Future Of Work

Gianluca Rosania at UXDX Community: Barcelona. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQpv_G_huw8

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Introduction

[00:00:00] Hello UXDX community, my name is Gianluca Rosania and I am here to present you something super interesting: the future of work. We all know what's happening and we're going to go through that very, very fast, but the whole point of this is to understand that we can actually have different perspectives of what's going to happen, and also how we can be better prepared.

[00:00:27] First of course I want to introduce myself. My name is Gianluca Rosania. I have over 10 years of experience in talent acquisition specifically, so I'm an expert in tech recruitment. I'm working for one of the fastest growing startups in Europe and now in the world, maybe we can say it's a scale-up now, called Glovo. We are delivering goods in these times and always, and I'm very happy to be working in this amazing team. I had the experience of seeing the evolution of the team from 25 engineers to 300, and many more adventures that are very, very interesting.

[00:01:06] Apart from that, I'm the co-founder of Lift. Lift is an educational tech recruitment company with a little bit of motivation and courses and a little bit of everything, it's a mix. Also I'm the author of a book called El Camino. It's a book to let younglings find their path and their passions. Also I created a recruitment methodology called Project Gaia[?], and we just finished an app that is in beta version and I'm super happy about that, one year of hard work. And the last thing, I created a podcast called Path to Principles[?], so if you want to know what a principal software engineer does, please go and listen to it.

[00:01:47] So this is a little bit about me. Now we are going to move forward to what actually you came for. First, the context, what are we going to see today. First the current situation, I will try to pass quickly here because we already know what's happening, right, but it's always good to have some data. Then the second thing is a very interesting thing, because I got information from venture capitalists and founders. This is because I'm exposed to this environment, and this is information that will not be shared of who it comes from, but the information itself is there, so it's super important for you. The third thing, the actual outcomes from what's happening from an HR perspective. The fourth, the new models, and here is where we are going to focus because they are super interesting. And the Q&A will be on December 3rd, so don't forget about that, I'm waiting for you, 5 p.m. CET.

The current situation

[00:02:46] Let's talk about the current situation. What's happening now with the economy, the world's impact? We will see diverse graphics of what's happening, but we already know this. So the US jobless claims surge, it's huge. Right now in the whole world we have lost, 30 million people have lost jobs, sorry, so it's a lot. The oil price is going down and turned negative for the first time in history. Many economies have already entered recessions. Fewer flights, we already know that, or zero flights. Another industry that has a lot of impact, car sales. Apart from Elon's Tesla and the innovation that he's doing, and NIO of course also, but apart from that we are seeing that many manufacturers are also suffering. And this was in April so this is updated already. All the countries have travel restrictions and everyone has suffered from this.

[00:03:48] On the current situation, talking about work: less offers, more demand. So it's very, very clear, it's harder to find a job now. There's a lot of uncertainty that generates in people either a post-traumatic stress, because it's very hard, maybe you have kids, you have duties, or a post-traumatic growth, which is also happening. There are many entrepreneurs out there that have created their companies or their ideas and they have moved forward.

[00:04:16] My advice. They say that this phrase is from Charles Darwin, actually he was in the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, where I am from, making his studies, but he said it is not the strongest of the species that survives, neither the most intelligent, it is the one most adaptive to change. So we're going to begin with this because it's the most important thing.

What VCs and founders are saying

[00:04:39] Now what you came for, this is very, very interesting. Let's discover what VCs' and founders' perspective is and learn about the Spanish market. First, this information has been taken from virtual meetings with founders and VCs[?]. The source of information is being protected of course, but you will get it, that's the important thing, the perspective of people that actually are putting the money in and founding companies and being there.

[00:05:07] We also need to understand that each market behaves differently. Spain has a cash economy, Latin America cash economy, I don't know, the States is a different economy. We have services economies, cash economies, products, diverse types of economies. In Spain we have a cash one.

[00:05:26] So some of the questions that were made to these VCs and founders were, on a scale of 0 to 10, what are founders' biggest concerns? The venture capital drying up, that was the first one, because they say okay, there are many products that are pivoting and changing, but what if not? Sales declining of course, team morale, layoffs, we have seen a lot, cutting expenses, working remote, sectors in jeopardy.

[00:05:53] And here's another change founders are making within companies, so cutting expenses. This is something that happened and we can see 51 percent cut marketing spend. Also hiring freezes, pivots in the product as I said before, renegotiating contracts, contractor layoffs, ending office leases.

