[Applause]
when we meet people for the first time
we nearly all ask the same question what
do you do and it’s not the most
imaginative question in fact there’s a
little bit of a boring question but we
use it to make a judgement about the
person we’ve just met are they
interesting do I want to get to know
them are they powerful are they
influential so we use this piece of job
information to make a judgement and an
assessment about the person we’ve just
met the date is very clear now how we
perceive ourselves is very much based on
the occupation with a job of the role
that we play in society
it creates our identity it creates
purpose and meaning but we also know
that others perceive us through the role
that we do so jobs are really important
jobs matter jobs transform lives now I
started my career many many years ago at
the local authority just across the road
I was a 17 year old I’d left school with
some basic qualifications and I realized
within a couple of years that unless I
got some further qualifications I
studied I worked hard I was going to be
condemned to sort of a quite a boring
administrative job and so that’s what I
did I studied in the evenings I worked
quite hard I took some exams and then lo
and behold a couple of years later I
started to get promoted I studied to
earn more money and I got more
interesting and rewarding work but that
job that I did all those years ago no
longer exists it’s been automated people
doing those types of activities within
our organisations no longer exist now we
read about on TV or we listen on TV or
watch on TV listen on the radio read
stuff on newspapers read online about
the robots are coming about what a
artificial intelligence virtual reality
3d printing machine learning is going to
do to the jobs market and there is
absolutely no doubt that in the next two
decades is going to fundamentally change
the jobs market but technology has
always changed jobs let me just show you
a quick video now it’s absolutely true
people were employed at the end of the
19th century to go from street to street
from house to house and knock on
people’s windows there was a hundred and
five thousand people employed to do this
job you know they were waking people up
to go to the factories and go to the
mines now the piece of technology that
eliminated that job it wasn’t a great
piece of IAI or some wonderful computer
it was an alarm clock so technology has
always changed jobs it’s always
destroyed jobs but what it’s normally
done is created better paying jobs more
interesting jobs at the same time if we
go back to the two previous periods of
disruption in the jobs market so from
1870 to 1970 in agriculture we lost
ninety percent of the jobs in that
hundred year period and that’s as we
move from the horse to the tractor and
we got some modern farming techniques
between 1950 and 2010 seventy-five
percent of the jobs in that sixty year
period were eradicated in our factories
and in manufacturing as we started to
use robotics lean production to become
more efficient and more effective in
producing things so technology has
always destroyed jobs but in those both
those periods of disruption the jobs
that were being created so when we were
losing jobs in the factories we are
getting more jobs in the service economy
more interesting jobs office based jobs
so technology has always destroyed jobs
but what we’re going to see and what
we’ve already seen over the last 20
years which but which is going to
accelerate in the next 20 years
really at decelerate is job polarization
let me share some data with you so if
you look at this graph this is OECD
material content data and it shows you
the UK or the Great British labor market
between 1995 and 2010 and what you can
see at the bottom is that black line a
low paid low-skilled jobs and there’s
been growth in those during that 20 year
period you can see at the top the dark
blue line there was significant growth
in high skilled high paid jobs but the
jobs that have been eliminated from our
labor market are the ones in the middle
the middle class jobs the jobs I used to
do at ones earth council administrative
think back office of a bank think
insurance processing those are the jobs
that we have been eradicating now people
often say so why is this different it’s
because it’s opening up a chasm in our
labor market because what traditionally
people have done is they’ve entered
organizations and they’ve learned and
they’ve developed and they’ve taken
exams and then they’ve progressed but
what we have now and what we’re gonna
have in the next 10 15 20 years is more
people in low paid activity and more
people in highly skilled activity and
bridging one to the other is going to
become that much more difficult that’s
job polarization and that’s going to
create huge issues not just for
businesses not for individuals but for
our society now this isn’t just
happening in the UK here’s some global
data 7 or 6 major economies in the world
with a summary on the right hand side
and what this data shows you at the top
in the same 20 year period
high-skilled jobs and at the bottom you
can see the growth in low-skilled jobs
and the jobs in the middle are the ones
that are being squeezed out of existence
that no longer exist and let’s think
about the losers in this type of jobs
market so let’s think about graduates
people entering the labor market what
sort of jobs are they going to get
they’re the ones that are at risk think
about women return as people returning
to the labor market how do they re-enter
the labor market often historically is
to do these type of activities and then
