-: If you look at the entire discourse
on the future of work
over the last decade,
I personally found it rather dystopian.
I don't think at all that that's the future.
(techno music)
What we did at the Henderson Institute of BCG
was really trying to understand where employers
and employees stand today.
And specifically not the privileged,
highly skilled people,
but the majority of the workforce.
We wanted to understand if gig working is a bad
replacement for a full-time job.
We actually found in midscale workers,
you don't see that these are dispirited people
who believe technology is a threat
to their personal work lives.
That part of the workforce, on average,
tended to be happier;
on average, looked towards the future
with even more confidence than their peers.
If you look at industries that have very
high shares of robotics, of automation,
the German car industry,
we haven't seen mass unemployment amongst
automotive manufacturing talent in the past decade.
But we have to be cognizant of the fact that
the skills that large parts of the workforce
have to acquire at much more rapid pace.
What are the skills that our workers,
and employees in general,
will have to acquire to work alongside
and in collaboration with machines.
That, I think, will be the lot trickier question
than just saying,
"Okay, I have a replacement mechanism."
So, what that means for employers, I think,
is a much broader view where you source your talent
and it also means that you have to think about
how you develop and retain and foster
your talent in a very different way.
I believe what companies will have to do is get a lot
more systematic about first
understanding which skills they will need in the future.
Simply, you could say,
you could "foresight function."
Some of those skills of the future,
I can hopefully hire on the open market,
but a lot you will want to develop the talent you're having.
It means CEOs will have to make the talent agenda
a real core of their excom [executive committee] discussions.
(techno music)
Overall, I am very optimistic
because the last decade has shown you that
so many new jobs and professions have emerged, right.
We're asking for so many skills today that
we didn't even know existed a decade ago.
I see no reason why that should be different
in 10 or 20 years.