Future of Work 2019

On the 21st of November, Alpha Catalyst held a Future of Work roundtable discussion at Common Ground Taman Tun Dr Ismail. The rise of digital has shifted the way we live and work. Current technologies have enabled many to adopt a digital lifestyle when it comes to travel, food, entertainment, knowledge and many more. At the workplace, the rise of cloud computing, collaboration software, algorithms and artificial intelligence are changing how organisations work and create value and grow. Simultaneously, talent expectations are changing, resulting in significant implication on how organisations function and how people are managed.

The round table discussion delved deeper into the future of work in the digital age, distilling what organisations can and should do to future proof themselves. We brought in together views from prior global conversations, local thought leaders, organisation leaders and startups, with an aim to explore future trends and opportunities in and around the future of work in Malaysia over the next decade.

Starting off the session, Azim Pawanchik, Alpha Catalyst’s Innovation Strategist, shared light on the future of collaboration. Organisations would need to leverage on digital tools and algorithms for cognitive automation. After that, Kevin Allen, Chief Community Officer of OpenExO, then highlighted the importance of exponential thinking and OpenExO’s 11 attributes to be an exponential organisation. The rise of the gig economy was discussed by Alejandro Kikuchi, the Head of International Growth of Workana. Being the number 1 freelancing platform in Latin America, they have witnessed the shift first hand. Alejandro also shed light on how Unilever, one of their biggest corporate clients, leveraged them for project-based talents. He shared the resistance he observed during the embarking, but now- even the most resistant departments also utilise Workana. Ru Sow, Common Ground’s Head of Operations, presented the shift on the workspaces. Apart from the flexibility and the social element of co-working spaces, their membership offers multiple benefits with their partners.

After the sharing session was completed, Tim Jones, founder and director of Future Agenda, took over for the roundtable discussion. He started off by explaining the Future of Work cards, the trends & potential challenges that would impact large organisations. Each group then were distributed a deck of cards, and they were required to categorise the cards according to impact level (low, medium and high). Tim then evaluates and opens the room for discussion once the cards were arranged according to ratings. After the group activity, each individual was given ‘hearts’ to vote on which trend will be happening in Malaysia. The top 5 trends were: 

1. Reinventing Roles
   
2. Flexible working
   
3. Smaller ‘big’ companies
   
4. Equal Opportunities 
   
5. Speed to Scale​
   

Reinventing Roles
​As digitisation impacts industries, skill sets and roles are changing and different from what they were. Attendees coined that a more ‘T-shaped’ skill sets will be needed for the workforce to adapt to the shift in roles, where individuals will need to have a range of skillset and deep expertise in some areas. There is also an observation for intrapreneurship to be increasing within corporates. Education is key to shaping the skillsets for individuals to have an Agile mindset, (fail and learn fast). Algorithms will be leveraged upon to eliminate bias in the evaluation of work. Maybank highlighted lastly that the challenge lies in working with the different archetypes in the workplace, there will always be those who are resistant to change and those who welcome it.

Flexible Working 
The group determined that flexible working is applied in varying extents in different industries. Therefore, the group chose to focus on the implication of flexible working on the education industry. The major concern is ensuring the relevant infrastructure is available for flexible working to be done by the masses, such as internet connectivity, digital mobility etc. There was also a debate raised on what is the impact of increasingly virtual levels of communication and interactions at younger ages. What would that mean for future human interactions? An academic member raised his concerns of a local university’s top management hindering academia in providing a public service. The top management has pressured lecturers and researchers in financing a part of their research and studies, restricting them from doing game-changing research.

It was also noted that in Malaysia particularly, the speed of change in education is relatively slow as compared to technological or business change. Hence, highlighting the importance of evaluating capabilities through the use of an adaptability quotient (AQ) to prepare students and future generations to be future aware and ready.

Smaller 'big' companies
​While currently, large companies dominate the economy in Malaysia, this group foresees 50% of said big companies will be broken down to smaller companies in 2030. This is largely due to large companies shifting towards being more agile in their approach, favouring outsourcing their business processes. The group also noted that a change in culture will take a longer time relatively for companies in Malaysia. They also foresee smaller international companies becoming a large influence in Malaysia. Although globalisation and digitisation are inevitable, the question lies in the willingness of companies to adopt and invest in technology. The apparent resistance to change among large companies in Malaysia is a sentiment the group shared as a whole. Examples of autonomous and decentralised companies such as Grab & Airbnb, where the business is mostly run by members of its community were used as comparisons.

Equal Opportunities
The group started off by stating that gender equality is fairly well in Malaysia. However, they agreed that women need better avenues to reenter the workforce. They also observed that the equality rhetoric in Malaysia is based on economic availability. Therefore, the different demographics need to identify a common vocabulary to avoid misunderstanding (race, religion, gender). Finding common goals will lead to better understanding and empathy, potentially leading to opportunities for collaboration. They also highlighted access to opportunities are highly dependant on geographical and economic status factors. For example, the discrepancy in quantity and quality of opportunities available in the city as compared to its rural counterparts. The group believed through the use of data and AI, people and leaders can overcome bias and be better informed when making decisions during policymaking.

Speed to Scale
This group believed that it will only take SMEs 6 months to reach 1 million customers in 2030. This is largely due to them foreseeing the increased connectivity between businesses and their customers. Technology will be more affordable and simple becoming commonplace for companies, hence, the accessibility of multiple marketplaces to get services to customers will be faster and cheaper. Echoing the point of equal opportunities, they find that equality provides an opportunity for SMEs, as more demographic groups are able to consume their offerings, therefore, Increasing the customer pool for SMEs to provide their services to. The group also shared their observation in governments becoming more accepting of disruptive activities, as they would either take part actively or indirectly.

Huge thanks to our awesome Future of Work participants from Maybank, UMW Corporation, Academy Science of Malaysia, OpenExo, Touch N Go, Sunway, Sime Darby Plantation, Bank Negara Malaysia, Cense Media, Wholesome Leaders, SCS, PNS, UTM, Futurise, Common Ground, GoGet & Workana!