May 31, 2024 • 44 mins
This episode, we’re turning our attention to the deskless worker—those who work in manufacturing, front-line support, health care and so many other areas. Their job does not require them to be at a desk or in a traditional office setting. They're on the go, in the field, working in environments that demand mobility and flexibility. How do we accelerate the learning and upskilling of the deskless worker? Is it through AI, advanced communications, introduction to new opportunities? How do we incorporate more inclusion for this majority group of workers?
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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MURIEL CLAUSON: Imagine today, we (00:06):
undefined
have one deskless workerfor every two jobs.
We're essentially going tohave one deskless worker
for every eight jobs anemployer would like to fill,
which is very excitingbecause this is an undervalued
type of work that we are goingto have to start to value.
JILL FINLAYSON: Welcome to The Future (00:25):
undefined
of Work Podcast withBerkeley Extension
and the EDGE in Tech Initiativeat the University of California,
focused on expanding diversityand gender equity in tech.
EDGE in Tech is partof CITRIS the Center
for IT Research in the Interestof Society and the Banatao
Institute.
UC Berkeley Extension isthe continuing education arm
of the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley.
(00:47):
This episode, we'returning our attention
to the desklessworker, those who
work in manufacturing, frontlinesupport, health care, and so
many other areas.
Their job does not requirethem to be at a desk
or in a traditionaloffice setting.
They're on the go, in thefield, working in environments
that demand mobilityand flexibility.
How do we accelerate thelearning and upskilling
(01:09):
of the deskless worker?
Is it through AI,advanced communications,
introduction tonew opportunities?
How do we incorporatemore inclusion
for this majoritygroup of workers?
To discuss thisimportant topic, we're
delighted to speak with Muriel.
Muriel Clauson is theco-founder of Anthill,
which is an IT governanceplatform that fuels AI adoption
(01:30):
for non-technical workers.
Anthill is focusedon helping deskless
and overlooked workershave the same support
and access to technologyin their careers
as their desked peers.
Muriel has been an activeresearcher and an advisor
on the future of work andartificial intelligence.
She has authoredscientific publications,
was a scientific advisorfor several governments
(01:53):
and organizationsaround the world,
and is an Advisory BoardMember for Humans for AI.
Welcome, Muriel.
MURIEL CLAUSON (01:59):
Thank you so much for having me.
- Well, this isan exciting topic,
and I was hopingyou could help set
the stage for our conversationby defining the deskless worker
and how many folks fallinto this category.
Yes.
And so first of all, why arewe using this word "deskless?"
So there's a few synonymsyou can think of.
Frontline, historicallyreferred to as blue collar.
(02:21):
You can think of these workersas folks who, as you said,
don't sit at a desk orcomputer to do their jobs.
And when we actuallyasked a whole bunch
of these types of workers,hey, what word best describes
what you do?
They agreed,deskless was the term
because they said theywere free of desks.
We're out there in the world.
And I love that ideaof the empowerment
that comes with that.
So we call themdeskless workers.
(02:42):
That's the wordthat I like to use.
Deskless workers represent over80% of the world's workforce.
So this is the main way thata human being on planet Earth
works.
And I think it's reallyeasy to overlook that.
A lot of the people who do theresearch, build the software,
come up with the HR programsin our organizations
aren't desklessworkers and maybe
(03:02):
haven't been sincemaybe their first job.
And so it's often, I think,an overlooked type of work.
It's a type of workthat maybe we're
undervaluing inour organization,
but this is work thatkeeps our world moving.
So deskless workers sitacross eight industries.
Over 90% of employers employat least one deskless worker.
(03:24):
Even countries that we don'tthink of as mostly deskless work
countries typically havea majority deskless work
population.
So the US, Brazil,many parts of Europe
all have, at a minimum,60% of their workforce
working in a deskless capacity.
So these are folks thatare doing important work.
They're everywhere.
(03:44):
This is the main wayof working and we
don't talk about it enough.
JILL FINLAYSON (03:48):
I like the freedom
that comes with what you said.
That they're not tied to a desk.
They actually havefreedom and flexibility.
People think aboutrestaurants and hospitality,
but there's construction.
There's people who areworking in manufacturing.
Shipping.
Drivers.
Say a little bit moreabout all the variety
because this isn't onetype of worker either.
MURIEL CLAUSON: It's a big group. (04:10):
undefined
It encompasses a lotof types of work.
