The Essence Of The Concept Future Of Work

’Future of work’’ has appeared in literature as an attempt to identify ongoing changes and trends in conditions of the workplace on individual, organization, and industry levels (Stoepfgeshoff, 2018). Over the past 30 years, the industrial society has experienced a shift towards an information society and the growing importance of knowledge and ‘’science-based’’ businesses (Landry et al., 2005). Technological advancements towards telecommuting have also changed where we live and work. With recent advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, about 47% of jobs in the USA are at risk of being replaced by computers (Frey & Osborne, 2017). This essay aims to establish the possible changing nature of gender equality, job skills, and remote working in the future of work.

The information technology revolution is driving a vital shift in human civilization towards a “information knowledge society”. Over the past decades, computers have substituted a number of jobs, including the functions of bookkeepers, cashiers, and telephone operators (Bresnahan, 1999) and by 2030, up to 375 million workers may need to change their occupations (Mckinsey & Company, 2017). This technology advancement has compelled firms to improve their performance. In order for an organization to successfully compete in the future, innovation is regarded as an important driver in inventing new visions and enhancing a firm’s competitive advantage (Torchia et al., 2011). The organizations will focus more on recruiting highly educated people to bring in creative ideas. As Arie De Geus (cited in Steers & Osland, 2019, p. 4) stated, “In the future, the ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage”. The recruitment process would no longer require characteristics like physical strength which was the typical dominant characteristic men had over women for recruitment in manufacturing factories in the past. Job selection will be based more on the mind and intelligence level. As technological advancement will cut manual jobs and will create new jobs that will require high skills to complement the tasks performed by cognitive technology (Wilson et al., 2017). This will create competition for both men and women to get recruited. The idea will also promote a creative class of workers and a possibility in improvement towards gender equality. According to Terjesen and Singh (2008), gender diversity will have a positive effect on innovation, create a more diversified knowledge pool and improve decision making.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming part of our daily lives in the form of driverless cars, automated online assistants, and virtual reality experiences. Technology will provide new job opportunities that may require an advanced set of skills from workers (Liu & Grusky, 2013). Cognitive skills, both foundational and higher order, such as critical thinking, problem solving and analytical skills will be key for learning to perform more complex tasks in the future (Heckman & Kautz, 2012). These kinds of high skills will be more recognized in professionals like doctors, scientists, and engineers who fall under the low risk of automation category (Bruun & Duka, 2018). Emerging technologies will support these jobs (Ra et al., 2019), for instance, advancements in bioresorbable electronics, that can be placed in the brain, will aid doctors in measuring the temperature and pressure within the brain. Innovation in technology will advantage high-skilled workers mostly but will disadvantage low-skilled workers as it will substitute them for repetitive tasks (Chang & Hong, 2013). In other words, the polarization and inequality between low and high skilled workers in the workplace will further intensify as certain classes of workers in the population will be disproportionately affected by AI and automation. In the future, we could potentially see an increase in the demand for non-routine cognitive jobs growing faster than jobs requiring routine and manual tasks.

Digitization has enabled companies and their employees to communicate more quickly and to work from remote locations (Mamaghani, 2006). From the 2008 National Study report, over one-eighth of workers are allowed to work from home (Galinsky et al., 2011) and experts estimated that about 1.3 billion people will be working virtually in the future (Johns & Gratton, 2013). It will become easier for organizations to find talented people around the globe and focus on establishing virtual teams. This will allow them to benefit from dispersed pools of skillset to meet the demands of competitive business environments through “working separately but together” (Zuofa & Ochieng, 2017). Going towards the digitalization age, 92% of generation Y (people born between 1980 and 2000) prioritize flexibility when selecting a workplace (Deloitte, 2014). Working from home provides more flexibility in work-life balance (Russell et al., 2009), and reports a higher level of job satisfaction (Hill et al., 2003). However, low-skilled workers performing routine tasks will have not have the advantage of such flexibility in their working arrangements (Currie & Eveline, 2011) due to the nature of their low technology-focused jobs such as construction work and caretaking. Therefore, they will struggle more in finding a work-life balance which can lead to an increase in mental illnesses.

It is harder to predict how the “future of work” will look. PWC (2019) has described the world in 2030 in 4 different scenarios: “The Red World: Innovation Rules, The Blue World: Corporate is King, The Green World: Companies Care and The Yellow World: Humans Come First’’. It seems the future of work may rather be more complex and unpredictable with regards to knowing whether organizations or humans will benefit more from technology innovation or not.

To conclude, “future of work” will involve more advanced technology and flexibility in the workplace. This will more likely benefit high-skill employees in balancing their work-life and may also benefit organizations in achieving their goals quicker. However, technology will eliminate more manual jobs in the future which can negatively impact low-skill employees, and this may lead to a higher unemployment rate. To reduce the income inequality gap in the future, organizational leaders may need to create prospects for new jobs as well as future opportunities and promote staff to develop a positive perspective on learning to reskill and upskill to propel them through their working lives.