A Guide to the Future of Work, with Josh Bersin

A Guide to the Future of Work, with Josh Bersin We recently sat down with Josh Bersin, the Founder of Bersin by Deloitte, to discuss where he believes the future of work is heading towards, and what the most important aspects to consider within that would be. Tell us about Bersin by Deloitte and what you do there. We study all aspects of HR in the workplace, as well as leadership and HR technology from a research perspective. We talk to thousands of companies, we do interviews and surveys, and we try to figure out what are the best practices, and what is really working in companies to drive performance and employee engagement. Every year I do this and something new comes up. So theres always something to talk about because of the impact of technology at work, the impact of business cycles and the way business is operated is changing. We were acquired by Deloitte in 2012, so were now a business inside of Deloitte Human Capital in the Deloitte Consulting Organization. But were still independent, so we do our research on our own, independent of the consulting organization. Why is the future of work important? Right now, theres a huge conversation about this going on and a lot of it is driven by two things.  First is the political issues around income inequality and low productivity, and people are saying, Why is this happening? At the same time, artificial intelligence, robotics, and technology is advancing at an almost exponential rate. So people are saying, What is happening to the workforce and how does the workplace adapt to this new digital world that we live in? What will work look like over the next couple of years? Will we all be replaced by machines? Will we all be talking to our computers all day? Will we even have jobs? Thats really kind of the discussion thats going on. Ive been studying this very, very aggressively for the last year and a half. I had to give a couple of big talks on it.  Jobs are going to change and organizations are getting much flatter and people are getting much more connected. Were all becoming more augmented by technology, whether it be our phone or our computer, or some AI software. They are making our jobs different but theyre not necessarily making them go away. I mean, in the United States, were now reaching a fairly low unemployment rate and the jobs that are being created are actually more human jobs and less technical jobs. You would think that with all this technology entering the workforce that were all going to become software engineers. But actually, the opposite is happening. The jobs that are being created are actually jobs that focus on the essential human skills: listening, convincing, selling, communicating, designing and curating. Actually, there are now jobs being created to monitor and train robots, for example, to help AI systems get smarter. Healthcare is requiring more jobs in the service industry. We just did some research  that shows that there is a really massive influx of technology; 45% of the companies we just surveyed said that they expect our company to be fully automated within the next 3 to 5 years, whatever that means. So theres lots of technology being acquired. But as that happens, new jobs are created. The one example Ill leave you with on this one, and this is the one thats been written about the most but its very relevant. In the 1980s, when I was young, entering the workforce, we had the beginning of the automatic teller machine and the branch bank was expected to go away. They were expected to shut down branches. There would be no more branches. Wed all be doing banking electronically. But what happened is as we learned how to use the automatic teller machine and we became more familiar with online banking, we all started doing many, many more transactions online to the degree that we do thousands of things online with our bank that we never dreamed wed be doing, requiring us to go into a branch to ask people questions when we wanted to buy something, when we wanted to change something and when we had a problem. So there are actually more branches by far than there were in the 1980s, and more tellers, and more jobs. Now theyre not the same jobs. Theyre not transactional jobs, theyre human interface jobs. But thats a perfect example of how technology in the future of work adapts to what the workplace is and how it changes jobs. Theres many, many examples of that. So its a big topic and consulting firms are concerned about it, big businesses are concerned about it. Im getting lots of speeches and talking to lots of clients about it all the time. Is there a way that people can future-proof their careers? The big thing for us as individuals is we have to be comfortable with continuous reinvention and continuous learning. If youre a Java programmer and you were a hot commodity in the year 2000, youre not a hot commodity today. So you had to learn new programming languages, you probably had to become more of a full-stack engineer, you probably need to learn a little bit about AI. If youre a designer and you havent learned about modern design and video, youve fallen behind. So it doesnt matter what your job is. You have to be comfortable continuously learning and reinventing yourself. So I think thats the biggest issue. Its scary for people because if you look at the earnings, the potential you have to make money, something thats hot for a couple of years suddenly isnt hot. You may find yourself in a job where somebody younger than you knows things you dont know and suddenly all of your tenure isnt worth as much as you thought. So were really in a marketplace of continuous learning and continuous reinvention. The place where this is particularly hard is if youre in a geographic location where a company moves or picks up shop and moves a manufacturing plant, maybe shuts it down or outsources it or moves to another city and you cant move, you may find yourself going from being a manufacturing worker to a healthcare worker. Thats difficult to do. I mean, a lot of people are very uncomfortable with that. But that would be my number one recommendation dont be afraid to reinvent yourself. Ive reinvented myself at least five or six times in my career. Its really like surfing. You catch a wave, you ride it into the shore, and then youve got to be able to paddle back up and catch the next one. Were all going through that multiple times in our life now. What should organizations be thinking about? Well, we just wrote a big report on this at Deloitte Human Capital Trends but I would say that there are really two things to consider: One is to redesign the organization around teams and networks, not around a hierarchy. In the world of work today, the digital world we live in, people interact in small teams and they can share information and collaborate instantaneously anywhere. So the idea that you have to go to your boss to get permission to do something and then you have to ask your boss all the time and that your boss actually knows what youre supposed to be doing, thats not actually the way the world works anymore. Theres been a radical change; 88% of the companies we survey, just three months ago, and this is more than 10,000 companies, said that they are trying to redesign their organization for the future, change the roles that people