functionality, so offices will not be designed simply as open spaces anymore. Rather, each space will be designed to support specific work-related activities. Specialists in human resources will have to be fully aware of these changes in order to guide their organisations in choosing what's best for them.

Conclusion

The future of jobs and work is exciting, new and challenging, and very eventful. However, visualising the possibilities and preparing for them may help reduce anxiety.

Those individuals who will best cope with work in the future will be those who make a concerted effort to change. And what precisely do they need to change? Most important, for embracing the future, it will be essential to change attitudes and behaviours, to engage in self-directed learning and to recognise adult development as a lifelong endeavour. All this will be needed to meet the tsunami of changes ahead, and all that the vagaries of economic turbulence will introduce.

Cruise & outports schedule

vessel Port Date

GATEWAY SHIPPING

Oasis of the Seas Falmouth 14/05Navigator of the Seas Falmouth 15/05

JAMAICA FREIGHT & SHIPPING

Seaboard Sun Montego Bay 13/05

LANNAMAN & MORRIS

Carnival Glory Ocho Rios 13/05Carnival Magic Montego Bay 14/05Carnival Victory Ocho Rios 19/05

SEABOARD JAMAICA

Seaboard Sun Montego Bay 13/05

SEAFREIGHT JAMAICA LIMITED

Vega Saturn Montego Bay 18/05