Career Development in the Digital Age
Dr. Sultana Begum
Asst. Professor, Department of Business and Management
FASE, Tishik International University, Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq
According to NASSCOM, about 260 million jobs will be replaced or augmented by technology by 2020. Many future careers have not been invented yet, and we do not know what those future careers will look like. Building a lifelong learning culture in the workplace is moving from education for employment to education for employability and from job security to career security. In the past, employees learned to acquire skills for a career, but in the digital age, the career itself is a journey of learning. 88% of Asian respondents rated ‘career and learning’ as an important or very important trend in the Delloite Global Human Capital Trends. In the present digital age new forms of careers are emerging which are different from traditional standard or non-standard employment in a number of ways. Digital age is changing the labor market. What is career development in the digital age? Will Robots replace humans? What Skills are required for best careers in the Digital Age? Are we ready for the disruptions created by the technological innovations? Let us explore.
What is Digital Age:
The Digital Age, also called the information age, is defined as the time period starting in the 1970s with the introduction of the personal computer and subsequent technologies, providing the ability to transfer information freely and quickly. The time period in which we live now, where Internet and email are available, is an example of the digital age.
What is Career?
According to oxford Dictionary, a person’s course or progress through life. It also pertains to his occupational or profession that usually involves special training or formal education and is considered to be a person’s lifework.
What is career development?
Career development is an ongoing process of gaining knowledge and improving skills that will help an individual to establish a career plan.
Previous industrial revolutions liberated humankind from animal power, made mass production possible and brought digital capabilities to billions of people. This digital age or the fourth industrial Revolution era, is however, fundamentally different. It is characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies and industries, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be a human and quite naturally Human Resource Management and Career development.
Source: WEF Reports: (Forum, 2019)
From the figure it can be observed that, performing well in the Current Job and at the same time without being stagnant, improving the skills and qualification based on the changing technologies, is what makes you reach the next Job Level in the digital age.
|
Source: WEF Reports: (Forum, 2019)
It can be observed from the Figure 02, that Office and Administrative Jobs are in the most declining stage because of Automation. Meanwhile, Management, Architecture and Engineering are the fields which require Creative and Problem Solving Skill, and they are on the rise.
Fig 03: Changing Nature of Career:
Sources: Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott, the 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity (Bloomsbury, 2016); Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change (CreateSpace, January 4, 2011).
According to John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas, “The half-life of a learned skill is 5 (Five) years”. This means much of what you learned 10 years ago is obsolete and half of what you learned five years ago is irrelevant.
What is the impact of fourth Industrial Revolution on careers?
According to Deborah Henretta, Group President, Asia & Global Specialty Channel, Procter and Gamble, “the Workplace and Workforce are going to change pretty dramatically as we look forward. The entire concept of work is going to become more flexible. The skills needed in the workforce are going to be less about IQ and little bit more about EQ, because if you think about it, a lot of IQ knowledge is going to be available at our fingertips through hand-held devices and the computer and technologies that we have at our disposal.”
According to Vineet Nayar, Vice Chairman and CEO, HCL Technologies in India, “With Generation ‘Y’ Coming into the Business, hierarchies have to disappear. Generation ‘Y’ expects to work in communities of mutual interest and passion- not structured hierarchies. Consequently, people management strategies will have to change so that they look more like Facebook and less like the pyramid structures we are used to.”
According to a recent study by Cognizant on hiring trends, the number of workers hired as freelancers or contract workers has risen from 20% to 25% in the contingent workforce in the past two years, and it is expected to increase further. This is because of movement towards gig economy.
Gig Economy: A Gig Economy is a free market system in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements.
| Company | Type | Ownership |
| Uber | Largest Taxi Company | Owns No Taxis |
| Airbnb | Accommodation Provider | Owns no Real Estate |
| Alibaba Group | Valuable Retailer | Owns no inventories |
| Most Popular Media Owner | Owns no content | |
| NetFlix | Largest Movie House | Owns no Cinemas |
| Apple and Google | Largest Software Vendor | Owns no Apps |
Source Own computation data from various sources.
The World’s Largest Companies do not own anything and provide employment to Freelancers. So what skills are required for career development in the digital age? The World Economic Forum suggests the following top ten skills:
| 1.Complex Problem Solving skills | 6. Emotional Intelligence |
| 2. Critical Thinking | 7. Judgement and Decision Making |
| 3. Creativity | 8. Service Orientation |
| 4. People Management | 9. Negotiation Skills |
| 5. Coordinating with Others | 10. Cognitive Flexibility. |
Source: Own Computation Data from World Economic Forum: (Forum, 2019)
So, what need to be done for Career Development?
Six Steps for Cultivating a Career in Digital age:
|
1. Realize that you’re still a hot commodity. 2. Prepare for the hunger Game.
3. Understand how Recruiters and hiring managers work (Social Media, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.)
4. Use your head on the Web.
5. Know what employers are really looking for.
6. Lastly very important, Your LinkedIn Profile. |
Source: Own Compilation data from William Johnson in Macleans.ca (Johnson, 2019)
According to Cognizant Whitepaper report on jobs of the future, the following are jobs which may become popular in the future:
Source: Own Computation data from Cognizant Technologies Reports (21 Jobs of the Future, 2019)
Source: Own Computation data from Cognizant Technologies Reports (21 Jobs of the Future, 2019)
Discussion and Concerns:
- Are we, as teaching fraternity, equipped with the Skills required for our own future career development as well as for training our students?
- Are we making our future generations (our Students) competent enough for the aforementioned types of new Jobs and Careers?
- Are we working to develop curriculums based on the needs of the future generations?
- Do you think that Artificial Intelligence and the current technological innovations can bring some solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals?
- Do you think that Gig Economy will change the meaning of Career in the Digital Age?
- Is there a good level of collaboration between industry and academia?
All these discussions need to be tackled and deliberated in the teachers’ Forums in the coming days so that we can equip ourselves, as well as our students, with the requisite skill and knowledge to face with the challenges of the constant disruptions and to smoothly disseminate knowledge beyond the boundaries.
Conclusion:
Definitely, there will be a significant impact of Digital Age technologies on jobs and careers. Machines will pick a greater number of discrete tasks and even jobs- as time goes on, but humans will “still need to apply” Software bots today which cannot dance and sing, adjudicate a trial, comfort a patient, ask insightful questions, teach a child or lead a team. They can help, but they cannot do it independently. Being able to make judgments, develop creativity and apply the human touch are all far outside the purview of the current and near-future technologies, and this will remain the case for some years to come despite the new machines becoming more capable. Our work ahead will require us to double down on the activities where humans have — and will continue to have — an advantage over (e.g.., collaborative problem solving, creativity, abstract thinking, adapting to changing conditions, balancing professional life with a personal life and so on). The work ahead will not so much be about “beating the bots” as it will be about being better humans in the digital economy. Therefore, Career Development in the digital age requires constant learning and more of human skills to sustain.
References:
21 Jobs of the Future. Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https://cognizant.com/whitepapers/21-jobs-of-the-future-a-guide-to-getting-and-staying-employed-over-the-next-10-years-codex3049.pdf
Forum, World . Economic Forum. (2019, November 15). Future of Jobs. Retrieved from https://reports.weforum.org: https://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/chapter-1-the-future-of-jobs-and-skills/
Johnson, Williams . (2019, November 15). Six steps for cultivating career. Retrieved from https://Macleans.Ca: https://macleans.ca/work/jobs/six-steps-for-cultivating-a-career-in-the-digital-age/
***
