10 People Predictions for 2024

So it's the end of 2023 folks and it's time to make 10 people predictions for 2024. Everyone, it's Anthony Ernesto. This is my Burn the Box drop yearly predictions episode and our last episode of Burn the box in 2023. We're talking about 10 people predictions for 2024. So here's the 10 predictions and I'm going to dive into each one of them. Number one, more with less. The year of efficiency will continue in 2024. Number two, autonomous agents everywhere all at once. Nod to the number three. More AI less AI. Number four. Data, data, data. Number five or the times they are a changing again. Number six people metrics SEC will let them be. Number seven HR gets bored. Number eight, remotely experienced. Number nine. Wink, wink, nudge nudge. Number ten now hiring. So let's go into each one. So number one, more with less. The year of efficiency will continue in 2024. We saw companies like Meta get rewarded for being more efficient. Now what does that mean? You cost. This is a new world, folks. It's no longer grow by any means necessary. You now have to manage both your growth and your cost. And that's what Meta did. And you could see they're up. Their stock has been up all year. This is a whiplash. This was investors saying grow by any means necessary. Now saying you must grow and be profitable. But it's okay. It's back to business basics. And so what can we expect in 2024? The same thing. We're going to see more efficiencies. We're going to see hopefully interest rates continue to decline or start to decline. Some quantitative EAs and that could follow a pendulum swift switch or swing back to blitzscaling. Probably not. I think growth and profitability are here to stay. It's our, it's, it's where we are today. Until again our short term memory loss kicks in and we're blitzscaling again. Hey, Meta. Number two autonomous agents everywhere, all at once. It's a nod to that really fun movie. I thought it was fantastic. If you haven't seen it, highly recommend over the break. Imagine you wake up tomorrow and there's 30 LinkedIn messages. Messages say, hey, we want to talk about, talk to you about an opportunity at our company. We believe your experiences could be a wonderful addition to our growing company. By the way, check out our latest thinking and if you're interested, let's set up time with our VP of recruiting. Now imagine those 30 messages were sent to you by AI autonomous agent 2024. It's coming. The note, the conversation, the connection, all completed by autonomous agents without any human involvement. Yes, autonomous agents everywhere, all at once. So that's prediction is that AI is going to move from LLMs, which are really, really cool, but pretty simple in terms of just the way you think about it. They're absorbing content and then spitting back that content based on a chat conversation. What I'm really excited about and I've talked about before is this idea of autonomous agents where organizations, if you see above year of efficiency, need to do more with less. You're going to start seeing a lot of the tasks that people are doing that are monotonous, that can be automated, start to be autoing. So it's automated. So it's not just about recruiting, it's about everything that is done manually that can be automated. So absolutely, in 2024 we're going to see autonomous agents everywhere, all at once. Number three, more of less hr. Watershed moment in hr, which has been around for decades by the way, was chatgpt it all. It came from the curtains into front and center as a consumer application. It's the fastest growing consumer application. And so we are still going to see more and more HR AI. But what you're going to see specifically in HR is a concentration of AI. We're just getting started with LLMs, but I think it's going to be all about the focus of AI. Now in 2023 everyone was talking about AI. In fact, in Q1 2023 we saw the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing AI on earnings call in over 10 years. So as the more H I, H I, the more AI infiltrate, that's hi, it's the AI and HR combined. AI infiltrates our lives. We're going to see more of a focus and with the LLMs, I think that's going standard. We're going to start really looking at how can we take AI to the next step, what's our differentiation? So I focus on proprietary data and use cases is going to be essential and something that we're going to see. So we're going to see more powerful applications, AI applications in 2024, but much, much less of them. And that is in spite of the GPT store coming out in 2024. Number four, data, data, data. Well, there was a movie Cary Grant was in, Only Angels have Wings, where he's been misquoted saying Judy, Judy. Actual line is hello, Judy, come on, Judy. Judy, now, now, Judy. So Grant never said the words Judy, Judy, Judy. So there you Go some information. But anyway, like years prior, it's all going to be about data, data, data. Especially in HR and AI. Professor Gallery talks about data being the new oil. He's absolutely right. Especially when it comes to people data. The amount of data we are collecting these days, these digital breadcrumbs we leave anytime we send a slack message. That's metadata of a connection from me to you, this podcast, you listening to it, all this data we're providing, we're going to have such rich data within organizations and we're going to be able to see our organizations for what they really are versus our perception of them. Now what's going to happen here? And there's. We're going to have to think differently about the data we're looking at. We're going to be looking at certain things. Like there's this really interesting report identifying latent activity behaviors and lifestyles, using mobility data to describe