Decoding uncertainties of new economy: The post pandemic era

Post-pandemic, the world of education and work has been facing a major disruption. Fourth industrial revolution technologies, remote learning and working, impact of big data on work et al had begun before the pandemic. But the force with which these are engulfing the world economy, even in small and poor nations since 2020, is simply phenomenal.

The skills-sets for the new emerging economy are increasingly different, the coming together of creative or right brain with the logical or left brain is stronger than ever before, future managers and workers are a different breed of professionals than what we knew before 2020, and the need for blended in place of physical education, and digital in place of no education is writ large.

Skill-sets for the New Economy

Foundational literacies as to how learners apply core skills to everyday tasks remain as they were. These are basic literacy, numeracy, scientific literacy, ICT literacy, financial literacy, cultural and civic literacy. These remain the foundation of learning.

Next to these come the competencies about how learners approach complex challenges. These, in the Knowledge Economy with Artificial Intelligence as a major characteristic, are problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration. These are the core competencies of today.

And, finally, there are some character qualities, as to how the learners approach their changing environment. These include curiosity, initiative, persistence or grit, adaptability, leadership, social and cultural awareness. These make the super structure of skills of today and tomorrow.

World Economic Forum and India Skills Report

Future of Jobs Report of World Economic Forum says that the top 10 skills in 2015 were, in order of importance, complex problem solving, coordinating with others, people management, critical thinking, negotiation, quality control, service orientation, judgement and decision making, active listening, and creativity.

The five years of evolution at work-place now needs these skills by 2020 which are as follows with a discernable change in the pecking order: complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, people management, coordinating with others, emotional intelligence, judgement and decision making, service orientation, negotiation, and cognitive flexibility.

Thus, the four Cs are evolving as the key 21st century skills: Communication (sharing thoughts, questions, ideas and solutions), Collaboration (working together to reach a goal), Critical Thinking (looking at problems in a new way and linking learning across subjects and disciplines), and Creativity (trying new approaches to get things done equals innovation and invention).

India is evolving to be the second largest work force with 500 millions (next to China, and will surpass China by 2022) and the youngest work-force (with majority below 25 years). The average age of Indian population shall be below 29 years for the next six years till 2025. But, by 2022, India faces a potential shortage of around 250 million skilled work-forces, according to India Skills Report 2019. Sixty per cent of future jobs will fall under analytics, design and artificial intelligence, and one out of every five people hired for new age skills will be design jobs across industry sectors.

Future Employee, Future Manager & Future Organizations

Jacob Morgan categorically defines the principles and characteristics of the future employee, future manager and future organizations, which are relevant for India too.

The seven principles of the future employee include: has a flexible work environment, can customize own work, shares information, uses new ways to communicate and collaborate, can become a leader, shifts from knowledge worker to a learning worker, and learns and teaches/mentors at will. Future workers can and shall work from co-working spaces, and can be a part of a gig economy where s/he contributes to multiple organizations at the same time being paid by all, or focuses on one for a project and then on finishing it, focuses on another organization and project, without technically being employed permanently by anyone.

Such a work force will decreasingly depend on universities and long-drawn degree education. Already, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google have announced that they will hire from 2020 by skills and not degrees. The pandemic might have delayed the progress towards this. But, post-pandemic, skills are a bigger focus today. The degree-centricity of traditional university system will lose its value. Education is becoming modular where students are taking courses they like instead of committing themselves to entire majors with a linear long drawn progression. Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), courses of Udemy or Coursera, Udacity or Khan University are examples where learners can learn at low or no costs, and the order of tomorrow is micro certification of focused courses.

The past employees worked 9 to 5 in a corporate office, using company equipment, focused on inputs with a pre-defined work, and wanting to climb the corporate ladder. S/he hoarded information, had no voice, relied on emails, was focused on knowledge through corporate learning and teaching.

But the employee of tomorrow shall work anytime, anywhere, use any device, will be focused on outputs, and create his/her own ladder. S/he will take up customized work, will share information, can become a leader, will rely on collaborative technologies, and will focused on adaptive and democratized learning.

