Will Augumented Workforce Reshape Jobs and Careers in the Future?

Automation and robotics does not necessarily mean a workforce devoid of human intervention.

- Pallavi Jha

As artificial intelligence systems and robotics gather momentum, almost every job profile is being reimagined, creating what is being referred to as the ‘augmented workforce’.As this trend gathers speed, organisations must reconsider how they design jobs, organise work, and forecast for the future.

The shift from full-time employees to an augmented workforce disrupts tried and tested notions of what a job is, its career implications, how the workforce is trained and recruited, and how the workplace is considered. We can finally say with surety that our idea of a conventional workplace is challenged, where the gap between the skills performed by people and by machines is narrower than ever before. Work is being automated at an unprecedented rate as artificial intelligence, sensors, and robotics replace jobs that were formerly done by humans.

So, how does the ‘future of work’ impact us directly? Well, to begin with, it impacts us personally, that is, the role that work plays in our lives, how our careers progress, how we remain up to date in our skills and capabilities, and how work adds meaning and purpose to our days.

Secondly, the organisational impact: what new tasks do people versus machines take up, how organisations are geared for this change and how companies redesign jobs as automation and robotics gain prominence.

Lastly, societal impact: how we educate ourselves and prepare for work, how we transition when jobs change, and tackle economic issues such as income inequality and unemployment.

A major challenge organisations face is restructuring—such companies were designed in a world where humans were the ‘means of production’, so to speak, and job roles were created by HR and business executives. In this model, humans could be industrious and companies would profit through savings in costs acquired by increased production.