EDUCATION

T he internet, robotic processautomation, autonomousmachines and artificialintelligence are transformingtasks and morphing the

workplace. Some tasks are being automated;some roles, in the parlance of the fourthindustrial revolution, are being augmented.Some jobs are disappearing while freshones emerge.

Automation could disrupt up to 6.5 millionfull-time equivalent Australian positions – butas many as 4 million new jobs could be createdby 2030, according to management consultantMcKinsey & Company. But these new jobswon’t be like the old jobs, so who will do them?That will probably be the existing workersprepared to invest in their own development,to increase their skills and cultural nous.

As the world of worktransforms, continuallearning will be vital tofuture-proof careers.STORY BEVERLEY HEAD PHTOTOGRAPHY CHRIS PEARCE

SKILL SEEKERS

“If I don’t havethe latestthinking, I will beextinct,” saysDiana Faddoul.

SHORT COURSESFOR LONG TERMSUCCESS

Discover the 2020Course Calendar now.www.agsm.edu.au/calendar

Article first published in AFR BOSS Magazine Dec 2019 – Jan 2020. Reprinted with permission.

By Beverley Head.

A recent IBM survey estimated that120 million workers in the world’s 12 largesteconomies would need to be retrained orreskilled as a result of AI and intelligentautomation, and revealed that the top twoskills sought by employers were behavioural:a willingness to be flexible, agile and adaptableto change; and time management and theability to prioritise.

A recent BOSS roundtable noted thatschools, vocational colleges, universitiesand private education organisations are allwrestling with the challenge of preparingstudents for the unknown.

For those who are already in work, future-proofing careers has become a priority. Mostprofessionals will need to boost their dataskills, build technical knowledge, improvecreative and collaboration capabilities,consider a career pivot and, in some cases,reinvent themselves.

That is no surprise to Diana Faddoul,marketing business lead at Uniting, thecommunity services arm of the UnitingChurch. Faddoul has a bachelor of marketingand masters of marketing, and is undertakingan executive MBA.

Faddoul is in her 30s, but knows she’s upagainst young graduates with a fresh quiver ofskills. “If I don’t have the latest thinking, I willbe extinct,” she says.

It’s why she is on a continuous learningjourney. Besides the university qualifications,Faddoul has taken herself to graphic designcourses and advanced Excel sessions, taughtherself to use the latest tech tools and wants tolearn to code.

Faddoul is preparing herself for the future,but there is a price. “I usually pay for coursesmyself ... if someone else has paid for it, I maynot be that committed,” she says. “So muchsacrifice goes into this commitment – youhave to be mentally prepared. I’ve also had tothink about when do I want to start a family,is it something I need to put off? The social lifeis non-existent.”

Magnus Gittins, director of executiveeducation at AGSM, says future-proofing

Rather than describing the challenge asthe future of work, he prefers the term “theevolution of work” because it’s happeningalready and it won’t stop.

Priddis says robotic process automation(RPA) will, within 10 years, halve the numberof accounting and finance jobs. But he saysthese professionals can reinvent themselves.

“There is a global cyber security talentshortage,” he says. “When you peel back thejob title of accountant and cyber analyst,look at the constituent parts – the skills, tasks,knowledge, competencies. There are hugesimilarities between accounting roles andcyber analyst roles.”

It’s not just accountants. Priddis saysanyone in process-based work, research-based work or calculation and analyticaljobs will find their roles automated to somedegree or augmented by technology and AI.Meanwhile, retail, warehousing shippingand logistics roles are being transformed byrobotics and autonomous machines.

Faethm will launch a free consumerproduct in 2020 to help people understandthe likely impact on them.

“If you’re in a job that is fundamentallyhuman, you’re good, though you shouldprobably be learning more technical thingsto augment yourself,” Priddis says. “If you’rein a job that’s more technical, you will havea problem and should be learning things thatare more human.”

