*By Alcely Strutz Barroso
The changes induced by technology in the labor market have been a topic of reflection for several years. Manuel Castells, in his work from the end of the 1990s “The Network Society: The Information Age: Economy, society and culture”, analyzed in a comprehensive way and from various perspectives a world scenario possible thanks to technological advances in times of globalization . At that time, the emergence of a new social structure due to several factors was already pointed out, among them the growing integration between countries. The establishment of this new development model motivated the emergence of a workforce with global characteristics. According to Castells, "more and more, people organize their meaning not around what they do, but based on what they are or believe they are".
Bringing analysis to the present day, the advancement of technology continued at a great pace and the beginning of the 21st century was marked by the platform revolution, a new way of doing business combining technology and disruptive models that create value for network participants. The new generations, who were born in this more flexible and networked world, adapted quickly, identified their value and contributed to the exponential growth of the platforms. This was, and continues to be, one of the biggest competitive challenges for traditional companies consolidated in the market. Thus, the topic of digital transformation gained space on the agenda of entrepreneurs and leaders who realized that such a change is a matter of survival.
But, if platforms have transformed the business world, it is because there are visionary leaders, obsessed with customer experience, open to adopting agile practices and deciding on flexible and dynamic architectures, with high availability and the ability to expand as their business grows. . Business leadership has a duty to be up-to-date and prepared to make assertive decisions, guaranteeing an organizational structure with less hierarchy, more transparency and flexibility to feed an environment of continuous development for talent retention.
The success of the new digital business models is in creating teams with high technical knowledge and with maturity in socio-emotional skills, the so-called "soft skills". With the advances in Artificial Intelligence, it is believed that the worker of the future will have his own digital assistant, specialist in the various sectors of the company: human resources, marketing, finance, operations, which will help him to optimize and accelerate his work. The unexpected pandemic of COVID-19 caused a review of priorities on the part of executives, who started to dedicate themselves more than two years ago to issues such as crisis management, cyber-security and safety in the workplace. These are the conclusions of a recent study done with 3. 450 executives in 22 industries from 20 countries through the IBM Institute of Business Value , which also reveals that 94% of them intend to participate in business models based on platforms. And yet, for 87% of the interviewees, cost control will be crucial for their business. A second study entitled “The Future of Work after COVID-19”, made by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company , points out that the pandemic has accelerated trends such as remote work, virtual transactions and e-commerce, adoption of automation and Artificial Intelligence.
In recent years, the technology sector has suffered from a shortage of professionals worldwide. The trend is that the global competition for professionals with technical knowledge will intensify with the permanence of remote work in some functions that adopted it during the pandemic. According to Brasscom, by 2024 Brazil will need 420 thousand professionals in the technology sector. Currently, only about 46 thousand are trained per year, which shows the urgent need for more investment in education and encouraging the entry of professionals in technology careers, to meet, even partially, the high demand for professionals in Brazil.
It is inevitable that from now on teams will increasingly have to be resilient to work in constantly changing scenarios. The role of leadership in creating conditions for their teams to remain engaged, motivated and collaborate to ensure integrated workflows will be fundamental. Leaders will need to be aware of their role, acting to encourage and maintain the focus on continuous and personalized education.
* Alcely Strutz Barroso, Coordinator of the ABES Future Work Committee
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