Lauren Cerino Presents on Future of Work at NEEBC Annual Conference
by Adam Felts
AgeLab researcher Lauren Cerino gave a presentation on the future of work at the annual conference for the New England Employee Benefits Council, a professional organization for employee benefits and work professionals in the Northeastern U.S.
Cerino’s presentation focused on themes related to how demographic shifts as well as technological innovations are changing employees’ experiences and expectations of work and retirement.
People are working longer and having more career transitions, creating needs for more career training and development throughout working life.
Workers are increasingly likely to provide care to an older adult, creating tensions between roles as a caregiver and as an employee.
With longer lifespans, retirement has elongated to a multi-decade phase of life that doesn’t necessarily portend exiting the workforce, making planning more complex and involving more than just saving money.
AI tools may portend a new industrial revolution, especially for workers who rely on creative and cognitive skills for their jobs. Many workers are already independently experimenting with AI, along with some companies, especially in the tech sector, implementing such tools formally into their processes from the top down.
Cerino offered three lessons for her audience in light of these trends.
First: know your people. With changing lifespans and lifestyles, and a different landscape of work, upcoming employees’ needs will be different than those of prior generations.
Second: Design with flexibility. With complexities such as family caregiving and retirement no longer meaning the definitive end of work for everyone, offering benefits and flexibilities that allow workers in different situations to balance life and career is more important than ever.
Finally: AI is here and already changing many people’s work lives. Finding ways to empower workers with these tools, rather than replacing or degrading their labor, is a signal challenge of the new technological era.
AgeLab research with MassMutual, Transamerica, and Bank of America helped to inform Cerino’s remarks.
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