It’s a global challenge for individualsand organisations, says AGSM’s Gittins.He notes that AT&T last year committed toa $US1 billion upskilling program for 100,000workers. Amazon has allocated $US700 millionto a similar plan for 100,000 personnel.

These massive efforts dwarf Telstra’s$25 million training package to upskill staff,and the “cloud guilds” at NAB, Kmart andTarget, where technology companies suchas Amazon Web Services and Microsoft arehelping build the cloud computing skills ofa couple of thousand people.

“This is not just how to manage the declinebut how to invent the new,” Gittins says.

careers has become urgent as the prevailingbusiness models across multiple sectorscome under threat. He expects to see there-emergence of the academy modelwhere people continually reskill and honea growth mindset – the term coined byStanford University professor Carol Dweckto describe people who move away fromthinking that intellect and talent is fixedand are prepared to invest in learning anddevelopment.

People with a fixed mindset say: “I justdon’t have digital skills.” With a growthmindset, they tell themselves: “I can be goodat anything. Skill comes from putting energyinto learning.”

SUPPLY VERSUS DEMANDThe 2019 Hays Global Skills Index, publishedin collaboration with Oxford Economics,reveals a talent mismatch between the skillsthat Australia’s jobseekers have and the skillsemployers want. It’s the sixth consecutiveyear this mismatch has been reported, butthe size of the mismatch this year is thehighest recorded.

Skills demand is highest in engineering,technology, financial services andprofessional services. Demand is falling forlow-skill workers who do not regularly upskilland whose work can be automated.

Michael Priddis is the founder and CEOof Faethm, a Sydney-based company thathas amassed a huge data collection anddeveloped artificial intelligence tools thatreveal the impact of workplace changeon more than 2 billion jobs worldwide.Companies and governments useFaethm’s service to identify skills gapsand opportunities.

Priddis, who is also a member of theWorld Economic Forum’s Global AI Council,says that although some companies – suchas Telstra and NAB – have started massiveredundancy programs, “this should not,and need not, be a redundancy story.This should be a capacity and learningdevelopment story.”

6.5MAustralianfull-time

equivalentpositions

potentially atrisk of disruption

throughautomation.

4MJobs in Australia

that could begeneratedby 2030.

50%Proportion of

accounting andfinance jobs

expected to belost within10 years.

10%Proportion ofincome thatexecutives

should investin professionaldevelopment.

Sources: McKinsey& Co, IBM, Faethm,

Kylie Hammond

FUTURESHOCK

AGSM @ UNSW Business SchoolAustralian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) Short Courses provideleaders with effective tools, frameworks and insights to drive sustainablechange. Our contemporary suite of management and leadership courses buildindividual and organisational capability quickly, equipping a new generationof leaders to make an impact in today’s accelerated world.

EDUCATION

He says that while some organisations stillfocus on small, hand-picked cohorts of staff tobe reskilled, there is a trend to invest in morewidespread learning and development. KPMG,for example, has committed to its workforcebeing educated in design thinking as it wasdeemed critical to the firm’s success.

COST, CONTENT, COMMITMENTKylie Hammond has been a corporateheadhunter for nearly two decades, but saysshe has never seen such a degree of workplaceflux. Many people, she says, will simply haveto pivot to find work.

An increasing number of professionals areexploring portfolio careers, Hammond says,maintaining anchor work while also takingpart in the gig economy so that they are not“beholden to one employer”.

“Executives ahead of the curve are adoptinga much more sophisticated approach to careerplanning,” she says. “They are engaging withcareer coaches the same way as they engagewith a financial planner, accountant or lawyer– to transition, to protect their income andinvesting in their training.”

Best practice, she says, is for executivesto put 10 per cent of their income into theirprofessional development, with most focusedon developing “hot skills” such as digitalmedia, digital transformation, social media,negotiation skills and public speaking. This isoften through shorter online courses instead oflonger, costlier MBA programs.

Hammond says employers should take a leafout of the playbook of start-ups, which tend totake a more relaxed approach to employees’professional development and learning.

