In my lectures, I like to ask the audience the question ‘which robot is going to claim your job?’. A question that usually leads to the comment, ‘my job will stay though, but I think others’ are going to disappear”. My motto is: robots work, people live. And with that I am not saying that jobs will disappear but that specific tasks will be taken over by robots or data & AI. And I am very excited about that because if we do this right, we can actually give much more meaning to the work we do as humans. If a self-driving bus comes along, surely we can actually have someone riding on the bus who makes sure everyone feels comfortable on the bus? Or makes sure it’s a very enjoyable ride? I think with that, work can become much more enjoyable and the bus host is put to his or her values. The 21st century skills offer us as human beings the most added value in work: creativity, curiosity, cooperation and coming up with solutions.
And I really hope that this will make us all work a bit smarter. Work will certainly not disappear, it gives us meaning and together we ensure that we continue to develop as a country. I will recently talk about the meaning bonus. According to stress expert Thijs Launspach ( AD 3/10), there should be a ‘meaning bonus’ for staff who switch to meaningful work. We help them make the switch they are long overdue for. Get rid of consultants, let highly paid consultants retrain as teachers or train conductors. We think we have whooping staff shortages? No way, the Netherlands suffers from a bullshit job problem. [Sebastian Valkenberg FD 13 October 2022]
Writer Koen Bruning argues for the freedom dividend. The freedom dividend stems from the idea that the relationship between income from capital and labour is skewed. ‘In this system, you see that work does not pay. And that the collective wealth you accumulate together is not distributed fairly. With the freedom dividend, you pay out this difference in wealth, every month, unconditionally. This leads to freedom in the sense that people have more room to put their own demands on the table in terms of working conditions, for example, but also in terms of government policy.’ [VPRO Tegenlicht 13 August 2022, Merel Zoet)
I wrote about this bullshit job and some form of basic income before. And still for most people, this is about the work of colleagues or the neighbour. But let us now take a closer look together at what is useful, meaningful and valuable work. For our society but also within an organisation. With the current shortage of people, new generations really not going to work harder than their parents, and many people getting sick from their work, it is high time to start redefining work. By looking at both human potential, and technological innovation, we have a wonderful opportunity to redefine work. It is the chief human & technology officer’s turn!
