LDS On: Employability and the Future of Jobs

In this episode, LDS CEO Mimi Brooks leads a conversation on the future of jobs as organizations accelerate action on reskilling, upskilling and training for the workforce of the future. These factors become increasingly important as we seek to rewire the global economy as Fourth Industrial Revolution advancements navigate the colossal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Transcript

Welcome to the sixth video in a series of LDS thought-leadership dedicated to the discussion of transformation management.

In each bi-weekly video, we’ll address a topic of strategic interest to business leaders who are guiding their organizations through transformative change.

In this video, I shall focus on the future of jobs as we accelerate action on reskilling, upskilling, and training for the workforce of the future and seek to rewire the global economy as Fourth Industrial Revolution advancements navigate the colossal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So, this is LDS On: Employability and the Future of Jobs. Let’s get started…

The impact of the pandemic of 2020 has been more severe than any other event in global economic history. In the words of Klaus Schwab, ‘the pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable and more prosperous future’.

Along these lines, we believe that despite concerns to the contrary, technology does not have to have a net negative impact on human jobs, Instead, it can help people to be more productive, perform safer and more satisfying work, and ensure employability relative to future work – and I would like to spend a few moments exploring that exciting possibility.

Progressive companies are preparing for a very different future of jobs as technological breakthroughs continued unabated. As we examine digital, on-site, and hybrid workplaces, we must also consider upskilling, reskilling, and training of the workforce to keep pace with breakthroughs in areas like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics. Recently, we have seen significant acceleration of the need for digital skills and online learning tools, as more and more people work remotely. Even before the pandemic forced this transition, the WEF estimated that almost one billion jobs, or a third of the world’s labor force, will be transformed by technology within the next decade.

Given the pace of technological innovation and the growing demand for a green transformation in the workplace, there is a synergistic need for workers to have access to the tools, skills, and financial service support needed for the jobs of tomorrow. The movement towards increasingly disruptive technologies has also highlighted the need for greater gender equanimity, as Alan Blue, the co-founder of LinkedIn points out that females represent just thirty percent of the cloud, data, and engineering working populations. The current situation really emphasizes the need for better informed and larger-scale collaborative action to deliver the future of jobs.

The WEF’s "Future of Jobs Report 2020" suggests that many companies are now prepared to support almost half of their workforce to operate remotely. Should this situation become the norm, an ever-greater focus on human wellbeing and productivity is bound to evolve, as leaders seek new approaches to nurturing a sense of belonging and community amongst an increasingly isolated workforce. The worker of the future will need to be both adaptable and resilient, as rapidly evolving business ecosystems and disruptive global events are likely to continue.

In previous LDS ON videos, we talked about the importance of being able to assign metrics to stakeholder capitalism and making the business case for environmental, societal, and governmental, or ESG, considerations. For instance, we will see governance for the common good increasingly embedded at the core of business transactions, while technological progress is achieved hand-in-hand with considerations of worker wellbeing and prosperity.

Everywhere we look today, we are seeing new ways of working and new worker skillsets emerging. In fact, within the next five years, it’s estimated that the hours of work performed by people and machines will be equal. We also know that the demand for workers in the areas of AI, machine learning, robotics, data analytics, and software development will continue to increase exponentially. For humans, soft skills, like problem-solving and self-management, such as resilience and stress tolerance, will mingle with these hard skills as workers transition into new roles. All of this will require a "reskilling revolution" as companies contemplate the future of jobs.

In summary, 2020 has already seen a dramatic acceleration towards a very different future of jobs. Technological advancements are unleashing human potential and giving us the means to not only upskill the workforce in unprecedented numbers but also to orient displaced workers towards the more cerebral jobs of tomorrow. We will see increased adoption of environmental, social, and governance metrics in concert with reskilling of the workforce.

The opportunity to map potential job transitions is very much on the radar for progressive organizations who can fully grasp those areas of education, learning, and upskilling that will augment human co-existence with the ever-increasing capabilities of algorithms and robots. As business automation gains momentum, processes are digitalized, and remote work expands it is crucial that investment in human capital flourishes and job creation continues to outpace job destruction.

Thanks for watching. You can feel free to interact with us on any of the LDS channels shown below. We hope to see you at another LDS On discussion in the future. Until then, stay safe.