[00:06:01] This is very interesting: when do VCs and founders think the US, because actually from those there were 12, from those 12, 70 percent were from the US, and it's a good reference point actually, in my point of view of course, and again my point of view, just one more point of view for your knowledge, nothing more. It's not the last word, but taking that as a reference: when do they think the US will recover from the Covid crisis? And the majority fell into, the strong economies maybe start feeling an improvement in Q2, starting Q1, Q2 2021, but everyone concedes that it will be in April 22.

[00:07:02] So we still have left one year and a half at least of struggle, one year and a half of things that we must know so we are prepared. This is my message. And beyond April, all the smaller economies. But I do believe April 22 is a fact, I think, with data. I recommend you the book Factfulness, really good, of Hans Rosling. Really, really good, that talks about these types of things. But there you have, so April 2022.

[00:07:36] And this was an image about how things are doing. But now key factors: 2021 and 22 depends on your economy starting to recover. 51 percent of companies are cutting diverse expenses, that means the acquisition power is less of course, and 36 percent of them are pivoting in the products, doing new solutions.

Actual outcomes: the employee side

[00:07:59] Now, the actual outcomes, what has happened. I know that I talk too fast, so please stay with me. They say that Italians talk too fast, per fortuna I'm mixed between Ecuador and Italy.

[00:08:12] Okay, so let's go to the actual outcomes from the employee side. I'm an employee, I go to my job, I do what I do, what happened? So we're going to a transition, it's a mix, but one part of it is going back to live to work. What does this mean? You remember the baby boomers from 46 to 62, or less, our dads maybe, or mothers, and they were having one job or two jobs for their entire careers, I don't know, 20 years, 10 years in one job, with a huge, I don't know how to say it, sorry for that, but with a huge retribution.

[00:09:01] So we passed to Gen X, that was in a transition, and then millennials and Gen Z. We are more generations that like more versatility, flexibility, freedom, more than one job. So we have now, sorry, three to four jobs more or less. I can speak for myself for example: I have my main job, but I wrote my book and I built this methodology and I'm giving classes in universities. This can count as something like that, like this hybrid.

[00:09:38] So right now I believe employees will look again for security, because they need to pay bills, they have families, many of them. So we are going to go back to live to work, stay in one place that makes us feel safe, and at the same time with freedom, and then a little bit of flexibility, but this is another topic.

[00:10:02] Now we are adapting to new tools. We are seeing right now, with Tabby[?] and with UXDX, we are using Zoom to make a conference. This is a new tool at the end, this is a new way of doing things, and we have a lot of tools. You can follow me also on Thursdays, I post, it's in Spanish, but I post four tools every Thursday about HR and business and they're very interesting, but there are a lot of new tools, and we will see some in the next slide.

[00:10:33] Bigger expectations. So as an employee I have bigger expectations, I want my company to be more granular so I can feel more safe and bound, clear.

Actual outcomes: the employer side

[00:10:41] Now from the employer side. More speed, less bureaucracy, things are faster. Maybe it's sad but we cut certain positions that were not that necessary, or that, I don't know, change, or we automate. So everything is faster, everything is much faster, and in that sense it is good.

[00:11:03] More innovation, already we are seeing a lot of innovation. Flexibility, many companies working from home, and definitely for example Twitter, Facebook, I don't know, Shopify, I think many more, and many others are adopting a hybrid model between full in person and remote.

[00:11:23] And health, and more care about it. Very interesting, we're looking for holistic health care. So we're talking about mental health, physical health. So for example we have certain programs that I have seen, well-being programs in your company, that's very good.

[00:11:43] And data. Right now all of our data is at risk, and more and more now that everyone is online. So to work remotely effectively your data needs to be secure. So that's another huge place that is growing a lot.

New models: the tendencies

[00:12:02] Now this is even more interesting. Tendencies, the new models. And this is gotten not just from my perspective, from many books, from meetings with book authors that are talking about this, and many, many sources of information. So again, this is a good reference point, but go out, read more, find more, but this is a good reference point.

[00:12:26] So the first tendency. Again, as I mentioned before, my dad had one job for 20 years, then it's me that I have three, five, I don't know. And then there's the future workers that I don't know, we'll have five side gigs, one main project and I don't know, two other projects. So diversifying, having five, six, three, I don't know, different things to do. This is the first thing that we are already seeing, and it's true, because with internet, with Instagram, with YouTube, with many other ways of selling, we can do two things at the same time. Actually many people talk about how to make money meanwhile you sleep, because you have different time zones, and that's what internet lets you do. This is one example.

