F U S E

FU.SE MILANO 201913-14 FEBRUARY 2019

FU.SE MILANO 201913-14 FEBRUARY 2019

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KEY STATISTICS

More than 80 concrete ideas for action generated throughout both days

48 sessions held during FU.SE

– 24 action-oriented break-out sessions and Action Cafés

– 12 inspiring plenaries – 12 reflective dinners

150 personal commitments made at the end of day two

183 participants and facilitators engaged

– C-level Participants from 16 countries – 23 CEOs – 14 institutional leaders – 5 start-up founders

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Today, we hear much talk about robots and co-bots, outsourcing and in-sourcing, re-skilling and up-skilling, pink-collar work-ers and the care economy. But amid all the noise about the future of work, what is ac-tually being done on the ground to change models, norms and behaviours? Who is, and who should be, taking action?

From February 13 to 14 2019 in Milan, a group of leaders gathered for an unprec-edented forum held not to merely reflect on and exchange ideas, but also to define actions that might challenge established thinking and shape the future of work. The group included more than 150 C-level busi-ness executives, heads of governmental and non-governmental institutions, media leaders, entrepreneurs – young and old.

This convening was the first summit of the Future Series (FU.SE) platform, which was launched in Davos by the Adecco Group, Boston Consulting Group and Microsoft, with the aim of putting ideas for the future of work into action. Other founding mem-bers include Zurich Insurance, ABB and LinkedIn, as well as institutional partners such as the International Labour Organi-zation (ILO) and the Organisation for Eco-nomic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Forbes is the official media part-ner, and Landor and TH_NK are the brand-ing and digital partners, respectively. This is not just an event, not just a consortium. This is the beginning of a movement.

The FU.SE agenda in Milan covered a va-riety of topics that will shape the nature of tomorrow’s workplaces. For example, how can we use artificial intelligence (AI) not as a means of making humans re-dundant but as a way of opening up new opportunities for employees to become more efficient and to develop skills that will enable them to work with technology?

In this new world of work, which aspects of a renewed social contract are most critical? How can we protect workforces globally in an age of increasing mobility? The red thread linking these many topics is the way people will ultimately be affected by these changes. From this broad array of issues, we will select two or three to take forward over the coming year as a continuation of the discussions that took place in Milan.

FU.SE is also a way of interacting to drive co-creation. In Milan, participants were tak-en on an intense two-day journey, shaped by an agenda that mixed formats and styles to provide a taste of the new types of interaction we aim to use. This involved a mixture of a few inspiring plenaries to set the scene, break-out sessions aimed at generating ideas for solutions, reflective Jeffersonian Dinners and Actions Cafés for testing concepts.

To fuel the discussions, we also featured an exhibition of new technologies that are being applied to talent and skills develop-ment and that are shaping the workplace of tomorrow. From virtual reality to robot baristas, the technologies gave participants a glimpse of what the future may hold.

FU.SE is not a standalone event; it is a plat-form, a community and a movement. Build-ing on the learnings from Milan, we will con-tinue to refine this model through a series of regional events over the coming year, leading to the next FU.SE summit in 2020 and beyond.

Through FU.SE, leaders from business, gov-ernment, academia and civil society will have a platform through which to co-cre-ate solutions and drive action to make the future work for everyone.

PREFACE

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THEMES & INSIGHTS

One of the most important objectives of FU.SE is to fuel co-creation by providing participants with cutting-edge insights on different topics within the future of work, featuring prominent leaders in their re-spective fields of expertise. By emphasiz-ing the urgent need to take action and by raising burning questions that can be tak-en beyond Milan, we can shape co-creation on the FU.SE platform.

The anchor themes discussed at FU.SE in Milan were:

– The ethics and morality of AI-driven technologies

– The possible futures of the professions – The elements of a renewed social

contract – The delivery of lifelong learning

Humans are responsible for designing technologies in line with ethical principlesThe discussions at FU.SE Milan made clear that humans are no longer the sole pos-sessors of skills such as vision, analysis, decision-making, language and learning. Recognition of this has, in recent years, led to increased fears about the impact of AI on the economy and work, and questions of whether technology will destroy jobs or create new ones, and in what proportion. As seen throughout the Milan event, the need to keep people at the centre of the tech de-bate is a recurrent theme, to which there are no easy answers. It raises questions about ethics and morality in developing artificially-intelligent technologies. In addi-tion, it calls into question jobs and profes-sions that will cease to exist and how that will change lives and livelihoods.

