Content uploaded by M. Bowles
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by M. Bowles on May 24, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
© institute for working futures, 2020 2
New Normal: What happens when the future
arrives early?
Marcus S. Bowles
Introduction
Covid-19 brought the future early. It achieved in
three months what research into future work
predicted would occur in five years: an immense
shift in how, when, and where we work.
For everyone it was a massive speed bump.
While some employers are still driving along
shakily, others have crashed to the side of the
road. For the lucky few, it has been a wakeup call
to activate future plans earlier. While not every
employer had agile future workforce
development plans, all their responses provide
important insights into best practice and what to
avoid on the road ahead.
Prometheus Unbound
Much of the knowledge about what organisations
need to do to manage their workforces during
and after the pandemic existed prior to COVID-
19.
As in the legend of Prometheus, we resist and
ostracise messengers who challenge existing
paradigms. In this instance, we treat people who
bring us insights into preparing workforces for the
future of work and learning with suspicion.
However, we can no longer afford to ignore these
messengers and their tidings. We must actively
challenge the views of those who seek to lock
everyone into their tightly defended paradigms.
This article is a personal insight into unlocking
important knowledge. Despite the noise
surrounding the pandemic, we can isolate the
root cause of job losses and why they have, and
will continue to be, so acute. We can also assess
how these job losses may hinder organisational
viability as the COVID-19 economic shutdown
ends.
We will never return to the pre-pandemic world
of work. All the talk of a post-COVID recovery is
semantically accurate but it lacks the critical
reflection and honest appraisal of the current
systemic failures. Nor does all the talk appreciate
the factors we know enhance organisational
success and the employment prospects of
Australians seeking work and viable careers.
So what are the most obvious lessons we must
learn and what should we leave behind?
The future is here
Why aim for a return to normal? We have more
to gain from looking to a future we already knew
was coming.
Leading companies are doing this and using the
business hiatus to advance plans to meet global
realities; plans that had previously been too
costly to execute while trying to deliver existing
services.
We must all pull in the same economic direction
post-pandemic, just as we were “In it together”
during the lockdown.
The education sector is of particular concern
because we will have a national skilling
requirement to secure the capabilities required to
underpin the post-pandemic economy.
Unfortunately, scepticism has increased
dramatically in recent years over the efficacy of
higher education efforts in supporting future skill
requirements.
My company, The Institute for Working Futures
(Working Futures™), made significant predictions
about the future of work and the capabilities
required in the workforce. As recently as late 2019,
collaborative research with leading global
partners resulted in predictions that by 2025 in
Australia, of the workforce:
a. 15% of the workforce (1.9m workers) would
be displaced by automation and
computerisation.
b. 16% of the workforce (2m) would have to
undertake significant reskilling as
technology augmented and amended
their day-to-day work.
c. 20% of the workforce (2.4m) would be in
new jobs created due to technology and
business model innovations.
d. 52% would work part time in multiple jobs
(portfolio work).
e. 45% would work contractors or freelancers
working from home 18% or using social and
digital platforms to work in the gig
economy.1
This data—and a mosaic of other insights—
confirms that the speed of workforce
transformation requires an unprecedented
reskilling effort. This effort has to move beyond
© institute for working futures, 2020 3
traditional and fast disappearing job
classifications to focus instead on common role
cluster capabilities that would underpin any
future workforce. In particular, it requires
universities to play a more active role in skills
development rather than transfer knowledge tied
to narrow industrial-age discipline boundaries.
Future workforce forecasting has always been
slippery so perhaps we should remove the
concept of ‘future’. After all, we know the future is
continually ‘emerging’. Some suggest we anchor
discussion in terms such as a ‘second
renaissance’, or ‘workforce 4.0’ to show the
change has known precedents.
This is all moot, however, because what we
predicted to arrive in 2025 is substantially here in
2020. While the estimated five million people
working from home in the lockdown will not stay
in this mode, we do know we have had no time to
create the new jobs that were supposed to soak
up the workers displaced in our restructured
economy.
Yes, the future arrived early but many companies
were prepared because they had already
fundamentally altered how they planned and
how they developed and managed people.
Future predications allowed them to run
scenarios, make informed decisions, and
radically pivot their people-plans to meet what is
to come. None of this work indicates an intention
to return to the previous state. The new normal
will not be a cookie cutter replication of what
existed in December 2019. It will be a positive,
albeit more painful, transition to meet foreseen
future realities.
