The disappearing white collar job
Will white collar workers survive the robot onslaught? This week’s Hiring Highlights has all the latest twists in the AI tale.
Are you robot-resistant?
When making decisions about who (and how) we hire, we understandably want to factor in the macroeconomic realities before we make any budget-shredding decisions.
On the face of it, one perplexing aspect of the global economic storm is that despite inflation, rising interest rates, debt ceiling dramas, and the AI apocalypse, unemployment rates in G7 countries are at historic lows. At the time of swiping, even the robots haven’t found a way to work as a plumber in Prague or a bartender in Benidorm:
Meanwhile, the United States added 253,000 jobs in April, and the unemployment rate decreased to 3.4% as the labour market remained resilient.
But looking at the bigger picture, a more profound change in the knowledge worker market is already underway.
This Wall Street Journal article, ‘The Disappearance of the White Collar Job ’, is a portent of things to come as accountants, lawyers and programmers start looking over their shoulder at a robot running down the road.
“We may be at the peak of the need for knowledge workers,” says Atif Rafiq, a former chief digital officer at McDonald’s and Volvo. “We just need fewer people to do the same thing.”
There are already signs of the white collar job disappearance in action. Tech giant BT announced it will cut up to 55,000 jobs by 2030 as it integrates AI and other tech systems into its customer service operations.
Moreover, a recent study by Eloundou et al shows that 80% of the U.S. workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by large language models (LLMs). And which employees will be most impacted by this shift? Clue: it ain’t the rubbish collectors.
Are we witnessing the ‘death’ of the knowledge worker?
You know that guy serving you behind the bar? These days, he could well be an ex-Facebook founder of a collapsed granola-sharing app.
In this great exodus – tech-xodus? – we’re now in a world where former tech employees are being lured into ever-more unusual roles. Even the Israeli intelligence community has seen an uptick in new arrivals.
While we’re on the subject of Israel, if the days of the knowledge worker are numbered, does this mean that tech-oriented countries need to worry? On the contrary, writes Martin Varsavsky , who argues that ‘Human Resources beat Natural Resources in Economic Development’.
“If you have to choose, Human Resources invariably beat natural resources,” Martin writes. “By investing in education, skills development, research and development, and fostering a culture of innovation, countries can nurture a highly productive workforce capable of driving economic growth, diversification, and sustainable development.”
And as John Arnold observes , for all the hysteria, perhaps we should be less worried about AI taking jobs and more concerned that ageing demographics may lead to a lack of job replacement.
Knowledge is still power
It’s easy to see why white collar workers might be getting hot under the collar. Ominously, economist Steven Anastasiou predicts : “It appears likely that the US employment market will weaken further over the months ahead, eventually leading to a material rise in the unemployment rate.”
However, the trend lines are still positive when it comes to employment prospects for us latte-swilling laptop workers.
What’s more, despite the harbingers of doom, there is no guarantee that AI will devour everything, steal our house keys and lock us in the basement.
AI is often portrayed as a dystopia in the making, but this Brookings Institute report offers some compelling reasons to believe there may be an upside or two.
“We expect that generative AI will have tremendous positive productivity effects, both by increasing the level of productivity and accelerating future productivity growth,” the authors write.
For example: ‘A positive interpretation is that workers who currently struggle with aspects of math and writing will become more productive with the help of these new tools and will be able to take better-paid jobs with the help of the new technology.”
The return of soft skills
If you believe the headlines, knowledge workers are closer to extinction than the leatherback turtle. But alternatively, are these employees best placed to pivot to a different skill-set?
Soft skills are back, declares Bartleby in this Economist piece on the importance of hiring on the basis of “social aptitude”.
“Being able to work well with people is seen not as some fluffy bonus but as a vital attribute,” the author writes, adding: “The trouble is that soft skills are hard to measure.”
By the way – for more insights on the value of soft skills, our podcast with Adrian Obeso , a senior TA manager at Superhuman, is well worth a whirl.
The glory of stories
If we’re going to put a premium on soft skills, a key quality is the ability to tell a story.
At a time when we’re thinking about which skills can enable people to survive in a fast-changing economy, this blog by Professor Scott Galloway explains the true value of storytelling.
