The Industrial revolution has created more jobs than it has destroyed. According to the future of jobs report, the fourth industrial revolution will create 133 million jobs and destroy 75 million jobs by 2022. Almost 40% of the workers in the US are already associated with the gig economy and the remote work trend is gaining momentum thanks to this pandemic. Talent gap in the technology and cybersecurity industry is at all time high with 10 million unfilled vacancies.
The shift is so drastic that only a handful of businesses and managers are prepared for it. In fact, only 9% of human resource executives think that their employees are ready for the future of work. All this has forced managers to create new processes, adopt new recruitment strategies and upskill their employees.
How can you prepare your employees for the future of work in such a situation? The short answer is by knowing the key drivers transforming the future of work. In this article, you will learn about seven key drivers which are reshaping the future of work.
Table of Contents
Technology
Did you know who will destroy most of the 75 million jobs by 2022? Automation. Many businesses are reducing their reliance on human resources and embracing automation. JD.com is using robots to operate its warehouse, which only has five people. Ericson and Tesla are shifting to fully automated factories. According to a software development company in Dallas, this trend will continue.
Piotr Wieniawski, founder and managing director of DB77 Consulting and inventor of DBR77 highlighted the benefits of automation when he said, “Automation of the company’s production processes can increase profits by up to 20% and even today, more than 50% of technical activity performed by people could be done by robots of various types.”
Thankfully, technology will compensate for all these job losses by creating even more jobs. New job roles will continue to emerge as 5G goes mainstream. Mobile payments and ecommerce will also give businesses more opportunities. Cloud platforms enable users to collaborate and communicate with anyone, from anywhere at any time. Cloud computing models offer flexibility and support for the gig economy. Billions of IoT and wearable devices will be tracking our activities, giving businesses access to valuable customer insights.
Process
Did you know 70% of digital transformation projects fail? Did you know why? Because most businesses have fixed processes that do not work when it comes to digital transformation. If you want to digitally transform a company, you need agile, knowledge intensive and data driven processes. Agile processes allow businesses to quickly make changes to their teams, tasks, and goals.
The pace at which businesses are evolving demand for a flexible model that enables businesses to manage processes, projects, and people more effectively. This will also make traditional organizational structure out of the window where people work in hierarchy. Instead organizations will have to adopt a new structure which allows them to operate in a constellation of teams working towards achieving a common goal.
Culture
Sharing his experience from IBM, Louis Gerstner said, “I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.” Even though most CEOs agree with Louis but very few of them are satisfied with the current state of their corporate culture.
Everything from your data driven processes, diversity, technological advancement, demographic changes, and talent shortfall will directly or indirectly have an impact on your organization culture both in the short and long term. As the remote work trend take-off, we might see organizations switch to more flexible cultures. Even employees will prioritize the organization culture before choosing their next company.
Here is how you can improve your organization culture:
Set an example for others to follow
Always be open to change
Get everyone onboard
Take feedback from employees
Bring continuous improvements
Business Model
Digital transformation will not only impact your business processes it will change your entire business model. In short, this means that it will change the way your business operates. Talent Alpha, a human cloud platform uses talent to match technology teams with enterprise clients. They have acted as a bridge that connects hundreds of thousands of IT specialists with thousands of service providers. Changing demographics along with other factors have forced a shift in business model. Businesses that adopt to this change thrive while businesses that don’t will fail.
Infrastructure
Unanticipated events and emerging challenges are forcing organizations to make infrastructure changes, whether it is changes to office ingratitude or hardware infrastructure. With more and more millennials joining the workforce, businesses must do a little extra to keep them engaged at work because of their poor engagement levels. They will have to create a multi-generational workforce and make excessive technology transformation.
Office real estate market and HR will have to change to deal with this. Employee wellbeing will be the focus. Career paths will evolve too and will become more sophisticated with many different twists and turns. Companies that offer employees choices, enrichment, flexibility, and a great working experience will have a bright future.
Futuristic Skills
The global talent shortfall will only get worse but that is not the problem. The main issue is that we have a shortage of workers with the right skillset. With AI taking care of most mundane tasks, employees will have to acquire skills that AI can not replicate to stay relevant in the future.
Employers will also demand skills such as empathy, critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, leadership capabilities from their employees. Employees who lack those skills can easily be replaced by AI and lose their jobs. The pace at which the workplace will evolve in the future will make skills go obsolete much quickly. This means that employees will always have to stay in learning mode and continue to learn new skills that are in high demand.
Policies
As technology continues to transform every facet of business, we need guidelines and policies to protect individual identity, privacy, and employees’ rights. Policy makers will have to create policies that offer protection to employees. They should also evaluate the impact technology can make on organization decision making. Create policies that promote equality and freedom while curbing inequality and rigidity.
Which is the most important catalyst transforming the future of work in your opinion? Let us know in the comments section below.
Author: Muneeb Qadar Siddiqui
Muneeb Qadar Siddiqui is an expert in digital marketing from a renowned custom software development company named Branex USA. Cricket, reading and fine dining are among his hobbies. He has impeccable research skills in the field of custom software development and digital marketing.
