I was recently being invited to be part of a consortium to offer my insights on understanding the concept of employability.
Definition of employability
The definition of employability refers to the likelihood of being able to offer value behind doing a task. In other words, it is how likely you are at getting a job and at continuing to get another job. That job can be a full time job, a part time job, a contract job or a shift job. When one is the boss of the company, the boss is still seeking to do a job for his or her customer.
It's about getting and doing the job.
If one is an expert in delivering a capability to the job, then one's concern is about creating more opportunities for one's capabilities to be used. Marketing that capability is a job by itself. If one is an expert in identifying opportunities and establishing trust to enable the creation of a sale, then one's concern is about finding someone to deliver that capability. Contracting that capability is a job by itself. Both situation renders one to be aware of the existing opportunities that are enabled by technology. Here I shall talk about the importance of the ability to use technological based productivity boosting (TechBoost) products such as Slack or HipChat. There are other TechBoost products in the areas of marketing, finance and operation. [ I will cover this in another episode.]
If you can use more TechBoost products, you can reduce employability risk
As the job gets bigger and more complex, you will require more people to form a team to do the job. Yet, it is interesting to note that the global workforce is evolving in such a way that life expectancy increasing over time, yet with fertility falling at the same time. As such, it is reasonable to expect that the number of senior workers increases while the number of junior workers decreases. In addition, the companies have economic mandate to be efficient and innovative. In order to be efficient and innovative, companies are building a dynamic workforce that increases automation and transfers resources to experiment new products and services. As such, each company eventually becomes a specialist of a specific capability provider. Putting these insights to form a big picture reveals to us the compelling need for the individual to equip themselves with these (TechBoost) products.
Transition is about developing TechBoost product adoption habits
Although there is a compelling need for individual to adopt new technology, there is a reasonable understanding that the individual needs time to learn and to embrace these habits. There are 4 types of people segments. [For a detail understanding refer to this link: #Employability matrix which group do you belong 2 ?].
Adopting new technology requires the vendors to provide habit forming products as well as requires the adopting organization to enable the digital transformation.
Now the question that comes before you is what would you do something about it?