I was having dinner with some HR company owners and one of them tossed an interesting question into the conversation.
The question was, “If we left the planet today, how long would it take before we returned and didn’t know what jobs people were talking about?”
That sure made us think a bit.
I initially thought about jobs that I was aware of that no longer exist. While I am getting on a bit I either remembered from my youth, or through my HR career, a range of jobs that have bit the dust. Those that I can quickly think of include
· VCR Store Employees
· Stock Exchange Chalkies
· Newspaper Typesetters
· Typists/Word Processors
· All types of factory jobs
· Elevator Operators
· CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) Data Entry Operators and
· Those hardy guys that rode on the back of garbage trucks and emptied your bins
There was a bunch of other ones that came to mind as well. They were well ahead of my time, but upon reflection they still could have existed in the last fifty years or so, say like the milkman.
With the speed of technology advancing so quickly and all the associated terminology that goes with new devices, processes, and activities some organisations these days provide induction programs with intranet sites comprised of the acronyms that refers to the unique names. Technology alone is creating a host of specialist jobs that were unheard of just a little while ago.
If someone said a decade ago, I am a professional Blogger, Cloud Services Provider, or SEO Specialist would we have had a clue? I personally would have struggled to comprehend what they did.
What about Uber Driver, YouTube Producer, a Telemedicine Physician, a Drone Photographer, or maybe just simply a Sandwich Artist (yes, I love Subway). Would we have known those job titles a decade ago? Hmm…perhaps not.
Anyway, as our dinner discussion went on, we all came to about the same non-scientific opinion about how long it would take before we returned and did not know what jobs people were talking about.
We figured at this rate if we left the planet and came back it would only be about twenty-five years before we didn’t have a clue about what kind of jobs people were talking about.
Spooky and exciting at the same time…..I wonder what Human Resources (or People and Culture) will be called then?
It was not that long ago it was called Personnel!