Automation is a controversial topic - many leaders are enthusiastic about the potential to cut costs and increase efficiency, while others fear for their jobs and the impact on company culture. Both perspectives are flawed. It is dangerous to reduce the automation debate to simplistic cliches, whether it be defending outdated human jobs or wishing for an AI-powered utopia where all our needs are met. Automation, AI, and algorithms are here to stay. The real question is: how do we make sure the future of work fits the world we want to live in?

We work for many reasons. For some, it is the need to pay bills and put food on the table, for others - a desire to fund certain lifestyle choices. But if you take a step back and look at human civilization as a whole, you’ll realize that there are infinite ways that our needs and desires can be taken care of without us working, in some cases, an eighty-hour week. But would we be happy in an automated, AI-powered world where human labour was no longer required? Not necessarily.

Spoiler alert. It is not about their size. One of the most dangerous traps for corporations is to consume the idea of disruption, without internalizing it. They redesign their offices and add more open-plan spaces; they upgrade their technology and give their employees new collaboration tools; they sponsor a startup accelerator and create an innovation division in a separate office. Fast forward a few years, and nothing has changed. Why?

Over the last few months, leaders have had a chance to respond to the impact of COVID-19. Plans for contactless service, process automation, remote work, Cloud infrastructure, and virtualization have been accelerated and implemented. While many businesses have closed and millions lost their jobs - many more have transformed and survived. That's all good news. But now we find ourselves at a precarious point. To call this brief respite from chaos - a 'new normal' - is to invite inevitable defeat. The only question that matters now is: where do we go from here? Without a new plan for the future, we may discover that the real crisis is yet to come.

If automation seemed like a threat to jobs before, in the post-pandemic world, the pace of change will only accelerate. With the rise of remote work, our decision-making, processes and workflows are becoming more digital. That could be a double-edged sword for many employees. True, working from home saves you the time and hassle of a commute into the office. But it is arguably also much easier to replace a human making a decision or completing a task with clever software, when most of the organization’s interactions are now via messaging, video calls and emails. But don’t panic, just yet. What if there was a new job inside your old one?