If there is one shift that clear, it is that consumers want to know more, and “do-it-yourself” queries are increasing. In a year’s time half of retail will be influenced by digital. Bharat's search history shows that it will be an informed consumer who will walk in to the store.
It is time to rewrite the story of Eklavya and Dronacharya. Eklavya was a mythological character in the Mahabharata. He was a commoner who was denied the opportunity to learn archery from Dronacharya — the royal teacher. The unfazed Eklavya went back to the forest and built a statue of the guru and began practising archery. The self-taught archer became as skilled as the princes who were being taught by the master. This is where the story needs to be updated.
Advertising agencies are judged on two parameters. The clients evaluate them on the impact they had on the additional sales and trust in the brand. The peers compete on the number of awards won. The industry judges the agency on the thought leadership and breakthrough thinking. The senior leaders are judged on the number of awards the team members have won under their leadership. If work is going to be all about creative output, maybe it is time for performance management to be designed along with people who have figured out how to evaluate and nurture creativity – the mad men.
The future belongs to experts. Build deep expertise in your field whether you are a data scientist, security analyst, product manager, marketing manager or UI designer. Bring skills from other disciplines like design, data analysis and business acumen to your field of expertise. Those are the jobs that are harder to automate. You can automate say the data crunching, but it is harder to automate the role of a Data Scientist who is a brilliant designer and storyteller. They are "hybrid jobs".
We can no longer tell a first-time workforce entrant to find a stable job. The job market is in a state of “perpetual beta”. There are sectors and organizations that are collapsing because of new business models. Jobs are getting unbundled and being looked at as a set of skills. Some of these skills will be automated. Some skills will be done by humans. Definitely, constant skill upgradation is the new norm.
Career 3.0 will be about bulk of the workforce becoming gig workers and operating outside the payroll of an employer. This workforce will come to the marketplace with multiple skills and offer it to multiple buyers and paid at different rates depending on the level of proficiency. This model will allow people to bring in all their skills, education and hobbies to the marketplace and monetize it.
Technology is a tool to solve the business vision. Start by asking why you are doing this. If the discussion is about features and costs, then the project is about cost saving and not employee experience. Ask yourself what are you trying to achieve. Why are you doing this. Having that clarity within the sponsor team or CEO/CHRO is a good sign.
If you want to, for example, run a half marathon, you have to train for it. That would mean finding time to train every day. This, in turn, will demand a change in your lifestyle. It may need you to pay attention to what you eat and drink, when you sleep, and how you make space for the new dream you have.
Almost a decade ago Starbucks branded itself as the “third space” after office and home, where work happened. As the nature of work, working and workers have all changed, a fourth space has emerged. Co-working spaces get people from large organizations, small and medium enterprises and the solo workers. The solo worker could be the lone employee of a company or a gig worker who connects to the world on his or her mobile. This may also be triggered by the millennials who enjoy connecting and sharing their life in the virtual world. The co-working spaces give them a chance to do so in the work setting as well. Co-working is more than a working space. It is a place to not be lonely...