Situational report: The calm before the
storm
Many think the worst of the pandemic and its
economic fallout is over. But as of mid-May 2020,
many large corporations have hit pause and,
unfortunately, the job loss story will continue.
While economic recovery might re-engage
unemployed and underemployed workers in work
by the third quarter, the more permanent job
losses look likely given Australian companies are
already restructuring for the post-pandemic
economy. This is when fast-tracked automation
projects, new business models, streamlined
structures and new role profiles will roll out in
pilots from September 2020 in preparation for
‘rubber hits the road’ in January 2021. This is the
common target date to restructured workforces
where we will see removal of poor job design and
engagement practices, movement of people
from employees to contractors, abandonment of
outdated job and occupation classification
systems, and outplacement of workers who lack
the essential deep capabilities required in the
future workforce.
The mission has centred on building workforce
capabilities that allow the organisation to deliver
its core technical purpose and to be more
collaborative, responsive to change, and
customer focussed. The mission emphasises
judicious investment in the workforce capability in
order to secure a systems-level, organisational-
wide capacity uplift. It is also about placing a
balanced emphasis on correctly assessing what
each individual contractor or employee provides
to do a job and ensuring they fit the
organisational culture.
For my clients, the debate between planning and
building a workforce based on capability or job
competency is over. They are raising the tide, not
filling buckets.
Moreover, they are raising the tide for everyone in
the workforce by improving the dozen or so
capabilities essential to the whole workforce that
shape 60 to 70% of all role profiles. They are not
diluting focus by trying to drive organisational
improvement by solely focussing on the many
competencies and skills tied to specific job
‘buckets’.
As an advocate for capability2, over job
competency and skills tied to industrial-age
vocational boundaries, I am definitely biased. But
by looking at the good and the bad from my
corporate clients, and the absolutely ugly from
educational institutions, I can provide some
evidence of responses to COVID-19 that may
inform your view on what will and will not work.
The corporate experience
The good
The benefits and drawbacks of moving from a
physical workplace to a virtual workplace are well
documented. Perhaps this is a massive “work-
from-home experiment”. It is possible, however, to
accommodate short-term COVID-19
contingencies with good practices that benefit
long-term choices.
While work has had to be reshaped and
relocated, it is also being reinvented. For instance,
public service treasury officers and managers
moving from desk-based compliance and
information exchange jobs to call centre
© institute for working futures, 2020 4
operators dealing with small business claims; or
shifting long-haul truck drivers to roles as urban
couriers making door-to-door deliveries.
In my opinion, the following represent features of
the most enduring beneficial workforce solutions:
1. Purpose is essential
In a COVID-19 world, virtual-based workers
who feel a clear shared sense of purpose are
less likely to feel disconnected from their
colleagues and organisation. They
understand that although the processes and
practices may change (for example, virtual
rather than physical staff meetings) the
reason for their work endures. Virtual
meetings are just as much about purposeful
action as are physical meetings.
2. Value resides in the employee as a human
Working in a COVID-19 world is as much
about social capital as it is human capital. It
is about the workforce culture, values and
beliefs. It is about the collaborating with
others—inside and outside the organisation—
to deliver the shared vision or purpose.
For many years, agile and responsive
organisations have sought competitive
advantage by moving away from traditional
views of humans as resources to fill jobs. The
emphasis shifted to individuals as assets that
had capability beyond their explicit job skills.
This led to a valuing of tacit attributes such
as cognitive attributes, mindsets, and
personal preferences. It is as much about
cultural fit as it is about performance.3 To
this end, Working Futures™ spent 20 years on
research updating the human capability and
leadership standards that we deem essential
to all future workforce roles.
Figure 1 Human Capability Standards4
3. Skills must match business models
We know that business models always
change, but they are changing faster than
ever now. The move from physical to online
channels is accelerating especially fast. To
survive, many businesses had to map out the
skills, characteristics, and type of people they
need to support these digital transformation
projects quickly. As consumer behaviours
change, these business models will not be
variants to the normal; they will
be
the
normal. This change accelerates the need for
human-centred problem solvers who have
empathy and a passion for building a
positive customer experience. It is the social
and emotional skills, alongside collaboration
and communication expertise, that will be
crucial for organisations seeking to build
workforces able to drive digital
transformation.
