Am I still relevant? - A introspection on the future of work

The phrase "Future of Work," has become a buzzword (I found hundreds of online articles related to the phrase). There are suddenly thousands of conferences, books, and blog posts on the topic, covering everything from artificial intelligence to robotics to income inequality and contingent labor.

In our course, we discussed about this concept and how things will look many years from now. How the jobs that we currently hold may or may not even exist. Personally, work has become dynamic, disruptive, and somewhat overwhelming. I am on a constant spiral of what if tomorrow, my skills aren’t enough and I get sacked. Unlike my father and his father, I can’t depend on one company to take care of me for life.

A simple way to understand the shift is to think about the image created by Dick Bowles, author of the book "The Three Boxes of Life". Today, unlike in the past, I am not expected to just "study," then "work," and then "retire." I must learn, work, and enjoy leisure constantly throughout my life, with the hope that this process goes on for a long time.

Having said that, the next obvious question is am I going to lose my job due to these changes?

Throughout this course and online research, what I found is that NO. Jobs are NOT going away, they're just changing as new technology emerges like "augmented intelligence" (the new definition of AI) which is taking over more mundane tasks. I have seen how personalized social media results are or how we can talk to our phones and get them to perform a task (e.g Hey Google, play Despacito)

So what can I do?

Learn, learn and learn some more.

“The only thing that is constant is change”, - Heraclitus.

What to do when life changes around me, well I change right back.

During this course, I inferred that lifelong learning is what will help me adapt to unexpected changes, for example, if one day, I lose my job, I have to depend on new skills to find work. By continually learning, I will be able to easily step out of my comfort zone and take on new job opportunities thus ensuring that I don’t get left behind in the crazy corporate race.

How I plan to keep learning:

1; Build my professional network:

Throughout my career, I have seen that building a network with people inside and outside my current workplace can provide opportunities if my current position looks uncertain. Perspectives of other people often provide enlightenment while determining the ideal path forward.

2: Continuous learning

Continuous learning is one's self-motivated persistence in acquiring knowledge and competencies in order to expand skill sets and develop future opportunities. There are many ways available now more than ever to learn. The choices are abundant from FutureLearn for online short courses to Global Edulink for free seminars.

3: Develop Agility:

In a time of uncertainty, agility is vital. It's essentially one’s dynamic capability and how to respond to situations in a timely, innovative and sustainable way when required. This is key because agility is what will help me become more open-minded to change and explore different approaches to navigate volatility, uncertainty, and complexity. One way to do this is to adopt a growth mindset.

Final takeaway:

During my course, spending time reading about various concepts and exploring new ideas with my fellow peers, created a feeling of accomplishment. Which in turn boosted my confidence in my own capabilities. A surge of self-confidence arose and I feel ready to take on challenges and explore new and unforeseen ventures. Through learning I can achieve that competitive edge needed for a recruiter to say, you are hired!

I strongly believe that learning is important to society as a whole because it helps different groups of people share knowledge, agree on mutual values, and understand one another better. Without our capability to learn, amazing inventions like the steam engine that eventually become the automobile or the telephone that evolved into smartphones, would never have been created. Thus, I know, that when I learn something new, it has the potential to not only change my life for the better but maybe I can contribute to something that can one day change the world for the better.