THE WORKPLACE OF THE
FUTURE
What will
the workplace of the future look like? Will it be ruled by technology or
changing demographics? Will we have to be more cognizant about the changes in
work culture? Will robots, chatbots, and artificial intelligence and virtual
reality assistants work alongside the full-time, part-time, contingency, and
gig workers?
What should
we be prepared for, and what should we be concerned about?
Amid these questions,
a certainty looms. Jobs are really not going anywhere. They are just evolving
to the next levels. The question is: How high and different are those levels?
IT IS ALL ABOUT SKILLS, NOT SCALE
Clearly, it
is not about headcount any more. It is all about skills, not scale. This is the
fundamental game changer of the future workplace. Revenue will be linked not to
headcount, but to the right skills. The future will be “scale” for such skills.
From my experience, I am convinced that clients will be willing to pay for
better skills.
GET READY FOR SKILLS ‘UBERIZATION’
Millennials
will rewrite both the demographics and patterns of working. Independent workers
will significantly increase in number. In India, the estimated number of
freelancers is more than 15 million—about 40% of the world’s freelance jobs.
Skills will
be available on demand and connected to organizations by digital platforms. And
if reports are to be believed, even CEO skills are set to be “Uberized”.
The World
Economic Forum’s prediction in its report Future of Jobs says that 65% of
children who enter primary school today will take up jobs that don’t exist yet.
Furthermore, by 2020, more than a third of the desired core skill sets of most
occupations will be those that are not considered important today.
TECHNOLOGY WILL HAVE A PROFOUND IMPACT
Undoubtedly,
rapidly advancing technologies are opening new windows of opportunity across
business lines—robotic process automation, Big Data analytics, internet of
things, augmented reality, machine learning, natural language processing, cloud
and cybersecurity services. The upshot of this is that the bar on what seems
“good enough” will keep constantly rising. In terms of what we call the
workplace (where and when we choose to work, who will deliver the work, and how
we deliver results), there will be profound changes. Digitalization will spread
rapidly, as will automation.
We will
continue to lose routine and repetitive jobs to machines—the ones that require
no human intelligence and skills. We should be happy to let them go for the
sake of increased productivity and efficiency. This is reality and we need to
align strategies, business models and resources.
Most important, we should be upskilling our
people.
SKILL DEVELOPMENT, A CRITICAL IMPERATIVE
Nasscom
asserts that 60-70% of the existing workforce will need to be reskilled to meet
future needs. It is heartening to note that as an industry, we are working
together to create a comprehensive digital skilling platform to reskill 1.5-2
million people in the next four-five years.
Better
collaboration between human resources, procurement, information technology and
legal will help organizations to manage a successful blended workforce.
Developing leadership skills of employees is equally critical. Organizations
need leaders and managers who are ready for the demands of the future.
WORK CULTURE, THE POWERFUL GLUE FOR FUTURE
WORKFORCE
Rewiring the
cultural mindset in both organizations and professionals will be an imperative
for tomorrow’s workplace. Holacracy (decentralized management) could well be
the new operating system to redefine and redistribute control of work
practices.
Employees
need to be given the leeway to act more like entrepreneurs in self-directing
their work. Work-life balance and “work-from-anywhere” are two realities to
reckon with. Security teams need to create secure tech environs with advanced
security analytics and machine learning—and without privacy conflicts.
In all,
exciting times loom ahead. There is uncertainty, and there are challenges, too.
But there are more than enough promise and possibilities for the industry to
look ahead with confidence to the workplace and workforce of the future.
Keshav R. Murugesh is group chief executive officer of WNS Global
Services, member of the Nasscom executive council, and chairman of the Western
Region Education Committee of Confederation of Indian Industry.
Source | Mint @ 23rd February 2018
Regards
Prof. Pralhad Jadhav
Master of Library &
Information Science (NET Qualified)
Senior Manager @ Knowledge
Repository
Khaitan & Co
Twitter Handle | @Pralhad161978
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