I'm about to speak a little later this afternoon at the Achievers Aspire event in San Francisco on the topic of Robots in the Workplace (I know, shocking that this was the topic I pitched when the folks at Achievers asked me if I would be interested in participating in the event), and in doing a final review of the slides I am planning on presenting I figured I should share one of the most interesting charts from the deck - so here goes:
(Source: Business Insider)
It is probably not a shock to you or anyone that jobs like telemarketing, typists, and retail salespersons are coming under increasing threat from the rise of robots and automation, but take a look at some of the other, more surprising types of jobs that have a high likelihood of being automated away in the next two decades.
Accountants, technical writers, even commercial pilots - these are not the kinds of jobs we initially think about when we consider the potential impact of robots and automation in workforces.
I have a feeling my talk this afternoon might be a tough one - I am not at all sure that the HR leaders in this room that are not working at 'obvious' ripe for automation types of industries like manufacturing or call centers are really thinking all that much about robots and automation. But I think, or at least I am going to try and argue, that automation in its many forms, (robots, intelligent software algorithms, wearable devices, machine to machine interaction), are going to be in the forefront of the HR/Talent agenda for just about every organization of any size in any industry.
It should be a fun talk. I will let you know how it turns out.