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The FU.SE discussion challenged the as-sumptions often heard in the mainstream. Many people fear robots supplanting car-ing human beings, of dependence and replacement, But speakers at FU.SE re-flected on the fact that, both at work and at home, people experience a world where technology is actually amplifying human ingenuity. The rapid evolution of technolo-gies that are impacting every industry and sector means that future occupations will require different digital skills, ranging from basic data literacy in jobs that today may be purely manual, to advanced computer sci-ence in others. Industry leaders emphasized that this will be wide-spread, not focused on a particular collar colour. Most jobs will be affected by technological change, giving rise to an urgent need for up-skilling and re-skilling at a higher rate than the current education and training systems can deliver. Moreover, with a scarcity of talent, organi-sational leaders must invest significantly more in the training and skilling of their current workforce to prepare them for this change, rather than assuming that there will be a constant stream of new recruits.

As the spread of AI-driven technologies may increase the speed and efficiency of work, their rise also increases the need to

pay attention to ethical issues, to avoid the human bias that can be built or trained into seemingly neutral tools. As with every technological advance, it is critical that humans reflect upon the risks and benefits of the impact new technologies will have on people’s lives.

To harness the improvements that AI-ena-bled technology can make to people’s lives, we must ensure that they are in line with human moral principles and governed by our ethical values.

Across all of the AI sessions, industry lead-ers stressed the urgent need to ensure that AI-driven technologies are designed and deployed in a manner that ensures they will earn users’ trust and that protects the indi-viduals whose data is being collected and whose lives are being affected.

Computers are now able to make decisions that through-out human history have al-ways been made by people. - Brad Smith, President of Microsoft -

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Two possible futures of the professionsWhat will the future of professions look like? Will we still have lawyers, doctors and consultants? The answer is (at least partly) yes, but they will work in a different way. Discussions during FU.SE Milan presented two possible futures of the professions:

The first is that technology will enable more efficient ways of working than are available today. The topic experts posited that professionals will use technology to execute their work more effectively and more easily. Examples of this future already exist, for example, in the way doctors now use technology to conduct teleconsulta-tions for patients.

The second and perhaps more troubling proposition is that technology could be re-sponsible for displacing professionals from their jobs.

During the sessions, participants explored the idea that in the medium term, these two futures will develop in parallel and that the second may well dominate in the long term. However, discussions at FU.SE Milan emphasized that both futures call for changing and upgrading the skills and capabilities of every professional. The chal-lenge we see is that, when showing those

newly required skills and capabilities to tra-ditional professionals, they do not recog-nise them as part of their jobs today.

A key concept with which participants grappled was the understanding that job level is actually an inadequate means of as-sessing the implications of technology on the future of work. The real change hap-pens at the level below. Experts at FU.SE Milan revealed that only 5% of jobs are composed of tasks that can be 100% auto-mated. When consider work just at the to-tal level, the important difference between jobs and tasks often gets lost.

One of the unhelpful things we do is when talking about the future of work, we talk about jobs. We get trapped in the way of thinking that the only way technology could change and affect the work we do is by destroying the entire job.- Daniel Susskind, Fellow and Economist, Balliol College, Oxford University -

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A new social contract must ensure a basic level of pro-tection, stability and social justiceOne of the most critical messages to emerge during the event was that the current system and institutions are inad-equate for the future of work. The chal-lenges presented by the changes taking place in the world of work can only be met if business leaders, policymakers, re-searchers, academics, civil society leaders, and individuals work together, support-ed by a new social contract. What actions do we need to take to move from a gen-eral agreement on people’s needs to the creation and implementation of this new contract?

An important part of the agenda at the FU.SE summit was the introduction of the findings of the ILO’s Global Commission on the Future of Work, led by Guy Ryder, Di-rector General of the ILO. Among the key speakers at FU.SE Milan who served on this commission, were Alain Dehaze, CEO of the Adecco Group, and Philip Jennings, General Secretary emeritus of UNI Global Union. The Global Commission on the Future of Work has produced an independent report on how to achieve a future of work that provides decent and sustainable opportunities for all.

