According to reports from the World Economic Forum on the future of jobs, nearly 50% of companies expect that automation will lead to some reduction in their full-time workforce by 2022, based on the job profiles of their employee base today. However, 38% of businesses expect to extend their workforce to new productivity-enhancing roles, and more than 25% expect automation to lead to the creation of new roles in their enterprise.
While these are just expectations, it seems that the future is indeed shifting towards technological fluency across all economic sectors.
While companies are transforming their businesses by investing in new devices, they also have to worry about their workforce strategy.
Manufacturers must rethink their workforce planning and recruitment processes, finding the right people with the right skill sets. Besides managing the internal workforce, companies will have to set up an extended talent ecosystem with multiple talent pools. To target these individuals is necessary for talent hunters to optimise their casting and communication strategies.
The essential parameters in recruiting processes right now are:
By 2022, at least 54% of all employees will require significant re- and upskilling. Recruiters are re-evaluating every existing job position and are trying along executives, to reshape them towards a more digital-friendly market. Unstable jobs are the positions that are going to vanish in a matter of years, with the continuous implementation of industrial machines.
The positions that are unthreatened from these changes will go under a severe upskilling process. In contrast, the jobs of the future are the new positions emerging and taking life precisely because of Industry 4.0.
Tasks such as production planning and industrial engineering may yield higher rates of workforce reduction. Same goes for technical services, as the department will benefit from digital assistance solutions. Also, robot process automation will affect a big chunk of administrative tasks.
Roles based on emotional intelligence (creative, analytical and social skills) are in demand for a highly “artificial” workplace. According to Linkedin Learning 2020 Report these are the most in-demand skills for this year:
Soft skills
Hard skills
Besides, a new executive role is starting to appear, the Chief Digital Officer (CDO). This role will help companies to lead them through strategic digitization.
Adaptation strategies are in the works to facilitate the transition of the workforce to the new world of work. Even tasks that are perceived as “human”; communicating, coordinating, managing, as well as reasoning and decision-making, will soon be automated. While many rightfully think that the digitization of several tasks will shrink the manufacturing workforce, this should not be a concern.
According to Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute, the US manufacturing industry’s job openings have been growing at double-digit rates since mid-2017. Research reveals that 89% of executives agree there is a talent shortage in the US manufacturing sector. Same is happening all over the world, and the apparent solution is excessive hiring. One set of estimates indicates that 133 million new roles may emerge that is a blend between humans, machines and algorithms.
Customer devotion
With an increasing automation of routine activities, the “human touch” will be imperative to offer a stellar customer experience. Anticipating future workforce size requires taking into consideration the strategy of redeployment to enhance other service sectors. The new-age customer is so well-informed and surrounded with so many opportunities on the same product that they’re expectations are becoming even higher. Superior customer service requires doses of empathy. That’s how organizations can attract their new prospects.
Manufacturing companies need to define how to organise internal communication and collaboration. Given that there are employees of different ages, digital knowledge, background, moving the staff towards and the way to combine the corporate’s legacy with new requirements for the digital age, needs a well-thought-out strategy.
This altered workforce strategy that is taking place will move from a hierarchical to a circular development between coworkers. The traditional way of acting and reacting between workers and departments is very sequential, meaning every person has a specific work task assigned.
The new approach brings continuous and multidimensional worker training, preparing them for new technologies and work environments. An interrelated workforce strategy will focus more on engagement and integrating everyone towards a solution. The digital era will create a dynamic environment, where workers will have the flexibility to apply skills in multiple, project-based settings. A cyclic working pattern will replace the old hierarchy.
Collaborative technology
This dynamic doesn’t include only workers’ communication but also the engagement with robots. Merges in production with marketing are already well-known, but collaborations and joint projects don’t end here. Technology developers and designers are engaging the workforce as they build solutions.
Waiting the introduction of a new technology to train the workforce is too late. Proactive companies need to educate and train workers continuously. Work will be less about “using” technology, and more about “interacting” with it. This will not be the automation of the workforce, but more of an augmentation.
A new workplace culture
Technology presents an opportunity to shift traditional workplace cultures to be more innovative and accepting. Companies will start to focus on employee experience, in creating the feel that will make an individual stay or a potential worker be employed. Manufacturing recruiting trends and not only, are based on relationship-building and diversification. This leading to a new era of “humanization” where the more technology surrounds us, the more human we try to become.
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