This report by McKinsey & Company highlights that operationally intensive companies have entered a new wave of automation and digitisation. That will have a big impact on the skills they need to remain competitive.
Technological progress is enabling machines to complete many of the tasks that once required human beings. That new automation revolution will have a major effect on employment in the coming years. Nearly every job will change, many quite profoundly, and the overwhelming majority of today’s employees will need to develop new skills. Preparing for the future of work is one of the defining business problems of our time—yet it is one that most organisations are not ready to address.
The transition to the automation revolution has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies are emerging from the crisis into a world of workplace physical distancing and major changes in customer behaviours and preferences. Recovery is forcing organisations to re-imagine their operations for the next normal. Manufacturing companies are re-configuring their supply chains and their production lines. Service organisations are adapting to emphasise digital-first customer journeys and contactless operations. Those changes will have significant effects on the requirements for workforce skills and capabilities, from a dramatic increase in home-based and remote working to a need for shop-floor personnel to master new tools and newly urgent health and safety requirements.