As some countries begin to pull out of pandemic-induced lockdown, and the corporate engines of “return to the office” begin to whir, an open question hangs: What kind of jobs will people return to following months of work-from-home exile in “Remotopia”?
Will the online “big-bang” of the 2020s (when everything that could go online did go online) accelerate digitally enabled jobs? And which jobs will top the post-pandemic jobs list, in the next, new future of work?
Over the past several years, the Cognizant Center for the Future of Work has published a series of reports on the Jobs of the Future that propose new roles which will emerge over the next decade and be central to businesses and employees everywhere. Because of the virus, time has compressed, resulting in a handful of these jobs of the future becoming ‘jobs of the now’.
And the top jobs are...
The following is a top-ten summary of professions emerging in the wake of the pandemic.
1. Work from Home Facilitator – Prior to 2020, it’s estimated that less than 5% of companies had remote policies. Now, with the full post-pandemic expectation that remote work remains the norm, companies want to apply lessons learned to optimize the work-from-home experience. Far from being a futuristic job of tomorrow, WFH facilitators have become undeniable “jobs of the now.”
2. Fitness Commitment Counsellor – We cringe at the extra kilos, pounds and stones packed-on during months of pandemic-induced lockdown. To remedy the situation, predictive and preventative approaches to counselling, paired with digital wearables like Apple Watches and FitBit dashboards couple human accountability to maintaining fitness. And per the Cognizant Jobs of the Future (CJoF) Index, it’s a role that grew 28.7% in Q1 '21.
3. Smart Home Design Manager
– A lasting lesson of the virus for many will be that “everyone’s home is their castle.” The rise of smart home design managers will boom as homes are built – or retrofitted – with dedicated home office spaces, replete with routers in the right place, soundproofing, separate voice-driven entrances, and even Gorilla Glass wall screens.
4. XR Immersion Counsellor – As Zoom-intensive “Remotopia” inexorably gives way to 3D realms of virtual space, XR immersion counselors will work with technical artists and software engineering, training and workforce collaboration leads to massively scale the rollout of best-in-class AR and VR for learn-by-doing workforce training and collaboration (using platforms like Strivr) or apprenticeships (such as Mursion, for example) to get employees productive – fast.
5. Workplace Environment Architect – Everything from health screenings to “elevator commutes” in post-pandemic office architecture is about to go through a major rethink. The importance of employee well-being, and how human-centered design of a company’s real estate holdings can impact it, are now crucial to the future of work.
6. Algorithm Bias Auditor – “All online, all the time” lifestyles for work and leisure accelerated the competitive advantage derived from algorithms by digital firms everywhere. But from Brussels to Washington, given the increasing statutory scrutiny on data, it’s a near certainty that when it comes to how they’re built, verification through audits will help ensure the future workforce is also the fair workforce.
7. Data Detective – Openings for data scientists remain the fastest growing job in the tech-heavy “Algorithms, Automation and AI” family of the CJoF Index since its inception, and continued to see 42% growth in Q1 ’21. Given this high demand, they’re also scarce; that’s where data detectives help bridge the gap to get companies to investigate the mysteries in big data.
8. Cyber Calamity Forecaster – Aside from COVID-19, it’s arguable that the other, big catastrophe of 2020 was the continued onslaught of both massive state-sponsored cyberattacks like Solar Winds, down to individual bad actors promulgating ransomware exploits. The ability to forecast events like these is critical to forewarn of culture events. The CJoF Index bears this out: growth in openings for Cyber Calamity Forecasters grew 28% in Q1 ’21).
9. Tidewater Architect – The global challenge of climate change and sea level rise will remain an omnipresent challenge. Tidewater architects will work with nature – not against it – in some of the biggest civil engineering projects of the 21st century. And per the CJoF Index, openings for these jobs grew 37% in Q1 ’21.
10. Human-Machine Teaming Manager – Pandemic or no, the unceasing rise of robots in the workplace continues unabated. Human-Machine Teaming Managers will operate at the intersection of people and robots and create seamless collaborations. Already, openings for forerunner roles like robotics technicians grew 50% in the Q1 ’21 CJoF Index.
Dream jobs
While it is impossible to predict exactly how global labour markets will rebound in the wake of the virus, leaders can and should use the future of work as a prism for their own organizations to plan ahead. If there’s one lesson the pandemic has taught us, it’s to anticipate change.
Leaders need to see how the future of work will play out in real time through leading indicators that reveal how the jobs market is adapting in the face of technology-based innovation and disruption. The CJoF Index uses real data on US job openings to see the imagined possibilities of jobs of the future starting to emerge.
By combining strategic planning resources like “21 Jobs of the Future” and the CJoF Index, it’s possible to get a look into the not-too-distant future to see which roles are the top contenders in the post-COVID future.
2021 will be a reset moment, a period where more examples of the theoretical become “jobs-made-real”. Before they can be built, however, jobs of the future have to be dreamed - and this requires vision and some imagination.