What job is there tomorrow?
We used to eagerly wait for a guest lecture during college days. It was a great opportunity to connect to the external world, away from books. If the guy happened to be an old-student of the college, it was more interesting. There was a possibility to find a role model, a future employer or at least a mentor!
One of the best I liked was when folks who came, painted the picture of tomorrow and described how we may be playing our part in that picture. When I started taking the stage as a guest/ industry speaker I continued the same. Made sure to study, prepare and then together paint a picture of tomorrow – a projection of what we see through the lens of technology advancement and societal impact.
Today’s session was very intriguing. It was comparing all the pictures I had used in last 30 years of working with technology, projected on a picture depicting next 10-15 years.
Interesting facts I noticed, include:
- Across generations, technology advancements have changed the society at large, workforce in particular. Level of intelligence / smartness of people, Wealth of Nations & Individuals, Economic Inclusion & Risk aversion are some indicators of the same.
- Interestingly, every step change in technology has created a lot of new jobs and displaced several of them at the same time.
- Similarly, it has increased labor productivity while widening skill gap at the same rate! Re-skilling, De-skilling, Portability – all are mainstream HR actions today. Average relevant experience within teams in any stream of work is continuously decreasing. Performance appraisals disappearing, attrition getting new definition, employee engagement is short-term focused.
- In almost every country, several highly-in-demand jobs never existed 5-10 years ago. Extending this further, may be over 65% of kids joining school now, may be working in jobs that are not yet defined!
In the current context, projecting and showing future job picture is daunting. But this is a routine challenge for Governments, Industries and Academia. Tracking trends and relating them back to how they impact in short, medium and long-term is critical. Over years, technology is helping here too. The paradoxical nature of technology advancement and societal good is best pivoted around the basic need of employment. Having a tool / dashboard, is very neat. Here is one such wonderful attempt: MyNextMove
Irrespective of a tool, mentor or own guess-work, it is important to stay current and close to changes relevant to our jobs. Investing in “personal” technology upgrades as routinely as that of your next OS upgrade for the mobile phone or computer, is very critical. After sometime, no one will support that, at any cost!
One simple strategy that works for your business, works for you too…
Be close, relevant and significant contributor in your field of work!