Let’s face it, we spend most of our lives working. We’re also at the start of what economists are calling the fourth Industrial Revolution: the fusion of the digital, biological, and physical worlds.
In short, our working lives are changing. Fast.
If you’ve signed up for this course you could be:
Feeling anxious about the way new technology is impacting your job;
And/or looking for ways to help you stay on top of the ever-changing developments and use them confidently.
If you’re anxious, it’s perhaps reassuring to know there are lots of other people who feel exactly the same. Hurray! You’re not alone! 👍
Much of our anxiety comes from the belief that our jobs will cease to exist in their current form in the future; that technology will ultimately replace humans. To an extent, this is true.
But the steady flow of new technology is also an opportunity to grow, embrace technology, gain new skills, and allow your job to evolve.
The economist Andrew McAfee calls this time the New Machine Age and reckons it makes good economic sense. Check out why in the video below:
Clearly, there are positives when it comes to workplace innovations. Some of these include:
Ease of communications
Time efficiency
Energy saving
Translation tools for global working
Easy collaboration across time zones
Flexible work opportunities
Information storage
Mass communication tools
“The changes are so profound that, from the perspective of human history, there has never been a time of greater promise or potential peril.” Professor Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum
The challenge is to keep your knowledge of innovations current and actively use them to improve how you work. To do this, it’s important to develop a monitoring strategy.
What is a monitoring strategy?
A monitoring strategy is a way of keeping track of the new developments in your field. It will help you identify the areas you need knowledge, education or even training in, giving you the confidence to use these new skills as they’re being developed.
Let's Recap
Workplace innovation can take many different forms.
You are not alone in feeling anxious about new technologies and their impact on the way we work.
To understand these changes and adapt to them, you can put in place a monitoring strategy.
An effective strategy should include three simple steps. We’ll take a look at the first of these in the next chapter.
