The 'What Now?' of Work Amid A.I. and Layoffs

It's almost like we've quickly swooshed past the present and dived into the future.

The lull in productivity during the pandemic is a topic of the past. Instead, we now talk about hordes of A. I tools, and plugins with generative A.I. technology for smart working. We have two choices, to get fit or to get redundant. Fit to survive and ride the wave of evolving A.I. landscape. Lest we get replaced. As a butterfly effect of sorts, we are also seeing widespread layoffs, globally. The reason could be firm restructuring or cost-cutting, automation, or streamlining. But these reasons don't matter. What matters is what we do about it.

What we'll cover-

The Rise of A.I. and Automation

Skills Democratization

Benefits of Skill Democratization

Gig work

The 'What Now?' of Work Amid A.I. and Layoffs

1. Multi-generalized profiles
2. A multi-portfolio career
3. Some prep questions to ask yourself

But first, let's dive into the rise of A.I. and why organizations love it.

The Rise of A.I. and Automation

A.I. is like the olive branch that's just been given to organizations, amid market volatility and a recession. To catapult revenue and to catch up with growth in the lost time of the pandemic, A.I. is the way forward.

Here are the top reasons why businesses continue to embrace A.I. at break-neck speed.  

1. Increased Operational Efficiency: A.I. and automation technologies streamline processes, reducing manual intervention and minimizing errors. This leads to improved efficiency in various tasks, from data analysis to manufacturing operations.
2. Cost Reduction: A.I. and automation can significantly reduce labor costs by replacing repetitive and mundane tasks previously performed by humans. This allows companies to allocate resources more effectively and optimize their budget.
3. Enhanced Accuracy and Precision: A.I. systems can process vast amounts of data and perform complex calculations with exceptional accuracy. Automation eliminates the potential for human error, resulting in higher-quality outcomes and reduced rework.
4. Improved Speed and Productivity: A.I. algorithms and robotic automation can work at an accelerated pace, completing tasks faster than humans. This accelerates production timelines, leading to increased productivity and output.
5. Real-time Decision Making: A.I. technologies can analyze data in real time, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions promptly. This agility enhances operational responsiveness and facilitates adaptive strategies.
6. Predictive Analytics: A.I. algorithms can analyze historical and real-time data to identify patterns, trends, and insights. By leveraging predictive analytics, companies can optimize processes, anticipate market demands, and make proactive decisions.
7. Advanced Robotics: Robotics and automation technologies enable the execution of complex and precise tasks in industries such as manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare. Robots can operate 24/7, eliminating the constraints of human work hours.
8. Streamlined Customer Experience: A.I.-powered chatbots, virtual assistants, and recommendation systems enhance customer service, providing personalized experiences and quick resolutions. This results in improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
9. Risk Mitigation: A.I. systems can monitor and detect anomalies or potential risks in real-time, allowing businesses to proactively address issues and minimize the likelihood of errors, fraud, or security breaches.
10. Innovation and New Opportunities: The rise of A.I. and automation fosters innovation by freeing up human resources to focus on higher-value tasks such as creativity, problem-solving, and strategic thinking. This opens up new opportunities for individuals and businesses to explore uncharted territories.

While there are undeniable benefits of A.I. technology, it is crucial to strike a balance between automation and the human workforce, leveraging the strengths of both to drive sustainable growth and success. This brings us to how the human workforce can be leveraged. And how is it that skills or talent can be democratized amid layoffs?

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Skills Democratization

If the potential of A.I. must be leveraged fully, the human workforce must be fully equipped with the required skills to use it. This is where the democratization of skills and talent comes into the picture.

Skills Democratization

Skills democratization, in simple terms, means making skills and knowledge accessible to a broader range of people, regardless of their background or socioeconomic status. This is required especially in this existing phase of A.I disruption. Jobs today are shifting focus on skills rather than a role alone. This is why skill democratization becomes all the more important.

By promoting skills democratization, societies can become more diverse, innovative, and equitable. It empowers individuals to pursue their passions, contribute to their communities, and participate in a global economy that values a wide range of talents and abilities.

But the skill gap at the moment is quite wide on the A.I. front. Organizations, governments, and communities must provide avenues for easy upskilling. This would accelerate growth, revenue, and progression. While giants like Microsoft are offering free Generative A. I courses in collaboration with Linkedin, it is not enough. More industry-specific, standardized learning avenues must be provided for people.

Benefits of Skill Democratization:

• With skill democratization comes more control over talent democratization. With more control over your career choices, your growth, development, empowerment, and financial agility can be planned for.
• Recent layoffs are only an indication of an overhaul of workforce models. While headcount may have been trimmed, organizations will need a lean and sharp workforce nevertheless. Skills democratization empowers you to not be at the mercy of market trends or retrenchment.
• The focus shifts from role-centric responsibilities to skill-centric accountability. This enables you to use their upgraded skills and not be tied to a full-time role, alone. This adds more variety to one's career choices. While full time roles are great, the uncertainity of job security persists irrespective of the market trend.

• This benefit is one of the top ones. Skill and talent democratization is more individualistic. You get to choose the projects you'd want to work on, pick and choose your clients, choose flexibility and schedules, fix your own commercial fees, and choose to have long-term project commitments or short-term ones.
• It also gives you the power to influence and manage your personal well-being, flexibility, burnout levels, and prioritizing self-goals. And why not because this is the theme people want after the pandemic. More flexibility and manageable work. More personal time and yet an ability to earn.
• This is why gig work, contractors, consultants, freelancers, and other contingent workforces are on the rise.