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In a fireside chat between Guy Ryder and Alain Dehaze, the two discussed the inter-play between work and society; that work is part of society, not something separate or in opposition. A new social contract must address this relationship, and pro-vide concrete solutions to the challenges we are facing today in order to create a better future workplace. We need to di-rectly address issues that are often ignored, for example, the future of job informality. The fact that 60% of people from rural ar-eas pursue informal occupations, provides ample evidence that a core element of a renewed social contract must address the support of informal workers. This will re-quire changes to the definitions and forms of employment, which will in turn drive adaptation among the institutions that govern work.

To get the future of work we want, we need a human-cen-tred agenda that invests in people – in their learning, in their protection and in a renewed social contract for the 21st century. We must re-engineer our systems and strategies so that we pro-ac-tively shape a future of work that is stable and equitable for all.- Guy Ryder, Director General, International Labour Office -

The ILO report stresses that these ele-ments are not yet given. There is a strong need to drive actions and policies to ensure that reforms benefit people, providing the social license to operate, which is a precon-dition of sustainable growth. FU.SE Milan underlined the importance of understand-ing that the future of work will not, contra-ry to common opinion, be driven autono-mously by technology but by humans and their ideas about how work should evolve to serve people.

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Life-long learning must be a top investment priority for the public and private sectorsWe hear again and again that today’s em-ployees will go through multiple career transitions, driven by economic, techno-logical and social changes and the evolu-tion of the nature of work. What does this mean in practicality? Country leaders said that this would require not only extensive re-skilling and up-skilling, but a funda-mentally different approach to profession-al development and career path planning.

This is why life-long learning, is a top priority for the ILO’s Global Commission on the Future of Work (it calls for “a univer-sal entitlement to life-long learning and the establishment of an effective life-long learning system”).

Despite the general agreement on its im-portance, life-long learning is currently only an aspiration in many countries. It is time to rethink how it is delivered and by whom. Life-long learning requires a holistic, mul-ti-stakeholder approach, with a strong role to be played by the business sector.

Many point to Singapore as an example of best practice, since life-long learning is well established in both Singaporean policy and practice. What can we learn about con-crete actions that governments can take? Singapore’s Minister of State, Zaqi Mohamad, stressed that life-long learning is a policy responsibility. Governments need to think strategically and to subsidize the retrain-ing and up-skilling of their workforce based on industry needs and talent seg-ments. This will require substantial finan-cial investments. But these are likely to pay off in the future, since they will result in a workforce that is able to adapt to new technologies and changes in the nature of work. The minister emphasized that in Sin-gapore the government pays citizens $500 each so that they can undertake a train-ing of their choice that will enable them to acquire skills in a new field. This self- driven, personalised approach is one way to engage employees directly. And accord-ing to the recent study on skilling, workers at all levels are less fearful of change than is often portrayed and are deeply interested in their own advancement.

FU.SE Milan highlighted the fact that life-long learning will be critical in enabling workers to adapt to the multiple transitions they will experience in the changing world of work. However, this key enabler will only be effective if governments and compa-nies invest sufficiently in the tools and pol-icies needed to support life-long learning.

Singapore is a small island with very few natural re-sources. The whole economy is powered by people, just like the majority of compa-nies. If you really believe that the human-resource is your ultimate asset, it certainly requires a significant invest-ment in life-long learning.- Zaqi Mohamad, Minister of State, Ministry of National Development and Ministry of Manpower, Singapore -

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Allowing participants to ex-perience the future directlyThe best way to understand the future, and all its challenges and opportunities, is to experience it at first hand. This is what FU.SE Milan offered participants. Through an immersive tech exhibition with interac-tive showcases by both leading technology companies and disruptive start-ups, partici-pants were able to get a close look at a wide range of the technologies that are likely to change the way we work in the short, medi-um and long term.

The Future of Industry: One highlight of the tech exhibition was ABB’s YuMi, a collabora-tive robot. YuMi has the potential to usher in a new era of human-machine collaboration by combining the human ability to adapt to change with a robot’s ability to undertake precise, repetitive tasks continuously over long periods of time. Because FU.SE took place in Italy, known for its excellent coffee, the ABB robotic barista served FU.SE par-ticipants exquisite espresso.

