Jobs or Work?

By Subbu Iyer & Siddharth Patel

Even if you are not changing your job, the job is changing on you. We keep hearing this statement more often now. A job refers to a specific task while change refers to the adaptation of the evolving tasks to be performed. Historically the concept of jobs took definitive shape in our Industrialized Societies where tasks were defined and prescribed to be performed and workforces diligently followed them. There was a well defined role for Machines, Technology and People. The script that defined the roles of People, Machines and Technology while evolving considerably during the Industrial Age owing to the pursuit of efficiencies and its related advancements in Information Technology is about to be disrupted completely in the Intelligent Age.

The Collaboration between Humans and Technology will be the bedrock of the Intelligence Age where Humans will create tasks for technology.

Incremental Change Vs Transformation

What we are witnessing is not an incremental evolution but rather a fundamental disruption of how we Organize Work, Workforces and Workplaces. To manage and not just cope with this disruption driven by the advancement of digital technology, efficacy more than efficiency is demanded. Innovation is the only way to manage this disruption and ride the tiger that is staring at us in the eye.

To effectively ride the tiger, three crucial steps are necessary starting with a rewired Design Playbook that aligns the emerging context to the strategic direction. Involving the definition of what must transform before any innovation can take shape:

1. Simplifying the Processes where the definition of Processes must include Ecosystem, Enterprise and Business, coursing the flow of Roles, Multimodal Data, Meta Data, Context and Intelligence.
2. Modernizing Technology where the definition of Technology Systemically Inquires, Explores and Discovers the Data Circularity from Creation to Consumption.
3. Disrupting Life where the solutions and applications define the rate of impact on the Quality of Living and positioning the enterprise to deliver on all the 5 Values of Functional, Lifetime, Brand, Emotional and Economic.

Transformations in this age should be ignited by Intent that has a Visualized Impact. Imagination and Inspiration must be applied to that Intent and not the other way round.

As the above Exhibit 1 illustrates, the triggers to transform the definitions are clear that manifest the impact Systems can make in our societies. The new world order is one where:

1. The Context of Employment shifts the definition of Jobs to Work moving from an Industrialization to a Personalization focus. Allowing Creators to Innovate and Create healthy competition with Valuable Products and Services.
2. The Context of Agentic Framework serves Intelligent Action and is supported by a robust connection to an ecosystem for real time computing.
3. The Context of the Workplace offers a fail safe environment to share and collaborate with trust from anywhere on the planet.
4. The Context of Skills is discovering the Passion and Potential to Create Value and therefore being ready to execute.
5. The Context of Learning is Innovation that is not a static event but a continuous effort to stay ahead of their Competence with bold experimentation.

Forbes 2024 AI 50 List (https://www.forbes.com/lists/ai50/) has not a single one focused on a holistic approach either in their intent or their impact, at least for now. What is worse is some of them are automating old world practices and have massive funding to build redundant technology. Is it any wonder then that despite the hundreds of trillions of dollars of investment, 74% of companies struggle to scale AI and only 16% are prepared for AI enabled Reinvention.

Innovation is both Mind 2 Market and Time 2 Market

Many business leaders recognise the need to reinvent their business models. PWC’s annual surveys informs, four in ten CEOs (42%) say their company will remain viable for less than ten years if it continues on its current path. Across all sectors, just under two-thirds of CEOs (63%) report having taken at least one significant action to change how their company creates, delivers and captures value.

Reinventing Business Models means creating a digital core for the enterprise as a first step before Visualizing everything around it. Products and Services will have to emerge from that digital core that will generate transformative innovation driven growth. A shift that is based on New Capabilities disconnecting an industrial age mindset and rewiring to an intelligent one is a non-negotiable requirement.

Most AI Models haven’t crossed the chasm of Search to Contextualization. The narrative remains around Search and Enterprise. And that is definitely not a progressive recipe. It is prescriptive that new ecosystem processes are Created and Curated with an Intelligent Automation driven Agentic Framework to succeed with real life uses cases that references the aspirational. The automation and agentic frameworks must figure out a user’s context and trigger action. This is the promise of Intelligence which makes meaning at a unit level. A lot of ground needs to be covered to take this holistic view.

The Industry Focus

According to the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO), there are roughly 10 major groups of human occupations, which further break down into hundreds of specific jobs within each category; making it impossible to give a single precise number for the total number of human occupations worldwide. The current focus on Industry continues to ignore a wide range of occupations that will benefit from this technological transformation of our societies.

Not only Creating Access but also the opportunity for the hitherto under privileged to become Creators in this effort to build a more sustainable planet is critically important for this emphatic shift for investments in technology to bear favorable outcomes for the Universe of Customers including Consumers, Associates, Shareholders, Stakeholders, Business Partners, Vendors, Society and Technology (Including IOT, Sensors, Scanners, Wearables and Computing Devices). This will demand every enterprise to have see technology through the lens of life more than just their businesses.

“Reskilling is not just about adapting to change; it is about empowering people and communities to thrive in an intelligent age. At Sonae, we believe we bear this responsibility, and we are committed to this transformative journey, ensuring that innovation and opportunity go hand in hand to build a more inclusive and resilient future for all. —Claudia Azevedo, CEO, Sonae”

The Global Capability Agenda

Based on a recent global study by BCG, 62% of companies recognize AI as a source of value—but only 24% have been able to turn that promise into real value creation. There is still time when an Open Shared Collaborative approach to work can build effective ecosystems and fight the attrition of talent economically to deliver enterprise value for the GCC’s. This must be driven by Design Learning that first creates a Design Playbook to bridge Potential with Performance Continuously.