Jobs doomsday deferred
The machines haven’t taken over just yet.
Arobot is probably not going to take your job. But even if it did, with enough planning from your boss, there should be a new, transformed job waiting for you.
‘‘Think about the internet and the impact that’s had in a short amount of time, but there’s still journalists, right?’’ Centre for Workplace Leadership director Peter Gahan said.
‘‘That’s happening in more cases than not.’’
Gahan, also a professor at the University of Melbourne, would be one of four keynote speakers at this year’s CFO Summit, organised by Fairfax Media (publisher of Stuff) and Conferenz, on March 15.
His research focused on the idea of what makes for high performance workplaces, helping leaders make sense of the environment which influenced their leadership.
The Centre of Workplace Leadership, established in 2013, was initially funded by the Australian Government but was now backed by Gahan’s university.
Its approach to management was based on the premise new ideas or solutions can take between 15 and 20 years to fully flow through.
‘‘We’ve had a fairly good idea of what a good, high performance workplace looks like since the mid-1990s,’’ Gahan said.
‘‘But still only a minority of firms have picked that up.’’
Gahan would talk about the future of the workplace and whether leaders were ‘‘future-fit’’ at the CFO Summit.
He said there was a massive focus on technology and automation and the idea a robot would take your job in the near future.
But Gahan said the discussion had painted a false picture of what was really happening.
Where technology had previously destroyed low-skilled jobs, such as manufacturing, there was now a phenomenon called the skill-biased technological change which meant technology was now creating more low-skilled jobs, and destroying mid-skill jobs.
‘‘So understanding this is very important for how organisations might think about their investments in human capital, workforce development and a range of different issues.
‘‘It’s significant because what jobs look like is changing, but what it doesn’t tell us enough about is how technology is not so much destroying or creating jobs, but actually changing existing jobs.’’
Gahan said the focus on job destruction left us with predictions which suggested half of all jobs which existed today would be gone in the next decade.
But this was an overly pessimistic view.
‘‘We’re still creating more jobs than we’re destroying.
‘‘The doomsday predictions need a bit of tempering, a bit of moderating and I think evidence and research that we do is really around helping people to take a chill pill.’’
Gahan said this framework needed to be kept in mind when companies thought about their workplace.
This was where senior leadership needed to step up, but many were not.
Gahan said he was often amazed by how little senior leaders knew about trends and changes which were often widely discussed and in news media.
Business leaders were not good at seeking advice and often worked in isolation, which meant they were often having to be reactive, rather than proactive to new trends.
Instead, organisations should look to leverage and take advantage of disruption in their industries.
‘‘Try to find examples of companies in their sector that have been innovative and understand how.
‘‘Make sure they’re one step ahead of the game and adapting now, because it will definitely be cheaper, easier, less costly to adapt proactively than waiting to adapt in response to some disruption that might happen.
‘‘There are some scary and, if you like, disruptive and risky elements about what’s happening, but actually there are some incredible opportunities for many businesses in the future.’’
There are some scary and, if you like, disruptive and risky elements about what’s happening, but actually there are some incredible opportunities for many businesses in the future. Peter Gahan
The CFO Summit & Awards take place at SkyCity, Auckland on March 15. To register online visit www.cfosummit.co.nz