The influential figures at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, discussed global issues to find solutions for the world’s problems. One of the things that they talked about this year is the future of the world of work. What changes are most likely to come? How can we prepare for these? What will be the trends of the future? These are just some of the questions that everybody needs to look into.
In other words, these are things that people need to be thinking about if they want to thrive in the future economic world. Let me summarize some of the meeting’s most important insights on this issue. The first insight has to do with hiring employees. Alibaba’s Jack Ma stressed the importance of hiring people who are smarter than you (the employer). It is also important that they are positive, that they don’t complain, and that they never give up. The No. 1 rule, according to Jack Ma, is to “help people be better than you are.”
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty talked about the new-collar workers, or those working within a new education and career model. It involves investing in skills development so that we can close the skills gap and be able to respond to the changes (100 percent of jobs will change, she said).
The traditional models used in recruitment, which involves hiring those with four-year and advanced degrees, will soon be a thing of the past. The new-collar workers are the workers of the future.
France’s Muriel Penicaud believes that people must be able to choose their own training program because when they can do this, they are also able to choose their future. And so investing in this kind of training will benefit everybody. In the same vein, the CEO of HSBC, John Flint, believes that survivors of mental health challenges are resilient and resourceful, and are therefore good for business. He said that the stigma needs to be broken and that more supportive workplaces have to be created so that everyone can thrive.
Finally, Allen Blue of LinkedIn shared his insight about the right way to build technology, which is a departure from how it has been built in the past. This time, instead of being designed almost exclusively by white males, he believes that more women should be recruited into technical roles so that machines can learn more efficiently and give unbiased performance. These are just some of the developments that we can expect in the near future as far as the world of work is concerned. It would be helpful to study these insights in the context of the country’s labor situation.
