Strategic workforce planning, remote work and artificial intelligence
The events of 2020 propelled the future of work forward with remote working, automation and wide-scale organisational change dominating the business landscape. The very nature and definition of work started to shift away from traditional views, and new ways of working emerged quite broadly.
The future of work is exciting and presents some great changes ahead for the business community. The future of work is largely defined by the adoption of artificial intelligence and a new workforce mix of on- and off-balance sheet talent.
Our work in this area is focused on talent management and using artificial intelligence as a strategy for leading a business and workforce transformation. We believe that businesses can create customer and employee value by designing their workforce so it thrives in the future. This includes designing for flexibility, remote work and developing new skills (particularly in response to automation.)
We also foresee that as artificial intelligence moves more into the mainstream, organisations will increasingly adopt it. Consequently, it will require people to adapt or grow their skills to collaborate with intelligent machines. We support these strategic workforce solutions and produce value for businesses by focusing on this element of human performance and, where appropriate, pairing it with artificial intelligence and automation.
2017 research from Accenture Germany found that “If companies invest in AI and in human-machine collaboration at the same rate as top-performing businesses, they could boost revenues by 38 percent between 2018 and 2022 (as much as 50 percent in the consumer goods and health sectors) and lift global profits by a total of US$4.8 trillion by 2022. For the average S&P 500 company, this equates to US$7.5 billion of revenues and a US$880 million lift to profitability. They could also increase employment by 10 percent.” See figure below.
Caption: The impact on revenues and growth if companies invest in AI and human-machine collaboration at the same rate as top performing companies