Skills for the Future of Work

A few years ago, I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts, Recode/ Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher, a reportre-preneur who has been covering Silicon Valley’s tech and startup scene since the early 90’s. As she interviewed whatever founder, tech mogul, or politico she had on that day she made an almost offhand comment, “every job that can be digitized, will be digitized… it’s only a matter of time for the economics to work”. Wow! That was a game-changer that made infinite sense to me. 

I found myself coming back to this notion many times in the days that followed, and wondering (probably more for the sake of my own job security than anything else): what jobs, then, will be left for the humans? 

In 2018, the Royal Bank of Canada put out a white paper called Humans Wanted. The report studied what impacts technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics were expected to have on the Canadian labour force. In it, experts predicted that “by 2028 over 50% of occupations in Canada would undergo a significant skills overhaul”. That, to me, was a tremendous shift about to happen in a very short amount of time! And, as you would expect, the phenomenon wasn’t just Canadian. In a recent McKinsey Institute survey of global executives, over 60% said their staff would have to be retrained due to automation. 

Understanding where advanced technologies are taking our job market, and the limitations of those technologies, will be essential for any human looking to make a good living in the future of work, I thought. 

STEM-education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) has often been hailed as a great panacea, the all-encompassing solution to the employment anxieties of parents and students today. The hype around learning code, reminds me of the matter of fact ‘advice’ I used to get as a high school student: that learning French would guarantee me a good job in my officially bilingual home province, New Brunswick. It didn’t, by the way. This isn’t a knock on the value of STEM education- it's evident for all to see that more jobs are being created in these sectors, generally, at a faster pace, employing graduates at a much higher rate, than many of their peers graduating from other disciplines. But interestingly, STEM skills still don’t make it to the top of the list of skills employers are looking for today. 

In a recent LinkedIn study, 57% of executives said they now valued soft skills more than hard skills. The data tracks closely with a recent study done by the Conference Board of Canada in partnership with the Human Resources Professional Association of Canada, shown in the graph above. Their study surveyed HR leaders across sectors, in public and private organizations, asking what skills they rank most highly when evaluating candidates for jobs.

The results:

+ Research, problem-solving, critical thinking

+ Soft skills

+ Leadership 

+ Business skills

+ Creativity  (STEM came in #7).

Looking at this dynamic shift in the skills marketplace, Kevin Roose, a New York Times columnist and author of Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation, puts it this way:

“for years, the conventional wisdom has been that if machines were the future, we needed to become more like machines ourselves… [but] in a highly automated economy the most valuable skills and abilities were the ones that could distinguish workers from machines”. 

In 2018 the World Economic Forum published the Future Jobs Report which identified 9 human skills that (when performed proficiently) are differentiated from advanced technological capabilities and expected to be future-proof, in the sense that there’s low risk of technological duplication going forward. The skills are:

+ Analytical Thinking &Innovation

+ Active & Self-directed Learning

+ Creativity, Originality & Initiative

+ Critical Thinking and Analysis

+ Complex Problem-Solving

+ Leadership & Social Influence

+ Emotional Intelligence

+ Reasoning, Problem-Solving & Ideation

+ Systems Analysis & Evaluation

Any entrepreneur reading this list will likely self-identify with most, if not all, of these skills. In my personal experience, observing the fate of hundreds of entrepreneurs annually, those who demonstrated real strengths using these skills stood out from the pack and become most successful, faster. When you think about the entrepreneur-leaders that many of us look up to, they will often credit their success to their ability to master these types of so-called ‘soft skills’. 

As I reflected on these observations, two things became clear: 

+ In the future of work, all jobs will require individuals with entrepreneurial skills to fill them. 

+ Entrepreneurs themselves (employers) want to hire people with the same entrepreneurial skills that they used to start their companies, and help them grow (that one felt like a ‘duh!’ moment). 

While the automation revolution and ensuing job displacement that the future of work promises can seem scary, knowing what makes us different- as a starting point, at least- can be helpful. Even more so given that, many the world over (my company included), are demonstrating that these entrepreneurial skills are, quintessentially, human skills. Meaning that, we as a species, have a natural predisposition for them and proficiency can be developed by anyone to use them- given the opportunity. 

In Futureproof, Roose presents the story of 19th century Englishman William Lovett, who at 21 years-old becomes despondent about his career dreams as a rope-maker amidst the industrial revolution- newly developed metal chains were starting to be mass-produced, eating the market share of rope-makers at the time. Eventually, Lovett finds a craft that the technology of the time just couldn’t do, landing steady employment as a cabinet-maker. As Lovett thought about his experience, he connected with others who looked for solutions. Lovett, and his group of organized labour, advocated for an education that would promote human qualities as differentiators from the machines of the time: 

“Education, Lovett wrote, must comprise the judicious development and training of ALL the human faculties, and not, as is generally supposed, the mere teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic, or even the superior attainments of our colleges, Greek, Latin, and polite literature”. 

What is old is new again… The concerns about the attunement of our education systems to the demands of the labour market that were advanced by Lovett then, are as true and urgent today- more so! Notwithstanding, now individuals and organizations do have a defined framework of the skills that will most likely be the difference-makers between them and advanced technology. And everyday, new and innovative approaches are being introduced to the market that compliment and address the gap in education. The most progressive education systems and entrepreneurial teachers are finding ways- often through partnerships- to introduce new curriculum to our classrooms.

Yes, it does seem that Swisher is right- in the future of work every job that can be digitized, will be digitized. But personally, I’m not so sure I was all that interested in those soon-to-be digitized jobs in the first place. If the jobs of the future require me to be more creative, more emotionally connected, to spend more of my time ideating and solving problems, well I can certainly think of crappier ways that I could be earning an income. The future of work is already upon us, and instead of just a ‘rage against the machine’ approach, you have a choice of empowerment that actually aligns with your natural abilities. What human skills will you decide to double-down on?