Are Robots Coming for Your Job?
As technology accelerates and hard-skill jobs are automated, we must utilise soft skills to adapt to the changing world of work.
Explainer: Hard skills are objective, quantifiable skills gained through training, revision, or experience. Soft skills meanwhile, are inter-personal skills such as leadership, communication, persuasion and adaptability.
Digital automation and Artificial Intelligence are an existential threat to a range of professions today, including blue-collar and white-collar workers.
We often associate automation with simple menial tasks. Screwing the tops onto tubes of toothpaste and supermarket check-outs.
Today the list of professions at risk of becoming redundant grows exponentially.
In 2016 a Japanese artificial intelligence programme wrote a short story that was considered for a literary prize.
In 2022 AI and Generative art has exploded into mainstream media. To the horror of many, this year an AI-Generated artwork won first prize at a Colorado State Fair.
Even C-suite are not safe from the firing line. This year Dictador hired the world’s first AI robot as a CEO in a global company.
Yet realistically, robots can’t function without humans. Cutting-edge innovations, tech, and AI are still developed by teams of people.
Digital automation does have a significantly positive effect on job creation.
An article by economist Marco Vivarelli suggests that investments in research and development “not only foster competitiveness, but may also be an effective means of creating jobs.”
A 2011 study focusing on German manufacturing companies between 1982 to 2002 indicated that innovation had a positive impact on employment opportunities.
How Do Teams Change in the Face of Digital Automation?
As technology accelerates, the speed at which hard skills are becoming obsolete is increasing dramatically.
Technological evolution is at risk of becoming a wide-scale digital transformation where employees with legacy skill sets are abandoned to the sidelines like outdated hardware.
Looking back at the pandemic, we saw a huge rise in remote work and the stay-at-home workforce.
So, is it surprising that companies are recalling their workforces back to the office?
According to OnePoll, remote work makes us more stressed. A study conducted at MIT showed that when employees go remote, the work relationships that encourage innovation are hit hard.
A Microsoft study showed almost two-thirds of the more than 31,000 full-time self/employed workers across 31 sectors said that they were “craving” more in-person time with their teams.
Only now do we start to see the repercussions of remote work on teams, and it’s pretty damning. To quote Hunter S. Thompson:
“So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
In the tech sector salaries are lower, costs are being cut and runways are being extended. Companies are looking to streamline and become more adaptable.
An acceleration of hard-skilled automation and remote solutions has revealed the omnipresent value of soft skills within organisations.
In the future, organisations seek IT staff to fill the need for both interpersonal/soft skills and technical/hard skills, according to CompTIA’s Workforce and Learning Trends 2021 report.
Retaining Talent in the Future
Nearly 70% of executives are considering quitting for a job that better supports their well-being compared to 57% of employees. This was reported from a survey by Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence.
Companies know that low employee retention also costs business. It leads to bottlenecks, loss of revenue, and productivity. What can businesses do to combat this?
Interestingly, 63.3% of employee departures are ‘preventable’, according to Workforce Institute’s 2021 Retention Report.
AI may also help businesses with retention. Digital automation has the potential to improve retention by making processes more efficient and reducing the likelihood of errors. This can help to keep employees engaged and motivated, leading to improved retention.
According to CompTIA’s April 2021 research report, 79% of large firms are pursuing initiatives to address the gaps in their workforce between hard and soft skills, amid a tightening market for IT labour. Why?
Teams can use soft skills to increase the effectiveness of technical hard skills. Improving employee soft skills increases productivity.
A study by Boston College, Harvard, and the University of Michigan showed that training in areas like problem-solving and communication increases productivity with a 250% return on investment.
“In the age of digital automation, human creativity is the only differentiator”
– Domhnaill Hernon
It took Netflix 41 months to reach one million users. It took Chat GPT 5 days. Should we be scared?
Some say ChatGPT is ‘the Google 2.0’. Could this humble AI model call into question humanity’s relationship to memory?
ChatGPT can recall knowledge, however, it still does not understand the meaning of the information it can provide.
For humans, the ability to forget is at least as important as recalling. We subconsciously forget as much irrelevant information as possible to maintain optimum efficiency for memory and recall.
In a reality where artificial intelligence has a superior memory to humans, is it an opportunity to outsource?
Programs like ChatGPT can enable users to complement innate memory functions with artificial intelligent abilities. Is this not a process of accelerated evolution?
Humans are complicated self-organising systems at an individual and collective level. The idea that AI is something separate from “nature”, or some natural order of evolution is a very limited perspective of progress.
If we look with creative imagination we can see the butterfly as an evolution of the flower. Or nectar as a high stage of the flower’s life.
If we can view the pencil as an innovation on the hand’s index pointer or a hard-drive as an optimisation of memory, then perhaps we can see AI as extension of ourselves.
Interpersonal and soft-skills like adaptability, persuasion, and creativity are key to finding opportunities in the face of digital automation.
There will be roles for humans in the face of changing organisations.
For these jobs we’ll need imagination.
Fantastic and optimistic outlook on our future relationship with AI and the importance of soft skills within workgroups. Your right, it could be the main differentiator in our future.
Interesting