COMPETITION DETAILS

The Context

As the Baby Boomer generation retires and makes way for Gen Y Leaders, the work place is experiencing `a collision of value systems’. The new employee is cynical about tradition, structure, hierarchy, loyalty and other organizational designs/patterns, and is paining to reinvent this or her professional life. They are gaining more and more control of how they want to work, what motivates them to perform, how they perceive growth, how they interpret reward systems and the ownership they feel for the organizations they represent. They are an emerging community of `my world first citizens’; they are empowering themselves with management approaches that defy current language yet successfully, if not more successfully, deal with the same business problems. These are the innovators who demand a paradigm shift that HR experts must deliver, these are the diverse work teams and globally mobile employees that organizations must learn to manage strategically.

Phase 1: The Workforce  (Open Competition)

Introduce us to the person of 2040: what are their values, what motivates them and what are they looking for to fulfill them in their careers? Describe in detail who these people are and how they live. Where do they come from? – Their backgrounds, education and families. What are they looking for specifically in their careers and what are they willing to do to achieve these goals?

Phase 2: The Workplace (Top 25 are invited to participate)

Based on the values of future employees, as described in Phase 1, what will the workplace look like in 2040? Where will people conduct business and what will the features of these locations be? Will there be special amenities specifically for employees? – What might they be and what is their significance? Geographically, where will offices be located? What advances in technology will transform how people conduct business? Predict the social, economical, technological and cultural changes that will occur over the next 30 years and how these forces will shape the workplace. Give reasons for these predictions based on current trends and forecasts. 

Phase 3: The Work Systems (Top 10 are Invited to attend Finals in person)

This is where management skills will come into play. How will you manage the workforce and workplaces of the future to have them work together? What systems will need to be in place to take full advantage of your company’s human capital? How will you attract, retain and motivate your employees? Design an effective, innovative plan to govern all aspects of employee relations, from recruitment to benefit packages. Link your plan coherently with your visions from the previous two rounds, and justify your practices with research that proves how plausible your system is. 

Finalists in this phase will be asked to give a compelling presentation of their visions to a panel of judges during the Closing Ceremonies.