The Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Do you ever have that time where you see a word or hear a phrase, you think never before, and then you seem to come across it again and again? The phrase “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” is one of those for me. Cast my mind back three weeks ago and I cannot remember reading or hearing about this and since then it must have come up a dozen times. Two things then spring to mind, what is it? And what were the other three? To address what it is. Well, there are a number of definitions that I have seen. The two that most helped me to get my head around it are:

“The Fourth Industrial Revolution is characterised by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies and industries, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human.” And:

“The Fourth Industrial Revolution is a way of describing the blurring of boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. It’s a fusion of advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, genetic engineering, quantum computing, and other technologies. It’s the collective force behind many products and services that are fast becoming indispensable to modern life.”

What then were the first three?

The First Industrial Revolution hit us in the 18th Century with the invention of the Steam Engine and the opportunity for production to be mechanised. The UK saw its population as moving away from predominantly agricultural based to being urbanised. The workforce radically changed from primarily working on the land and living in the countryside to moving to and working in factories and living in cities.

The Second Industrial Revolution came with the harnessing of electricity and new technologies which allowed for mass production on a scale never seen before and changes to our lifestyles.

The Third Industrial Revolution began in the 1950’s, and this saw the emergence of computers and digital technology. This led to the increasing automation of manufacturing and the disruption of industries including banking, energy, and communications.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, we are told, is going to change society in a way never seen before. It is very much based on the foundations of those first three Industrial Revolutions, all of which changed society in some radical ways. With these changes people needed to adapt, or perish. 

The two photographs are a view of 5th Avenue, New York, USA. These photographs were taken 10 years apart. In 1900 the road mainly comprises of horse and buggy as the means of transport, in the first photograph, circled in red, is the one solitary car. Compare that to the photograph of the same road just 10 years later.

How society changed in just 10 years. The industry built around horses changed dramatically. The coachman’s role had all but disappeared, the people that groomed the horses, swept up after them, polished the leather harnesses, made the saddles and bridles, grew and harvested the hay to feed them, the studs that bred the horses, those that trained and broke in the horses. So many people servicing this sector. With the advent of the car, many fewer required as horses were relegated to just the race courses, a pleasant country pursuit and other activities for which a fraction of the former workforce were required. So many people lost their livelihoods, had the work they had been trained to do, disappear almost entirely.

Those roles disappeared in vast numbers but new jobs were created, chauffeurs, car manufacturers and factory workers, petrol producers, petrol station attendants.

The arrival of the PC in the 1980’s saw the move away from typing pools to the office workers producing their own documents on the PC or today, the laptop. The adoption of email has reduced the work of the Royal Mail dramatically. Think back to the number of envelopes you (or your parents) would open in any given work day in the 1980’s or 1990’s compared to the thin trickle of letters you receive today. What has happened to the roles for the creation of envelopes, pens, stamps. Or the roles of those that deliver the post. Just a fraction of them left.

The arrival of mobile telephones in the 1990’s has had a radical impact on how we communicate. Before the ownership of the mobile phone became common place, if meeting up with friends you would either be kept waiting or keep them waiting with no means of communication whilst in transit, today we phone, text, whatsapp the delays in the arrival time. The mobile phone is used to check out the fastest route to a destination, see potential delays in advance of embarking on the journey. Think about the GPS systems that suggest the fastest route to a destination, voice-activated virtual assistants such as Apple’s Siri, personalised Netflix recommendations, and Facebook’s ability to recognise your face and tag you in a friend’s photo.

As a result of this perfect storm of technologies, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is paving the way for transformative changes in the way we live and radically disrupting almost every business sector. It’s all happening at an unprecedented, whirlwind pace. We are told that many roles will disappear, but they will be replaced by something else.

In my own sector, of recruitment, I was part of the transformation some 20 years ago with the creation of in-house recruitment teams. I was amongst the first of the recruitment agents to go in-house – poacher turned gamekeeper! Back in 1996, you could count on one hand the number of companies in the UK with dedicated in-house recruitment teams. Today, you would be hard pressed to find one without someone in the organisation focused on recruitment.

20 years ago there was very limited technology available to the recruitment agency or the in-house company. Some databases were available, email was just emerging, as were company websites. Today we have a plethora of tools available, email, ATS’s, CRM’s, websites, job boards, social media sites. The ATS today can extract from the CV many of the essential fields – name, job title, company, skills. A smart search can be done for suitable candidates posting their CV’s on job boards, arriving in the ATS, or on LinkedIn. Bulk downloads from one platform to another can be made at the push of a button (or 3). Details can be shared with your work colleagues. AI can be harnessed to push the right candidates in front of the hiring manager, can be used by the candidate looking for a new role, schedule interviews, send rejections, move candidates on to offer.

The electric car and self drive technology is still in its early stages but this will all mature very rapidly. What then of the car mechanic as he is today? What of the people serving in petrol stations? What of the driving instructors and driving examiners?

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is here. Which of the roles today are about to be as dead in the water as the Fletcher or the Cooper of yesteryear? And what are the new roles that are about to appear?