Together with demographics and globalization it's one of the three mega trends redefining our labor markets. However, robots will not take over our world, not today, nor in the future. The human element will remain key in Human Resources. Our future will be a smart combination of tech and touch as we put it at Randstad. Our connected world provides us with a wealth of opportunities. Mining big data, using people analytics to optimize recruitment processes is still at its infancy - much more to come, and it will happen fast. A great example is Randstad's investment via our Investment Fund in a people analytics company called Crunchr. Another one is the development at Randstad Belgium of Ploy, an App that on line matches people and jobs in the hospitality sector, a kind of Booking.com for the labor market.
So robotics are all around us today and artificial intelligence will continue to develop, leading to even smarter, more transparent and efficient ways of recruitment. It will also lead to new jobs appearing and old jobs disappearing. Indeed, routine jobs, are disappearing rapidly. Not only lower and mid level routine jobs in manufacturing are hit, but more and more so also higher end jobs in for instance accountancy and the legal world are changing significantly because of automation. However, in the future world of work we'll see a continued need for lower level service jobs, the ones that can't be automated, aren't routine tasks. Such as hairdressers, life guards, concierges. At the higher end there will be a continued, large demand for all STEM, science, technology, engineering and mathematics, related jobs. All future jobs will call for a combination of hard and soft skills. Creativity, analytical and critical thinking are three key soft skills that will be in huge demand. Along with empathy, the ability to be service oriented and work in and with changing teams.
The employee, the talent of the future will seek challenge and stimulation, respect and recognition. While their parents still adjusted their lives to their jobs, future talent - they by the way, will hold many more jobs than their parents - will be looking for jobs and tasks that adjust to their lives. The other way round. Talent will be King and Queen in the future. For them getting their live work balance right is important. Furthermore they want to impact, be relevant, do meaningful work and are looking for continuous development of their skills and capabilities. Will everything change? No. Not everything. Back to the future is very much the fact that future talent will also want a solid financial reward for the job preformed. Nothing new there.....Income stability will remain important in the changing world of work.