SKILLING GENERATION Z
Instead of
obsessing about automation-related job elimination, the focus should be on
making Gen Z adaptable for an uncertain future, writes educator Yogini Joglekar
Families traditionally use the post-Board examination
hiatus to help children prepare for college and beyond. How should we prepare
Generation Z, born between 1995-2005, so that they are futureready?
At my children’s school pick-up recently, there was
an animated conversation about the futility of taking speed-math or language
classes when machines are overtaking us in speed and accuracy. Talking to a
friend in the US that same night, I learnt of her decision to home school her
children aged 8-14 years, so they could pursue their interests: an online
antique coin business, sketching with emotional intelligence, and social media
influencing.
On the one hand, we face fears of automation
eliminating jobs as we know them. Alibaba founder Jack Ma has pronounced, “Teachers
must stop teaching knowledge. We have to teach something unique so that the
machine can never catch up with us.” To offer some consolation, an Economist report
concludes that human obsolescence in the workplace will take anywhere between
100-200 years.
CHANGING WORKPLACE
Technology has become a must-invest skill to prepare
for the changing workplace: witness, for instance, the mushrooming of coding
and robotics classes in the past three years. However, we need to fundamentally
reimagine our conception of work as well. Employees of the future will have to
be adept at managing machines and people, be rigorous and innovative in
researching for the future, need to see patterns in huge amounts of data, and
find fulfilling ways of utilising the greater leisure time generated by
automation.
Instead of obsessing about automation-related job
elimination, why not focus on making Gen Z productive and adaptable for an
uncertain and dynamic future? Here are some enduring, transferable skills that
might be worth building:
• Experiential problem-solving:
The massive data unleashed by automation would
require a keen ‘big picture’ awareness. Gen Z could hone critical thinking and
complex problem-solving through activities such as hackathons. They could also
develop a continuous learning mind-set and connect theory to practice by
participating in more hands-on experiences such as internships.
• Judgment:
We need to equip the next generation of employees
with the ability to question and analyse technology developments through a
philosophical and ethical lens. They will need to grapple with questions such
as: Does placing decision-making with machines (for example, in driverless
cars) conform with acceptable human codes of conduct? Gen Z will bear the
burden of ensuring that humanity is still at the centre of full automation.
• Imagination:
The world is not just flat; it is 3-D, augmented, and
virtual. Technology is connecting countries and continents, personal and
professional spaces, real and digital existence. Gen Z, growing up playing with
AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) through devices such as Xbox,
will now need to reimagine work and living environments as consumers and
creators, employees and managers. Along with the technical skills needed for AI
(artificial intelligence), AR, and VR research and implementation, we need to
nurture art, design, music, and language skills that will connect diverse
spaces in compelling, innovative ways.
• Communication:
Soft skills such as persuasive communication and
authenticity through story-telling will also be important, given the hold that
social influencers continue to have on our market trends and product
development. Even though Gen Z-ers are adept in virtual worlds, they often
struggle with ‘real’ communication and treat diverse channels of communication
with the same degree of informality. This creates an opportunity for them to
learn content generation across diverse (real and digital) channels, focusing
on the right register and tone.
• Empathy:
Robots cannot (yet) use multisensory stimuli to make
emotional connections – Alexa or Siri’s off-themark, repetitive humour being a
case in point. To balance Gen Z’s digital dependency, we should continue to
provide them opportunities to develop empathy, for instance, through involving
them in community projects. Indeed, the top 10 skills list from a 2016 World
Economic Forum report includes people management, coordinating with others, and
emotional intelligence. These will be particularly important in a multi-generational
workplace skewed to youth and machines.
TNN 12FEB18
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