The Perfect Job Storm.. Get ready!

Day after day, talents are searching for the best dream job and head-hunting / recruitment organizations are updating databases with long queues of people searching for placements across the world.

The unpleasant fact that the majority of job searchers ignore while searching for their dream job is that a huge number of those jobs will soon disappear due to the large trend in automating jobs and the change in demand for human beings in certain job areas like cashiers, telemarketing, and surprisingly several front-line customer jobs like service officers who are now being replaced by self-service kiosks.

Drivers of the storm

The shift in the job demand is mainly driven by the change in socioeconomic factors across the world and here are few major examples:

1. Income: following the latest global financial crisis, organizations made less money than what they actually planned for and there was a drive to reduce operational costs from various sources. One of the main sources of cost is employment and therefore, organizations started thinking of using machines to replace humans wherever possible. A machine’s cost Vs employee is much more economic on the long term, and sometimes short-term as well.

2. Education: there is no doubt that the number of educated people increases every day, with thousands of people getting secondary and tertiary degrees every year. The key issue in education is the level of practicality in what students learn. “How to apply the knowledge” is much more important than what you actually know. If we compare humans to machines, it is much easier, faster and reliable to install information into a machine than with human beings, and they will repeat the information 100% correct every time. With artificial intelligence, machines also started learning trends and in several cases they where able to adjust responses according to consumer behavior. As AI is growing, education systems need to be much creative in enabling pragmatic learning more than theoretical learning.

Add to the above socioeconomic factors some key changes in the consumer community, and those are:

1. Service time: consumers today are over-whelmed with a long list of events interfering with their schedules and they wish to be served at the quickest possible time. Machines provide a solution to this since they are able to process information at a much faster speed than the majority of service desks (For example, look at bar code readers, they will give you full information about products at a blink of an eye, Vs possible few minutes at the customer service desk), needless to mention the waiting time and queuing time.

2. Availability: The old 9-5 working hours is not an option for today’s customers; they need a 24/7 service. Machines don’t follow labor rules and don’t have unions, they are 24/7 available at no extra cost.

3. Reliability: How many times have you asked service officers for information and they gave you different, some times contradicting, information? Machines will not do this, and they will provide consistent information every single time. Consistency in service levels is key to today’s customers.

So are we as human beings set for early retirement?

The Human Edge …. We still have a chance!

We, human beings, will always have an edge over artificial intelligence only if we follow the route to using those simple capabilities that are currently underutilized:

1. Research, development and innovation: We are creative creatures, but we rarely use those capabilities. Employees who need to secure a job in the future need to focus on their ability to innovate and come up with new ideas to produce products / services for customers in the future. Innovation will remain the top requirement for future jobs and we all need to read, learn, try new approaches and take risks. Pragmatic learning and risk cultures are key factors in enabling learning.

2. Breaking processes! Going the “Extra Mile”: Machines will be consistent and will provide the same service every time, but they will not break the program and do anything extra that is personalized to the customers (at least for now, until AI uses big data in profiling customers).  If you wish to secure a future job, ask yourself what extra achievement do you help in bringing to work? “Just doing your job” is not good enough for the future.

3. Emotional intelligence: That’s one edge that humans will always have over machines, and one of the rarely used edges! In the Guardian’s report on the future of automated jobs, “Mental Health” came at the least risk with a 0.3% chance of automation. A very much needed skill for today and tomorrow.

It’s a moment of truth for all employees today … if you “just” do your job, don’t care about your customers loving your work, don’t take risks, don’t read, learn and try to do what you do better, then unfortunately you will not survive the storm. You might not have a job in the future regardless of the nature of your job .. Automation is coming to replace people rapidly.. We do have a chance, but we need to change the way we do things ..

Unless you are a psychologist or plan to be one, time to rethink now!

Written by:

Engagement Expert, International Speaker & Pragmatic researcher