Future of Learning: Uptale, which has de-veloped an immersive learning solution, in-troduced an innovative way of up-skilling workers through virtual reality and on-the-job learning. Uptale’s solution highlights the fact that passive learning and memoriza-tion is outdated and that tomorrow’s work-force needs an active form of training that is based on practical experience. With the help of the company’s virtual reality technology, participants were able to experience differ-ent scenarios (from manufacturing and re-tail to soft skills) and find out how easy it can be to create and share immersive learning experiences.

Future of Recruiting: Today’s recruitment ap-proaches are experience-based and can be biased. Future recruitment practices may be

engaging and grounded in behaviour-based assessments. During FU.SE Milan, Arctic Shores, which designs gamified psychomet-ric assessments, introduced participants to a new way of recruiting top talent through its data-driven technology. This technology offers a more positive experience for both candidates and firms by reducing subjective biases as well as time and cost to hire.

In addition, companies such as Adia, Yoss, Wonderkind, LinkedIn, UiPath, Penna and Workonomix presented a range of immer-sive technologies that could dramatically change the way we work.

TECH EXHIBITION

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Collaborative breakout sessions are a core element of the FU.SE model, as they ena-ble leaders from different industries and sectors to work together on framing the key issues and starting to create solutions. In the break-out sessions, participants had the opportunity to iterate the themes and insights from the plenaries and generate ideas for real action. The break-outs were loosely grouped around three themes: re-sponding to technological change, society and leadership, and learning and training.

How should we respond to technological changes dis-rupting tomorrow’s work-places?Technological disruption will not only be seen in automation or digitalization. Technology will have far-reaching effects on the make-up of the workforce and will have implications for diversity and inclu-sion, the way companies retain and devel-op talent, and what the employee of the future will expect of a company.

During a number of breakout sessions fo-cusing on the effects of AI on models of work, FU.SE Milan participants discussed intelligent applications that might have a positive impact on companies. For exam-ple, participants identified a promising ap-plication of AI to childcare, in which robots would take on routine administrative work, giving parents more high-quality time to spend with their children. However, while this could contribute to social and eco-nomic goals, it also raises conflicts regard-ing trust in robots to shape the care-taking and education of children.

Participants concluded that a key barrier to the development of promising AI appli-cations is the fact that few employees and

leaders have the mind-set needed to adopt the necessary new working models. Moreo-ver, participants agreed that the practice of mindfulness could go a long way towards cultivating a willingness to take risks, exper-iment, collaborate and share knowledge.

Another insightful session during FU.SE Milan explored the use of digitalization in engaging and empowering employees in the workplaces of the future. Industry lead-ers stressed the fact that while technolo-gy-driven transformation of the workforce is what executives, managers and employ-ees are most worried about, it is the thing they are least prepared for.

Participants pointed to three key barriers to technology adoption: technical, or “hard” barriers (such as lack of infrastructure), cul-tural barriers (such as lack of transparency, limited feedback and low levels of collabora-

COLLABORATION

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tion) and a general resistance to change. Of these, participants agreed that cultural bar-riers were the most important to overcome.

Although many people already use tech-nology extensively in their daily lives, this does not yet extend into the corporate en-vironment. Solutions addressing these chal-lenges that resulted from the FU.SE Milan sessions included role modelling and en-couraging engagement among the work-force to personalize technology for every employee.

What are the effects of chang-ing work dynamics on society and leadership?As the nature of work and the workforce changes, societal stresses will shift and new styles of leadership will be required,

In one of the sessions focusing on the role of leaders in creating diverse and inclusive workplaces, it emerged that at least two-thirds of job candidates want to join a diverse team. This means that, to compete for talent, leaders will need to transform their organi-zations by creating an authentic culture of diversity and inclusion.

Participants reiterated that diversity and in-clusion is not an end in itself, but rather a tool to drive effectiveness. As such, many of the qualitative assessments around the topic of diversity make its application and impact hard to measure, and therefore difficult to justify in terms of investment. They con-cluded that supporting the development and adoption of better quantitative meas-urements to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions could be a promising solution. Such tools could replace or complement qualitative statements and shift away from the “tick-box” approach to diversity and in-clusion that often fails to deliver tangible re-sults, leading to underinvestment.

