Despite its benefits, automation is disrupting the workplace.
Few think that automation doesn't bring benefits to business and society. But these advances also create a disruption in the workplace that organizations will need to prepare for.
A new Pew Research Center study polled nearly 10,000 people in 10 advanced and emerging economies to glean opinions about how automation will affect the future workforce. According to the data, large majorities say that in the next 50 years, robots and computers will probably or definitely do much of the work that humans are currently doing. And most believe that increasing automation will have negative consequences for jobs. Less than half of those surveyed believe that automation will lead to new, better-paying jobs.
"While automation may boost productivity and overall economic growth, there is recognition that it will also disrupt the workplace, with repercussions for workers, employers, education systems, and governments," write Richard Wike and Bruce Stokes of the Pew Research Center.
Research from McKinsey and Company uncovers similar predictions and concerns. Its analysis of more than 2,000 work activities across some 800 occupations shows that while automation will affect nearly all occupations, current technologies could only fully automate about 5 percent of occupations. McKinsey found that certain categories of activities are more easily automatable than others, such as physical activities in highly predictable and structured environments, as well as data collection and data processing. According to the analysis, these tasks account for about 30 percent of the activities in 60 percent of all occupations.
"This means that most workers—from welders to mortgage brokers to CEOs—will work alongside rapidly evolving machines. The nature of these occupations will likely change as a result," write analysts James Manyika and Kevin Sneader in a McKinsey Global Institute executive briefing.
So, instead of replacing jobs, automation will modify what types of jobs people are doing. This will accelerate the shift in many required workforce skills. McKinsey estimates that by 2030, as many as 375 million workers globally will have to master fresh skills as their current jobs evolve alongside the rise of automation and capable machines.
Not surprisingly, businesses will see a spike in demand for advanced technological skills such as programming. The jobs or tasks least susceptible to automation include managing others, providing expertise, and interfacing with stakeholders. In fact, McKinsey predicts that demand for social and emotional skills will grow across all industries by 26 percent in the United States and 22 percent in Europe. While some of these skills, such as empathy, are innate, others like advanced communication, can be honed and taught. Likewise, demand for higher cognitive skills—such as creativity, critical thinking, decision making, and complex information processing—will grow through 2030 by 19 percent in the United States and 14 percent in Europe.
The bottom line: Automation will put "additional pressure on the already existing workforce-skills challenge," note Manyika and Sneader. "While some innovative solutions are emerging, solutions that can match the scale of the challenge will be needed."
Responsibility for dealing with the evolving nature of work will be placed on a variety of institutions. Government looms large in the minds of many, Pew found. For example, the majority of surveyed participants hold this view in South Africa, Brazil, Greece, and Italy. Only in the United States do less than half of individuals believe the government has a lot of responsibility for preparing the nation's workforce.
In addition, government and policymakers working with education providers (traditional and nontraditional) could do more. In the Pew study, majorities in every country except Japan believe the educational system has a lot of responsibility for ensuring that the workforce has the proper skills and education to handle the impact that automation will have on jobs in the future.
Still, Pew reports that roughly half or more of respondents believe employers will need to take charge. For starters, companies also can redeploy workers with specific skills to make better use of the skill capacity already available to them, suggests McKinsey. They can do this by rebundling tasks in new ways. This will mean shifting parts of the workforce to other tasks that have higher importance, or redesigning work processes.
Of course, retraining will play a key role in rebuilding the workforce. Forty percent of executives told McKinsey they believe they will need to retrain or replace more than a quarter of their workforce between now and 2023 due to advancing automation and digitization. According to McKinsey, "A key to companies' future success will be in providing continuous learning options and instilling a culture of lifelong learning throughout the organization."
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