Bracing For Automation
In the age of Automation, where each and every industry is undergoing rapid transformation, it's imperative to understand how one can brace themselves. Today, we stand at an inflection point where our hard-earned skills are quickly becoming redundant. So how does one prepare for this inevitable transformation? Here's a closer look at what seems to be the biggest personal challenge almost everywhere.
Automation is rapidly transforming people’s lives in almost all the industry, quickly making one skill redundant after another.
In the olden days, the automated processes and the job of a human were clearly marked and separated, enabling us to do our job faster and with much more accuracy. But technology evolved faster than we did. The jobs that a skilled person is performing today will become automated within the next 18 months, making that person obsolete and his skills unwarranted.
Let’s take the example of Sahil, an Operations Executive in a logistics company. He performs a skilled job and adds substantial value to his team and company.
But 18 months later, he finds that most of his role has been automated by the company. So, how does Rahul stay relevant when his competitors are not just his colleagues but an entire technology?
This is a crucial debate.
Are we really going to lose out our jobs to automated processes? If you don’t prepare for it, frankly the answer is, yes!
There are perhaps two ways to brace for the inevitable automation of skills.
You can either choose to acquire Deep Skills in your vertical and become the master of your craft. The best will continue to survive and thrive.
Or you can choose to acquire more than one skills – this is called Hybrid Skilling.
Automating Hybrid Skills is a difficult process. So if you arm yourself with two, or more number of skills, you become a polished package of efficiency on your own. And your value to the company/organization will multiply.
Hybrid Skills help you develop a creative approach, that will help you think out of the box. That’s another function an automated process cannot perform.
Even as an employer you must acquire as many skills as you can. As a CFO or a CEO you must continue to learn as many new and relevant skills as possible, otherwise, you will fail to grasp and analyze the value added by your employees and team members.
Our final objective in acquiring these Hybrid Skills is to move towards what we call Higher Skills.
What are these Higher Skills?
When you pair one or more deep skill specializations with a human-centric skill, you create a dynamic combination that is almost impossible to automate.
At the end of the day, all organizations want to move towards higher efficiency. The goal as an employee is to become and then remain as a valuable asset. The more value you add, the more relevant you become.
Automation is a reality that we need to face. It will cause a restructuring of traditional models in every aspect of modern life.
So, how do we deal with it?
Acquiring Hybrid Skills is a good place to start but it’s definitely not the absolute solution that we are looking for. What do you think we should do to brace against the tide of Automation? What new skills are you planning to acquire in your field? And why?
Do share your suggestions!
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Nice, detailed article.