Ready, Set, Workforce 4.0

A new whitepaper from the market intelligence firm IDC, Society Impact – A Study of the Salesforce Economy in the UK and Ireland, sponsored by Salesforce UK and Ireland, predicts that nine out of 10 jobs will change or be eliminated by 2030. What does that mean in 2021?

First, executives must build workplaces that are hybrid by design.

• Retain and recruit key positions, including IT experts and digitally proficient business professionals.
• Build trust in their workforce by investing in upskilling and reskilling programs for all employees.
• Turn remote work from a pandemic default into an intentional differentiator by getting the right technology, culture, and company leadership in place.

After joining Salesforce in 2019, Gavin Patterson was appointed as the company’s President and Chief Revenue Officer in May 2020—just as executives worldwide were grappling with the pandemic. “We need to use this as an opportunity,” he recently stated, “to create a new way of living, governing, and educating ourselves and a new way of doing business.”

With a background in both telco (BT Group and Virgin Media) and consumer goods (Proctor & Gamble), the Cambridge-educated Brit made a seamless pivot to Salesforce. As Patterson says, “business is the best possible platform to drive change.”

Second, lawmakers must bring together governments, universities, and tech companies to tackle widespread reskilling.

• Assess the remote work infrastructure, including secure bandwidth and fast, reliable connectivity, in rural and suburban areas.
• Ensure digital skills are being developed equitably across regions, working with education systems to build specific learning paths at universities and with local economic partners to reskill workers facing unemployment.
• Facilitate collaboration across nationwide government and local municipalities.

And third, it’s imperative that individuals continuously assess what’s next, including their own skill sets.

Get more actionable insights into Workforce 4.0 today by downloading the full IDC whitepaper, Society Impact – A Study of the Salesforce Economy in the UK and Ireland, sponsored by Salesforce UK and Ireland.