Technologies Shaping Future Workplaces

Adobe’s Scott Rigby, Head of Digital Transformation for Enterprise Solutions, APAC, spoke at the recent Online Retailer Expo & Conference in Sydney. Here’s an extract of what he had to say…

Businesses today are facing a convergence of technology unseen in recent history. Between exponential growth in processing power, cost reductions in hardware and networked effects, these impacts on the work environment are being acutely felt. What’s more, these innovations are expected to drastically change the future of employee experience.

Research conducted by the World Economic Forum suggests up to 47 per cent of today’s jobs could be automated away within 20 years. The overwhelming majority of university students today are studying for jobs that will either cease to exist or change dramatically, and with a rising gig economy, finding ways to future proof workforces has become a key priority for business leaders.

Today, businesses are exploring many tech innovations to support employee experiences. Most are a long way from widespread adoption, but there are some that are close. Here are three key technologies that businesses should explore now to prepare their workforce for the future.

Employee Experience Platforms – the current front-end technologies that manage employee experience – onboarding, training, communicating, collaboration and productivity – is a disparate ecosystem of single product technologies. Many of these tools don’t integrate or ‘talk’ to each other naturally, providing a disconnected experience for employees.

There is an equal disconnect in the backend of human capital management; Enterprise Resource Management (ERM), financial management, business intelligence, data science, content management. The race is on for technology companies to provide a consumer marketing lens to the employee in a similar way it has been done to the customer experience. This means companies investing in a single technology platform that delivers all of the above capability, rather than trying to duct tape these tools together in a cohesive and meaningful way.

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning – from streamlining an accountant’s audits to helping pilots fly planes, AI is already prevalent in a number of industries. It’s important to regard this capability as tools for augmenting our jobs, rather than replacing them. These technologies have the ability to eclipse our human capabilities but only within a very limited scope, replacing some of the redundant and repetitive tasks we currently do to allow us to focus on the strategic and creative aspects of our roles.

Blockchain – we’re moving towards the codification of reputation. Our education and working lives will be coded onto a string on a blockchain to provide transparency, reliability and independence of our working lives. This will allow potential employers the ability to verify education qualifications, work experience and authenticity of referees when hiring prospective employees. Blockchain has the ability to significantly streamline the hiring process for employees and reduce costs on verifying employee credentials for employers.

It’s an exciting time to be entering or working within today’s workforce. There may be transformative change for employees and employers on the horizon, but the positive opportunities these technologies open up for us will be even greater.

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