Who will help the workers?
Maybe I’m being too idealistic. Maybe I’m just naïve.
But as AI continues to transform our lives, and drive job displacement, who is going to help the people who can no longer work?
Whose responsibility will it be to help:
The contact centre worker, being replaced by a bot, but doesn’t have the savings to re-educate/re-train?
The production worker, being replaced by a robot, but is of an age where other employers make negative assumptions on his abilities to learn in a new environment?
The receptionist, being replaced by a virtual assistant, but who cannot relocate from a small town where there are no other employers?
The employee who is losing a job through no fault of their own, who is left feeling confused and devastated from the loss of identity derived from years of pride in the work they’ve done; in addition to being worried sick with not enough savings to help keep their car/home/healthcare/food for family for the foreseeable future?
Depending on where you are in the world, governments and charities and social groups can help these people, to a point. Local labor laws containing retraining provisions or redundancy payments can help these people, to a point. However there are many people who believe that the unfortunate unemployed have to own the entire responsibility to help themselves.
Regardless, AI is a disrupting force arguably beyond anything anyone could have predicted. And whilst corporations will benefit and advance as a result of AI applications, employees globally may need to rethink their traditional work expectations and provide counter measures against job displacement. And maybe, just maybe, companies need to rethink their role in helping protect the futures of ex-employees.
Traditionally, employees have worked within a mutual contract between them and their employer. From the start to formal end of employment, the company provides income, maybe training and an array of benefits to the employee, who in return provides time, labor and knowledge. Companies through the efforts of their staff, make profits to reinvest or pay to owners, and employees get money to spend or save. Assuming working conditions were good and employees were reliable and productive, it was a tidy arrangement that in past times, often meant “job for life” security for employees.
However, with the advent of technology, corporate globalisation, and the ever increasing pressures to cut costs to ensure dividends for investors, very few companies would entertain a “job for life” commitment to their employees today, especially in markets where governments are looking to cut further into business success with additional taxation, regulation and bureaucracy. Job loss and redundancy as a result of “offshoring”, “downsizing”, “mergers” etc is now a norm that impacts employees at all levels of experience and tenure, sometimes repeated times within the course of the still traditionally regarded “work years” within a career.
Conversely, an expectation for variety, travel, work-life balance and lack of appetite to be a “9 to 5 for life worker” is reducing traditional employee numbers, as is the new age of jobs (eg: content creator/influencer) and work arrangements (contractor/gig worker) that have opened income streams to people who don’t require traditional employment frameworks. The ever increasing disparity between skill sets and experience expected by employers, versus supply, means that some of those “in demand” people will never have to work to a traditional salary construct within their lives.
If according to Benjamin Franklin, the only certainty in the world is death and taxes, it seems today there’s a 3rd truth – that people who choose to be employees must assume responsibility to learn and adapt and upskill in order to provide current and future value to their employers. Without that appetite and ability, they’ll be discarded quickly.
Which begs the question – if it is so common now to lose employment, through no fault of the staff member, what safeguards should they be demanding to provide some level of protection to themselves. After all the rent, the petrol, the food costs don’t stop just because you’re unemployed. Should they be:
negotiating more options for skills and experience development as a standard package benefit?
expecting development secondments as a norm within their contract?
demanding longer redundancy notice clauses or elevated redundancy payments?
planning for a much shorter working term within the course of their lives?
treating each job as a short term contract only and managing their personal finances and home arrangements accordingly?
Another question that needs pressing considering from our governments and communities, is who will look after the workers? When jobs are eliminated due to AI that will boost profits for a company, should there be any moral responsibility or social accountability for that organisation to protect its ex-employees at all?
Assuming AI related job displacements are known well in advance, should the company:
take ownership of upskilling employees to enable them to continue working and/or to easily regain new work?
automatically provide support services to employees to help them through the emotional impacts of job loss, and navigate through the maze of finding new work elsewhere?
set clear expectations with new workers that the job will only be for a set term?
have more involvement in educating and setting up frameworks to help staff to manage financial and living arrangements that cover for out of work periods?
With AI offering previously unimaginable possibilities, the whole construct of the traditional employment contract is feeling obsolete. “Winging it” doesn’t feel like the best long term answer for anyone still wanting the “safety” of employment. But not everyone is cut out for self employment either. The public purse has limits to the funding it can provide to ensure people are fed, warm, clothed and safe. I don’t have all the answers, but I know for certain that we are moving into interesting times.
About the Author
Sally-Anne is appreciated across her leadership network for her constructive honesty and care. As a senior partner she brings many years of career experience supporting executives in their search for new career challenges, and in their search for high performing talent for their own teams.