Companies adopting technology because of the pandemic will have a head start in the workplace of the future.
Autodesk has sponsored this post.
We’ve had almost two years of the pandemic. In addition to the devastation it has caused, the pandemic has left many wondering where, when and how they will work. Most of the attention given to the future of work is related to workers returning to a changed office environment or working remotely. But at least one tech company is looking at the bigger picture: the future of work including and beyond the pandemic, and the way technology not only accommodates work during the home/office dilemma but also what the worker of the future will need to adapt and learn the rapidly changing technology that is being made increasingly available.
Future of work is a misnomer, says Joe Speicher, Senior Director, Autodesk Foundation. The future is now.
Take a worker whose job is drilling holes, says Autodesk. The future of work may have a robot doing that—and with sub-millimeter accuracy. The worker’s new job is to program and maintain the robot.
If anything, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of technology, says Autodesk. Companies that may have thought about digitalization, employing the cloud and casually exploring digital twins suddenly found that if they didn’t, they could not operate in the world in the wake of global uncertainty.
Whether you should be worried about your job being taken by robots depends on where you live and what kind of job you have, according to Autodesk.
Only in the U.S. do we have this fear of robots taking peoples jobs, says Autodesk. But if I was a low skilled worker anywhere, you might have reason. Low skilled jobs are the easiest to automate—like drilling holes.
The future of work calls into question the role of education. No longer is the standard university education going to land you in a job you can stay with until you retire. Technology changes will roil job roles. The best example is the personal computer, which affected every office—and everywhere else. Autodesk sees education in smaller and regular doses, instead of all of it delivered at once, only to be outdated as technology races ahead.
Our educational institutions and our workers need to invest in continuous learning, says Autodesk. There’s no reason why education and work of the future cannot merge. A customized lesson plan that is specific to what needs to be done in the office can be delivered to the engineer at their job.
The author is reminded of graduating as an engineer after plotting graphs by hand, solving matrices for FEA by hand, only to get into industry to see the same tasks done neater, faster and without error by computers that were never touched in class. We agree: there is no way a one-and-done education can adequately prepare a worker for an entire career. What was once called continuing education and rarely or begrudgingly used is becoming a necessity. Can we leave it to engineers to teach themselves in an ad hoc manner? We think not. Lawyers are fond of saying someone who represents themselves has a fool for a client. Does a teacher who teaches himself have a fool for a pupil?
See Autodesk’s take on the future of work.