We’ve frequently used hockey icon Wayne Gretzky’s phrase, “Skate to where the puck is going next” to describe where technology and trends are headed, so as we face a return to work, school and life as we know it, let’s do a roundup of where we see some vital “nexts” that firms and candidates alike should be skating to (or at least preparing to skate to).
The Next Zoom: Augmented Reality
By now, many of us are using videoconferencing technologies such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams all the time on a global basis. How can we not, really? What comes next is the answer to this question: What will take the Zoom experience to the next level to be even better? We certainly know that Zoom has its flaws. If the bandwidth is not there, an echo or “frozen” screen may occur. It’s also not the greatest to have multiple people talk simultaneously and hear each other.
Enter augmented reality or virtual reality.
There is a fair amount of chatter that Apple is developing new technologies in the augmented reality space. It appears as much as 20% of the employees at Facebook are working on virtual reality projects too.
As these advancements come to fruition in time, it’s essential for you to take the temperature of how much your team is currently working remotely. The more you’re working in that kind of environment, the more reliable tools you’re going to need to work at the highest level of productivity and efficiency when communicating.
So, as we move to augmented reality, virtual reality, a Zoom with a much higher bandwidth and more, pay close attention to how these applications are moving more of the things you’re doing to the next level of progress. At the same time, note how these applications are pushing the things you may be doing in person to a technological platform for remote communication as well.
The Next Definition Of Remote Work: Out Of State Or Out Of The Country
There’s no doubt that many companies are having a serious conversation about how they will return employees to work. As they do, we’re seeing the de-coupling of work from location. One year ago, we might have thought of remote work as working from home 45 minutes away from the office. That definition is rapidly changing and likely expanding.
Prior to this point, wherever your job was, that was where you would live. Or, for most people, the idea of moving typically was because that was where a job was. Now the mindset of “job” equating to “location” is about to change radically.
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Talman Advantage #9: A Smoother Transition Into The New Environment
Thanks to close rapport with senior managers and relationships with clients that have lasted for many years, Roy Talman & Associates has the in-depth knowledge of a firm’s work atmosphere that few can bring to the table.
As a result, we can often provide guidance on what to expect from the culture you’re about to join, which hopefully makes your integration into that environment all the more seamless.
Make your first days in a new role better than you ever expected by talking to Talman first.
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We can see significant changes happening sooner rather than later where people who haven’t been to an office in the last year will be residents of other states or even other countries. Business owners once thought, “Well, I have my customer base here, so I need to be here.” That is no longer the case.
During the pandemic, while you were working remotely, you couldn’t go anywhere. You couldn’t even investigate where you should go. Everything was frozen in place. As the pandemic restrictions have eased, people have begun asking, “If I am working remotely for the rest of my life and all I essentially need is a computer and solid Internet connection, where do I want to live?”
Expect to see deeper discussions of the logistics and the technologies to make remote work even more, well, remote. The speed of our technology should surely only help. This brings us to our next “Next.”
The Next Broadband: 1GB
Everything we talk about in relation to remote work has to involve a component of bandwidth for broadband. For communications, 10MB used to be the measuring stick for effective broadband. Those days are over. Now we’re considering 1GB to be the appropriate bandwidth for broadband.
The more we deal with bandwidth-hungry applications such as Zoom, the more we see that while it can technically operate at 5MB or 10MB per second, it’s so much better at 100MB per second.
The Next Remote Worker: Code Writer
Not every industry will automatically and naturally be remote-oriented. Surgery, for example, is still likely going to be done in-person as it takes too much effort, time and cost to do a certain percentage of surgeries truly remotely.
On the other hand, writing software code could, in time, be 30-40% more remote, if not more, than it currently is. Between the rising cost of living in places such as California and high taxation issues, don’t be surprised to see code writers look to move beyond state lines to have the life they want to go with the work they do. For example, let’s say you’re in California writing code for a company. You love the mountains but hate the cost of living you have to put up with where you are. What do you do? You might look at a state such as Utah for the mountains and better cost of living as opposed to being in California. You have work and life on your terms while still being just one time zone and a couple of states away from your company headquarters.
We’re keeping a close watch on coders to see if this potential move becomes a reality. The seed of working from home has been planted from actually doing that and many tech companies appear open to the possibility that up to half of their workforce could be remote. And for those who don’t need to be physically in an office to perform their work, it could represent a brand new world.
Your Next Career Move
Let’s say you’re working in a company dealing with older technology and platforms designed in the 1990s (or earlier). Some updates are in order. Yet, none are coming, so this is what you have to use at your job, which is less than ideal.
This puts you in a position where you have to learn on your own to stay ahead of the accelerating pace of change to have more career options down the road than fewer
That’s precisely where your drive to open up new options should inspire you to Talk To Talman First.
Roy Talman & Associates’ vast knowledge of the technical opportunities before you can be an excellent guide on those roles that are an ideal fit now and the ones that may require a bit more training for proper alignment. Consequently, you don’t have to operate in the dark, wondering when the perfect moment will be for you to leap into a new chapter in your career. We know the “Nexts” in technology, financial trading and more – as well as the companies that are going beyond talking about change and actually moving toward the next era of their growth. If you want to get serious about change in the next era of your career, that’s a conversation with us worth having today.