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Gig Work

• While A.I. is flexing its wonders and organizations are shifting from traditional systems, this parallel revolution of Gig work that has been steadily and quietly taking place over the years. And interestingly, it is peaking at the moment along with the A.I. disruption.
• Gig work is not a new term. It has evolved beyond blue-worker gigs and now has become a thing across white-collar work as well. Most of us must have been part of it at some point. Recently, full time employees have been caught by employers while delivering gig work.  This term as we now know is called "moonlighting".

• While moonlighting may sound like a stealth term, there is not much stealth in it. Here's why. According to a study on the future of the workforce by MIT Sloan and Deloitte,  about 50% of the organizations surveyed have 30%-50% of their work done by gig workers, part-time or contractors as the workforce of contingency.
• Gig work is characterized by short-term contracts, freelance projects, and independent gigs with clients, service-based business has gained momentum as individuals seek alternative avenues to sustain their livelihoods.
• It embodies the entrepreneurial spirit of the modern workforce, empowering individuals to forge their own path in the face of traditional employment uncertainties. The gig economy has created a vast marketplace where talents and services can be exchanged, providing opportunities for those affected by layoffs to reinvent themselves and regain control over their professional lives.
• Enabled by digital platforms and A.I. skills, gig work continues to offer flexibility, autonomy, and the potential for multiple income streams. It allows individuals to leverage their skills and expertise across various projects and clients, establishing their own terms and work arrangements.
• In the recent scenario of millions of layoffs, this is a viable option for individuals to look at expanding their income streams and financial dependencies.

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The 'What Now?' of Work Amid A.I. and Layoffs

    You guessed it right! Gig work and skill democratization is what is in the "now" amid A.I. and layoffs. Flexible work, more control, and retaining the power to earn is the formula.

Irrespective of layoffs or any other market trends such as A.I., we need to invest in creating multi-specialized or multi-generalized profiles. You may wonder why multi-generalized when everyone else is focusing on specializations alone.

1. Multi-generalized profiles know something of everything about their work.

While depth of expertise is important, knowing enough and about, works well these days. Knowing more stuff in varying categories within their own work expertise is a good place to start.

Research and case studies have proven that one does not need to be a vintage expert to be successful on all terms. Even giving bite sized, value-based pockets of services does well.  For example, in the gamut of HR services, focusing only on Resume writing or Interview coaching or acting as a Conflict consultant can also work.

Another example could be, if you have been in a client facing role throughout your career, you could coach others on how to provide world-class client service or focus on how to acquire the technical skills that helped you perform well.

Another common approach often seen is learning from other experts and providing services. Upskilling and investing well in yourself to help others.

On account of the demand and population growth, there is always someone in need of services, whether in a niche or in a generic category. But what matters is the consistency and quality of the approach in engaging with a target audience (your prospective customers or clients). And if course, delivering quality service.
While specialized profiles are great to have, the rapid pace of technology and work does not wait for us to specialize. We must get started where we are while we quickly upskill or hone on past expertise or experience. Undoubtedly, it is an advantage to have a professional or academic background on the subject you choose.

2. Having a multi-portfolio career is the way to go!

Each career can have multi-facets. For example, if someone is a web developer, they can not only create a website but also teach others to create one, as part of the creator economy. Or another option to add to the portfolio is to learn the ropes of UI or UX. And learning how to use A.I. tools to create a website much faster.

If not, based on what you can offer, assess if a course, a podcast, or just consulting services may be offered. Consulting services can be offered to web developers and business leaders on what kind of websites are getting more leads, based on design, content architecture, and interactive UI. This is an example of only web developers. There are tons of options for other professions too.

Whether it is gig work, freelancing projects, or embarking on an entrepreneurial journey, we need to invest and build our individualized brands.

3. Multi-portfolio career prep questions to ask yourself

While the focus is on a multi-portfolio career, there are a few questions we need to ask ourselves and calibrate. This exercise will bring clarity to the possibilities of this approach, for your own profile.

• In what way can I convert this challenge of a layoff or an A.I. disruption-related role change, into an opportunity?
• How A.I. can contribute to improving my skill?
• How to 'upskill' in such a way that I can work hand-in-glove with A.I.
• What is that human element that A.I. cannot replicate? And even if it does replicate, it can never be the same as a human, especially where there is a complex situation, involving emotion.
• What are a few immediate actions I need to take to evolve with the current trend? How can I break each action into smaller steps per day?
• What are 3 simple ways I can sustain my earnings? Create a plan to work towards it, taking one step per day.

Quite certainly, this is not a cut-and-dry formulaic approach. But the approach is definitely workable and unique to each profile or portfolio of services one would want to offer. We have seen multiple success stories on social media and we know it has been proven time and again.

We have seen the explosion of a creator economy e-commerce, automation, lean apps, newsletters, and several others run by a team size of just 1-2 individuals, while in some extreme cases a team size of just 1 (to begin with).

But it calls for a mindset shift to try and shun imposter syndrome. And embark on the journey with the belief that 'If others can do it, so can I!'

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