Aspects of Future of Work

This week we worked on various aspects of Future of Work.  At the center of this work is the Job Architecture.  This topic has gained so much attention in the last 18 months.  Rather than being a purely strategic initiative, Job Architecture must be well understood by both Strategic Workforce Planners and as well as Recruiters. This week’s email is an attempt to explain what is Job Architecture and why we need to pay attention to the same

Last week in Texas is almost back to normal weather, and I witnessed several lawns getting fertilized and getting ready for Spring.  As I was in the midst of Job Architecture design, I realized that the days of calling for a Drone Service to do the fertilizing is not far away.  As I observed the micro-tasks of fertilizing the lawn, there is a lot more strength in the argument that this task will be automated in the near future and can be ordered through an app very soon

While the tasks can be automated, interacting with the customers and providing suggestions will not be automated.  There is a reason for that.  The first wave of AI-led by the mathematical genius Alan Turing, started approximately in the year 1945.  Alan Turing’s famous work towards a simple question he proposed.  I propose to consider the question, ‘Can machines think?

The next 50 years went away in trying to make machines like humans.  This wave is considered a failure in academic circles.  The second wave of AI started post the internet era.  Here Machines were taught with some rules and a set of algorithms.  Rather than attempting to think like Humans, that focus was on how to perform the tasks at hand better.  This is a foundational shift in AI.  A flood of innovation happened with this thinking.  Factory automation, Agricultural crops management, Advanced formulations in medicines, Supply Chain Automation, Transportation, and in multiple areas, Machines entered smartly.  At this juncture, the boundaries and capabilities of machines are constantly expanding.

Let us look at the patent filed by Amazon on airborne fulfillment centers.  This is entirely designed with Drones doing the delivery.  (A concept called Drone Nests). “The AFC (airborne fulfillment center) may be an airship that remains at a high altitude (e.g., 45,000 feet), and UAVs with ordered items may be deployed from the AFC to deliver ordered items to user designated delivery locations,” the patent reads.

The rate and the way AI is evolving, there is a significant role for Humans.  This is where the story gets very interesting for Workforce Planners and Recruiters to focus on.  Let us look at the Education sector as an example.  Massive online courses, YouTube-driven lectures, study aids, global professors’ reach, and other technological advancements have not minimized professors and lecturers’ roles.  Before the pandemic, I attended one of Harvard’s free lectures, and it was packed full with people standing and taking notes.  This is because any job we design (across any function), the current state is the least advanced state it will ever be and will continually evolve.

Less than three years ago, financial analysts waited three days to get data feeds from IT to be uploaded in SAP-like platforms.  Today, they have grown so much to be able to leverage SQL and pull many reports themselves.  In this context, the whole Low Code/No Code movement needs to be understood by Workforce planners.