During the 19th Century in northern England, a movement known as The Luddites protested against new technologies as they were afraid their jobs would be taken away. They were particularly concerned with the “stocking frame”, a knitting machine which they believed would see them replaced with less skilled cheaper labour.

The irony is that the knitting machine in fact helped the textile industry to expand and it created many new jobs and opportunities.

There is often a lot of discussion about what jobs will be around in the future and if technology will put people out of work.

The truth is, if there are rules, repetition and routine, it enables it to be automated. These are the types of tasks you should be looking at right now in your organisation and developing contingency for.  And if this is you doing a routine, repetitive, rules based job, you might like to think about upskilling.

Computers may be able to give us the answers, however it is still humans that have to ask the right questions. This has always been the case with any form of technological advancement, even back during the industrial revolution.

Organisations need to recruit and/or develop the following competencies for their futurehuman resources:

Adaptive – How well do I accept, embrace and action change? Can I anticipate change and react quickly?

Self Directed – Can I get on with things and make decisions? Can I work effectively in any location and remotely or autonomously?

Discerning – With the volume of information available to us on a daily basis growing, I need to know what to pay attention to and what to ignore.

How well equipped are you and/or your organisation to deal with the future of work?