The Workplace of 2030 Checklist: Is Your L&D Department Ready?

A new kind of human-machine partnership as a result of the digital transformation will significantly shake up businesses in the next ten years.

Dell Technologies in partnership with the Institute for the Future (IFTF), presented a research “The Next Era of Human-Machine Partnerships” about how emerging technologies will impact society and work in 2030. It shows that businesses will highly rely on a partnership between humans and technology, embracing “skills such as creativity, passion and an entrepreneurial mindset along with the machines’ ability to bring speed, automation, and efficiencies.” This will open a wide range of new opportunities across industries.

Three forecasts that underlie the era of human-machine partnerships

According to the research, 82% of respondents think that humans and machines will work and learn as integrated teams within their company in the next five years: machines will learn about people, their behaviors, and preferences, while people will learn based on AI-driven personalized recommendations. This presupposes certain changes in the way learning and work will function.

The digital transformation with the human-machine partnership at its core will lead to the following outcomes.

• People will become digital conductors

If the workforce of today mostly consists of digital natives, in the future, they will transform into digital resource conductors, a catch-all category of people who will use technology as an extension of themselves for addressing different aspects of life on a daily basis. Sophisticated machine learning algorithms will “create a population of digital orchestration systems,” where some needs will be met before people even realize they have them. Jeremy Burton, Chief Marketing Officer at Dell, gives a good explanation of people’s lives in 2030:

Think of all of the apps on the phone you use to do a ton of different things. Share pictures, text friends, shop for groceries, get directions… Think about what kind of effort went into doing that before you had the app? Now software in the background takes care of all the work you used to do. By 2030, you could have a digital assistant that coordinates all of the tasks those apps manage–based on the outcomes you’re looking for. So, instead of hopping in your car and driving it from point A to point B, your digital assistant will ask you what destination you’d like to get to and when, and arrange for transportation to pick you up. Your job is simply to get into the car.

This transformation will also affect how employees will be learning. People will be able to set up their professional goals, and smart learning systems, aka personal assistants, will take care of the rest, ensuring full engagement and maximum knowledge retention.

• In-the-moment learning will be essential

A whopping 85% of jobs that today’s learners will do in 2030 haven’t been invented yet. This means that the ability to constantly absorb new information and apply it to practice as fast as possible will be one of the key criteria for employees to be sought after. And it also implies that today’s tendency to pay less attention to degrees while hiring new employees will keep growing. Instead of the knowledge and skills employees initially possess, the ability to learn in-the-moment will become prevalent since the shelf life of skills will be even shorter.

With even greater technological advancements, in-the-moment job learning will be supported by hands-on just-in-time training tools. While working on an unfamiliar task, employees will be getting only relevant chunks of information that will lead them step by step through the whole process, ensuring successful task completion.

• Work will consist of a set of discrete tasks rather than specific job roles

According to the research, automation and robotics won’t pose a threat to people’s jobs. However, the digital transformation will shape the way we are used to seeing job roles. In fact, they might cease to exist. Future careers will be not about climbing up the ladder but about developing a wide range of skills across various job-related fields and honing them.

In turn, companies will be looking not for specific job titles, posting a list of requirements an ideal candidate should possess, but break up work into tasks and seek out the best talent for doing these discrete tasks thanks to machine learning technologies that will make people searchable by their skills. That’s why the most successful employees will grow by trying different roles, going through new experiences, and tapping into new networks, growing their own portfolio of skills.

Challenges for business growth and how to overcome them in the New Era

In the light of the upcoming changes prompted by the digital transformation and the development of a new kind of human-machine relationship, it’s crucial for every company to embrace a tech mindset. However, with nearly half of business leaders believing that their organizations might not make it through the next five years, it becomes a real challenge to come up with proactive strategies that will future-proof businesses and workforces. In fact, only 1% of companies think they’re unlikely to be disrupted, so they don’t require any digital transformation plan.

Another research from Dell called Realizing 2030: A Divided Vision of the Future lists major obstacles to becoming a successful business in 2030.

These research results were formed through the analysis of answers from 3,800 executives across 11 industries in 17 countries.

Fighting the above-mentioned obstacles is not a one-day event. Moreover, success in digital transformation is fluctuant since it presupposes preparation for new conditions and environments. However, with the right tools on hand, companies are sure to enter the new era of human-machine relationships with confidence.

Transform your business with the ultimate future-proofing tool

Since in-the-moment learning and a wide range of skills that go beyond usual job titles will be extremely important in securing a business’s future, a smart learning platform will help companies and employees thrive.

To keep up with the changes the digital transformation may bring, organizations have to provide their workforces with effective training to have a steady, in-house talent pool able to complete discrete tasks and contribute to business growth.

“A successful digital transformation strategy isn’t just reliant on technology,” writes Steve Weston, chief information officer at Hays. He continues saying that a lot of business leaders are often out of their comfort zones when it comes to understanding the human element of real change across the workplace. You can easily upgrade your company’s equipment, but you can’t get your people ready for the future work with the snap of your fingers.

Companies need engaged, confident and highly-skilled employees to be able to transform their culture and mindset, accelerate digital transformation, and keep up with changes within their industry. According to Dell’s report:

85% of business leaders suggest aligning training and KPIs to a company’s digital goals and strategy to enter the new era loss-free.

A performance-based training platform enables organizations to integrate learning into the workflow and measure the outcomes of L&D efforts with performance KPIs. Being data-driven and personalized at its core, such a platform provides employees with relevant bite-sized content ready to be applied instantaneously to practice. This is a win-win situation: employees grow their portfolio of skills and apply themselves in different roles and networks, enriching their experience, while companies can reach their goals and constantly grow thanks to highly skilled in-house talent.

“The pace of change is very real, and we’re now in a do-or-die landscape. To leap ahead in the era of human-machine partnerships, every business will need to be a digital business. Organizations need to move fast and build capacity in their machines, ready their infrastructure and enable their workforce in order to power this digital transformation change,” concludes Jeremy Burton. Turn your people into a key driver of your company’s future growth through an integration of learning into your business operations. The technology of the future is already here.

Request a demo of the Rallyware platform to see live how a smart learning platform can help you get ready for the upcoming workplace transformation!