How technological advancements rapidly change the world of work and how businesses and employees can learn to adapt.

With a multitude of change agents in our society, our economy, and our workplace, the speed, and frequency at which we experience change is constantly increasing. The world population is growing, and more people participate in existing systems and infrastructure. Meanwhile, traditional time and space barriers are dissipating, leading to rapid globalization. Exchanges amongst people multiply, no matter where they are. Technology is enabling new advancements with the potential to make human work redundant. Thus, the potential to outmode a variety of existing jobs and change a multitude of the remaining ones is a genuine possibility.

Interestingly, technological changes are combinatorial and exponential, increasing the speed of change. Take, for example, Moore's Law, describing how the number of operations that run on a computer chip doubles about every 18 months - something human beings cannot achieve. For us it is impossible to compete with a system that is improving exponentially.

Imagine a packer at Amazon is processing 20 packages an hour. Imagine now; a robot is brought in and tasked with the same job. The human can try to pack faster to stay competitive with the machine, sure. But, what happens when the robot is able to process twice the amount of packages in one hour? There is no competition. If the robot handles 40 packages an hour, packing faster doesn't do the trick anymore. Of course, the packer can offer to work for half the salary, and this may buy some time. Once the robot is processing 80 packages per hour, it's pretty easy to see an end to what is viable for any employee.


Human-Machine division of labor

The same way the robot competes with the Amazon packer, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and digital platforms will compete with specialized employees. Every repetitive task has a probability for automation. Nearly all skilled jobs contain such tasks. While most of us would be happy to eliminate tedious work, (this is where it gets tricky) we don't want to lose our jobs altogether.

Digitization and digital platforms improve efficiencies across industries, reducing the need for a variety of administrative assistants. Algorithms can learn how to do a variety of tasks better than a human might, in just days. It's easy to feed AI with twice the data and run it on computers twice as fast. Artificial Intelligence is already outperforming doctors at analyzing x-ray scans for anomalies. It outrivals lawyers at checking contracts for errors and is outpacing Portfolio Managers with superior, automated financial investing.


All of this suggests that we are on the brink of renegotiating the human-machine division of labor. We must focus on what we do best and let technology focus on what it does best. Algorithms and machines can form a great team with humans; by providing input and support to enhance human work.  

With tedious, repetitive tasks eliminated, we can focus on the remaining tasks, or learn how to do new things with the output of automated tasks. The important lesson is to avoid positions that would result in direct competition with automation. When you compete with a horse, don't try to outrun it, learn to ride.

Accelerating change requires accelerated adaptation

In the age of industrialization, companies were mainly working in relatively stable organizational environments focused on optimization efforts. Innovation was driven and controlled from within the firms.

With the rise of phenomena like Silicon Valley, innovation increasingly started to occur outside of existing corporations. Ongoing globalization supported an unbundling and outsourcing of tasks. This led to extensive sourcing networks, and drove a division of labor and specialization on a scale the world had never seen before.

Companies with the right perspective can now grow with incredible speed. The time it takes a company to reach a billion-dollar market valuation is continuously decreasing. Interestingly, the number of years a company is staying in the top ranking of successful companies in the S&P 500 is also decreasing.

The biggest threat from change is when it outpaces our speed to adapt. For a company, this likely results in a decline, or in demise. For employees, however, technologically induced change can be more severe. Life can dramatically change when tech disruption doesn't bankrupt just one company but forces all companies with a similar business model out of business.

Once a technological change has rendered an industry superfluous, employees must look into different job sectors, making a more significant part of their work experience irrelevant. Even worse, should they be rendered irrelevant. Politicians and Sociologists ponder the implications of an army of "unneeded" people giving voice to their dissatisfaction. We all should. 