In many of the breakout sessions, it also became clear that in terms of shifting de-mographics, aging populations will be the most significant driver of change in the fu-ture of work. One session revealed the sur-prising fact that, contrary to popular belief, older people remain in work not to increase their personal satisfaction or to contribute to society but primarily from financial ne-cessity. Participants agreed that a more ho-listic approach is needed, involving policies, incentives and practices. For example, older workers do not necessarily need to be kept in traditional employment. Data was shared showing the older entrepreneurs have a

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higher success rate; thus, they could be en-couraged to create their own companies through tax incentives.

How can we equip the work-force with the skills and edu-cation needed to thrive in the future of work?If how we work will change radically, a ma-jor challenge lies in knowing how to the workforce for the transformations that will take place in their occupations. To do so, it is critical to understand which skills and ed-ucational backgrounds workers will need in order to succeed in their new roles, and the variety of actors who should be involved in re-skilling.

During many of the breakout sessions, participants agreed that the private sector must play a key role in shaping the educa-tion system, either by advising schools on the skills that will be needed or by providing complementary training programmes that can fill the emerging skills and capabilities gaps. In fact, throughout the event, many participants advocated that it is one of a company’s responsibilities to society to help re-skill people and give them the abilities needed to work with technology.

Moreover, participants agreed that com-panies should look for other ways, such as incentivising job rotations, to ensure that employees can acquire diverse skills and to add new experiences to their job profiles.

In complement to private sector solu-tions and traditional education reform, participants strongly advocated that gov- ernments should create tax regimes that incentivise investment in employee re-skill-ing (as demonstrated by Singapore). This recognizes the fact that although re-and up-skilling are priorities for the private sec-tor, their investments may not always gener-ate short-term financial gains and therefore companies need to look at the long-term economic impact to see that the return on investment in training is substantial.

How can we protect workers around the world during a time of profound change?The future of work will require businesses and governments to create solutions that are more flexible, secure and fair and to sup-port people in every sector throughout their working lives, regardless of how, where and when they choose to work.

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During the breakout sessions, participants brainstormed ideas for priorities that gov-ernments should embrace when working to renew the social contract. Participants learned that some 85% of the world’s pop-ulation want to see the rules of the glob-al economy rewritten, protecting children and the elderly, enshrining democratic freedoms and promoting shared prosperi-ty. Given that more than 50% of people are vulnerable at work and 800 million peo-ple worldwide survive on less than $3 a day, clearly job creation and labour protection are among the most important elements in a re-newed social contract.

Yet, implementation often remains the stumbling block, the place that needs con-crete action. Participants discussed how social protection could operate better in practice. After intense discussions, they concluded that companies must educate employees about the long-term benefits of social protection and should adjust benefits according to employees’ needs. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to social protection, measures include investments in healthcare and pensions and increased funding for childcare.

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Jeffersonian Dinners connect small groups of people in a more intimate way than a large discussion. The aim is to identify a topic of interest and have a single, itera-tive conversation around the table on that topic. During FU.SE, 12 Jeffersonian Dinners were hosted, taking participants on a cu-linary journey of Milan’s most prestigious restaurants.

Beyond blue collar: How to envision the future of the pro-fessionsOne of the dinners continued the earlier discussion about the future of professions. Until recently, much attention has been focused on the impact automation will have on blue-collar jobs. However, the dis- ruptions are going to go beyond blue-col-lar workers. Participants grappled with the idea that in the future a number of jobs will disappear and that for those that remain, jobs will face a polarisation in terms of re-wards. It was suggested that one way to respond to this shift is to better reward lower paid jobs (e.g. gardening, cleaning, nursing), given that they will require differ-ent and more advanced skills compared to today.

Talent: How to disrupt disrup-tion through cultureIn another dinner, participants explored what drives culture in the digital age and what might be innovative ways of attract-ing and retaining talent at a time of disrup-tion. Participants looked at how companies could create stories, rituals and symbols of their brands in order to build their culture and the fact that a change in behaviours is required before changing mind-sets. More-over, creating a unique corporate culture is only possible if the company is able to drive and to measure the change.

