Who hasn’t wondered if their role will be replaced by a robot?
As we think about the future world of work, our expectations about what humans will do are changing. It is estimated that 7 in 10 of us are in jobs that we cannot have certainty about. Whether good, or bad, our preparedness for what’s to come matters.
Last week I attended the empower conference at Leeds university. Many of the speakers were talking to the students about the skills they would need to thrive in the future of work.
Were any of these things what they were learning as part of their studies? Are they any of the things that you are learning at work now?
According to Ali Baba Chief - Jack Ma, we need to be teaching that which differentiates us from machines. These things are not knowledge.
Knowledge is freely available. Our trust in it may be diminishing, and so our ability to be discerning may be more important. Technology is rapidly advancing, and our connectedness to each other is changing. How we relate to each other, and our skills in doing so matters.
Jobs in health, care and education are most likely to grow. Jobs in design, creativity and those that require originality of thought are likely to grow. Our ability to understand other humans, and to recognise systems and patterns is likely to be required moreso.
So, what skills do I need?
Nesta and Pearson outline what they consider to be the future skills. These are;
It is clear that what we need as humans are what we call ‘higher order’ and more complex skills. Sometimes known as ‘soft skills’, these can be anything but. Our abilities to see things from another's perspective and to feel empathy is hard. To manage change, and to be resilient and creative in the face of it is hard. To keep learning, to keep thinking, and to be critical about how we are thinking is hard.
But...there is good news. These things are skills, and skills can be learned. How we do so may help us face the uncertainty that the future of work brings, and help us to keep ourselves ready for what may come.
The Space Between offers personal and professional skills development coaching and training programmes. For more information about what we can do, please contact us.