The future of work revolution begins one machine or robot at a time...
- DICE18332603
- Dec 28, 2018
- 10 min read
Updated: Dec 29, 2018
Machines that can pack shelves! Robots that can care for humans! Printers that can print a 3-D artefact at the click of a button! Who would of thought any of these things could be possible 50 years ago!
Machines are becoming the master of our conveniences yet the enemy of humanities purpose and future...... With all this technology replacing the need for humans in the workforce, the question arises "what we must do to make ourselves relevant in the future to adapt to the digital world of work that we now live in?".
On the 4th of December I attended the second conference for my DICE module, the "Get Digital!" conference. Luckily i was seated with a view which i was pleased with! There were 3 core topics we could choose to write about, these being:
the future of work
digital transformation
privacy trust and governance
Each brought exciting food for thought to the table, However, to me, the future of work was the topic I found most engaging and had most interest in. In fact I had an upcoming group assignment due titled "the future of work for the graduate of 2021/2022" so i had prior research done on this topic and was excited to learn more! In fact, the aspect of listening was more enjoyable than just reading report after report and journal articles galore! We've all done assignments before! We know it has to be done but it doesn't mean it makes the learning fun!
View the clip here!
The future of work, Its global!
Mark kellett, CEO of Magnet networks opened the show with interesting and different views regarding the future of work. Sticking with the digital theme, "Get digital! go global!" was the catchphrase he cleverly used. The topic of globalization is often overlooked with regards to the future of work because who thinks about markets when there is cool things like robots and AI to talk about am I right? However the importance of globalization and how its shaping our future career paths should be a cause of interest in our generations minds. Some may question whether globalisation has anything to do with the digital world and what it means for us just like i did when he began to talk however my questions were soon answered.
According to IPPR, no one sees Ireland as the economic success story it was held up to be 10 years ago(“Technology, globalisation and the future of work in Europe | IPPR Reader,” n.d.). With new technology such as skype and other telecommunications on digital platforms making it all the more easy for businesses to venture into other foreign markets, the future of work is changing. Magnet networks is a telecommunication service providing broadband to many different countries so what better man but their CEO could there be to teach us about globalisation in digital form!
From what he told us, the future of work does not lie in domestic markets solely anymore and not just in english speaking countries! Asia, USA, the tribes of the jungle even! Asia for example has a population of 4.463 billion people yet many businesses are unwilling to explore such a large market due to the language barrier. However, The markets one can now reach is every market in existence if you choose to! The future of work depends on an open mindset to learn and explore. Although the majority of people associate technology with negatives regarding our future careers, Mark highlighted the vast amount of opportunities that can also arise for us if used to its optimum performance.
Thanks to the advancements in the digital sector it seems the world will be our oyster in future years! The business opportunities that will arise from being able to create a network with other foreign businesses are endless. Magnet networks have increased their locations around the world they serve from just one in 2011 to 87 locations this year and guess what! All these locations will need workers! With the trend of globalisation on a rise it seems that opportunities will be plentiful to work abroad which is something I have always dreamed of! Different languages will be a huge advantage to a graduate in the future world of work to adapt to these changes and is now something I plan on improving. The world of work is becoming a highly skilled, multilingual place and to these factors it has been recognized that i must adapt.
However with all this talk on technology being discussed, I found it very interesting that at the very end of Marks speech, the mention of people skills and building relationships was still suggested to be a key skill in business in the future. Whilst technology is aiding all these developments for our future in work, our use of it in our everyday lives is making our people skills almost non-existent. As mark said "people buy from people" and for businesses to thrive, there is no point being able to access all these new exciting markets and being unable to engage with its potential customers! Although technology enhances what we can achieve in future, according to OECD “soft skills” (E.g. communication, teamwork, adaptability skills) will be all the more important to workers in future (OECD, 2017).
Mark Kellett did an excellent job of giving us tips and a vision of the aspects of a future of
work we can look forward to that will be full of options and opportunities rather than focusing on what to fear due to these changes. His positive and optimistic attitude gave me hope that what is ahead of us in terms of making a career may not be all that bad as it is sometimes made out to be!
lets talk about the robots!