The concept of gig or freelancer economy will also gain ground ahead. The freelancer economy is about people being able to leverage their skills and expertise to find work without having to seek full-time employment in a single company. Most of their projects are done in a virtual environment and include services like SEO, marketing and PR, content creation, web development, virtual assistants, designing, etc.

The ten principles of future manager according to Jacob Morgan include leadership, following from the front, understanding technology, leading by example, embracing vulnerability, believing in sharing and collective intelligence, is a fire-starter, giving real-time recognition and feedback, is conscious of personal boundaries and limitations, and adapts to the future employee.

Following from the front means that when it comes to the future of work, the goal of the managers is to remove roadblocks from the paths of employees in order to help them succeed while empowering them to work in a way that makes them engaged and effective. To be a fire-starter, managers of the future must challenge conventional ideas about management and work and not just take things in the face value, and can ditch the existing template to create a new one.

The past manager commanded leadership, was supported by employees, relied on IT for technology, is unemotional, with a nature to control information, conforming to conventions, believing in annual reviews, and limiting himself to implicit boundaries.

The future manager earns leadership, supports the employees, understands technology, leads by example, embraces vulnerability, reaps collective intelligence, challenges convention, gives real-time feedback and recognition, and has dynamic evolving boundaries.

On similar lines, the future organizations will also evolve or perish. Future organizations will be nationally/globally distributed with smaller teams, will have a connected work-force, will be intrapreneurial encouraging entrepreneurship skills at managerial level, will be big but operating like a small company, and will focus on want instead of need. Such a company will adapt to changes faster, will bring in innovation anywhere, will run in the cloud, will seek better gender balance in senior management, and will have a flatter structure (less hierarchy). Such companies will have stories to share, will democratize learning, shift from profit to prosperity (more holistic), and will adapt to the future employee and manager.

The Ringelmann Effect is a fascinating tendency for individual members to become less productive as the size of the group increases. Hence small units, small company approach, lean organization and intrapreneurial skills of managers will make future companies do well. Such managers will focus on what the company needs to survive and grow, and not on wants which often are wishes and embellishments.

Universities of Tomorrow

Hence, going beyond degree-centricity, universities of tomorrow should consider degrees as an outcome by the way, and focus on real-life skills and literacies outlined above. It must collaborate with a myriad of learning systems, adapt to experiential brick and portal learning, focus on mentoring rather than teaching, and make education choice-based and learner centric. It must integrate formal with self-learning modules and skills. It should be focused on today and tomorrow more than yesterday, and on application of knowledge more than knowledge per se. It should create the human resources of tomorrow for economy yet not seen, rather than labour force for the economy of yesterday.

The universities of tomorrow hence prepare talent for Digital Marketers, Animators-Designers, Artificial Intelligence Engineers, Strategists, Market Researchers, Content Developers, Law Experts, Finance Experts, Multi-linguists, Behavioral Scientists, Entrepreneurs, Robotics Engineers, Communicators, Applied Scientists, Pharmacists, Design Thinkers & Designers, Big Data Analysts & Data Managers, Campaign Managers, et al.

The approach of mentoring-learning in universities of tomorrow hence will include a blend of classroom learning (Formal), Workshop based learning (Hands-on), Peer Learning, Experiential Learning (Projects), Real Life Experiences (Internship), Case-study based Learning, Internet based Learning, Video-conferencing, International Learning (global exposure), Research based Learning, Degree & Beyond, Skill & Portfolio focus, Team-work, Problem Solving Learning.

International Online University

In this context, the rationale and onboarding of an international online university is becoming all the more relevant. It shall be a university of the universities, but digital, where scholars and universities of the day can upload any course, diploma or degree that can be effectively delivered online. Only for the degrees, some limited offline sessions can be organized, thus making it blended. Thousands of courses, in multiple languages, basics of every domain being given away almost free through an annual subscription with a disruptive price, is the way to go here. Higher courses beyond the basics can be on per-course payment, leading to a pathway for a proper diploma or even a degree. Future of work will be greatly supported with this sort of a universal learning initiative, moving ahead.

(Concluded)

The writer is Executive Director of US-registered, Dubai-based International Online University (www.iou.ac). He can be contacted at [email protected]