get promoted and progress and also think
about people that are potentially like
me late bloomers that didn’t go to
university didn’t get the education at
the beginning how are they going to
progress so if we start to look at the
jobs market and why we’re gonna get
growth in a low-skilled low paid jobs
and high skilled jobs there are some
factors some important factors think
about some of the jobs at the front of
our labor market think coffee shop
barista take personal trainer think
carer system those jobs are difficult to
automate they’re difficult for computers
to do them in fact impossible but one of
the other trends that we have in the
jobs market at the moment created by
technology is the growth of gig working
think uber delivery people delivering
packages to your homes those jobs are
growing exponentially often low paid
jobs often jobs with no pension no
benefits but more importantly no access
to training and development so no
opportunities to progress at the other
end of the labor market 56% of employers
today in the UK and this happens right
across the world cannot fill all their
managerial and professional roles there
are skill and talent shortages but our
organizations are going to be competing
for this talent so what
means if you happen to have the skill
and you’re in demand is you can choose
you can choose who you work for you
could choose the hours you work where
you work – I work in the office don’t
work at the beach though I work from
home you know the middle-class the
people that are affluent that are going
to succeed in our jobs market are the
ones that are gonna get choice and
that’s what we have this chasm open it
up in the jobs market the other trend
that’s worth thinking about because it
has a huge impact on our labor market is
longevity Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott
Ritenour I wrote a fantastic book that’s
been published recently called 100 year
life 90% of our children will be living
to a hundred in the jobs in terms of
jobs this means people are going to be
working for 50 60
potentially 70 years you know we’ll be
retiring in our 80s not in our 50s or
six things and if you start to think
about what I’m saying in terms of those
low paid alert low skilled jobs people
being trapped not being able to progress
but then we’re potentially condemning
millions of people to jobs without
meaning to jobs without satisfaction
just getting by for 50 or 60 years so
this is where I start to identify some
of the problems for us as a society
you know this will create greater
inequality we already have Xand
have-nots it will looks it will push
those things to the margins and that
inequality will be supported or it will
be another phenomenon we’ll be in work
poverty people struggling to get by in
those jobs and they will have to do them
for 50 or 60 years I think this will
lead to greater dissatisfaction in our
society and if you think about some of
the election results recently you know
North America the UK but across Europe
that dissatisfaction elite
people often turning to the extreme
right or the extreme left politically
you know it leads to people looking for
someone to blame because they’re unhappy
in their lives so these are fundamental
challenges not just for our labor market
but for our governments and us so the
big question the big question is this
how do you build an inclusive
progressive society when technology is
changing jobs and the labor market at
warp speed
now many people and I listen to them
often talk about let’s regulate let’s
legislate let’s slow down the you know
the speed of this transformation
let’s stop people using the technology
that’s widely available but just think
about the services you know that we use
we like speedy taxis we like great food
being delivered to our door we like hope
shopping so we want those services do we
really want to be the Luddites you know
from the 19th century you know holding
back progress holding back technology I
don’t think we do so the solution the
art Sun is radical perhaps seismic in
terms of what government business need
to do the solution is a revolution in a
lifelong learning we need our schools
colleges and universities to move from
just teaching knowledge you know we can
get knowledge in two clicks from Google
you know we need our schools to be about
creating creativity using intuition
getting people to work collaboratively
solving problems that’s what we need our
education system to do so that we
prepare people to succeed in tomorrow’s
jobs market we need new ins we need
government to create new institutions
new organizations to support the people
that are trapped in low paid jobs
do I get an assessment about my innate
ability tell me about my potential help
me think about what I need to study what
I need to learn to progress within the
labour market
give me some funding to do
qualifications and training so I’ve got
a chance of bridging the chasm to
getting to the high paid the jobs with
meaning
so government needs to play its role but
businesses need to step up as well you
know firstly we need to change how we
hire how we recruit so what we’ve been
doing for the last 50 60 years is
looking at people’s qualifications
looking at their experience often on a
CV a piece of written information making
a judgement about who comes for
interview and then we do a simple
interview and make a decision about
who’s got the job who hasn’t but we’ve
known for 30 to 40 years the interviews
are very poor predictors of future
performance they’ve got a good way of
predicting who’s the right person for
the job and certainly when you start to