have, change the structure. Basically, what it comes down to is creating more of a networked organization. The second issue is that were in a strange period of time where we havent all figured out how to use the technology we have productively. Were happy to use it and were spending a lot of time on social media whatever it may be. But were not getting more work done. Productivity is only growing at about 1% to 1.5% a year. A lot of people are concerned about that in the U.S. and in Europe. So I think organizations have to do a lot of work to create a meaningful, productive employee experience. In HR, that means doing away with the once a year engagement survey and getting very, very close to all of the employees needs and focusing on the individual journeys and the individual obstacles we have to getting our jobs done. We have a framework for that which we call Simply Irresistible that explains it. I think this is going to be a major theme for HR departments over the next couple of years making the workplace more productive, simpler, and more meaningful to people. That also means focusing on wellness and health and not just business productivity, but human productivity. What can we do to be better, really aligned personally with work so that we dont get fried out from our 24/7 always on work experience? So those are the two things that I think organizations really need to focus on right now. What is the societal impact of the future of work? Theres healthcare, minimum wage and income guarantees. A lot of interesting ideas, theyre floating from different sources: from economists, from politicians, and from business people. So if you could think of thousands of examples of this. Somebody who has to change jobs, change roles, change careers and change cities. Will I have the health care to do that or will I be stuck with my old job because I cant afford to get a new healthcare program? Will I be able to get educated and will I get credentials for my education? Will I be able to afford the education? If I need to go back to school and spend $50,000 on a degree, how am I possibly going to pay for that? Will I get paid a reasonable wage? The fourth point is about inclusion. The future of work is a networked organization where many people work part time and many people work full-time. We all need to listen to each other as equals regardless of race, gender, age, political background, religion. So I think another part of the societal mission is to create an inclusive culture so that the work environment that we live in and work in and make money in supports us no matter who we are. Things are changing very fast and many of the fastest growing economies are in Asia, India, China, and soon Africa.  If we dont have a sense of inclusion of people that are different from us, that will also impact our ability to evolve. So those are big topics on the political agenda. Theyre not easy topics to address but I think many, many people are talking about them now. What are some of the top implications for employers? Well, I think number one is your organization. I hate to use the word best place but is it a place to work where people feel that they can achieve their individual goals? Are you going to be able to achieve your goals in that role? Are you going to make enough money? Are you going to get some healthcare? Are you going to get some training? Is there some future? Is the environment going to fit your lifestyle? Is it flexible? Thats number one. Number two is learning. I dont think there are any companies that will be around for a long time that doesnt provide online digital learning experiences for their employees. I mean, theres the traditional learning of onboarding, learning how to do a new job, learning how to use the systems at work, learning the compliance rules at work. But then theres the, I dont know how to do this job and Id like to get better at it. Who will help me? Who are the people that will help me? Do I have a coaching environment at work to help me? Thats number two. Number three is leadership. Traditionally in many large companies, the way you became a leader was by paying your dues, by putting in the time and you eventually reached a point where you were promoted. That doesnt work anymore. Things happen too fast. We need to promote people into leadership roles based on their expertise, based on their followership, based on their alignment with the culture. It doesnt matter how old they are or how long theyve been in the company. In fact, the way I like to think of it is your credibility is based on your experiences, not your experience. Just because youve been in the company a long time doesnt mean you have the relevant experiences to make you good at the job youre doing or to lead the project that youre leading. So we need to rethink leadership models and create what we call more of a digital leadership model. Digital not meaning technical but more agile, experimental leadership model to allow people who are maybe the subject matter experts or the spiritual leaders of the company to lead where necessary and not only give it to the people that have been around a long time. So those are the three things I think are very relevant right now. What does it imply for employer brand management? I mean, employment brand, even the word brand is a little bit of a misleading term. It used to be that employment brand was building a nice website and building a career page and promoting how great you are. Thats still important but less important than ever. Your employment brand reflects how you treat people because your employees can go on websites like Glassdoor  and they can talk about what its like to work at your company. If its not a good place to work, people can find out about it regardless if its on your website. So I think the essence of a great employment brand is to seriously invest in your people and think about your people as your number one product. I dont think theres a business left where people are not the product. I mean, even if youre an oil company and youre drilling and pumping oil out of the ground, without the right people, without the right safety, without the right culture, youre not going to be successful. Its certainly true in airlines, healthcare, hospitality, retail, in technology industries. If youre not creating a great employment experience, people wont innovate, they wont stay. So employment brand is really a part of thinking about the entire employee experience and making a continuous investment in your people and staying in touch with people when they leave. Were in a world now where 50% of millennials will live into their 100s. So there is a good chance theyre going to leave your company and theyre going to talk about your company and they might come back later to work on a project or they might refer to your company. So part of employment brand today is taking a long-term strategy on the relationship you have with people who have left your company so that they continue to be brand advocates too. Then there are all the wonderful things that weve done for years. Employment branding on your website and having a great employee experience and then promoting that. But I think thats less important today than just being a good employer and making sure youre taking the employee experience seriously. Connect with Josh on LinkedIn.