The Future of Work and the Multigenerational Workplaces and Workforce

Dear Colleagues,

The Future of Work (FoW) is an overarching notion concerned with “drivers, processes, and outcomes of evolution associated with employees, employers, and employment” (Dhakal & Mahmood, 2024, p. 19). This Special Issue follows up on an earlier SI in this journal (Nankervis et al, 2025) that addressed the workforce challenges and opportunities linked to emerging technologies such as AI, cloud computing, and big data. In addition to ongoing and profound technological changes impacting work, skills, and workplaces, there are underlying and emerging demographic challenges. Although the characterisation of generations, such as Baby boomers, Millennials, and Gen Z, is contested (Funnell, 2025), the fact is that generational diversity is broader than ever in today’s workforce (Bailey & Owens, 2020), coupled with pervasive automation in workplaces (Lim, 2023).

The multi-generational workplaces and workforce (MGWW) present FoW-related challenges and opportunities to employees, employers, and policymakers on a global scale. For example, as the average lifespan has increased, people work later in their lives, and the workforce has become increasingly multigenerational.  At the same time, although addressing psychosocial hazards in generationally diverse and technology-driven workplaces is significant, management research has only begun to pay attention to generational factors (Willcocks, 2020; Ratten, et al., 2025).

Ongoing technological and demographic shifts and associated MGWW pose FoW-related complexities for workforce planning and development—the process of determining skills and labour market needs in response to demographic, labour market, and other socioeconomic conditions (National Institute of Health, 2025). For instance, Balakrishnan (2022) contends that “the world of work is evolving with a multi-generational workforce and shifting employment models that offer greater flexibility” (p. 56). On the one hand, a multigenerational workforce enables synergies, with each generation delivering complementary and collaborative benefits to the others and to their workplaces. As an example of this, recent research suggests that employees are more productive when they work with others of a different age (Tang & Martins, 2021). On the other hand, in the context of increasing automation in the workplace associated with the Fifth Industrial Revolution (Dhakal, 2025) and the rise of the flexible work market, employing and managing generationally diverse workers will become demanding for workforce planners and managers (Lewis, 2020). As the FoW braces for increasingly generation-diverse employees (Teng, 2025), the MGWW issue has gained global policy significance in the context of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda, as Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #8, Decent Work and Economic Growth, emphasises the need for decent work for all ages and abilities (Global Goals, 2025). It is in this context that this Special Issue calls for submissions examining various facets of the MGWW. Specific issues within developed, developing, and emerging economies to consider include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Critical strategies for multigenerational workforce attraction, development, and retention in the context of automation and the gig economy at the national, organisational, and individual levels.
• Emerging technologies-induced challenges associated with multi-generational staffing, job design, learning and development, performance management, remuneration management, and career development.
• Equality, diversity, and inclusion issues surrounding the generationally diverse workforce and workplaces.
• Future of Work policies and practices for employers, employees, and employment through the multigenerational lens.
• Generational inequalities surrounding ethical issues and challenges in relation to the responsible use of automation and artificial intelligence, such as biases, disruption, and the technological divide in terms of access and skills.
• Governmental policies, priorities, and strategies on harnessing a multigenerational workforce for sustainable development.
• Human resources analytics to determine the present and future needs of local, regional and global multigenerational workforce and workplaces.
• Navigating workplace psychosocial hazards in generationally diverse workplaces.
• Policy coherence on the education and employability nexus, such as harnessing a multigenerational workforce for the future workforce.
• Sectoral or industry-wide necessities to focus on the multigenerational workforce.

We welcome all methodologies. Conceptual, empirical, policy, and systematic review papers are also welcome.

References

Bailey, E. & Owens, C. (2020). Unlocking the Benefits of the Multigenerational Workplace. Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. https://www.harvardbusiness.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Unlocking-the-Benefits-of-Multigenerational-Workforces_Aug-2020.pdf

Balakrishnan, J. (2022). Building capabilities for the future of work in the gig economy. NHRD Network Journal, 15(1), 56–70.

Dhakal, S. P. & Mahmood, M.N. (2024). A bibliometric analysis of Critical Skills Shortages in the Asia Pacific. In: Dhakal, S.P., et al. (eds.) Critical Skills Shortages in Asia Pacific: Implications for Sustainable Development. (Chapter 2). Routledge, London.

Dhakal, S. P. (2025). Fifth Industrial Revolution and the Future of Education and Employment. Quality & Quantity. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-025-02345-x

Funnell, A. (2025). The danger of generational labelling, Future Tense, 7 February.

Global Goals (2025). 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth. https://globalgoals.org/goals/8-decent-work-and-economic-growth/

Lewis, K. (2020). Technology in the Workplace: Redefining Skills for the 21st Century. The Midwest Quarterly, 61(3), 348–356.

Lim, W. M. (2023). The workforce revolution: Reimagining work, workers, and workplaces for the future. Global Business and Organisational Excellence, 42(4), 5–10.

Nankervis, A., Burgess, J., & Dhakal, S. (2025). Introduction: Human Resource Management Innovation and Practice in a Digital Age. Administrative Sciences, 15(11), 411. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci15110411

National Institute of Health (2025). Workforce planning. https://hr.nih.gov/workforce/workforce-planning

Ratten, V., Nanere, M. G., Cunha, M. P., Fujimoto, Y., Intezari, A., García-Fernández, J., Dhakal, S., Omri, W., Saura, J. R., Lux, A. A., Sajjad, A., Lisboa, A., & D’Souza, C. (2025). Hot management trends. Journal of Management & Organization, 31(2), 420-442. https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2025.6

Tang, J., & Martins, J. T. (2021). Intergenerational Workplace Knowledge Sharing: Challenges and New Directions. Journal of Documentation, 77(3), 722–742.

Teng, L. S. (2020). Bracing for the Multi-Generational Workforce. Management Revue, 31(3), 324–345.

Willcocks, L. (2020). Robo-Apocalypse cancelled? Reframing the automation and future of work debate. Journal of Information Technology, 35(4), 286–302.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Subas Dhakal
Prof. Dr. John Burgess
Dr. Alan Nankervis
Guest Editors

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• automation and gig economy
• equality, diversity, and inclusion
• future of work
• human resources management
• multigenerational workplaces and workforce
• sustainable development