This Is Not the First Issue of the New Millennium - Brief Article

Despite the hype, the T-shirts, ball caps, even sequined New Year's Eve gowns (with "2000" in contrasting sequins) bearing witness to the end of the millennium, there's still a year to go. You know the story: The current calendar started with year 1, not year 0. So the new millennium starts with 2001.

But it is a new year. And beginnings seem to require predictions.

The first prediction is easy: If you're reading this column, then the Y2K bug wasn't much of a problem for you. Or at least it didn't disrupt the Postal Service and its transport system. (If you're reading it in a dark, unheated office that you had to walk up 23 floors to reach, it's possible that the Postal Service was the only thing not disrupted.)

More serious predictions come from The Futurist, the publication of the World Future Society. Here, with my comments, are a few that will affect HR:

* By 2010, bio-monitoring devices that resemble wristwatches will provide wearers with up-to-the-minute data about their health status. Will this development lead to new privacy concerns? It likely will prompt new regulations on how employers can conduct job interviews. In addition to the questions you aren't supposed to ask under current regulations, it also may be prohibited to sneak a look at the applicants "watch."

* Tiny electronic microchips implanted in a person's forearm could transmit messages to a computer that controls the heating and lighting systems of intelligent buildings. Will that signal an increase in workplace disputes? I don't know two people who can agree on what a comfortable temperature is.

* The twenty-first century could see widespread infertility and falling birthrates. In other words, the right labor market probably won't get any better.

* The number of centenarians worldwide will increase from 135,000 today to 2.2 million people by 2050. Interestingly enough, in the year 2050 I will turn 101. It's a shame Willard Scott probably won't be around to display my picture on the "Today" show.

Elementary school children in Doveton North, Victoria, Australia, recently got into the prediction act when they were asked for their views of the future. Here's what they see ahead for business:

* In the future anything that you want in your office will be there at the push of a button. But where's the button that will clean this mess off my desk?

* There will be more jobs because people will create their own from ideas they get off the computer. We won't have to wait for the future to see that. Can you say "Internet start-up"?

If you want to see more predictions from the Doveton North kids, they're online at mag-nify.educ.monash.edu.au/DovetonNorth_PS/. And if you have any predictions of your own, send me a note at [email protected].

COPYRIGHT 2000 Society for Human Resource Management
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group