Siobhan O'Shea from CPL future of work institute brought to the table what we all wanted to hear about..... THE ROBOTS! Personally, I find the aspect of robots walking among us and replacing the jobs of humans frightening..... there is something about the fact that machines can now do our tasks and do them even more efficiently than us that makes me feel uneasy but this is what the future of work seems to be coming to! According the the WEF future of jobs report, "employers in the Financial Services industry are most likely to signal the planned adoption of humanoid robots in the period up to 2022."(“The Future of Jobs Report 2018,” n.d.) however, the fact that most robotics being used were likely to be stationary slightly put my worries at ease... for a short while at least! Until I realised that technology is a threat to how our jobs will work in future and we will only survive if we learn to adapt!
When Siobhan put up on the screen on stage the types of jobs we probably would have wanted to be when we were ten, the common jobs appeared such as a teacher, doctor, a bus driver and so on. Pretty common jobs for the average 10 year old to pick! I thought back to when I was young and what I wanted to be and believe it or not I wanted to be a post woman and follow in the steps of my grandfather. I pondered upon that choice I made back then and how it would of planned out now. If i was to be a post woman right now how long would my job last?. When the next video played and stated that todays college students have never licked a postage stamp I was given my answer..... We get 50+ emails a week and no one bats an eye lid but in this day and age our youth is actually excited to receive a letter because it is such a rarity. I think that pretty much sums up the technological world we are living in today and the changes that are taking place....
Digitalisation is causing both challenges and opportunities regarding what the future of work holds. Automation is on the rise and people have to adopt life long learning to keep up with trends and be "relevant" in the world of work. With technological unemployment on the rise and routine jobs being replaced by machines on a daily basis, I think we hold valid reasoning to be worried about what our future holds for us! Take for example the amazon robot who can pack shelves in the warehouses, and the robot that empties the bins in the childrens hospital in Liverpool. These were once jobs done by humans and if these robots become a large scale production think of the unemployment it will cause! I know the cost cuts, efficiency and productivity of these robots are of benefit to businesses but from a moral point of view these machines don't need a wage to feed a family or put a roof over their head like us humans. It is a serious cause for worry what may happen with automation advancements in future but with every negative comes 2 positives it seems!
It has been stated that “tasks that are not eliminated by automation are often complemented by it” (Gruen, 2017). I found that this statement gave me hope for whats to come. As siobhan accentuated in her speech, more jobs are being created from new technologies and we must prepare for the jobs that do not yet exist. Although roles are being eliminated by automation, new jobs are being created that we must up skill and adapt to filling to survive in the upcoming future of work. Pre-existing Jobs are changing and we must keep up. Where the postman once only delivered letters, the robots in the amazon warehouses are stocking the shelves preparing for the vast amount of online orders that are going to take place. While emails are replacing letters, post and delivery men are kept in jobs delivering packages ordered online! Where kids once wanted to be football players they now have an interest in coding from school and want to be software developers! Where the factory workers use to make the clothes but now make the machines that make them! This is the world we live in today!
Adaptability to the technological changes seems to be the key to success and along with that comes the increased opportunity of flexibility for workers in future. With trends such as the "gig economy" and working from home being enhanced by technology which was highlighted by Siobhan, we are given something to possibly look forward to. As she said "aslong as you have wifi, you can work". However, whether this is a benefit could easily be argued....
As a whole, we are recognizing our opportunities to become free lance workers and the fact that we are now capable to pick who, when and where we will work when we want. According to the future of work report published by PWC, 46% of HR professionals expect at least 20% of their workforce to be made up of contractors or temporary workers by 2022 (PWC, 2018). As a woman I find this aspect empowering. I am career driven yet also want to have the opportunity to be a mother in the future and I feel the flexibility of working from home will allow me to master both at once which in the past I imagine would have been difficult. Its nice to hear a trend that benefits a woman in the workforce rather than the often unjust trends more commonly known to you and I.