4. Often skill shortages are actually skill
mismatches
Often companies have no idea they can fill
perceived skill gaps using people already in
their workforce. This problem is called a skills
mismatch. This mismatch occurs for two
primary reasons: (a) The capabilities
possessed by a person are inadequately
recorded; and (b) the profile of their people
is against explicit skills tied to the job or
profession. The profile should be of the
person, not job competence. This shift in
emphasis places value on all capabilities:
non-technical (soft skills or human skills)
and the technical skills. We know some two-
thirds of all future job profiles are formed
from the non-technical skills and knowledge.5
Non-technical are essential, but typically
constitute less than 25% of a job profile. Yet
we perpetuate the desire to recruit, select
and mange talent based on qualifications
and profiles tied to technical job
performance or behaviours, not the
capabilities the organisation requires. The
biggest change right now is that large
companies and professional bodies are
refining their understanding of the exact
capabilities required in their workforce today
and tomorrow. This then triggers them to
improve their people profiling with the use of
innovative technologies and web
assessment platforms. The result is a more
accurate value of the organisation’s
capacity. This leads to a higher reportable
value and a currency able to enhance
© institute for working futures, 2020 5
decision making on workforce retention,
recruitment, training and development,
redeployment or people and talent
management.
5. Promoting workplace development and
organisational learning
How well people learn is an essential
capability that underpins an organisation’s
responsiveness to change. Paradoxically,
learning ability, and other essential
capabilities for the future, promote the
importance of context-based learning: that
is, learning where tasks will be performed.
The capability uplift for any organisation can
use the 10/20/70 reference model: 10
percent off-the-job formal education, 20%
from peer mentoring or coaching, and 70%
through experiential programs tied to work
tasks, challenges, rotations, or experiences.
No matter how bored people are, or if they
have extra time to learn, sending people off
to do formal, structured online courses linked
to qualifications is all too often an expensive
activity with little business value. Instead, the
use of online platforms to support other
interventions is far more engaging. They can
also deliver measurable capability uplift;
capability tied to micro-credentials issued by
the firm or a third party that carry global
professional or vendor status and credits
towards formal qualifications. These short,
stackable credentialed programs based
around informal, non-formal or experiential
learning tied to required capabilities is a
rapid way to build in the capabilities and
resilience required to close priority skill gaps.
The bad
These are what I call my forehead slapping
moments. That is, the response I have to the
questions I’m asked (or the actions I see) that
perplex me. Firstly, questions from the C-suite
leaders:
• How do I know which people to keep?
• How do I get my people to change
rapidly?
• How do I know people working from
home are doing their work?
• Is there a technology or software that
would allow me to monitor people
working from home?
• How do I convince the bean counters
that I need these people to deliver
existing contracts?
Reference the list of ‘Good’ practices previously
presented. The questions are a stark
confirmation of short term thinking around issues
that should already be under control. They
indicate the ensuing chaos when managers have
to manage people outside the ‘normal’ job
boundaries and work modes. Where it moves
from the problematic to the downright bad is
when we see decisions such as:
1. Cutting the training and development
budget.
At a time when we need learning to scaffold
staff in volatile work roles, the skills budget is
cut. Good organisations invest heavily in
continuous learning, formal and informal or
non-formal, to underpin responsiveness and
agility. Why would you remove this tool from
the managers toolbox exactly when it is most
required?
2. Reskilling people who fill an existing job to do
new tasks or responsibilities allocated to the
reshaped job.
Many of the new roles are being augmented
with technology to expedite online channels
or where human tasks are being automated
(e.g., reskilling teachers or retail service
personnel to conduct their roles using online
platforms).
3. People seconded or moved to customer-
facing roles without regard for their personal
ability or preferences with regards interacting
with people.
Not everyone has the ability to work with
customer face-to-face. Trying to force
people into service roles because you don’t
know their personal capabilities can result in
not only poor performance, it can set back
the existing customer experience and
undermine the relationship.
4. Moving technical experts into leadership
roles based on seniority.
By simply examining the hierarchy and
positions listed on their human resource
system, many larger entities have randomly
chosen people to lead others based on their
seniority. Leadership or project specific
expertise is apparently optional. The typical
example in COVID-19 is the newly appointed
change project leaders who lack change
management expertise and have even less
desire to lead people.
© institute for working futures, 2020 6
5. Investing in online training to rapidly upskill
people to assume new responsibilities or
duties.
Paradoxically, having culled learning and
development budgets some executives are
prepared to fund delivery of training to fill skill
gaps in leadership or change project
management. Apparently, these courses are
part of the COVID-19 response because they
rapidly upskill staff in roles or duties they
have assumed during the crisis. Most of this
training occurs online in 3 to 4 hour sessions
over 1 to 3 days. The stories about these
sessions will be legendary, filling adult
education and management books with
comic relief for many years to come.