Structural adaptation as a reaction to increasing change requirements

The way onward is paved with change and adaptation. Companies as well as employees have to learn to adapt, and they have to adapt faster. It’s true; machines do some tasks better. Humans on the other hand are capable of great change if we choose it, and so are the systems we use and methods we are willing to apply. The willingness to learn and apply something new, paired with the possibility to do so are crucial requirements.

Both companies and humans must react to change swiftly and confidently in this new landscape. Couple a growing number of change agents with a centralized governance model, and at some point, it becomes apparent that keeping up with the speed of change will not be possible.

The faster the change, the quicker and more precise a decision must be. Ideally, the organization becomes organic, acts in smaller steps, more frequently, gets more feedback, needs less top-down decisions, and is, therefore, becoming more agile. This leads to flatter hierarchies, where people are empowered, there's more transparency, and everyone has more information. As a result, motivation and incentives have an increasing influence on the outcome.

Often new employees are hired for particular skillsets aligned to a position. Unfortunately, the value from such a fixed skillset diminishes with change over time. The higher the rate of change, the more value a company will gain from adaptable employees.

Consequently, the management approach and culture will have to change. Charles Handy, an Irish philosopher and economist summarized:

"Whereas the heroic manager of the past knew all, could do all, and could solve every problem, the post-heroic manager asks how every problem can be solved in a way that develops other people's capacity to handle it. "

It all starts by developing the right mindset. Subsequently, the Workforce of the Future must be enabled to learn how to solve problems on their own.

With all the right intentions in mind, it would be a grave mistake to expect things to fall into place upon a decision. Some revolutions take time. A change in company culture will not create perfect results. Instead, it enables progressive change onto a new equilibrium that better fits the company's environment.

A steady process of challenging employees along the way will lead to increased ability and self-confidence. The teams will be empowered to make decisions in the best interest of the company, as long as a strong mission and vision are guiding them.

Enable and enhance learning to fuel adaptation

Ideas for improvement begin to emerge as an effect of new learnings. Knowledge creation, often including tacit knowledge, fosters the best results in safe, creative, and trusted environments. Being wrong and making mistakes is accepted as a natural part of the 'trial and error' learning processes.  

Small, pioneering groups can be the source of ideation and proven feasibility. Interdisciplinary teams will increase the group's effectiveness. Crucially, these groups must transfer and translate their findings into explicit knowledge and scale it into the company for maximum effect. A digital communication platform infrastructure can be the environment for both collaboration and efficient scaling. Small creation teams can work on the platform, and scale learnings by distributing information to a broader audience.

Imagine for a moment that the Workforce of the Future is a network of connected people learning from each other, and consider a digital platform infrastructure as a learning environment facilitating all exchanges. Logically, value increases with each new user and each interaction. More interactions create a net positive benefit from the democratization and distribution of collective knowledge.


Let's expand our view beyond the traditional boundaries of a company, and consider companies being part of a broader ecosystem that can dynamically extend any value network. Suppliers, customers, and partners, they all have different perspectives and can add valuable insight to day-to-day business. Adding them to a company's learning network could multiply the potential for innovation. Including external parties, therefore, creates a more holistic knowledge to benefit both parties, and extends the value of multidisciplinary teams.

To increase node quality, networks in an ecosystem are continually competing over scarce talent, and companies have to prop up their offer to enhance the appeal for any given initiative. Cooperation with Universities and Academies, or Fab labs, Start-up Incubators, streamlined with accelerator and VC financing, result in particular offerings to attract, select, and bind talent to an initiative.

Be Water

Companies, the Workforce of the Future, all of us must be open to change, and change starts with the individual. Every moment in time has been the 'status quo' at one point. So, instead of clinging to one of those moments, we should aspire to a mindset of "continuously becoming" where learning is natural and constantly defines the new normal. If you pour water into a cup, it becomes the cup. Put it into a teapot, and it becomes the teapot. So be water, my friend.

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This article is part of a series by the Dassault Systèmes 3DEXCITE Strategy Department. Get involved in the conversation - like, share, comment!