think about the new skills the new
capabilities we need to move to an
environment where employers test people
they look at their potential now it
requires a little bit more effort but
penguin Random House a book publisher
I’ve been doing this for the last three
years historically they hire graduates
they decided three years ago not to hire
graduates to create an assessment centre
they brought together lots of managers
to look at the talent and the reason
they did that is because they know the
more people that look at individuals the
more you eradicate unconscious bias the
more you look at people’s potential the
more you test people you give them
real-life examples you get them to work
with real members of the team that
they’re going to join now it may
surprise you but it didn’t surprise me
that 50 percent of the people that they
took on were non-graduates three years
on the non graduates are performing as
well if not better than the graduates so
we need to think about how we hire and
how we
but perhaps even more important in terms
of organizations and businesses is we
need to think about how do we unleash
human potential and creativity within
our organizations how do we get people
to solve problems for customers and
consumers and it’s about leadership and
culture and ways of working now for us
as people in this room and I think for
our children and grandchildren many of
you are a lot younger than me so you’re
gonna be in the labor market for quite a
long time I think the challenge for you
is how do you keep yourself up to speed
with a technological change how do you
reinvent yourself every five six seven
10 years how do you make yourself fit
for tomorrow’s labor market that means
we need to constantly be learning
developing and improving ourselves and
then we get to our children you know and
I think this is the greatest opportunity
how do we really build on that curiosity
if any of you have had three four five
year olds you know they’re always asking
questions why how does that work they’re
always scribbling trying things
experimenting how do we capture that
curiosity how do we protect it how do we
nurture it because that’s what’s going
to make them successful in the society
that we’re going to be that we’re moving
towards so I think lifelong learning is
hugely important it’s important for
individuals it’s important for
organizations and businesses but it’s as
important for all of us and our society
and I think you know if we don’t take
action if we don’t do things then I
think we will most probably undermine
one of the great promises that we make
from one generation to the next and that
is if you work hard you study you
develop yourself your life will be
better than that of your parents so if
me lifelong learning is a dream worth
doing thank you
[Applause]
when we meet people for the first time
we nearly all ask the same question what
do you do and it’s not the most
imaginative question in fact there’s a
little bit of a boring question but we
use it to make a judgement about the
person we’ve just met are they
interesting do I want to get to know
them are they powerful are they
influential so we use this piece of job
information to make a judgement and an
assessment about the person we’ve just
met the date is very clear now how we
perceive ourselves is very much based on
the occupation with a job of the role
that we play in society
it creates our identity it creates
purpose and meaning but we also know
that others perceive us through the role
that we do so jobs are really important
jobs matter jobs transform lives now I
started my career many many years ago at
the local authority just across the road
I was a 17 year old I’d left school with
some basic qualifications and I realized
within a couple of years that unless I
got some further qualifications I
studied I worked hard I was going to be
condemned to sort of a quite a boring
administrative job and so that’s what I
did I studied in the evenings I worked
quite hard I took some exams and then lo
and behold a couple of years later I
started to get promoted I studied to
earn more money and I got more
interesting and rewarding work but that
job that I did all those years ago no
longer exists it’s been automated people
doing those types of activities within
our organisations no longer exist now we
read about on TV or we listen on TV or
watch on TV listen on the radio read
stuff on newspapers read online about
the robots are coming about what a
artificial intelligence virtual reality
3d printing machine learning is going to
do to the jobs market and there is
absolutely no doubt that in the next two
decades is going to fundamentally change
the jobs market but technology has
always changed jobs let me just show you
a quick video now it’s absolutely true
people were employed at the end of the
19th century to go from street to street
from house to house and knock on
people’s windows there was a hundred and
five thousand people employed to do this
job you know they were waking people up
to go to the factories and go to the
mines now the piece of technology that
eliminated that job it wasn’t a great
piece of IAI or some wonderful computer
it was an alarm clock so technology has
always changed jobs it’s always
destroyed jobs but what it’s normally
done is created better paying jobs more
interesting jobs at the same time if we
go back to the two previous periods of
disruption in the jobs market so from
1870 to 1970 in agriculture we lost
ninety percent of the jobs in that
hundred year period and that’s as we
move from the horse to the tractor and
we got some modern farming techniques