But the main distinction isbetween this idea of desk work,
meaning I sit at a desk, Iuse a computer to do my job.
I interface andcommunication technologies
for most of my day,which is important,
and we can get intowhy that is later.
And then deskless workis really everybody else,
(04:30):
folks that aren'tnecessarily sitting at a desk
or at a computerto do their work.
So you're right, theyexist in many types
of jobs and many pathsto get into those jobs.
I love to use theexample of the pandemic
to think about thereality of this work.
So one of my favorite things isthat a lot of conferences right
after the pandemic, thespeakers would be like,
man, we all worked fromhome the last few years.
(04:52):
And that's just not true.
That's not true.
Less than 20% of peopleworldwide ever worked from home
during the pandemic or ever willbecause there's many, many jobs
where that's just not possible.
And so think about those folksthat weren't actually working
from home during the pandemic,folks that were preparing
your food in agriculture,folks that were producing goods
(05:13):
and manufacturing plants, folksthat were moving goods around
and supply chain, folksthat were servicing people
in all kinds of service roles.
Hospitality.
Health care.
There are so manyimportant functions
that folks are doing thatwe all really rely upon,
and we see theimpacts really quickly
in our world when these kindof jobs are understaffed.
JILL FINLAYSON (05:34):
And what are we seeing?
Are the number of these jobsincreasing, staying the same?
What do you expect to see happento this 80% of the workers?
MURIEL CLAUSON (05:43):
Well, so there's an interesting phenomenon going
on across the workforceright now globally.
Just on the whole, theworld is getting older.
We have more workers over55 than we've ever had.
We have fewer workers enteringthe workforce globally.
And so in general, that's havinga really interesting impact
(06:03):
on particularly deskless work.
Right now in the Unitedstates, there's about half
a person for every deskless joban employer would like to fill.
It's about 0.52is the statistic.
And so that's having a reallyinteresting impact on all of us.
But it's interesting,I think, also
to look at, well, whyis this happening?
Well, one reason is that olderworkers are overrepresented
(06:24):
in deskless jobs.
So there is a prettylow replacement rate
for younger workersentering the workforce.
And if we look at the bestprojections from Bureau
of Labor Statisticsand a few other bodies,
if we look at 2030,which is pretty soon,
and we even factor into recessionary events,
during that time,we're projected
(06:44):
to add about 12 millionnew jobs in the US.
If you look at folkswho will retire,
folks who willenter the workforce,
we end up with about1.5 million people.
So we have 1.5 million peoplefor these 12 million new jobs.
So jobs are growing in general.
But then on top of that,the replacement rate
for deskless workersis projected to be 20%.
(07:05):
So if you crunchall those numbers,
basically the punchlineis, imagine today we
have one deskless workerfor every two jobs,
we're essentially going tohave one deskless worker
for every eight jobs anemployer would like to fill,
which I think is very excitingbecause this is an undervalued
type of work that we are goingto have to start to value.
(07:26):
There is going to be an economicimperative for us to compensate
well for these jobs, to treatpeople well in these jobs,
and I think that that is avery good thing ultimately
for people, becauseI think these
are jobs that can be good jobsif we start to value them more.
JILL FINLAYSON (07:39):
What do you think are the most common myths
that people believeabout deskless workers
that we need to setthem straight on?
MURIEL CLAUSON (07:46):
I think that they're bad jobs.
So any job is a bad job ifyou're not compensated well
and you're nottreated with respect
and given the supportthat you need to succeed.
Any job is bad.
I don't care if you'remaking a bunch of money,
even if you justhave the other two,
I'm not giving thesupport I need to succeed,
I'm not treated with respect,that's going to be a bad job.
(08:07):
So in general, folksassume that deskless jobs
are not good, and oftenbecause of the compensation
side of things.
But there's actually a lotof interesting research
that's shown that some ofthe boundaries that you get
to have mentally withwork are so much healthier
in deskless jobs.
So think about ifyou have a desk job
and you're working on projectsor teams or collaborating,
(08:29):
you're reachable byemail all the time,
you are never not working.
You are never emotionallyfully removed from that job.
In the back of your mind,there is always something more
that you can be doing.
But a lot ofdeskless jobs really
have these healthy boundaries.
You made your widgets that dayand there are no more widgets
you can go make at home.
(08:50):
You are done, and youreally get to unplug.
And there's a lot of actuallypositive mental health outcomes
for folks that leavedesk work and go
into deskless work becauseof that healthy boundary
that we have.