Similarly, in MIT Sloan Management Review, Nancy Duarte, CEO of Duarte Inc, offers a deep dive into how storytelling structures can help shape the way business leaders inspire others when presenting visual data.
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“A narrative approach – storytelling – can get people to pay attention to numbers in a new way,” Nancy argues, and presents some evidence of what different story structures look like in graph form.
At the same time, it’s important to be mindful that ‘seeing isn’t always believing’ when it comes to masterful storytelling. LinkedIn has a fake commenter problem , and you know that highly opinionated thought leader you follow? He may be as real as a Wrestlemania title fight.
With the arrival of LinkedIn AI tools for recruiters, it’s not hard to imagine the problem getting worse before it gets better.
But don’t worry folks – we’re 100% real, and no robot is going to take over this newsletter for at least a week or two.
P.S. We’re previously written about the power of brand storytelling, and the good old Employee Value Proposition (EVP) as a way of communicating your company’s mission or story.
Track to the Future
Why worry about the future when dystopia is already here? Productivity tracking tools aren’t exactly new, but one Reddit post claims that JP Morgan have taken it to the next level.
According to the post, JP Morgan have implemented a WADU (Workforce Activity Data Utility) system that is “watching and listening whenever you are working from home”. The poster adds: “Whenever you are at your desk, know that there is an HD camera tracking you the entire time”.
The Reddit post gives more insights into JP Morgan’s alleged monitoring activities:
Given JP Morgan are one of the world’s leading companies, it’s safe to say this practical application of AI is bound to be happening elsewhere. Do you know any organisations – Big Tech, legal, pharma etc – that use tools like this? From badge swipes and keystrokes to monitoring desk attendance, tell us your most Orwellian tales.
How a Boulevard talent leader introduced smarter sourcing
It was great to catch up with Travis Baker, the VP of Talent Acquisition at Boulevard, as part of our Scaling Stories podcast .
Boulevard is a Client Experience Platform which is purpose-built for appointment-based, self-care businesses. Its mission is to “make it easier for everyone to look and feel their best”.
Travis has had a remarkable professional journey for more than 15 years, which includes stints at NextRoll, Carta and leading the tech recruitment at Zoom during the height of the pandemic when the video conferencing platform was setting the world alight.?
The strategy at Zoom was to “build a warm lead pipeline”, says Travis, and “watch people’s careers develop and help them understand that Zoom could help them in their career and help them develop skill-sets and be a great destination to grow and contribute at a high level”.
This patient approach is a stark contrast to what Travis calls a “transactional sourcing method which is always gonna be slower and highly reactive”.
Travis says he benefited from starting his career at a recruitment agency, Aerotek, and describes agency life as “a tremendous boot camp for recruiting. It teaches you the fundamentals and really drills it into you. And it’s a high performance culture…it really weeds out folks who can rise to the occasion and those who can’t”.
In fact, Travis says that his colleagues with agency backgrounds are “some of the highest performers that I’ve ever had on my teams”.
“The basics of recruiting is it’s a numbers game. At the end of the day, if you have challenges that you’re encountering in the business, you can almost always solve it with volume and effort and hard work.”
As he’s gained more experience, Travis has learnt the value of developing meaningful relationships with candidates rather than simply ticking off names on a spreadsheet.
“There’s an over-reliance on looking at somebody’s profile and making an indication as to whether or not they’re a viable candidate,” Travis says. “I don’t think that's good practice. I think you have to talk to folks and you have to hear their story.”
“I find the people who are having the most conversations – you know, in-person conversations – they tend to be the most successful.”
It was great to speak with Travis – head over to our podcast page and have a watch ‘n’ listen.
Things you might have missed
Recruiting fail
You might be an experienced Frontend Developer, but can you resist the opportunity to work for two months in an unpaid internship?
Dates for your diary
If you’re in London this week, you can catch us at the HR Leadership Summit (22nd May) and In House Recruitment Expo (23rd May).
Plus, on June 20th we’ll be organising a TA leaders’ dinner in Berlin. We’ll be keeping it casual, but topics will include today’s total workforce mindset, and how AI is changing TA roles. Get in touch – we’d love to have you there.
That’s all, folks
Thanks for reading. If you know someone who might like this newsletter, sharing is most certainly caring. Until next time!