urban dynamics. And that's all in the blog post. There's a link to it. There's going to be a more significant focus on data people down in 2024, but we're also looking at some of the laws that are coming out around privacy. We see a lot in Europe and we're going to see it here on the coasts. All right, so we're. We're down with four. Here's number five. It's for the times they are changing again, a nod to Bob Dylan, who poet poetically sang for the times they are Changing in the song of the same name. The song was a powerful anthem for social change in 1964 and warns against clinging to the past, urging people to accept and embrace inevitable sweeping through society at the time. Well, let's think back. 2020, 2020 with COVID remote row by any means necessary period of 2024, the roller coaster ride of 2022, the economic headwinds in tech and the correction of previous years. In 2023, the times they are constantly changing to change up Bob Dylan's lyrics. So the one constant in business is change. And what happens is change happens in months versus years or decades. Now with AI, we're going to see more and more change coming through. So in 2024 we're going to see the continued acceleration of change within organizations. The organizations that once plan three to five years ahead will plan three to five months ahead instead and have in fact multiple scenarios for each plan. Organizations really need to be agile, employees need to be resilient. Change is happening and it's happening quickly. In fact, McKinsey and co did a study that that found that organizations with high levels of and agility were 20% more likely to outperform their peers during economic town downturns. The times, they are changing again. Here's my next prediction. Human capital metrics have been talking a lot about this. The SEC will let them be. I think we're going to start seeing more and more requirements in SEC reporting for human capital metrics. Eminem raps in a song without me. It was more about the fcc, not the sec. But the rhyme works. So SEC will let them be. I am predicting that will be continued efforts to have mandatory human capital metrics reported in SEC filings. Right now it's only headcount and even that is questionable. So we're going to see more human capital metrics being pushed and required by the SEC for public companies. That's going to filter into private companies. And there's a lot of people working on this, academics, practitioners. We're really seeing a drive on what I thought, what I think is equivalent to the gap policies of many years ago. We're starting to see that particularly in human capital. And you know, HR leaders talk a lot about burnout these days or wanting a seat at the table. That will automatically happen once we start reporting these statistics. Once we start reporting these analytics. Investors will see the correlation of people programs to business results and say, what are you doing for your people? Who is leading your people or HR function? What are they doing and how much ROI can we get out of this? That is what's going to happen. People. More of these things will push this profession into the spotlight and having that seat at the table. Be ready, folks. It's coming with that. My next prediction is HR gets bored. And I spelled bored B O A R D. So Sam Altman probably heard about this. Fired. Hired at Microsoft, hired back at OpenAI. If there was an HR person on that board, would this have changed? I don't know. I think there would have been discussions around, okay, what happens when you fire CPA CEO? Do you know that this CEO is beloved by their employees? And we're also seeing really a dynamic of capital versus labor when all of these employees said, hey, if he's out, we're out. It's really an interesting time to be in human capital at this, at this point. And I think if you count the fact that there's going to be more SEC reporting required, HR is going to start getting board seats. Boards are going to need HR people or people with HR backgrounds on their boards because frankly, the biggest challenge that boards talk about in surveys. Guess what? Is people. You're going to need an HR person. So I am predicting the movement now. It's only 3% of Fortune 500 boards have a person that has HR experience on them. That number is going to go up and I think you're going to start seeing, especially if we start seeing some of the SEC reporting, more HR people being asked to join boards, it'll change the structure of boards a little bit, but I think that's going to happen, especially if you can connect human capital to the business very, very linearly. So next prediction is remotely experience. Are we hybrid? Are we remote? When Zoom CEO said, hey, everyone's got to come back in, we all were like, hey, hold on. The company that actually created the ability to go remote is now calling people back in. Maybe we should do the same. Well, the copycat, copycat activity that happens in tech and in business, it happens all the time. So if you're doing it, maybe I should do it. Or if Google's doing it or Facebook is doing it, maybe we should should be doing it. But people don't ever really look at and say, is this right for our company? Does this? Should we be doing this? So with the in this space where we have endless things to measure, the remote hybrid office decision is often based on someone's gut. You'll hear things like, I think we need to bring folks back into an office. I think people are not being productive at home. Or one of my favorites is if I can't see them, they're not working right. With many companies taking a talent from any anywhere approach during COVID and even post Covid, what does that even mean to bring people back into an. So I think we're going to see continued focus on how