Instead of dictating who learns what,when and how, start-ups trust their peopleto manage their own training budget andskills development. “If the employee takesownership and contributes, you can getamazing things to happen,” Hammond says.

In its Future Skills report, strategy consultantAlphaBeta suggests that by 2040, Australianswill have to spend three hours each week onlearning and development to keep pace withthe demands of the automation age.

Shayne McKenzie is 50, has been retrenchedtwice and has reinvented himself repeatedly.He studied ceramic engineering as anundergraduate, followed by an MBA, followedby a graduate diploma in education. He hascompleted the Sydney Leadership program(an initiative of the Benevolent Society) andundertaken a series of courses to learn abouthuman behaviour.

After working as a management consultant,HR leader and relief teacher, he is CEO of theInstitute for the Study of Peak States in Zurich,working with therapists focused on wellbeingand performance.

McKenzie says the key to a strong growthmindset is to avoid being defined by yourcurrent or previous roles and to take stock ofyour transferable skills, take on a new role, and

invest to learn something new. “Sometimesthe response is a survival response,” heacknowledges. “My role has been maderedundant at least twice – for me each time it’sbeen a great opportunity to sit back and say,‘OK, what is the next part of my journey?’

“One of the best ways to avoid beingredundant is to be looking at the biggerpicture, where your role fits in, what changesare happening, and to identify the future skillsyou might want to be thinking about.”

Louise du Pre-Alba, strategic policy advocatefor the nation’s largest superannuation fund,AustralianSuper, says constant reskilling isessential for people who want to do theircurrent job well and for those seeking a careerchange or progress.

“In a lot of fields of endeavour there is thiscreeping credentialisation,” she says. “Evenif you know something, you need to keep up,being accredited in those things.”

Du Pre-Alba invests in her own professionaldevelopment each year, focusing on learningsomething different rather than increasing hercredentials in the same subject area. But sheacknowledges that it can be hard for people toprove in a job interview that they have certainskills, particularly creative skills.

“The standard recruitment processes donot necessarily flush out someone’s creativeabilities – they are still focused around whatyou trained in and gained experience in,”she says. “They don’t elicit responses thatdemonstrate how someone can think outsidethe box.

“This is really important to employers. Theyneed to develop scenarios and get applicantsto see how they respond and the way theythink and approach the task. That will tell youa lot about whether they are creative or hugprocess in solving a problem.”

While du Pre-Alba has taken control of herown learning and development, she says thereneeds to be more guidance from employers.

“People need to focus on things that requirecreativity and exercising judgment,” shesays. “So much of the old workplace requiredmastery of process. Mastery of process issomething that robots can do.”

ShayneMcKenzie hasreinventedhimselfrepeatedly.

PE

TER

BR

AIG

LEAD THE WAY IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONAGSM’s Short Courses will help you successfully lead and embed the digital transformation ofyour organisation. Gain new technical knowledge and strategic tools in three courses: LeadingDigital Transformation. Digital Strategy Program. Digital Innovation and Emerging Technology.

Software company Salesforce employs40,000 people worldwide and is at thepointy end of the fourth industrial revolution.The systems it designs and sells are

changing workplaces and automating tasks thatpeople once performed manually.

Rob Wickham, vice-president and growthprogram manager for Salesforce Asia Pacific,says many of the fundamental skills that peopleneeded a generation ago are being performed bymachines. “The new skills that are becoming vitallyimportant are problem solving, critical thinking,validating the sources of data,” he says. “Mostimportant is the skill to learn new skills and unlearnskills of the past.”

Wickham says business needs to help today’sworkers participate in tomorrow’s economy. Andhe says there is an appetite for learning. Researchthat Salesforce commissioned from YouGovGalaxy last year revealed that 88 per cent ofAustralian workers wanted to learn new skills, and45 per cent believed it was the responsibility ofgovernment and business to help them do that.