The above actions represent short-sighted
operational responses that ignore the strategic
consequences. Good leaders would never
support these decisions in normal operational
times, so why would they consider doing them
during a crisis?
The educational ugly
Australia and New Zealand have long possessed
some of the most innovative, passionate, and
knowledgeable educators in the world.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic shines a
bright light on the leadership deficiencies of
universities as well as the worrying extent to
which they have become out of touch with
demand. Consider the following forehead
slapping questions university leaders ask me:
• How do I design online learning that is
engaging?
• How do I get learners to turn up?
• Which short courses are in highest
demand?
• Which units in a qualification should I
unpack into short courses with digital
credentials?
• What is the best way to deliver a lecture
and tutorial online?
• What is the best tool all lecturers could
use to convert face to face content into
online learning?
• How do I run work integrated learning
units when there are no work placements
available?
These questions reflect both the absence of
good practices and symptoms linked to deeper
problems. Firstly, I think we can finally call time on
the belief that universities should be dedicated to
the independent pursuit of knowledge isolated
from the demands of the labour market. It is a
noble but self-defeating ethos. Neither
government, employers, nor students investing in
their education can afford universities who
graduate students who may be ready for work
but lack the flexibility and cognitive capacity to
survive in a disrupted workforce. Secondly, and
more importantly, in a world where customer
experience should be the primary focus for any
organisation, universities have to ask if they are
delivering student value. Increasingly our
students will have access to leading educational
brands selling courses where their graduates
enjoy global recognition, improved employability,
and higher wages.
The most profoundly worrying issue I have
tracked during COVID-19 is the leadership
response from so many universities and school
leaders. Here are the top five bad practices:
1. Good leadership communication doesn’t
shrivel under pressure
Some of the worst communication I have
ever seen has come from university and
school leaders during the COVID-19 crisis. As
an example, the eight-page email
announcing the COVID-19 changes sent by
the principal of a university college. The
missive echoed ancient Roman galley rowers
as he told his staff to improve the battle
rhythm needed to deliver required
transformation. Another was the message
from a vice chancellor confirming classroom
delivery was obsolete and ‘flipped
classrooms’ and online courses were
underway immediately. No details, no logic;
merely a simple announcement with
profound effects on traditional academics
experienced only in classroom delivery. Or
the primary school where the last face-to-
face staff meeting saw the senior principal
and head of K-to-12 announce all staff will
move all content online within seven days,
while still teaching! Four hours of professional
development was offered on the new
platform and assistance provided by two
nominated ‘experts’ for the 162 staff. How
would you judge these leaders by their
actions when taking into consideration
every
action is a form of communication? The
leaders are directing and asking for
aspirational outcomes without any
resourcing or investing in the capability of the
people to deliver these outcomes. All
responsibility is moved to the staff.
© institute for working futures, 2020 7
Fortunately, in these examples the educators’
dedication to their students largely carried
the day.
2. Poor visions leading to means-end inversion
Nothing shows the absence of strategy and
the absence of a shared vision more than a
crisis. This is where the means (what) and
the ends (why), often get confused. Change
and the bottom line are not a purpose; they
are a means to an end. A viable basis for an
end vision is to consider why we work
together and what benefits to the students,
teachers, and staff ensue. Visible
commitment and support of management to
improving the bottom line can confuse the
importance of people and their role
delivering the vision, values or goals. In one
example, a three-hour meeting left educators
uninspired by a board-approved change
plan being sold by the Principal and CFO that
displayed endless financial graphs and
projections. Equally, entering into change
without a reason why is profoundly
damaging to the institution’s success, and
the commitment of the staff to a shared
purpose. No doubt these operational issues
are important, but where is the vision? What
is the strategic destination on their shared
journey?