In my opinion, Siobhan gave the most accurate perception of the future of work. She did not hide the fact that their may be negatives we must face upon graduation and did not paint an idealistic picture us but still, she managed to ensure us opportunities are out there for us..... we just have to make sure we're "relevant" in the world!
Job crafting is the way forward!
Between AI and robots, it is now a certainty that our jobs are changing but as Siobhan joined the panel discussion the point that was made most evident to me was that it may not be all that bad!
The panel consisted of Edel conway of DCU, Andreea Wade, CEO of opening,io, Ester Valle, IBM talent program manager and digital sales manager and again the Lovely Siobhan O'Shea. I often enjoy the panel discussions as they are much more engaging than listening to an individual ramble on! We get enough in some of our lectures! Each brings a different view to the table which allowed for more to ponder upon after the chat.
The term "Job crafting" used by Edel after her discussion with Andrea was something that caught my attention. As Andreea explained, AI and robots should not be feared but should be seen as a convenience in our lives. Automation allows us to exclude the tideous jobs and makes time for us to do what we like to do. In our day to day lives, Automation allows us to have the time to relax or do hobbies as the machines do our chores for us which we all can see as a benefit! We all picked the washing machine over the hoover because it required less human effort when asked in our Dice lecture! and Fortunately, it seems automation may allow us to enjoy our jobs more in future too!
Automation is allowing us to get rid of the aspects of our jobs we might not particularly like and frees up time to put all our efforts into the aspects we do. We can make our jobs what we would like them to be which I thought was pretty cool! I'm the kind of person who gets bored easily and likes to be able to get creative from time to time and sometimes I worry I will end up stuck in a 9-5 office job doing the same routine every single day with no room to express myself so as you can assume, when Edel explained how automation will allow us to customize our jobs and maximize our time and our opportunities to be creative in our jobs I was most pleased. As siobhan said, make sure to follow our passions! Therefore, Automation most definitely has its upsides it seems in the future!
Upon leaving the conference my views for the future of work had definitely changed. Where once I feared the robots I now realize maybe they could be seen more as helpful friends. I realize the importance of adaptability to change as the world of work seems to be full to the brim of it! I am happy to hear of the opportunites available to us in future and am aware their may be many challenges I may have to overcome on the way but thankfully, the future of work is looking to be positive! That is only if you're willing to commit to continuous learning however....
With that being said i put an end to this blog.... I'm off to learn how to make robots!
Big thanks to all the speakers, not just the future of work speakers but the others too (list and clips of other speakers below). You guys we ace! and to all the people who made the GET DIGITAL! conference happen. Can't wait to see what in store for GET STARTED! in 2019!
but for now, thanks for reading!
~ DICE18332603 :)
Other speakers:
videos of other speakers:
references:
Digital Transformation - Robert Mulhall, Managing Director at AIB - Get Digital 2018 - YouTube [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8y5TCdUOLo (accessed 12.28.18).
Future of Work- Siobhan O’Shea at Get Digital 2018 - YouTube [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGxvQ_37tF0 (accessed 12.28.18).
Gruen, D., 2017. The Future of Work 33, 3–8.
Mark Little - Privacy, Trust & Ethics at Get Digital 2018 - YouTube [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkLE1UeiAEg (accessed 12.28.18).
NOVA PBS Official, n.d. Meet the Robots at Amazon.
OECD, 2017. Going digital: The future of work for women, in: The Pursuit of Gender Equality. OECD Publishing, pp. 269–282. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264281318-26-en
Panel Discussion - Privacy, Trust & Ethics - Get Digital 2018 - YouTube [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuALSHZyARw (accessed 12.28.18).
Smart cities in India: Embracing the opportunity of urbanisation [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://www.information-age.com/smart-cities-in-india-123474005/ (accessed 12.28.18).
Technology, globalisation and the future of work in Europe | IPPR Reader [WWW Document], n.d. URL http://ippr.org/read/technology-globalisation-and-the-future-of-work-in-europe#european-labour-markets-in-the-coming-decade (accessed 12.21.18).
The Future of Jobs Report 2018 [WWW Document], n.d. . World Economic Forum. URL https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2018/ (accessed 12.6.18).
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