The new year is a rather arbitrary time to do this but it is a useful marker and reminder to think about the future and particularly the next 12 months. So here’s a few things I’ll be keeping an eye on in 2019 (and beyond).

You’ll notice that there’s not much tech related below. 2019 will, I believe, be quite a boring year for technology with many of the developments being iterative rather than disruptive. 

4 day work week

The idea of a 4 day week being standard is not new but will start to take off in 2019 as employees and employers really start taking notice of general wellbeing and most importantly mental health. While it was once ’trendy’ to work 60 hours per week and almost kill yourself along the way the dial is now shifting the other way to more flexible and more productive working in fewer hours, prioritising personal and family time.

A few smaller companies have started experimenting with and trialling a 4 day work week in various guises but I think 2019 will see more and larger companies take the idea more seriously. At first this may be small trials lasting a few months or perhaps seasonally, we could quite easily see companies starting out by working a 4 day week in the summer months for example, just as Basecamp do.
A standard 4 day week has the potential to profoundly change the well being of employees and if the trials and studies are correct they can greatly improve productivity for companies too.

GenZ Workforce

If you thought Millennials entering the work place was difficult for businesses to handle then wait until the next generation, so called GenZ, start getting jobs. Those graduating university in 2019 will have been born in the late 1990’s and those getting jobs straight out of high school born in early 2000s. Many of these new employees will have lived much of their lives with the internet at their fingertips, many have a real sense of wellbeing, a huge understanding of mental health (at least compared to previous generations), and an almost intrinsic belief in equality, inclusion and environmental issues.

For employers this presents a huge opportunity to attract some amazing new talent, so long as they share the same values. Employers who don’t have the right IT, don’t strive for equality and inclusion, don’t have an intrinsic purpose, don’t take social responsibility seriously will all lose out on attracting these brilliant new people.

I’ve been sort of watching this play out a little in the latter half of 2018 and will most definitely be looking at it closely in 2019.

Retail Downturn

2018 has not been a great year for retail with many big name UK businesses going bust. Toys R Us, Maplin, House of Fraser, Evans Cycles and most recently HMV are just a few of a huge number of examples of retailers that have gone out of business in 2018. 

2019 will be an even more difficult environment for not only retail but all consumer focussed businesses, particularly those in the sort of discretionary spending arena such as restaurants and entertainment. Consumers in 2019 will be ever more cautious in their spending as Brexit plays out bu there will be a clear trend though in all of these struggling businesses, they will all be those who have not adapted to changes in consumer behaviour. They will nearly all be those who have a poor online offering and bad customer service such as difficult returns processes and poorly trained and demotivated staff. A shift towards 'direct to consumer’ models will also begin to hurt retailers.

2019 will really highlight the need for continual business change, and that doesn’t mean just sticking in a load of new technology, it means looking at processes and people/culture, making everything as easy as possible for the customer and asking ‘why does this step in the process exist?’ or even better ‘why does this whole process exist?’.

Let’s see how many businesses are ’shocked’ that they’ve gone out of business in 2019 despite not adapting over the last 5 years.

5G Devices

I couldn’t possibly write this and not talk about 5G could I. I wish I could though. Unless you’re a network operator, a regulator or involved in government policy you can absolutely ignore 5G in 2019. There will be 5G phones released by some big names like Samsung but real world networks will be few and far between. For consumers these new phones will provide little to no benefit, in fact they’ll probably be worse that today’s devices but for those operators, regulators and policy people it will give an opportunity to see what is possible in the real world with early 5G, see how consumers react, and see how their new networks operate testing new bits on a small number of keen consumers.