Will robots perform these roles?
I read an intriguing piece recently by Jon Ingham on ‘managing in the digital age’. He refers to the Drucker Forum in Vienna (aims to build on the thinking of the late Peter Drucker – management guru) which has been holding sessions on this topic. Ingham highlights one area of particular interest from workplace thinker and author Tammy Erickson, about the role of robots and humans in the future of knowledge work.
In this Erickson argues there are a number of areas of knowledge work which can all and therefore at some point will all, be performed by machines. These include using, creating and categorizing expertise which can all be done by computers. In addition, in the future machine learning will probably enable the assessment of the outputs of this and and make recommendations based upon it.
As we currently stand, in my view, this area of development is still hit and miss and machines cannot come close to replicating human inputs, assessments and decisions. There are increasing numbers of tools to assist with human decision making and these are becoming more refined and sophisticated. As machines march forward in exponential leaps it is undoubted that they will be able to handle more and more of the sophisticated activities currently undertaken by individuals, probably an awful lot quicker and perhaps more accurately. In recruitment, we are already seeing recruiters pulling out of the market for more junior and administrative staff, as job boards and automated programmes do the job well. However, I expect that into the foreseeable future there will be an important role for skilled headhunters who can add considerable value in to the process of talent acquisition, negotiation, on-boarding, retention and coaching.
Indeed Erickson suggests the most productive areas for human focus will be:
Relational tasks – connecting, sharing and empathising.
Decisions involving values and morals
Things to do with change
All three of these are areas a good headhunter should excel in and add significant value to the process.
The headhunter is dead, long live the headhunter.