SKILLING
GENERATION Z
Instead of obsessing about
automation-related job elimination, the focus should be on making Gen Z
adaptable for an uncertain future, writes educator Yogini Joglekar
Families traditionally use the post-Board examination hiatus to
help children prepare for college and beyond. How should we prepare Generation
Z, born between 1995-2005, so that they are futureready?
At my children’s school pick-up recently, there was an animated
conversation about the futility of taking speed-math or language classes when
machines are overtaking us in speed and accuracy. Talking to a friend in the US
that same night, I learnt of her decision to home school her children aged 8-14
years, so they could pursue their interests: an online antique coin business,
sketching with emotional intelligence, and social media influencing.
On the one hand, we face fears of automation eliminating jobs as we know them.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma has pronounced, “Teachers must stop teaching knowledge.
We have to teach something unique so that the machine can never catch up with
us.” To offer some consolation, an Economist report concludes that human
obsolescence in the workplace will take anywhere between 100-200 years.
› CHANGING WORKPLACE
Technology has become a must-invest skill to prepare for the
changing workplace: witness, for instance, the mushrooming of coding and
robotics classes in the past three years. However, we need to fundamentally
reimagine our conception of work as well. Employees of the future will have to
be adept at managing machines and people, be rigorous and innovative in
researching for the future, need to see patterns in huge amounts of data, and
find fulfilling ways of utilising the greater leisure time generated by automation.
Instead of obsessing about automation-related job elimination, why
not focus on making Gen Z productive and adaptable for an uncertain and dynamic
future? Here are some enduring, transferable skills that might be worth
building:
• Experiential problem-solving:
The massive data unleashed by automation would require a keen ‘big
picture’ awareness. Gen Z could hone critical thinking and complex
problem-solving through activities such as hackathons. They could also develop
a continuous learning mind-set and connect theory to practice by participating
in more hands-on experiences such as internships.
• Judgment: We need to equip the next generation of
employees with the ability to question and analyse technology developments
through a philosophical and ethical lens. They will need to grapple with
questions such as: Does placing decision-making with machines (for example, in
driverless cars) conform with acceptable human codes of conduct? Gen Z will
bear the burden of ensuring that humanity is still at the centre of full
automation. GANESH CHANDRA
• Imagination:
The world is not just flat; it is 3-D, augmented, and virtual.
Technology is connecting countries and continents, personal and professional
spaces, real and digital existence. Gen Z, growing up playing with AR
(augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) through devices such as Xbox, will
now need to reimagine work and living environments as consumers and creators,
employees and managers. Along with the technical skills needed for AI
(artificial intelligence), AR, and VR research and implementation, we need to
nurture art, design, music, and language skills that will connect diverse
spaces in compelling, innovative ways.
• Communication: Soft skills such as persuasive
communication and authenticity through story-telling will also be important,
given the hold that social influencers continue to have on our market trends
and product development. Even though Gen Z-ers are adept in virtual worlds,
they often struggle with ‘real’ communication and treat diverse channels of
communication with the same degree of informality. This creates an opportunity
for them to learn content generation across diverse (real and digital)
channels, focusing on the right register and tone.
• Empathy: Robots cannot (yet) use multisensory stimuli to
make emotional connections – Alexa or Siri’s off-themark, repetitive humour
being a case in point. To balance Gen Z’s digital dependency, we should
continue to provide them opportunities to develop empathy, for instance,
through involving them in community projects. Indeed, the top 10 skills list
from a 2016 World Economic Forum report includes people management,
coordinating with others, and emotional intelligence. These will be
particularly important in a multi-generational workplace skewed to youth and
machines.
Source
| Times of India | 12th 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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