[00:13:14] Second tendency, and this is very interesting, I want your full attention here. I don't know if you have heard about the micro workers. Micro workers are for example Amazon Mechanical Turk, Fiverr.com, Clickworker. On these web pages you go and you hire someone for one specific thing, you pay right away and that's it, they deliver and you have it. Great, right? Because this will cost less resources. You need something punctual, go there. These are the micro workers.

[00:13:50] Then something that has grown a lot, on demand, is the sector that I'm working in. On demand you have Glovo, Uber, delivery, DiDi[?] and all. The world is filled right now with on-demand. So what does that mean? I as an employee am on this platform, any on-demand platform, so I know that this platform is on demand, I will have a job eventually, daily, they will need me and I will be there and I can provide my services. So this is by demand, this is a new way of economy that we are seeing now.

[00:14:30] The third one are the blue collars. Blue collars are what we call the people that actually work in places. This is still happening and will be there. Then you have the freelancers or white collars, but here we have, I know, Upwork, Fiverr, and this combination between the micro workers and the freelancers, because it's maybe longer projects, a couple of weeks or ten things. So this is also happening now, before we didn't have that.

[00:15:05] And the last one, the top experts. I don't know, you can hire, in top dollar, a top expert that helps you with something, but it's costly because it's high quality.

[00:15:16] So with this information that is super important to understand, we have seen that micro workers, on demand and the freelancers right now have grown a lot. Before we didn't have that much access to them, so we just tended to hire one person for one job.

[00:15:34] Our beliefs, and I say our because again this information has been taken from many, many sources: for a company in the future, we're talking about 5-10 years maybe, but for a company in the future it will be cheaper and safer to contract people from diverse sources per project than actually hire someone full-time and so on, because that's costly, that involves a lot of things and you commit.

[00:16:03] Finding a job, a blue collar job right now, is like a relationship. It's not anymore about retention of the employee, it's a relationship. I grow, you grow, I give, you give me, and like that. So like that you need to keep that relationship and it's costly. So maybe in the future this could happen, that you have a project, boom, you pay for the project, that's it, you don't commit to anything bigger in that sense. And this could be happening depending of course on the size of your company. This is the biggest change that we are seeing in the coming years.

The rise of digital hiring

[00:16:43] And now to close, very quick, also I will try to pass quickly here but of course giving you the idea. So what new models of working and things are happening around us? The rise of digital hiring. We already know that all the interviews were persuaded[?], even contracts online, freelancing, like everything we can do with the internet actually. So everything is digital and a lot of new tools.

[00:17:12] Smart buildings. I remember when, I don't know, it was like the two thousands and my father told me, hey, I saw a movie called Minority Report, it was not that good but you can like it, but it was about how technology was there and you click one button and suddenly something went down. This is already happening, so you have smart buildings worldwide that are helping us thrive with this.

[00:17:38] The third topic is AI fluency, so how much we are influenced by AI and ML, and we will see neural nets and deep learning and all of this. The fourth is new job descriptions, new skills and inclusion, and I will talk about this in a while. And always-on culture.

[00:17:55] So let's go with the rise of digital hiring, very quick. For example I will give you the news: The Muse is a new way of applying to companies and getting to know their culture. You go there and you see the culture of the company actually, more than you just see in a normal job advert. VideoMyJob, to attract talent by video, again new tools. Daxtra[?], automated CV parsing. So this also is happening in many companies worldwide, that the CV screening is starting to happen with AI. They will check certain skills and keywords and then filter those. I do not fully agree with that, some companies do, some companies don't, again, but it's happening, it's automating things.

[00:18:42] Fama, this is an AI that makes social media screening using machine learning and natural language processing. So it's interesting also. And with Fama it's interesting because, I don't know if you have your social media open and not private, I mean they can check things that have happened in your social media, so it's better to keep it private now, you don't know.

[00:19:11] Automated artificial intelligence schedulers, the same, behavioral pattern recognition, conversational AIs, many things. Smart buildings, we talked about.

AI fluency and new interfaces

[00:19:22] Now AI fluency. Collaborative AIs: AI will be designing for collaboration, machines will continuously build and improve their understanding of humans, improving their ability to collaborate and drive productivity. I will show you one example of this.

[00:19:37] Extended reality. We're not just talking about virtual reality, virtual mixed and augmented reality, everything. Right now the iPhone 12 for example has this LiDAR scanner that gives you the opportunity to start doing augmented reality with your phone. So if you have it right now in your hand, imagine how it will be in eight or five years.

