Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/136276
APAC Forum additional jobs are created in services that support them. Finding a traditional job is less appealing and more difficult than it has been historically, as employers seek experienced help and have cut back on internships and training programmes. This has driven There is less value in owning data and more value in how it is shared, understood, and applied. In fact, all inventions and advancements are the work of many people building on each other, often working together and learning from each other. young people to figure out what they are good at and what matches Google has organised itself into teams of interdependent workers their desired lifestyle. Entrepreneurs are highly regarded, and the who share roles, collaborate, experiment, and focus on achieving idea of working for oneself is compelling and possible. goals. They spend very little time worrying about titles, job We have already seen a rise in people who are entrepreneurs, at descriptions, and management levels. least for part of their working lives. Career mosaics—working lives There is a groundswell of interest in the human resources and made up of different professions and different working styles—will recruiting community to crowdsource candidates by leveraging be normal. friends, associates, and colleagues to find and assess potential Disruptor #2: Big data and analytics are omnipresent. candidates. Social media helps build global networks of people with similar interests, opens the door to sharing of knowledge, and allows Big data refers to the totality of information available. Today the diverse ideas to filter into conversations and thinking where it would amount of data available and the amount being created are so large not have been before. that the actual amount is meaningless. Imagine being able to scan all the data available about a single person—everything written by them or about them, all their photos, phone calls, emails, and social media posts—and then draw conclusions about their character or whether they would be good fit for a particular job. Companies such as Acertiv and RemarkableHire Disruptor #4: Robotics and automation are transforming work. General Motors had almost 600,000 employees in 1960 and built about 2 million vehicles. Today it has 200,000 employees and builds more than 9 million vehicles each year. This is a common story among manufacturers everywhere. are already offering services similar to this. Numerous recent books and articles tell the story. Robots are It is also possible to extract data from websites, public information, have to do. Automation has eased or removed much of the tedious social networks and from information about the products or services people buy and use to better understand their skills, interests, and competencies. For many, the resume or c.v. is really the sum total of rapidly replacing workers or reducing the amount of work they administrative work that secretaries and clerks do. Everywhere from banks with automatic teller machines to robotically equipped warehouses, jobs are changing or being eliminated more quickly their web presence. than many thought was possible. Disruptor #3: Crowdsourcing, collaboration, and sharing are We will give up many routine jobs to robots easily, but other jobs becoming core. might remain human for sometime to come. These include all those The Internet has increased transparency, empowered us to easily that require human understanding or empathy, such as psychology share information, and has fostered more collaboration and and sales. Creative arts will remain human for some time. interaction among people. Robots will do jobs we can't do or that are too dangerous for us to Companies are trying to cope with rapid change, unpredictable markets, and global demands. They are striving to be innovative, do, such as bomb or hazardous material disposal. The challenge is how do those whose jobs are gone earn a living? What do they do? to develop new products and generate higher levels of services and Re-education is often appropriate. Many are upskilling themselves— larger sales. returning to college for additional education or learning a new Yet, old structures and habits inhibit success. The industrial age separated people, organised them into functions and silos that actually prohibited sharing and, hence, in many ways inhibited invention and innovation. Apple's success comes partially at least from encouraging the opposite behaviour. Apple stresses internal interdependencies and collaboration between its branding, design, manufacturing, supply chain, and retail operations. No one of these alone is responsible for Apple's success: it is all them together that makes the difference. profession that has less chance of being automated. For others, the best path might be to learn to work side-by-side with the robots and augment and expand what they can do. For example, a skilled human worker can cut and weld a particular car frame in an average of 81 hours. But, a human working with a robot can produce a car frame in four hours! The robot welds faster and better and cuts the metal more precisely, but can't manipulate the parts as smoothly as a human. Or doctors can consult computers that can analyse DNA samples and SPRING 2013 | www.hroglobal.com [11]