Day: March 29, 2019

The robots are coming! What once seemed like a dystopian novel is seeming more like reality by the day.

A quarter of jobs in the U.S. stand to be disrupted by artificial intelligence, a recent report from the Brookings Institution found. Kai-Fu Lee, a leading A.I. researcher, investor, and computer scientist estimates that in the next 15 years, up to 40 percent of jobs could be replaced by algorithms, robots, and other types of artificial intelligence.

Lee offers a multi-question quiz on his website to determine if your job might be at risk. But really, it can all be boiled down into one simple question.

In A.I. in 60 Seconds, Lee explains that A.I. is limited to doing the same things over and over again. “Within a single domain, A.I. is able to take tasks from our everyday jobs that are routine and repetitive and do them in a better way than we humans can do.”

The more repetitive and routine your work, the more likely it will be taken over by A.I. Here’s another way to look at it, from a New Yorker piece titled Are Robots Competing For Your Job?: “If your job can be easily explained, it can be automated,” Anders Sandberg, of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, tells Oppenheimer. “If it can’t, it won’t.”

While A.I. can do many things well, Lee reminds us that there are many things it can’t do so well. Your human brain give you a competitive advantage.

A.I. isn’t creative. It can’t think strategically. It doesn’t plan. And above all, it can’t have compassion or emotional intelligence. If you’re worried about your job being taken over by robots, Lee encourages you to zero in on how you can enhance and improve the skills that A.I. will never be able to gain. Try to figure out how to stop doing low value work or automate that work yourself.

Economist Richard Baldwin agrees. He advises that instead of trying to compete with A.I., let the robots do their thing. Focus your attention on building your in-person human skills, such as improving communication, developing insights, and effectively collaborating with other people at work. “Realize that humanity is an edge not a handicap,” he told the New Yorker.

LinkedIn recently analyzed 50,000 professional skills that appear in its job postings. It used the data to determine the most in-demand job skills employers are looking for.

Creativity was the top soft skill that appeared again and again in job postings. Across hard skills and soft skills, it was still number two overall.

“It’s no stretch to say creativity is the single-most important skill in the world for all business professionals today to master,” LinkedIn concluded.

Talent issues are top-of-mind for business leaders in 2019. In fact, according to a new report from my organization, CEOs of small and midsize businesses rank decisions about talent higher in importance than decisions about customers and financials.

Despite concerns for the economy, 65 percent of the 1,257 CEOs included in the Q4 2018 Vistage CEO Confidence Index report said they planned to increase hiring this year. This was a shade lower than the recent 15-year peak of 71 percent, but current recruitment intentions are still greater than at any other time recorded by our survey since 2003.

With the United States almost at full employment and wages rising, hiring won’t be easy during the next 12 months. CEOs are employing a variety of strategies to cope with this challenge, such as boosting wages (64.6 percent), adding employee benefits (36.1 percent), investing in equipment to automate tasks (35.2 percent) and allowing employees to work remotely (25.1 percent).

However, there are other strategies to consider. Here are two that I recommend.

One of the most effective ways to source new talent is through employee referrals. Engage your existing workforce in the recruitment process by starting a referral program that provides incentives to employees to help bring the best people on board. Start an open conversation with all employees about how you reward effort to address any questions about compensation.  

Professional networks can also be a valuable source of top talent. Use them to target both people who are actively seeking new roles and those who are happy working elsewhere, even if that’s with your competitors. 

Nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of the CEOs we surveyed recognized employee development will be key to their talent-management strategy in 2019. People are a business’s number-one asset. Giving them room to grow in the organization is one of the most effective ways of making them feel more valued, which can increase their productivity and make them stick around longer.

But don’t stop at training workers to be better in their current roles. Give them opportunities to develop communication, collaboration and leadership skills, and recognize their achievements with managed career progression. Connect senior leaders to junior team members through a mentorship scheme, too, and you’ll soon have a strong talent pipeline.