[00:19:57] We have multi-modal interfaces, and this is very interesting, I also will show you something that you will get amused by, like wow. Haptic feedback, gesture recognition and even smell, and not just smell, even taste, to be used in interface systems to provide more diverse and accessible ways to interact with data.

[00:20:18] And what I talked about before, security. Distributed ledgers like blockchains provide an immutable transfer and data storage mechanism that can automate work processes such as real-time payments, for example. And in general blockchain and security, it's huge.

[00:20:34] And AI fluency. For example, Dewo[?] is a personal assistant AI that learns the productive patterns that you have and provides suggestions, like when you're in Google and you're writing an email and it provides all the answer with just a tab, things like this. It automates your normal work so then you can concentrate more on the cognitive work. That's the objective of Dewo.

[00:21:00] And super apps. We talk about WeChat for example in China, you can do everything, you can even send tips to people through WeChat, like everything, you can do anything. Mentor VR provides onboarding and training experiences, because we are moving forward. This is very interesting.

[00:21:18] So I told you about haptic feedback and these types of things. Microsoft has joined with Fourkind and they partnered with Mackmyra to make the first ever created AI whiskey. So again, you may go there and buy a Mackmyra and it's made by an AI and a machine and you didn't even know that. So imagine if we can get things into production just with machine learning, deep learning, neural nets, AI. Many things will change and we as employees need to adapt. That's where I'm going now. Steemit, that's another social network that created their own crypto, you can pay with it and so on.

New job descriptions and combinations of skills

[00:22:00] And yes, now I'm going to the new job descriptions. So before you needed, I don't know, a marketer, human resources specialist, designer, then the transition, then developer and engineer. Now the combination of skills I think will be huge. Many people are changing from marketing to doing bootcamps or learning, or self-learning, to engineering for example, or design, or this type of thing. This combination of skills actually will be huge, because you will have a unique combination of skills that will help you thrive in the future. So this is very useful, think always about that.

[00:22:45] And the second thing is that yes, we will need more engineers, more data people, more designers, everything more related to automation, to the future, to what we are doing. So in the future we will not have gardeners, everything will be automated, and this is the transition that we need to understand. At the end, if you can learn anything related to, again, engineering, data, software, design, product, that can help you, do it, even if it's for your own sake, just to understand it better, and then start moving forward. But yes, it's not anymore of the future, it's happening now, so let's just start moving there.

The always-on culture

[00:23:32] And the last thing is the always-on culture, and this is something that we need to be aware of. So what's the always-on culture, you may be guessing. Basically if we are working remotely, finally my employer, after coronavirus of course, lets me work from Bali. So that's amazing, I'm in Bali, I'm working, everything is good, but you have a schedule, from Monday to Friday, from, I'm inventing, CET nine to five or six.

[00:24:02] The always-on culture means that as we have access to internet and our computers and our mobiles and everything is connected, if we receive an email at 9 p.m. we will get to that email, at least read it if not answer it. You need to put a stop on that because that could cause burnout in the future, and this is something that is already happening. So the idea is, avoid the always-on culture, respect your schedules and say, hey, I worked for today, I'll answer you tomorrow. Because we need to have this balance, and this will be key also in the coming years. It's something to take into account.

Closing with Stephen Hawking

[00:24:37] And to end, this is from Stephen Hawking, my favorite scientist in the world, physicist. And actually I recommend you the book A Life in Science of Stephen Hawking, it's his biography, it's incredible. Because he had this disease, the disease that he was fighting with for all his life, or a great part of his life, and he always was happy because he always said, even if I cannot move my body or even talk, I'm happy because I can use my brain and that's what makes me happy. Of course, each person has a different purpose and things that make them thrive, but the message is beautiful, like always seeing a good and a positive thing about everything that is happening around.

[00:25:26] And he said, perhaps, this was in the Web Summit in 2017 in Lisbon, he said perhaps we should all stop for a moment and focus not only on making our AI better and more successful but also on the benefit of humanity. So try also not just to automate things and make things work and then sell more, but also on the other side, try to help with it and so on.

[00:25:52] And it's happening and I'm seeing things moving forward in Barcelona, in the healthcare that is in the ex-hospital Sant Pau. There are many companies there using top technologies trying to overcome and help with all of this.

[00:26:11] So yes, and this is it. And the Q&A, you know when it is, it's on December the 3rd, I will be there 5 p.m. CET until 6.30 p.m. CET, and you can connect with me. And as a recruiter I'm always active on LinkedIn, and of course you can follow on social media.