Future of work

Just a few months ago, everyone said that the future of work was going to be completely digital. This terminology describes the changes in the way work should unfold over the next decade, influenced by technological, generational and social evolution. The pandemic has had a powerful impact on online work environments and, as a result, has spurred a more rapid shift toward the future of work. The coronavirus has fundamentally changed every aspect of business today, and the development and spread of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) will influence labour drastically.

According to a 2020 study by the Society of HRM and Willis Towers Watson, “85% of the jobs in 2030 have not yet been invented.”

There’s not much information generated as it should have been up till now on the importance of knowing about future jobs. There are various components that experts have described in the models explaining the future of work but mostly agreed are the three cardinal elements to take into account.

1) Whom do you think does the job? Those day-and-night or part-time employees, on-demand workers, or externalisation? In this category, the provision should apply to the organisation of workers within and outside an organisation. Eventually, those changing skill requirements will be possible through technological advances. Employers must prepare for new jobs and career paths through continuous employment analysis, advanced training and re-qualification of the workforce. Perhaps a collaboration with the education systems and government aid can create pools of workers with the needed skills based on projections.

2) How was the work carried out? It draws attention towards involving employees, collaborating with automation and AI, to get the job done efficiently and innovatively. With an emphasis on replacing workers, forward-thinking employers will harness the power of this man-machine relationship to increase overall productivity, commitment, and creativity for their employees.

3) When and where will the work be achieved? It involves a collocated workspace in which all those who are working will benefit from instant feedback cycles and the ability to hold impromptu meetings, which means they can resolve misunderstandings more quickly and speed up the pace of early deadlines. Remote workers who work from a place other than a central office operated by the employer can have fluid schedules where an individual task may allocate a fraction of a processor for any given span.

Adjustment to telework and emergence of virtual work environments require us to modify such changes. By 2030, workplaces will establish personalised solutions, wellbeing, and an emphasis on culture, self-reliance and inclusiveness. In the US, roughly 1.5 million jobs will go obsolete because of robotics. Workers will lose their jobs due to automation. These stumbling blocks have resulted in CEOs waking up at night to make such decisions that will enable their businesses to thrive now and plan for the future.

The majority of jobs seem to disappear within a decade. For instance, the increase in digital payment options is a threat to registered employees, and a combination of bots or robots will make the future. With the growth of smartphones and e-readers, the whole production process of newspapers went out of business. Travel agencies are being superseded by numerous travel websites. They will tell you to wait for a purchase if the price may go down later or encourage you to buy earlier if the price can rise. Google Books and like-minded companies seem to outperform librarians. Social media will become more and more embedded in the lives of workers.

Therefore, there is evidence that cloud computing, blockchain, coding, AI, social skills, emotional intelligence, creativity, agility and analytical thinking are the skills in demand for the future. According to a source, 60% of total working hours are currently being covered with human labour and the remaining by machines, emotional intelligence, or via computation. In the future, more than 65% of companies will depend heavily on automation to perform data processing, information retrieval, HR and transmission, and other jobs needed in the future of work.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 28^th, 2022.

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