Each week I’m going to provide a round up of what I consider to be important and interesting articles on the future of work (not authored by me). These will include a variety of sources and topics ranging from workplace practices to robots and automation to leadership and everything in between. There’s a lot of information out there so I’m hoping that these weekly round ups will help make life a bit easier for you by giving you just the good stuff. Let’s get into it!
How Artificial Intelligence Is Redefining The Future Of Work
In this article Chris Cancialosi talks about the effect that AI, specifically IBM’s new system Watson, will have on the future of work. Not only is Watson able to process data more quickly and more accurately than humans ever could, it is also able to assist in diagnosing cancer patients and become a teaching assistant to free up time for teachers.
Watson is able to scan the internet for research, studies and information. With this gathered information along with algorithms Watson is able to come to conclusions and answer basic questions. In the future it could be used for recruitment, business strategy and much more. Although Cancialosi reassures readers that Watson was created to augment specific parts of human jobs, not take them over completely. It will be exciting (and perhaps scary for some) to see what the future holds for Watson and other AI innovations.
5 Ways Companies Need to Market to Millennials in 2017
Ilya Pozin believes that Millennials will become even more prevalent in the consumer market in 2017 and as such companies need to know how to attract this generation. In this article there are 5 main points that companies need to pay attention to in regards to Millennials.
One of the points discussed is that social media is essential in today’s workplace. Millennials have never known a time without social media so it is important to have a presence on a wide variety of social media sites. But, as Pozin points out, it is not enough just to appear on social media. It is essential to engage Millennials on these social media channels in order to build trust and loyalty.
Also discussed in the way of attracting Millennials as employees is the importance of perks that are true to your company’s corporate culture. Don’t offer things just to attract Millennials if it is not something that your company really believes in.
All in all Millennials want to feel that they are buying from real companies who represent real people. They want an honest experience. Companies who want to do well in the Millennial market need to be upfront, transparent and innovative.
According to Sara Sperling and Stuart Crabb, who are both past Facebook HR executives, interviewers tend focus on the wrong thing when they ask about past failures. When asking a candidate how they overcame a failure the answers given focus on the candidate’s weaknesses. Sperling and Crabb suggest that if the interviewer instead asked the question “when do you get lost in what you’re doing?” they would get an answer that focuses on the candidate’s strengths as well as what they are passionate about.
Both Crabb and Sperling feel that employers get the best results from their employees when employees are utilized for their strengths and not forced to become an expert in areas of weakness. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. You can work towards improving in your areas of weakness, but if employers could spend more time and effort in helping employees improve in the areas they are strong in and passionate about they would see much better results.
Why AI is still very reliant on humans
AI is a hot topic right now and there are a lot of people who are worried that robots will soon take over our jobs and rule the world. However, in this article Patrick Nguyen reassures us that robots and AI is still heavily reliant on humans and they will be for quite some time.
Machines and robots, at this point in time, cannot learn on their own without help from humans. They also have technical issues and errors that occur which require assistance from humans. One example of this is the self scan kiosks found in some stores. Sometimes these kiosks cannot read a barcode or give an error code. Also at this time they cannot complete a transaction for alcohol purchases. An attendant is still needed to come check the customer’s ID in these transactions.
So while there have been significant improvements in the world of AI and robots and they will continue to improve, we are still far away from being taken over by these machines.
My new book, The Employee Experience Advantage (Wiley, March 2017) analyzes over 250 global organizations to understand how to create a place where people genuinely want to show up to work. Subscribe to the newsletter here.
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