Automation is seen as a major threat to jobs in the future with its repercussions already started to get felt. There are a lot of jobs in the US today which do not pay well or offer much dignity with unpredictable schedules. These jobs however could transform into the good jobs in the future depending on conditions. An example of this could be retail jobs as that is a line requiring a lot of communications and dealing with people, skills difficult to be replicated by machines. Automation could end up serving customers, employees and investors better if used in the right manner. For this specific skill building needs to take place. Spanish retailer Mercadona for example leverages employees’ inherent creativity to suggest improvements in packaging, transportation and product features. At another retailer, Costco, an algorithm has been developed that provides business intelligence on storing. This utilizes employees’ critical thinking and problem solving abilities for future proofing. Automation may also be seen as complementary to human abilities and not a challenge as evidenced by the game of chess where combined teams involving humans and computers tend to outsmart pure computer driven teams. Deliberate corporate training needs to be provided to employees so that they are ready to implement new technologies at the workplace. This is what Home Depot got wrong as they only invested on the technology part but ignored the human part that Mercadona successfully did.

Source:https://hbr.org/2017/06/transforming-todays-bad-jobs-into-tomorrows-good-jobs?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date&spMailingID=17437754&spUserID=OTY0OTMwNTk5NwS2&spJobID=1040925860&spReportId=MTA0MDkyNTg2MAS2

Uploaded Date:01/07/2017