3. Planning for continuity not discontinuity
Some of the most profound changes we
have ever seen in Australian higher education
will be blamed on COVID-19. Across private
higher education providers and accredited
universities, current disruption provides the
opportunity to make decisions that should
have been made in the previous decade. As
international student numbers collapse, some
institutions will have to finally change
financially unviable operating models. Others
will simply use the drop in enrolments as an
excuse. The heart of the problem resides in
public funding and the revenue from
international students that has all too often
propped up obsolete operating models, poor
quality curriculum, and tardy entry into digital
channels. As many universities endeavour to
return to business as usual (BAU), they will
find stripping out operational costs, culling
low enrolment courses, and reforming
curriculum will not improve the relevance of
what remains. Nor will a return to BAU prevent
significant loss of academic and professional
staff. With some university audits reporting
over one-third of enrolments prior to COVID-
19 not completing their degree, or teaching
loads where less than 30% of academic staff
were responsible for delivering 90% of total
enrolments, institutions will not have the
funding to buffer these entrenched
inefficiencies. Change will not only be forced
by limited government funding having to
weigh economic benefits, students will use
the expanding online channels to access the
learning they want, when they want it, and
with sensitivity to securing a viable career.
Failure to realise this new normal will be
evidenced through:
a. Curricula reform leading to more
credentialled non-traditional, short
course and executive courses based off
the existing courses rather than
demand-led offerings.
b. Tying curriculum reform to ‘culling’ what
exists rather than finding out what the
market needs.
c. Reducing the cost of mass education
and qualification offerings rather than
seeking to promote a personalised,
customisable, career-related student
learning journey.
d. Tying teaching and learning quality to
delivery of the course learning outcomes
and assessment tasks, not the
employability outcomes.
4. Deliverables are an action not another
meeting
Many have the misfortune to sit on a large
number of educational board meetings and
institutional change project steering
committees. While many topics are labelled
as digital, curriculum, operational, or people
transformation, the discussions typically
centre on policy, process, and budget
activities disconnected from an action plan.
Actions deliver change. They lead to
something we collectively feel good about
and want to slap each other on the back for
achieving. More importantly, they give us a
delivery schedule. Most of the meetings seem
to be more about avoiding expansion of
each person’s ‘to do’ list. As more meetings
lead to setting dates for future meetings, so
byzantine bureaucracies emerge and inertia
sets in.
5. Advocacy for what is right can be painful
Not all actions make us feel good. Some
decisions are hard and advocating for those
© institute for working futures, 2020 8
decisions is difficult. However, navigating the
organisational politics in many educational
institutions can be fraught. In this
environment, making the right decision is
more often than not guided by cliques rather
than student need. Unfortunately, the
parochial, imperious decision-making
evidenced when cliques dominate can be
measured by the number on stress leave.
Right now, many of our best educators have
taken leave, often stress leave, rather than
engage in senseless fights over empires and
who will take ‘one for the team’. Without a
clear sense of purpose, willingness to pause
and reinvent the possible futures, many
educational leaders have reverted to a
campaign to preserve the pre-existing
operational models they understand.
Advocacy for what is right and informing
staff of the real situation is taking a back seat
to short-term decisions that distort later
options.
Inherent in many universities is the profound lack
of readiness to evolve and to embrace disruption
and look for new business models. Culling costs,
reforming existing curriculum, and examining
credentialled short courses are operation
responses to a much deeper strategic
misalignment. If it was not evident already, it is
clear universities are shifting to be more like
content/media organisations. As with any digital
transformation, differentiation in an online
environment is vital. While vital in other parts of
economic activity, contributions to skilling a future
workforce will not come from their research
profile nor a student’s physical location. While
Australian universities still adhere to historically
shaped mindsets, they will fail to anticipate and
meet changing labour market demands the
pandemic has accentuated. In addition, the more
they rely on physical distribution channels, the
sooner many will be obsolete.
Dr Marcus Bowles is Director of The Institute for Working Futures pty. ltd., and holds honorary professorial appointments
at The Centre for Workforce Futures, Macquarie University and The Tasmanian Institute for Teaching & Learning,
University of Tasmania. marcbowles.com | www.workingfutures.com.au
1 Bowles, M. (May 2019).
Future Work: Beyond fear to realities
. Future Work Summit, Sydney.
2 Capability is the high-level definition of the attributes (skills, knowledge, cognitive attributes and behaviours) that individuals and
workforces need to succeed in the future. Bowles, M. & Lanyon, S. (Sept. 2016).
Demystifying credentials: Growing capabilities for the
future
, DeakinDigital, Melbourne.
3 Deloitte (June 2019).
The path to prosperity: Why the future of work is human,
Building the Lucky Country #7, Deloitte Insight,
Melbourne.
4 Bowles, M. (May 2020).
Human Capability Standards Reference Model
, Working Futures, Melbourne.
5 Deloitte Access Economics (April 2017).
Soft Skills for business success
, DeakinCo., Melbourne