There is no denying that the employment landscape is changing. Where once a task would be completed by a worker, you may now have a robot in its place. PricewaterhouseCoopers reported that by the mid-2030s, 30% of jobs could be at a potential risk of displacement due to automation. But while this paints a dire picture, it is only one part of it. Rather than the nature of jobs disappearing, in many cases it will more likely adapt and change.
A joint study commissioned by the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) looked at how the financial sector will be impacted in the next three to five years due to the integration of data analytics and automation.
Three key findings were discovered during the study. Firstly is that tasks will become more collaborative. As more complex data will be available, employees in different disciplines and departments will need to function together to provide their different insights and fully take advantage of the opportunities presented. Automation will also take over the more repetitive tasks, so the skillset required of the people in the positions affected is likely to evolve and converge. For example, the role of branch teller and customer service officer converging into that of a branch digital ambassador. Finally, the role of human expertise will become even more critical. While AI can provide data and perform tasks, human intervention will be required in the form of results interpretation, innovative and creative solutions and so on. Once the tasks that can be automated are no longer the employee’s concern, the exercise of higher level skills will be expected of them.
While these findings suggest a critical transformation in job scope, the rate at which it will happen will be reliant on a few key factors. Financial institutions will have to find a balance between adopting emerging technologies and navigating how they will be regulated. Many institutions are also still using old, siloed systems that make it challenging to synchronise data and maneuver a digital transformation. And there is also the preference and trust of the customer to consider; while many agree to the importance of a digital presence, 60% still felt that having a physical location is vital as they are perceived as a proxy for trustworthiness, so the human touch should not be dismissed lightly.
As the landscape continues to change, it is important for the employee to adopt certain traits and skills to be able to keep up and stay relevant. While different industries and positions have their specific requirements, these are the general skills that a worker should have.
Job holders need to learn to be adaptable and fluid to adjust themselves to what the industry needs, to be able to learn new skills or re-learn different methods for old ones. This will ensure they stay up to date and also will create more opportunities for them to increase the portability of their skills. A report by the McKinsey Global Institute found that between 75 million to 375 million people globally may need to change job roles and gain new skills by 2030. While some job positions might be displaced or evolve, new ones will also emerge, so by already having the skills necessary will be a great advantage. As more transactional tasks become automated, areas of desired skills will look more into cognitive tasks such as deep industry insights and critical judgements as well as the personal touch with clients. With the inclusion of data analytics and automation, employees will be faced with new software and tools that may be unfamiliar. They will need to have awareness, and be more proactive in facing the new potential risks that might emerge. Furthermore, they would need to leverage technology to its full potential. Rather than how one could completely replace the other, look for each of their strengths and how they could complement each other. Human supervision will still be required to define the rules and train technology to perform the specific tasks, approve the outcome of the tasks and generally ensure the smooth operations of the systems.
Ultimately, while the job structure changes as AI and automation take over the repetitive tasks, the challenge would not be whether there would be jobs available for people, but that given the skillsets that they have today, would they be qualified for the jobs that will be there?
The importance of upskilling and retraining as a key investment was also a sentiment that was shared by Amazon. They planned to spend $700 million to retrain about 100,000 of their American staff to do more high-tech jobs. These efforts will allow the workers to adapt to the changing industry as well as benefit the company by having an existing workforce that can fill the gaps of their technical requirements.
Read more here: Amazon’s Latest Experiment: Retraining Its Work Force
As technology has ingrained itself into our day to day life, people nowadays hardly think twice about parting with their personal information when signing up to a website or an offer. But this is based on a trust that the information would not be used for more than the intended, and there is a responsibility in the data collector and analyst to use it wisely and appropriately.
Read more here: External Data Ethics