between 1950 and 2010 seventy-five
percent of the jobs in that sixty year
period were eradicated in our factories
and in manufacturing as we started to
use robotics lean production to become
more efficient and more effective in
producing things so technology has
always destroyed jobs but in those both
those periods of disruption the jobs
that were being created so when we were
losing jobs in the factories we are
getting more jobs in the service economy
more interesting jobs office based jobs
so technology has always destroyed jobs
but what we’re going to see and what
we’ve already seen over the last 20
years which but which is going to
accelerate in the next 20 years
really at decelerate is job polarization
let me share some data with you so if
you look at this graph this is OECD
material content data and it shows you
the UK or the Great British labor market
between 1995 and 2010 and what you can
see at the bottom is that black line a
low paid low-skilled jobs and there’s
been growth in those during that 20 year
period you can see at the top the dark
blue line there was significant growth
in high skilled high paid jobs but the
jobs that have been eliminated from our
labor market are the ones in the middle
the middle class jobs the jobs I used to
do at ones earth council administrative
think back office of a bank think
insurance processing those are the jobs
that we have been eradicating now people
often say so why is this different it’s
because it’s opening up a chasm in our
labor market because what traditionally
people have done is they’ve entered
organizations and they’ve learned and
they’ve developed and they’ve taken
exams and then they’ve progressed but
what we have now and what we’re gonna
have in the next 10 15 20 years is more
people in low paid activity and more
people in highly skilled activity and
bridging one to the other is going to
become that much more difficult that’s
job polarization and that’s going to
create huge issues not just for
businesses not for individuals but for
our society now this isn’t just
happening in the UK here’s some global
data 7 or 6 major economies in the world
with a summary on the right hand side
and what this data shows you at the top
in the same 20 year period
high-skilled jobs and at the bottom you
can see the growth in low-skilled jobs
and the jobs in the middle are the ones
that are being squeezed out of existence
that no longer exist and let’s think
about the losers in this type of jobs
market so let’s think about graduates
people entering the labor market what
sort of jobs are they going to get
they’re the ones that are at risk think
about women return as people returning
to the labor market how do they re-enter
the labor market often historically is
to do these type of activities and then
get promoted and progress and also think
about people that are potentially like
me late bloomers that didn’t go to
university didn’t get the education at
the beginning how are they going to
progress so if we start to look at the
jobs market and why we’re gonna get
growth in a low-skilled low paid jobs
and high skilled jobs there are some
factors some important factors think
about some of the jobs at the front of
our labor market think coffee shop
barista take personal trainer think
carer system those jobs are difficult to
automate they’re difficult for computers
to do them in fact impossible but one of
the other trends that we have in the
jobs market at the moment created by
technology is the growth of gig working
think uber delivery people delivering
packages to your homes those jobs are
growing exponentially often low paid
jobs often jobs with no pension no
benefits but more importantly no access
to training and development so no
opportunities to progress at the other
end of the labor market 56% of employers
today in the UK and this happens right
across the world cannot fill all their
managerial and professional roles there
are skill and talent shortages but our
organizations are going to be competing
for this talent so what
means if you happen to have the skill
and you’re in demand is you can choose
you can choose who you work for you
could choose the hours you work where
you work – I work in the office don’t
work at the beach though I work from
home you know the middle-class the
people that are affluent that are going
to succeed in our jobs market are the
ones that are gonna get choice and
that’s what we have this chasm open it
up in the jobs market the other trend
that’s worth thinking about because it
has a huge impact on our labor market is
longevity Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott
Ritenour I wrote a fantastic book that’s
been published recently called 100 year
life 90% of our children will be living
to a hundred in the jobs in terms of
jobs this means people are going to be
working for 50 60
potentially 70 years you know we’ll be
retiring in our 80s not in our 50s or
six things and if you start to think
about what I’m saying in terms of those
low paid alert low skilled jobs people
being trapped not being able to progress
but then we’re potentially condemning
millions of people to jobs without
meaning to jobs without satisfaction
just getting by for 50 or 60 years so
this is where I start to identify some
of the problems for us as a society
you know this will create greater
inequality we already have Xand
have-nots it will looks it will push
those things to the margins and that
inequality will be supported or it will
be another phenomenon we’ll be in work
poverty people struggling to get by in
those jobs and they will have to do them
for 50 or 60 years I think this will
