By Alain Dehaze*

Technology and hyper connectivity have transformed our lives. Taxis come from Uber; pizzas through Deliveroo; books and music via Amazon; and movies on countless streaming services.

While start-up businesses and innovators have led the charge in harnessing the power of the digital age, governments and regulators have lagged behind. Our business community and economies are in urgent need of the right kind of support and global policies that will better prepare our workforce for the demands of the future.

The revolution has barely started – but it is already affecting work. So it is essential that, as the G20 developed and emerging economies gather in Hamburg for this year’s Summit under the German Presidency, one of their Task Forces focuses on employment and education.

It is also essential that the voice of business is heard at this global level of policy making.

The Adecco Group has had the privilege to be an active part of this agenda-setting process for the past seven years as a member of the B20 Employment Task Force, providing expertise and recommendations to ensure our labour markets are fit for purpose.

Top among the recommendations feeding into the measures set for approval by the Heads of State at the G20 are ways to tackle challenges posed by rapid technological change.

Digitalisation, robotisation and artificial intelligence are dramatically altering how we work. As in previous industrial revolutions, some low-skilled jobs are disappearing amid advancing machines. Automation is also moving into higher-skilled areas, prompting further adaptation and transformation. Nascent professions are requiring people to develop new skills and adopt new attitudes to work.

 The traditional career ladder is also eroding for many, giving way to a career web, where sideways moves can be just as significant as upward promotions. Not just the nature of our work, but the way we work is in flux.

Today’s world is characterised by diverse forms of employment: fixed or open-ended; direct employment in an outsourced workplace; agency work; platform; cooperatives of freelancers, direct employment; you name it.

Such diversity is established and to be welcomed. Besides a necessity to provide for the growing demand for flexibility among younger generations entering the labour market, diverse forms of work allow talent currently absent from the labour market, notably women, to access jobs.

But catering for diversity and technological change needs the right rules and policies. Many obstacles remain. The B20 group of businesses that feed recommendations into the G20 summits has urged global powers to:

• Promote open, dynamic and inclusive labour markets by removing legal and structural barriers, encouraging female entrepreneurship and creating more opportunities for women in work, and bringing immigration rules into line with the needs of business.
• Harness the potential of technological change through better education and training, entrepreneurship and innovation frameworks by cutting red tape, investing in forward-looking and country-specific skills development, and fostering a spirit of entrepreneurship.
• Create a global level playing field and promote fair competition by properly implementing legislation at national level, promoting sustainable supply chains, and enforcing responsible business conduct to create a level playing field across the world for human rights.

Beyond those broad steps, there are further ways that we can turbocharge our response to the labour market demands of the digital age.

• Restrictions and regulations hampering providers of different forms of work must be lifted. The role, for example, of workforce solutions companies in preparing the workforce of tomorrow needs to be fully recognised, not inhibited. Misconceptions that (temporary) agency work is less regulated than fixed-term contracts must also be debunked, once and for all: OECD data shows that (temporary) agency work faces significantly greater labour protection rules than traditional contracts. Yet workers not in open-ended employment are often met with less favourable conditions. Appropriate regulation that strikes a balance between flexibility and security is crucial to increasing labour market efficiency and national competitiveness.
• Workers must have adequate job protection. Existing policies and rules are too often still designed for “traditional” forms of labour, ignoring the unique needs of alternative models gaining ground. So-called “flexicurity” measures, as pioneered in Denmark, should blossom as they better reflect the balance between a business’s economic need for flexibility and the obligation to support employees, regardless of the duration of their labour contracts.
• Governments should introduce active labour market policies, such as training schemes, to support workers’ employability, and linking subsidies to employment measures.
• We must reassess how we think and talk about work. Too often platforms, agency work, freelance cooperatives and the like are described as “new”, implying “old” or “traditional” labour is more stable or reliable. In fact, “non-traditional” employment relationships are becoming the new norm. The ILO’s World Employment and Social Outlook shows that just 17 percent of the global workforce has a full-time, open-ended contract. France and Belgium alone have more than 30 different labour contracts, each appropriate to business and staff.

The growing diversity of employment relationships is good for everyone. Employers have differing priorities and requirements in this era defined by machines taking over and three generations working alongside each other in the workplace. Mothers of young children, millennials and the semi-retired have disparate drivers and each group needs flexibility of choice at work to balance its priorities.

The B20 Germany Employment and Education Task Force intends to address the challenges associated with fast technological development, the reskilling needed for fast changing job markets, and the structural reforms required for improved and extended employment opportunities.

Only by providing a variety of labour contracts and work frameworks can we meet these goals and bring more people into the labour market. Agency work and self-employment have been around for a long time. Diverse forms of work bring new opportunities. Rapidly-changing technology means they are here to stay. We must now embrace this at G20 level to build prosperous and sustainable societies for all.

*Alain Dehaze is the CEO of The Adecco Group

Source: LinkedIn