to figure out remote office and hybrid. And I think there's going to be some really creative thought around this in 2024. In our space, in our profession, instead of using these gut decisions or what we know to be the truth, data is going to play an important part of this. What is the data saying? If we're looking at, if we are able to look at mobility behaviors in urban settings, what can we do with some of the people data we have in organizations? Are we being productive? Are we being successful? If that's the case and we're remote, why we thinking about an office space? And sometimes an office space does happen, but maybe it's not an office space. Maybe it's something different. I do take a bet. I predicted that augmented reality is going to Be a technology game changer like AI it is going to be. Never was VR, never really loved the fact that I was putting on something and I was in some other world, but if I'm putting on something, but I'm still in this world, but I'm augmented. I think Apple's Vision Pro, even though it's going to be a first edition and there's going to be bumps in the road, this is going to set the standard for the new remote employee. Trust me, when this version 2 or version 3 comes out, this is going to be almost as standard issued during onboarding as the MacBook. That's my prediction. That might be post 2024, but that's my prediction. My second to last prediction is wink, wink, nudge, nudge. This idea of nudging is going to be prolific in organizations. We're always nudging people. Please get clean your room, bring down your clothes to our kids, right? This is. And Monty Python actually had a really funny sketch sketch where they talked about nudge, nudge, wink, wink, right? Nudge, nudge, wink, hey, hey, hey. In this prediction, the nudge nudge will be systems that send notes and alerts that push us to complete specific tasks within our organizations. Did you fill out your survey? Did you fill out your employment review? Did you do this? Did you check in with your employee? It's going to learn if you have an Apple watch, sometimes it tells you to stand up. Or if you're a member of peloton, hey, why don't you take Ali Love's new class? It's going to look at the data of how you operate and nudge you. Hey, you didn't send this email or you haven't responded to this person. So nudges will become a commonplace, especially in learning and development, where I think nudges become really, really critical. You're going to see something like, hey, it's going to pull from your calendar and say, hey, I see that you have a sales meeting next week. Did you take that close the deal training that we just offered? I also see that you're presenting in the company's all hands in a couple of weeks. Do you want to brush up on storytelling with data? It's going to be able to look at all of the activities, look at the training opportunities and nudge you. So nudges are going to become pervasive. My last prediction or number 10 now hiring. Yeah, I know this one was a hard one, but frankly, this year has been odd. Hiring, not hiring, freezing, layoffs. I think despite a Slight uptick in unemployment in 2023 from 3.61 to 3.83. We are going to see historical 10 year. We are seeing historical 10 year lows in unemployment in the United States. You can also see I'm a fan of Peter Zion, where the end of the world is just the beginning is his look at the world and the demographic changes that are happening. Gen Z actually represents a lower total population than Millennials. So you have a lower population of employees coming in. Gen X is low. Millennials is the largest one. Boomers are retiring. Gen x is only 19.6 of the population. So if you look at demographic challenges, we're going to be hiring, we're going to be in a labor shortage and I think we're going to continue to see record unemployment now. Doesn't take into account any automation or AI. I think we're still nascent there. I don't think it's taking away jobs, it's taking away tasks. But demographics will play an essential part in future economic challenges across the globe. And by the way, when I talk about demographics, these are people both producing robots potentially. You saw Amazon announce some robots recently that could be production, but people have to consume those goods. As far as I know, robots are not consuming any goods. So there's going to be some economic challenges around these things and and read Peter's book and watch his posts and you'll learn a little bit about the demographic challenges. We're going to see continued job growth. We're potentially going to see a possible acceleration again see above, interest rates are going down. Maybe there's quantitative easing that happens. People might be in a better position to start investing back into companies and building their labor forces. And I expect to see the vacant number of leadership level roles increase in the future. So it's going to be very specific manufacturing jobs. If you look at the Chips act and the demographic challenges happening already in China, some of the challenges in India, we're seeing a lot of manufacturing coming back to the US you're going to see jobs in manufacturing continue to increase. So as a soft economic landing, manufacturing shifts and demographics will have most companies hanging up a sign that's read that reads now hiring in 2024. Those are my 10 people predictions for 2024. What do you think? What do you think I got wrong? What do you think I got right? Let me know. Let us know in the comments. Appreciate all of you everyone. Have a wonderful, healthy and happy holiday season and we'll see you in 2024. Remember what we love to say here is don't think inside the box. Don't think outside the box. Burn that box. We'll see you next year.