The future employees in the 4IR era – are we preparing, planning, strategising for the inevitable?

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29 March 2020

The future employees in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era – are we preparing, planning, strategising for the inevitable?

The big question is, ‘is there a future for employees in Industry 4.0, or will all the work be taken over by man-made autonomous equipment driven by the ubiquitous artificial intelligence?’ Perhaps put in another way this question is, ‘has our creative abilities to make things easy, faster and cheaper, ran ahead of us to create our own extinction and hand over our power to AI self-organising machines?’

The painful truth though is that, since the foundations of the Earth, revolutions of all types have brought with them the proverbial collateral damage. Specifically for industrial revolutions, employees, customers, products, processes and systems have been successful candidates of the cancer of collateral damage, but more so are the employees of companies who are on the coalface of change and its disruptive outcomes. Levin, Cunningham (2018)[1] describe the impact of industrial revolutions succinctly as “periods in modern human history where technological innovation resulted in a drastic shift in the socio-economic status of people”. The employees and attendant training programs are always the first casualties of change. When the disruptive changes occur, the efforts to regain the jettisoned human capital are usually not very successful as those skills migrate to other stable environments, and the cost of familiarisation and new skill absorption is usually costly compared to retaining and reskilling existing skills a la the Kawada Robotics Corp method. [2]. Therefore, we can wallow on the painful or dark side of the inevitable. We need to rise above it and do what our forebears have always done: apply our thinking skills and come up with an alternative, as the famous South African affirmation on innovation boldly declares: ‘n boer maak ‘n plan’.

According to Kelly[3](p. 8) on a US strategic engineering supplier, the impact of automation on the US manufacturing workface “doesn’t mean the end of American manufacturing jobs, but it does mean that the nature of the work is will change dramatically. It will affect the manufacturing workforce in the following five ways:

  1. Certain jobs will be eliminated
  2. Current jobs will be modified
  3. New jobs will be created
  4. There will be a skill gap between eliminated jobs and modified jobs or new role
  5. The manufacturing workforce will keep evolving.”

This is good news coming from the world’s largest economy, ranked second out of 141 countries on the Global Competitiveness Index 4.0 2019 Rankings[4],that measures national competitiveness – defined as the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity[5].

Echoing similar positive sentiments, Professor Tshilidzi Marwala[6], Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg, quotes the World Economic Forum of 2018 that predict that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will “create massive job losses, but simultaneously pave way for new occupations, especially in areas such as data analysis, computer science and engineering.” The metrics are that by 2022 more than 75 million jobs will have disappeared and been replaced by 133 million new types of jobs. These predictions are encouraging, reinforcing the ingenuity of mankind to always rise to the challenges that upset the balance of its precarious socio-politico-economic stability, triggered by multivariate upheavals from Mother Nature’s copious warehouse of surprises. This phenomenon throws us a gauntlet: are we (As ODI-iers and other service providers out there, and as companies) ready, are we preparing, planning, strategising to meet these challenges? What will our home-grown contribution be to the projected global figure of new jobs?

In reframing Kelly’s predictions and meaning on some of the 4IR new job prospects, what are the benefits of investing in automation? This question reminds me of my early days in manufacturing when we were introducing world-class manufacturing. This was the unions’ famous question to put the spanner in the works, so to speak: “wat is in dit vir ons?” meaning what is in it for us as workers? This is another story for another time. Dewitt and company state three important factors, namely:

  1. Automation will reduce production costs and make US companies more competitive in the global market
  2. Automation increases productivity and improves quality
  3. Manufacturers will re-invest in innovation and R&D.

This is not a Pan-American panacea, but these strategies are applicable across the board, and internationally.

The scholars of the 4IR give us hope that the human species that started it all through their creative efforts will always be saved, as though each revolution provides safety valve for some of the remnants to survive and serve as a nucleic cells upon which to build a new phalanx of the working force. Table 1.0 below gives a snapshot of expected roles for employees in the 4IR workplace based on the researchers in the field.

Table 1.0         Role of employees in the new industry 4.0 order

Source / Authority Expected role of employees
Schumacher, Erol and Sihn (2016)[7], 164 ICT competences, openness to new technology, autonomy of employees
Stock and Seliger (2016)[8], 539 Knowledgeable work, monitor automated equipment, integrated into decision-making, participate in engineering activities (end-to-end)
Schumacher, Nemeth and Sihn (2019)[9], 412 Openness to new technology, Competences with modern ICT, autonomy of shop floor workers, experience with interdisciplinary work, willingness for continuous training on the job
Ibarra, Ganzarain and Igartua (2018)[10], 8 Work from any place at any time, greater and faster communication, knowledge exchange
PwC 2016 Global Industry 4.0 Survey[11], 30 People with right digital skills, new and appropriate skills and knowledge, train existing employees, new roles such as data scientists or digital innovation managers, new digital skills
Pessl, Sorko and Mayer (2017)[12], 198 Specialised project teams, employees co-determine their tasks and targets,  self-organisation of employees, employees able to make quick decisions

According to the Career Junction[13] blog, the World Economic Forum report has listed the 10 skills you will need for the Fourth Industrial Revolution:

  1. Complex Problem Solving
  2. Critical Thinking
  3. Creativity
  4. People Management
  5. Coordinating with Others
  6. Emotional Intelligence
  7. Judgement and Decision Making
  8. Service Orientation
  9. Negotiation
  10. Cognitive Flexibility

The blog further states that physical and repetitive jobs in industries such a mining, agriculture, retail & trade, transportation, agriculture, administration, office & support, accommodation, food services and production & manufacturing industries will bear the brunt of change ushered by the 4th Industrial Revolution. The good news however, is that when gazing ahead, this will present enormous opportunities for our children and youth, who will grow in a transformed education, skills and training regime driven by artificial intelligence and automation augmented by critical thinking skills and problem solving. Looking at the required skills for the future, manual work will be less required, although I believe not eliminated, but knowledge driven skills is the future.

