Are you worried about a new world of work?
By Bill Greenhalgh
Hardly a day goes past without a new study warning of “jobmageddon” – new technologies, robots and machine learning eliminating 20 or 40 per cent or more of today’s employment. Every report is valuable and useless at the same time – they are similar enough to indicate that the world of work will change; but they are different enough to cause not just confusion but paralysis.
It’s a bit like predicting that an asteroid will hit the earth. We can be sure it will happen at some point, but when? What will the impact be? What should we do about it?
Most of the current research deals with these questions, at best, peripherally. They also miss some critical issues.
First, there haven’t been multiple “Industrial Revolutions,” there was only one. It happened in the mid-19th century and it was all about the application of technology to our “muscle.” What we are seeing now is an Intelligence Revolution, the application of technology to our “mind.”
Second, the Industrial Revolution created the whole idea of a “job” as we know it today. The Intelligence Revolution is systematically disaggregating what a job is and that is evident today in the growth of the gig economy, contract work and portfolio careers.
Be absolutely clear about your core business. Misunderstanding this is the biggest threat to (and, in many cases, opportunity for) the organization.
Third, technology changes happen much faster than social acceptance of those changes. There is little or nothing that affects our lives in a significant way that hasn’t been around for a decade. Airbnb, for example, dates back to 2008 and as successful as it has been, even today, it represents less than half of one per cent of the hotel industry. The first self-driving vehicle came from Daimler-Benz more than 40 years ago and drove 1,000 km from Munich to Copenhagen in standard heavy traffic at speeds up to 130 km/h with minimal human intervention.
Fourth, they miss the elephant in the room. New technologies do eliminate jobs through automation; but many more are lost because new technologies eliminate companies. In 1973, Kodak had 120,000 employees. Today, they have 6,000. They were so “invested” in recording the Kodak Memory™ on film that they ignored the industry-changing impact of digital cameras.
And fifth, at worst, they imply that there will be a net loss of jobs and raise the spectre of mass unemployment. At best, they offer vague suggestions of the types of new jobs to come. The reality is that technology and automation cut costs, increase incomes and, inevitably, demand for new services and products and new jobs. This has been ongoing for hundreds of years and while we may not know precisely what new work will appear, we can be confident that it will. In 1800, the global population was around 1 billion; today, 7.6 billion humans inhabit the planet. If new jobs had not been created, there would be billions unemployed.
However, the most critical question missing – like worrying about an asteroid hitting the earth – is “what should we do about it today?” This is an issue that goes right to the heart of what HR professionals do. It’s about people strategies; leadership; talent management; education and training; organization development; employee engagement; and counselling business partners.
To quote Bob Marley, “Don’t worry about a thing, ’cause every little thing gonna be all right.” However, this is not a prescription to sit back and do nothing, but a reflection of the fact that whatever happens, it will not be tomorrow or next week. Through thoughtful planning and creation of effective strategies, organizations can make sure they are prepared for the future.
There are four actions that companies – and HR professionals – need to take today and they need to be integrated and systematic:
- Be absolutely clear about your core business. Misunderstanding this is the biggest threat to (and, in many cases, opportunity for) the organization. Kodak’s business was not “film,” it was “recording memories;” newspapers are not in the “printing” business, but “information delivery.”
- Track technology changes that may impact your organization. Disruptors will come from outside your industry, so it is vital to make sure someone in your organization is tasked with this.
- Based on the understanding of your core business and the implications of changing technology, define your skills and talent needs two to three years out, audit what currently exists in your organization to create a gap analysis and put specific training, development or hiring plans in place to meet your needs.
- Identify your organization’s current products and services and assign each to one of three categories – those you will selectively discard; the ones that you do today and have to be done as efficiently as possible; and those that you need for the future. This is based on work by Vijay Govindarajan and offers a methodical way to ensure you future-proof your organization.
In summary, there will be changes to every job – what a job means, old ones will vanish and new ones will appear – but this has been happening for generations and the future will not be fundamentally different. In technology, we all suffer from “macro myopia” to some extent – overestimating the impact in the short term and underestimating it in the long term – and that means we either do nothing or panic (and, effectively, do nothing). Above is a recipe for a middle ground that makes more sense.
Bill Greenhalgh was the CEO of the Human Resources Professionals Association from 2006 to 2017, and is currently the president and CEO of Stratx Inc. Attend Greenhalgh’s presentation at #HRPAAC, “The Intelligence Revolution – A New Age of Opportunity,” on Jan. 31 at 3:00 p.m.