Will my job become algorithmic ?
In today’s world, the only certainty is… uncertainty and volatility.
Who can predict today what the future of employment will be?
Organizations are striving to become more agile and intrapreneurial by using better workflow logic while at the same time disrupting their own business models in a dematerialized world.
A career in the traditional sense is usually a succession of steps and cycles (upwards in general) but this is no longer the case.
Companies do not guarantee jobs-missions-roles-projects unless for a predetermined period.
They look to attract, retain and develop talent, for different skills sets… but the reality is that the duration and content of a job are becoming more and more of a gamble.
Where are we heading?
How can I help myself to achieve success in my career within this context?
Changing games & inversion of ownership
Not only are business models challenged but pricing models too are putting pressure on both margins and costs!
As a result, the salaried base remuneration model is under threat!
Have you ever experienced the reality of a headcount decrease or a cost-cutting restructuring?
Will the economy and organizations create new jobs to compensate for the loss of work through machine-learning, robotisation, automatization, digitalization ?
The answer remains open…
Employers are the job owners: jobs are created within a momentum of growth and destroyed as soon as a crisis arises.
In other words, a job is a commodity.
But the good news is: each of us has a VALUE (see my article about the Niche Solution), a solution for a potential need (to be created or existing). Above all, we are the owners of our careers. A journey of 40 years duration. It deserves permanent care and attention… just like our health.
Whether we are a patient, a client or an employee, the time has come to take charge and to be proactive.
The experts, the economy of knowledge and competency-based players will be the first to be impacted.
Their education, behavioral patterns, and soft skills will allow them to make this evolution to a self –driven career the easiest.
Then it will spread across to the rest of us, the majority.
Surviving in the workplace of the future will require us to take the lead: this is of paramount importance.
We are shifting from the salaried business model to the YOU – ME MODEL.
So let’s look at the implications at the individual level to better benefit from this change of ownership and to excel in this new ball game.
The power of… I
I am lucky! People change faster than organizations.
Being aware that human capital is the only asset of a company whose leverage is unlimited, it is vital I focus on me because investing in myself is my best professional job insurance and my safety net.
It is also the only 50% of the employment equation on which I have complete control and impact.
Flexible, agile, communicative and innovative, I develop my interpersonal savvy, I embrace emerging themes and thus feel comfortable in dealing with the unknown, with any paradoxes and ambiguities that arise.
Well prepared, correctly positioned and proactive, I am mindful of the importance of the human dimension and I promote the importance of bonding, building relationships and networks.
I spend time in relating to others, valuing emotions and the energy that contributes to positioning me in the current ecosystem: it’s my way of making a difference.
It helps me to anticipate the pace, the rhythm of change, to sniff out opportunities and to reconfigure myself… But always with a meaningful purpose in mind.
Sharing best practices and experiences combined with an authentic sense of community/social engagement, are the values that are important to me. They replace the short term money-value adding approach.
My multi-stage professional life is a mix of hard-won experiences, life-long learnings, and education. It is a balance of employment and self-employment, a portfolio of paid and unpaid work.
A permanent exploration-transition-reconversion.
Each of us… is a business model
I will design my own business model because I prefer to disrupt myself before others do… usually to my detriment.
I start by first being knowledgeable of myself. In other words, I clarify what are my activities, my resources, my skills, my preferences, my opportunities, my areas of improvement, my leadership and communication style, my decision capacity, my energy patterns, my self-development in order to identify my true value.
This reflection will put my career into a clearer perspective, will fully unleash my true potential and finally identify my dreams and desires for the future. The aim here is to maximize my pleasure and fulfillment at work.
Then I will package the content of my resources, my services, my products, my expertise into a unique personal selling proposition.
Based on the above I will define my Value Proposition in the market.
What do I offer to my community considering the trends-needs of my future customers-clients ?
To maximize my chances, I do my due diligence, my market research (competition-trends analysis) and I will identify my preferred targets, my different segments and the level of the public I want to approach.
The questions I look to answer are :
Are these people the best fit for what I have to offer?
How do I want to connect and engage them?
How do I want to interact with them?
Which type of communications, which channel are most appropriate?
I will become the storyteller of my value and show my authentic self instead of just branding myself.
I will share my story with the idea of building trust, investing in the relationship… like I do in normal conversation.
I am not only inspirational… I can be aspirational.
Finally, I will decide at which level do I want-need to be «priced»? (the compensation-remuneration topic in the salaried model…).
Do I want to charge by project, by week, by day, by hour, by min? Do I want to be an interim or a freelancer ? Could I apply the yield management pricing model?
Whatever my option… my expertise has a value. And all value has a price. No underselling. I deserve to be paid what I am worth.
Business… me
The beauty in this new era of work – where human capital is only partially employed by traditional employers – is that… I am the product.
The market will buy ME, before buying my services, my products, or my technological expertise.
The new buying criteria are a genuine confidence in what I have to offer combined with real value creation aim at building a sustainable win-win relationship.
Rather than trying to predict the future I will enable my future.
I will make a difference and generate a competitive business advantage in the new world of work.
Let’s offer MYSELF… an unfair advantage!
Remember: I belong to the asset column of the balance sheet not to a cost line in the P & L !
