CAPE TOWN, January 24 (ANA) – The worker of the future is going to have to be resilient and be able to adjust and react quickly to a rapidly changing environment.
This is according to Absa deputy CEO, David Hodnett, who was part of the South African delegation at the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, last week.
Addressing the issue of the much talked-about Fourth Industrial Revolution, Hodnett said that what WEF showed was that everyone in the world was struggling to fully understand the implications of a technologically-driven world.
"I suppose the one that everyone else is struggling with, I am definitively struggling with as a business leader, is what people are calling the Fourth Industrial Revolution," he told the African News Agency (ANA) during an interview.
The worker of the future, Hodnett said, would have to be "multi-skilled and able to react and change quickly to a rapidly changing environment, with an ability to change and react and be resilient enough to move with it".
He said while there was a need for science in helping to understand what the coming age would bring "if you try and be too scientific about it then you might also get it wrong".
"Sometimes the science, or what people think is going to happen, doesn't happen, while things happen a lot more quickly than people thought were going to happen."
Hodnett said it was crucial for business, labour and government in South Africa to understand what kind of skills bases and jobs needed to be trained for, "because if we carry on training for traditional, we are probably going to get it wrong".
"It is about trying to build an environment where all of your labour force is quite resilient, and what I mean by that is have the training to move between things quite quickly."
He said that all around the world governments were looking at their education systems and trying to determine the system which would best prepare the worker of tomorrow. He said some education systems tended to specialise people very quickly in terms of future careers, while others were much more generic and focused rather on strengths. But all of these issues formed part of the debate around a future shaped by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Asked about South Africa's presence in Davos, Hodnett echoed the sentiments of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa who led the 56-strong team of government, business, labour and civil society to Davos, saying that South Africa had put its best foot forward.
"We often talk about Team South Africa and how we came together in the latter half of last year, and I definitely saw that as well. Although we have quite large differences sometimes it is really good to see how when you walk the streets of Davos and you're a South African it doesn't really matter what your background is, you talk, you engage.
"And I've met a few business people, including some of the multi-national corporates, it doesn't go unnoticed that despite differences South Africans actually stick together, talk to each other and talk consistently. A number of people have commented how Team SA comes across as quite cohesive despite differences."
He added that South Africans tended to come together to solve problems "in a consistent way ... I think that despite the fact there is lots of discussion within Team SA what the outside world sees, whether it is the ratings agencies or other businesses, they do see that cohesive front.
"But I think what they also respect is that it is not a cohesive front just saying something for the sake of something to pretend that we're alive.
"They do understand that we are having discussions and people will have slight differences. But everybody, and that is what comes out so passionately when you walk around with the South Africans, is that all they want to do is solve South Africa at the end of the day and that is what comes through to the rest of the world."
Hodnett said that the most crucial element for business and investors was certainty. He said often people who were not doing business in Africa tended to focus only on the negatives, "the headlines".
"They often have to be reminded that yes, there are issues, but guys, we are going to have in South Africa, even though we are not happy with it, GDP growth of, we think, 1-1,3% this year, and there are a lot of countries talking about that kind of number and are very excited about it."
He conceded that the country could do far better in terms of growth, but said it was imperative to keep "reminding people about the positive stories".
He pointed to growing intra-regional trade and the huge efforts going on behind the scenes to facilitate this, saying that research had shown African companies had expanded regionally.
Absa, with a presence in 12 African states, was a prime example of this growth in regional market strength, he said.
"We were looking at research the other day and multi-national corporates that are operating in Africa, ie are on the ground, understand that there is often noise and discussions, but they are actually in lots of cases having increased confidence."
Hodnett said the people who were probably being impacted most by the noise were companies who weren't in Africa but were considering deploying their money in Africa.
"Those are probably the constituents that you have really got to convince, it is almost the new money sometimes," he said. "They tend to focus on the negatives because they don't have the positive experiences of seeing what happens on the ground."
- African News Agency (ANA)