This is an ideal state because to achieve these things governments have to provide enabling policies and environments accompanied by attendant investments, focusing less on defence spending and more on fighting endemic crime in all its ramifications that siphons off most of countries’ resources, especially in the developing world. Having touched on government, what exactly is its role in helping companies navigate the new world of 4IR. Levin, Cunningham and Nyakabawo (2018:11)[14], authors of the dti TIPS Research report on WEF and the 4th Industrial Revolution in South Africa, identify seven types of government-led national efforts to adopt and diffuse new production technologies, which need to be customised based on country-specific nuances and a nation’s industrial sector mix:

  1. Building awareness
  2. Establishing financial incentives
  3. Creating a robust legal framework
  4. Spurring accreditation of 4IR centric companies
  5. Expanding connectivity and data-security protection
  6. Promoting R&D&I for Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies
  7. Setting up new talent and education programmes.

The challenge is to adapt to changes and create a comfortable, affordable and sustainable future for us and the generations after us. According to DeWitt et al[15] (p. 11), on ‘Building the manufacturing workforce of the future starts now’, it is important to keep this in mind, that ”to remain competitive in the global market, we must establish a high-innovation, high-wage economy where technological advancements don’t simply replace current jobs, but instead create new ones – and perhaps even new industries.”

My wife Debbie is an avid reader of Twitter, especially motivational affirmations by pastors, celebrities and speakers of the trade. This very week she shared with me a motivational talk by the incomparable American TV show host, Steve Harvey. Steve Harvey quoted Albert Einstein quotation that he found when reading a book one day: “Imagination is everything. It is preview to life’s coming attractions”. Therefore, in pursuant of Albert Einstein’s world of ‘imagination’, let us don our own Einsteinian hats to ‘imagine and create’ the uncompromising and unadulterated role of our employees in the 4IR world that is upon us.

Author: Dr. Ntokozo Mthembu – Advisor to the ODI Board

Click here to read more about the 20 Keys synergy with the 4th Industrial Revolution Tsunami.

Sources:

[1] World Economic Forum and the 4th Industrial Revolution in South Africa. TIPS – Trade and Industry Policy Strategies. TIPS Industrial Report for the Department of Trade and Industry. November 2018. (Date of Usage: 09 December 2019)

[2] https://odi.co.za/balancing-job-losses-amidst-innovation-the-kawada-industries-innovative-thinking/ posted 9th April 2019.

[3] Dewitt L and McDonald D. The impact of automation on the U.S. manufacturing workforce, in Five Ways automation will change the manufacturing workforce. KELLY What’s next. 1-12. https://www.kellyocg.com/Insights/Whitepapers/983/five-ways-automation-will-change-the-manufacturing-workforce. (Date of Usage: 29 August 2019)

[4] http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2019.pdf (Date of Usage: 4 September 2019)

[5] South Africa is ranked #60. Singapore is ranked #1. (Date of Usage: 29 August 2019)

[6] Marwala, T. “Mathematics, beauty, poetry and the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Opionista. The Daily Maverick. 7 February 2020. www.dailymaverick.co.za  (Date of  Usage: 28 March, 2020)

[7] Schumacher A, Erol S and Sihn W.  A maturity model for assessing Industry 4 readiness and maturity of manufacturing enterprises. Elsevier ScienceDirect Procedia CIRP 52 (2016) 161-166

[8] Stock T and Seliger G. Opportunities of Sustainable Manufacturing in Industry 4.0. Elsevier ScienceDirect Procedia CIRP 40 (2016) 536-541

[9] Schumacher A, Nemeth T and Sihn W. Roadmapping towards industrial digitalization based on an Industry 4.0 maturity model for manufacturing enterprises. Elsevier ScienceDirect Procedia CIRP 79 (2019) 409-414

[10]Ibarra D, Ganzarain J and Igartua I. Business model Innovation through Indutry 4.o: A review. Elsevier ScienceDirect Procedia CIRP 22 (2018) 4-10

[11] Geissbauer R, Vedeo J and Schrauf S. Industry 4.0: Building the digital enterprise. PwC 2016 Global Industry 4.0 Survey. www.pwc.com/industry4.0

[12] Pessl E, Sorko S and Mayer B. Roadmap Industry 4.0 – Implementation Guideline for Enterprises. International Journal of Science, Technology and Society. Science Publishing Group. 2017 5(6) 193-202

[13] Jobs of the Future – Surviving the Fourth Industrial Revolution. CarrerJUnction.co.za. March 05, 2019

[14] World Economic Forum and the 4th Industrial Revolution in South Africa. TIPS – Trade and Industry Policy Strategies. TIPS Industrial Report for the Department of Trade and Industry. November 2018. (Date of Usage: 23 November 2019)

[15] Dewitt L and McDonald D. The impact of automation on the U.S. manufacturing workforce, in Five Ways automation will change the manufacturing workforce. KELLY What’s next. 1-12. https://www.kellyocg.com/Insights/Whitepapers/983/five-ways-automation-will-change-the-manufacturing-workforce (Date of Usage: 07 December 2019)

Posted in: 20 Keys The fourth industrial revolution (4IR)
Tagged in: Industry 4.0, Productivity, The fourth Industrial Revolution, automation, employees