To that end, Salesforce offers Trailhead,a free, online, gamified self-learning platformthat is available to anyone, not just Salesforceemployees.

Much of Trailhead’s content relates toSalesforce technology, but there are also generallearning modules such as artificial intelligencebasics, how to coach a team, how to use abalanced scorecard, how to cultivate equality atwork, even a cyber resilience module.

Badges are awarded once modules arecompleted. Because the system is gamified, thereare points associated with each badge or module,and people can gain Ranger or Double RangerStatus for 100 or 200 badges, which Salesforcecelebrates internally. Wickham has 154 badgesand tries for another 25-30 each year.

Wickham says Trailhead has provided a newsource of talent for the company, while generating“resumé-worthy credentials that allow you toredefine yourself and create opportunities”.

ANZ Institutional has been working to ensure itspeople are “future-ready” since 2015, says TrevorO’Leary, the organisation’s head of loan productand execution, loans and specialised finance.

Change, he says, has long been a feature of theworkplace. “People are clever and adaptive,” hesays. “This is no different this time around, thoughpossibly the pace of change is faster.

“We provide through ANZ a structure to getpeople future-ready, which looks at new ways ofleading, having a growth mindset, challengingyourself and being persistently resilient. Wehave done this for a while to prepare our peoplewhen they have roles that might be removed oraugmented with technology so that they are inthe best position to continue to add value to thebusiness, customers and their lives.”

ANZ Institutional partners with AGSM ontwo key programs. The Business PerformanceProgram (BPP) for leaders runs over six days,has two modules and is designed to developtechnology and data skills as well as newleadership approaches, particularly collaboration.“The old way of managing was very hierarchicaland sharing didn’t happen,” O’Leary says. “Yourknowledge was yours alone and that was how youcreated value.”

A two-day BPP Accelerate course wasintroduced this year, held at the Stone & Chalkinnovation hub in Sydney. It teaches innovationframeworks, introduces participants to fintechs,which are reshaping banking and finance, andincludes customer panels to deliver participantsa clear understanding of shifting expectations.(Stone & Chalk has separately announced itsown S&C Academy, offering half-day upskillingboot camps on innovation, technology andentrepreneurship.)

ANZ’s second course is a Personal PerformanceProgram (PPP) for more junior or graduateemployees, which outlines frameworks to helppeople manage stakeholders, build relationshipsand resilience, and grasp how lean start-upsoperate and grow.

O’Leary says the rationale for the investmentis clear: “If we train our people and motivate ourpeople well and better than someone else, wewill achieve better outcomes for the customer.If people have the tools and backing from theorganisation, you get better outcomes for theorganisation [and] the individual, and a competitiveadvantage.”

This content has been created in commercialpartnership with AGSM @ UNSW Business Schoolfor BOSS magazine.

Internally, Salesforce managers use Trailheadto support career planning, suggesting modulesfor employees to lift their skills so they can ascendvertically or switch horizontally for a differentperspective and experience.

Wickham says it is important staff can learnduring working hours, rather than be expectedto shoehorn professional development into theirnights and weekends.

“You have got to give them the opportunity,and elevate learning to be a priority so they feelcomfortable doing it through their work hours.”

Since Trailhead’s launch in 2014, 1.7 millionpeople worldwide have followed the self-guidedlearning trails and gained badges.

“It has wildly exceeded our expectations andproves people are hungry and want to take controlin these uncertain times and develop that muscle– a desire for lifelong learning,” Wickham says. “Atthe end of the day, that is what is going to serveyou well in the fourth industrial revolution.”

KNOWLEDGE TRAILSAustralian workers hungry fornew skills are turning to free,online training platforms aswell as more formal courses.

ANZ’s TrevorO’Leary saysworkplacechange isnot new,although thepace of it hasaccelerated.

JAM

ES

BR

ICK

WO

OD

AGSM @ UNSW Business SchoolDiscover AGSM’s DigitalTransformation Courses now.www.agsm.edu.au/digital