getty This article is the first of a 3-part series. Longevity and shifting gender roles have dramatically redrawn the face of workforces across the world. Now the workplace needs adapting, especially in how it defines careers. The Covid crisis and its rapid-fire explosion of how and where we all work has dramatically accelerated the shift towards tech-enabled flexibility. But flexibility isn’t just about hot-desking and work-from-home (WFH). It’s also about the very definition of what the shape of a successful career looks like over decades. The metaphors will need to broaden from the rather masculine heroism of alpine peaks (a la Second Mountain, a book about late careers by David Brooks) to the rather longer view of the multiple rises and falls of a pregnant leader’s stomach bulge (think Jacinda Ardern) – and the ensuing multi-stakeholder demands of a long and generative life. Good transitionist skills will become a key part of the marathon a modern manager’s career is becoming. As the map of our lives morphs by its stretch towards 100 years, the map of our working lives urgently needs a rethink. The still-dominant workplace model of linear, up-or-out, 24/7 career trajectories with standard steps at prescribed ages and stages was designed by (and for) men with wives at home who didn’t work. That marriage model became a minority model some time ago, but the career track it defined still dominates in many organisations – and eliminates an ever-increasing proportion of highly valuable (and often female) talent. A dec… Click below to read the full story from Forbes
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