Are you prepared for major transformations in the workforce? In working with various business leaders, I’ve observed three converging forces that are changing the nature of work: a shift in workers’ expectations, demographic shifts and the acceleration of automation.

Together, these converging forces provide businesses committed to exponential growth with an opportunity to achieve significant goals (such as increased profits and marketplace impacts) and better engage their employees (who want to elevate their skills and find more professional fulfillment).

Three Converging Forces: An Overview

But first, let’s take a step back and examine the three converging forces.

1. A Shift In Workers’ Expectations

First, recent years have indicated that workers’ expectations have changed. The Great Resignation, which I like to refer to as The Great Exploration, showed that people were willing to quit their jobs, often without having other opportunities lined up. This was a sign of how frustrated many workers were with the status quo at many workplaces, which arguably traces back to the scientific management approach. The scientific management approach is rooted in “improving efficiency through systematic study of tasks.”

Workers who participated in The Great Resignation had various motivations. For instance, a Pew Research survey revealed that the top five reasons U.S. workers quit a job in 2021 were inadequate compensation, limited career progression prospects, disrespectful workplace treatment, challenges with childcare and limited ability to determine their work hours. The findings of this survey don’t surprise me. I’ve observed that many people nowadays want flexibility to integrate the many facets of their lives and responsibilities; they don’t want to work at the expense of their other priorities, such as ongoing learning and health.

2. Demographic Changes

Demographic changes are the second converging factor.

Many adults today realize that they don’t want to retire and disengage with the outside world completely. According to AARP, a survey the organization conducted in 2023 revelead that 82% of “nonretired adults view retirement as a time to work in some form at least for a while.” In the words of Dr. Howard Tucker, a neurologist who is over 100 years old, “retirement is the enemy of longevity.” Additionally, research by Yale University professor Becca Levy has found that positive attitudes toward aging “lead to better health and even longer life — 7.5 years on average.”

Simultaneously, birth rates are dropping, meaning that fewer young people will be entering the workforce in the coming years if the trend doesn’t reverse. Future workplaces are likely to have a higher proportion of older workers. However, those older workers might still have managers who are much younger, which can lead to challenges.

3. The Acceleration Of Automation

Then there’s the third converging factor, the acceleration of automation, which encompasses generative AI and robotic process automation (RPA). The results of a McKinsey study conducted in July 2024 show an increase in companies’ use of AI. In that survey, 78% of participants indicated that “their organizations use AI in at least one business function.” By contrast, 72% said the same in “early 2024.” A year prior, the statistic was 55%.

With time, I believe that AI will become more widespread, and in turn will impact the workforce in three main ways—changing some jobs, eliminating others and creating new ones altogether.

The Value Of Synergistic Alignment

The convergence of these three forces creates an opportunity for forward-thinking businesses. Through synergistic alignment, business leaders can fuse all three forces to meet both their long-term growth goals and the preferences of their workers.

Let’s define the terms. Synergy results when, as the popular saying that originates from Aristotle goes, “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” For people, it means they are collaborating, mutually reinforcing one another to create greater fulfillment. Alignment takes place when all the elements (e.g., goals, values and actions) are in harmony.

Synergistic Alignment describes the intentional, longer-term process of harmonizing values, actions and strategies in a way that compounds impact over time. For individuals, this means aligning purpose, passion, career, relationships, and time efficiency in a way that continuously reinforces personal growth and fulfillment. For businesses, this means integrating vision, mission, strategy, culture, etc., in ways that collectively create sustained innovation, success and societal impact.

By adopting Synergistic Alignment mindsets, policies and programs, business leaders can unlock greater engagement, retention, resilience and fulfillment on their teams.

When Opportunity Knocks, Open The Door

Many leaders, I’ve observed, focus on these forces separately, rather than all together at once. However, I believe now is the time for leaders to strategically approach all three forces at once.

An effective way to do so? Updating their talent management strategies. As noted earlier, many workers today want careers that enable them to live fulfilling, integrated lives. By expanding their views of time to recognize each person’s limited weekly time and potential multi-decade career, leaders can generate synergistic alignments for their workers, enabling them to develop new skills and innovate. Ultimately, this will help businesses grow.

For instance, consider an assembly-line worker who spends weekends raising millions of dollars to build schools in other countries to educate children. When that worker was hired, the executive team wasn’t aware of those sales and finance skills. However, by having frequent one-on-one conversations and implementing a talent management system where employees can share professional and personal updates, executives can learn how multifaceted employees (like that hypothetical assembly line worker) are.

Bringing automation into the mix can eliminate the need for workers to do menial, time-consuming work, freeing them to pursue more meaningful opportunities at work. This can increase worker loyalty and retention, propelling employees to move up within organizations.

Ultimately, synergistic alignment enables companies to adapt to the changing workplace. If you’re a business leader, take the time to learn what other companies in your industry and adjacent industries are doing, so you can identify their best practices and apply them to your situation. If you start now, exponential growth in the next few decades can be well within reach.