Читать книгу Work Disrupted - Jeff Schwartz - Страница 24

A 2019 global survey by Harvard Business School researchers looked at whether employees would be willing to do whatever it takes to survive the twists and turns of a rapidly evolving economy. The survey found that employees are more adaptable than they are often given credit for. The survey focused on business leaders as well as the people most vulnerable to changing dynamics: lower-income and middle-skills workers. The majority of the workers had no more than two years of postsecondary education.⁴⁸

Not surprisingly, business leaders surveyed were worried about finding employees with the skills their companies needed when operating in a climate of perpetual disruption. The workers surveyed, however, focused more on the opportunities and benefits that the future holds for them. They were much more eager to embrace change and learn new skills than their employers expected. According to the survey, a majority of the workers felt that advances such as automation and artificial intelligence would have a positive impact on their future. What concerned them most was that other workers—temporary, freelance, outsourced—would take their jobs. When asked why they had a positive outlook, workers cited two reasons: the prospect of better wages and the prospect of more interesting and meaningful jobs.⁴⁹ Both automation and technology, they felt, offered opportunity on those fronts—by contributing to the emergence of more-flexible and self-directed forms of work, by creating alternative ways to earn income, and by making it possible to avoid tasks that were “dirty, dangerous, or dull.”