Your Voice: Preparing for the future of work

None of us can turn a blind eye to the remarkable advances and profound changes in all fields of technology, business environments, and the nature of work, worldwide. Major changes have made people worry about future employment, despite the stability of their current jobs.

I believe that every advancement creates new opportunities; that it will not be the technologies and artificial intelligence that replaces people, but the people who know how to use those technologies and embrace the new realities.

I recently gave an educational talk to Aramco colleagues and highlighted a few of the areas we should be ready for. Here’s a summary.

The merging of specializations
Different fields of science are no longer siloed. Biology, for example, has become bioengineering, bioinformatics, or biotechnology. We should strive to equip ourselves with a specialization, while remaining aware and open to new learning and job evolution. 

Job/career evolution
Keeping a job title for life — or even having a career for life — has become unrealistic. Individuals now often shift from one field to another, or take on different roles and responsibilities within a career. We should seek to continually build knowledge and expand our skillset to be ready for change.

Employment beyond borders
Crossing national borders to study and work is a new form of normal. In 2019, there were 169 million international migrant workers in the world, constituting nearly 5% of the global labor force. We should think beyond local borders when building our professional toolkit. 

Standout from the crowd
Globally, thousands, if not millions of people have the same job. But every individual has something that makes them unique — to flourish, we must show the world how we’re different. Let’s think about our strengths and how to make ourselves stand out from the crowd.

Lifelong passion versus work
Following our passions to decide what to study and focus our work on can sometimes be misleading. As humans, our interests develop over time, and the world changes quickly. Consider keeping your passion as a hobby or a source of fulfillment outside of work, but not as a lifelong guide to a career or a major source of income. 

In short, we should consider what the business world will look like in a few years’ time, before deciding what to pursue, training, and development-wise. 

(Editor’s Note: Your Voice reflects the thoughts and opinions of the writer, and not necessarily those of the publication.)