lead to greater dissatisfaction in our
society and if you think about some of
the election results recently you know
North America the UK but across Europe
that dissatisfaction elite
people often turning to the extreme
right or the extreme left politically
you know it leads to people looking for
someone to blame because they’re unhappy
in their lives so these are fundamental
challenges not just for our labor market
but for our governments and us so the
big question the big question is this
how do you build an inclusive
progressive society when technology is
changing jobs and the labor market at
warp speed
now many people and I listen to them
often talk about let’s regulate let’s
legislate let’s slow down the you know
the speed of this transformation
let’s stop people using the technology
that’s widely available but just think
about the services you know that we use
we like speedy taxis we like great food
being delivered to our door we like hope
shopping so we want those services do we
really want to be the Luddites you know
from the 19th century you know holding
back progress holding back technology I
don’t think we do so the solution the
art Sun is radical perhaps seismic in
terms of what government business need
to do the solution is a revolution in a
lifelong learning we need our schools
colleges and universities to move from
just teaching knowledge you know we can
get knowledge in two clicks from Google
you know we need our schools to be about
creating creativity using intuition
getting people to work collaboratively
solving problems that’s what we need our
education system to do so that we
prepare people to succeed in tomorrow’s
jobs market we need new ins we need
government to create new institutions
new organizations to support the people
that are trapped in low paid jobs
do I get an assessment about my innate
ability tell me about my potential help
me think about what I need to study what
I need to learn to progress within the
labour market
give me some funding to do
qualifications and training so I’ve got
a chance of bridging the chasm to
getting to the high paid the jobs with
meaning
so government needs to play its role but
businesses need to step up as well you
know firstly we need to change how we
hire how we recruit so what we’ve been
doing for the last 50 60 years is
looking at people’s qualifications
looking at their experience often on a
CV a piece of written information making
a judgement about who comes for
interview and then we do a simple
interview and make a decision about
who’s got the job who hasn’t but we’ve
known for 30 to 40 years the interviews
are very poor predictors of future
performance they’ve got a good way of
predicting who’s the right person for
the job and certainly when you start to
think about the new skills the new
capabilities we need to move to an
environment where employers test people
they look at their potential now it
requires a little bit more effort but
penguin Random House a book publisher
I’ve been doing this for the last three
years historically they hire graduates
they decided three years ago not to hire
graduates to create an assessment centre
they brought together lots of managers
to look at the talent and the reason
they did that is because they know the
more people that look at individuals the
more you eradicate unconscious bias the
more you look at people’s potential the
more you test people you give them
real-life examples you get them to work
with real members of the team that
they’re going to join now it may
surprise you but it didn’t surprise me
that 50 percent of the people that they
took on were non-graduates three years
on the non graduates are performing as
well if not better than the graduates so
we need to think about how we hire and
how we
but perhaps even more important in terms
of organizations and businesses is we
need to think about how do we unleash
human potential and creativity within
our organizations how do we get people
to solve problems for customers and
consumers and it’s about leadership and
culture and ways of working now for us
as people in this room and I think for
our children and grandchildren many of
you are a lot younger than me so you’re
gonna be in the labor market for quite a
long time I think the challenge for you
is how do you keep yourself up to speed
with a technological change how do you
reinvent yourself every five six seven
10 years how do you make yourself fit
for tomorrow’s labor market that means
we need to constantly be learning
developing and improving ourselves and
then we get to our children you know and
I think this is the greatest opportunity
how do we really build on that curiosity
if any of you have had three four five
year olds you know they’re always asking
questions why how does that work they’re
always scribbling trying things
experimenting how do we capture that
curiosity how do we protect it how do we
nurture it because that’s what’s going
to make them successful in the society
that we’re going to be that we’re moving
towards so I think lifelong learning is
hugely important it’s important for
individuals it’s important for
organizations and businesses but it’s as
important for all of us and our society
and I think you know if we don’t take
action if we don’t do things then I
think we will most probably undermine
one of the great promises that we make
from one generation to the next and that
is if you work hard you study you
develop yourself your life will be
better than that of your parents so if
me lifelong learning is a dream worth
doing thank you
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: