The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology has published a white paper that informs and provides actionable insights for the I-O psychologists, business leaders, and HR practitioners who want to play active roles in co-creating and architecting the dynamic, ever-changing future of work.
The SIOP White Paper series organizes and summarizes important and timely topics in I-O psychology.
The newest white paper, “Automation”, focuses the history of automation, the expected skill sets of working professionals in the age of automation, and the role various business professionals play in the future of work.
The term automation is the process by which a task or procedure is performed with decreasing human assistance.
Automation will change work for employees with varied types of jobs, from CEOs to cashiers to fashion designers, because automation will affect parts of jobs rather than entire professions.
This is contrary to what has been popularized by online media: that a certain percentage of jobs will be eliminated due to automation. Some jobs will be more at risk to change than others, but only 5 percent of jobs are candidates for full automation.
Arman Hamamah, Naz Tadjbakhsh, Nathan Iverson, Tanya Thampipop, Joshua Fuller, Shiksha Shubham, and Paul H. Richardson, Jr. are young I-O professionals and educators who are passionate about the world of work. Their work ranges in industry and focus, but their common interest is in the future.
Together, they facilitated an alternative session at the 2019 SIOP Conference in National Harbor to help business professionals develop an understanding of what the future of work might be and what steps they can take to prepare for it.
The future of work is a vast and vague topic that to a certain degree cannot be predicted.
However, in this paper, the authors set realistic expectations and deliver a jumping point for HR and business professionals to begin shifting their mindset in preparation for the future of work.
Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology