30-Minute Read
Benjamin Pring, Robert Brown
Cognizant Jobs of the Future Index: First Annual Review
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The Fourth Industrial Revolution is changing the future of work for the 164 million people in today’s U.S. labor force. New technologies and tools are transforming the workplace, eliminating some jobs, reinventing others and, most importantly, creating new roles and opportunities that are emerging at an increasingly rapid pace.
These dramatic shifts in employment patterns are making it more difficult to identify which jobs will fade as software becomes more “intelligent” and which new roles will emerge in a world where machines do more and more.1 Traditional ways of thinking about job demand, training and reskilling, and long-term strategic workforce planning are becoming obsolete. It is clear that we need new ways to analyze workforce trends and patterns to help organizations and job seekers prepare for the future. To this end, and particularly to benchmark the emergence of new jobs, Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work created the Cognizant Jobs of the Future Index® (CJoF Index). Established in October 2018 and updated quarterly since then, the index provides leading indicators for how the U.S. economy is adapting in the face of technology-based innovation and disruption.
> The CJoF Index First Annual Review offers insights from the Index’s inaugural year. Some of the highlights include:
> Growth of future jobs dampened by healthy growth in existing jobs.
> Algorithms, automation and AI set the pace for the jobs of the future.
> Healthcare is a healthy job of the future.
> Policy matters when it comes to jobs of the future – especially for nascent environmental jobs.
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Cognizant in the News
Cognizant and MIT Sloan Management Review Release
‘The New Leadership Playbook for the Digital Age: Reimagining What It Takes to Lead’
Cognizant, in conjunction with MIT Sloan Management Review, has released a new study on leadership in the digital age, “The New Leadership Playbook for the Digital Age: Reimagining What It Takes to Lead”.
The study is based on a survey of 4,394 global executives from over 120 countries, 27 executive interviews, and focus group exchanges with next-gen global emerging leaders.
The New Leadership Playbook reveals that most executives around the world are out of touch with what it takes to lead effectively and for their businesses to stay competitive in the digital economy.
Key findings in the research include:
- Only 12% of respondents strongly agree their own business leaders have the right mindsets to lead them forward, and only 9% agree that their organization has the skills at the top to thrive in the digital economy.
- Only 13% strongly agree their organizations are prepared to compete in increasingly digitally-driven markets and economies.
- A large majority, 71%, of respondents believe that they are personally prepared to lead in the digital economy. The same group scores significantly lower when asked whether they possess specific digital skills, such as using data analytics to influence their decision-making (55%) or advocating for the use of machine learning technologies in their organizations’ operations (50%).
- While 82% agree the new economy will need “digitally savvy” leaders, less than 10% strongly agree their organizations have the right leadership to thrive in the new digital economy.
- Just 40% believe that their organizations are taking the necessary steps to build robust digital leader pipelines.
"A generation of leaders in large companies are out of sync, out of tune, and out of touch with their workforces, markets, and competitive landscapes. What got them to their current exalted status won't be effective much longer — unless they take swift action,"
said Benjamin Pring, report coauthor and director of the Center for the Future of Work for Cognizant.
"Allowing unprepared senior executives with outdated skills and attitudes to stick around forces next-generation, high-potential leaders to move on to new pastures, which harms morale and ultimately shifts the organization further away from where market demand is heading."
“Our experience suggests that the most advanced leadership teams are those committed to developing these 3Es in their organizations,” added Carol Cohen, report coauthor and senior vice president, global head of talent management and leadership at Cognizant.
“A key to success is artfully introducing new leadership approaches that particularly appeal to a new generation of employees while at the same time honoring the time-tested behaviors and attributes that inspire trust, build a sense of community, and motivate employees to improve performance.”
Unveiled during the World Economic Forum, The New Leadership Playbook uncovers three categories of existing leadership behaviors, the four distinct mindsets that will help shape leadership in the digital economy and provides recommendations for a new leadership playbook.
Click here to read more.