Leading yourself to lead oth-ers: How mindfulness can drive change in organizationsAnother dinner focused on the impact of leadership development, mindfulness and neuroscience on the culture of many or-ganizations, and how leaders can imple-ment mindfulness in a skilful way. Partic-ipants explored the world of mindfulness, learning that it has moved beyond stress reduction to become an essential skill for future leaders, building their mental and cognitive capabilities. Given that many traditional ways of innovating and trans-forming companies are no longer working, mindfulness provides a new way of accel-erating change and creating a culture in which innovation can thrive.

JEFFERSONIAN DINNERS

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ACTION CAFÉS

Action Cafés were used to test solutions created during the breakout sessions

Which ideas for interventions are feasible and realistic? The Action Café is a format for action-oriented conversation where participants are invited to take the most promising intervention ideas from the breakout groups and present them for an external opinion. This makes the Action Café a dynamic way of testing ideas and challenging insights generated earlier.

The insights included: – The importance of purpose in an organization

– The challenges and opportunities provided by a remote and thus broader talent pool

– The design of competitive hiring and progression strategies

– The benefits of new models of accelerating and promoting access to training

– The means of achieving equity and economic mobility

– The re-definition of learning through technology and ways of creating digital skills maps in organizations

From the sessions came a set of proposed actions for the public and private sector. In the continuing dialogue over the coming year, these will be fleshed out into possible interventions.

Key actions for the private sector: – Focus hiring processes on skills instead of on education, experience or credentials

– Apply similar interventions when employing older workers as when employing women, including setting quotas, training against bias and promoting sensitive and objective recruiting

– Create individual, portable training accounts that provide a fixed amount of financial support for each employee, to be used for a training of their choice

– Create an industry-wide system to define, assess and score people based on 10-12 key skills. Then apply this to the hiring process and the reform of education policies

Key actions for the public sector: – Restructure policy to incentivise shared public and private investment in training

through tools such as portable, individual training accounts

– Reinvigorate societal mechanisms to support those working after pensionable age, us-ing interventions such as new tax systems, subsidy models and new forms of regulation

– Design social protection policy based on the different income levels of employees and prioritize those who most need protection

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FU.SE Milan revealed a strong appetite among decision-makers for a peer-level platform where ideas can be exchanged in a trusting and neutral space, with a focus on the co-creation of practical solutions. We will continue to fine-tune the for-mat and approach based on input from the par-ticipants, to truly make this a unique experience.

As FU.SE is a platform, community and move-ment, we will continue these discussions both online and in person through an interactive plat-form and a series of regional events. While the community is brought together by invitation only, we intend the insights and solutions it de-velops to be available to everyone.

Throughout the year, the FU.SE website will con-tinue to share new ideas, as well as iterations of the conversation and insights generated from them. We invite you to join the dialogue and be-come part of making the future work for everyone. www.futureseriesfuse.com

THE WAY FORWARD

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ORGANISING TEAM

THE ADECCO GROUP

Alain DehazeChief Executive Officer

Cynthia HansenHead of the Adecco Group Foundation

Bettina SchallerDirector Group Public Affairs

Delia FischerGlobal Head of Corporate Communications

Diana MussettiEvent Coordinator

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

Judith WallensteinSenior Partner and Managing Director, BCG Munich

Andreas LiedtkePartner and Managing Director, BCG Zurich

Theodore Roos Principal, BCG London

Laura NiculaeAssociate, BCG Zurich

Agathe RenardAssociate, BCG Geneva

MICROSOFT

Stephane JordanGlobal Business Manager for The Adecco Group, Microsoft

Luba ManolovaSenior Business Group Lead, Microsoft

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS &CONTRIBUTORS

We would like to thank the Adecco Group, Boston Consulting Group and Microsoft as co-or-ganizers of FU.SE Milan for their contributions. Moreover, we would also like to acknowledge the official FU.SE partners, Zurich Insurance, ABB, LinkedIn, the International Labour Organi-zation (ILO), the OECD, Forbes, Landor and Think for their overall support to make the inaugural FU.SE summit a success.