So I think a bigmisconception is
that these are always bad jobs.
Now, they are bad, though, ifthey're not compensated well,
if you're nottreated with respect,
you're not given thesupport to succeed.
(09:11):
And too often, companiesare undervaluing these jobs,
so all three of thosefactors are there,
and they are bad jobs.
But I think that thatwill continue to change.
JILL FINLAYSON (09:20):
Yeah, it's interesting
because you point out thatthey do have the boundaries.
In some cases, theycan be outdoors,
which has also been shown tobe very good for your health.
Maybe they're morephysically active
because we talk aboutsitting is the new smoking.
It's not good foryou to sit all day,
and desk workers arecertainly doing that.
But there are a lotof challenges that are
(09:41):
unique to the deskless workers.
MURIEL CLAUSON (09:44):
Absolutely.
Getting back to thatpoint of support
on the job, becauseI think compensation,
that one's prettystraightforward.
You have to compensate peopleat a living wage and/or above it
for people to do well in a job.
So there's clear trendsthat need to change there.
I think the populationshortage and then
the demand for this labor willhelp to correct some of that,
(10:06):
that there's more pressure onemployers to compensate well.
So let's parkcompensation for a second.
Outside of that, what can wedo to support this workforce?
Well, what are thesupports that help someone
be successful on the job?
So we've been doing researchwith this population
for many years, allthe way back to when
I was a grad student in myPhD program doing research.
And the most common thingthat just blew my mind
(10:28):
is how we just makeit unnecessarily
hard for this population.
So I'll give you an example.
We have a companythat we work with that
had really, really high turnoverrates for their first shift
at a fulfillment center.
And most of the folks atthis fulfillment center
were Spanish speakers.
The people in leadershipwere not Spanish speakers,
so there was reallyno communication.
(10:49):
They didn't invest in any kindof communication technology
to support that.
So there was reallyjust announcements given
with some basic translation.
No two-way conversationever happening.
Well, there was really highturnover in this first shift.
Finally, they figuredout a way, which
is not too hardwith the technology
and tools available today,to ask these workers,
(11:10):
hey, why is everybodyquitting this first shift?
And they found outthat there literally
is just a publictransportation schedule
that they could have looked intowhere, for that first shift,
workers either have to be overan hour early to that shift
or 10 minutes late.
And so for a lot of workers,that extra hour of time
they had to invest wasjust too much, especially
for a population thatoften was working two jobs,
(11:32):
had children, other thingsthat they were accountable for.
And so that organizationjust asking the question,
finding out they wereable to shift the start
time for that shiftback very little
and fix their retention issue.
And I give thatexample because I
think it's such a goodone of the support
that this workforceis often asking for
is not a drain on the company.
(11:54):
It's actually something thatis helpful to the company
to the workers that we'veworked with over many years
and thousands of them.
They're not asking for luxuries.
They're not asking forbeing coddled or anything
over the top.
They're asking forjust very basic support
that helps them besuccessful at your company.
And often, the biggest gapthat we find is communication.
(12:17):
And we can get intowhy communication--
I think there's a biggerconversation there,
but communication is the biggestdifference between the desk work
experience and thedeskless work experience,
and it has a lot ofimpact on the support you
can receive in your job.
JILL FINLAYSON (12:30):
How does a deskless worker
communicate with their boss.
How did they communicatewith the company
if their schedule has to change?
How does that work today andhow should it be working?
MURIEL CLAUSON: Yeah, so they don't. (12:41):
undefined
And it's not becausethey don't want to.
Think of your work experienceif you're a desk worker,
and think of allthe technology that
exists to help you getquestions answered,
access information, understandhow to submit requests,
share feedback,collaborate, share ideas.
You have a suite ofsoftware that probably
(13:02):
gives your IT team a headache.
There is so muchavailable to you
and there's so much enterpriseknowledge available to you.
So something as simple as, Iwant to enroll in the Health
insurance that mycompany offers,
you have access to all of theinformation you need, and it's
still challenging,you still probably
sometimes have questions.
Well, what's the desklessworker experience equivalent
(13:24):
in most companies?
Well typically, ifI'm a deskless worker,
I don't have a computer.
I'm not given acompany-issued computer.
I probably wasn't given acompany-issued email address
in over 95% of cases.
I might not evenhave personal email
or a personal device like that.
And so your whole ecosystemas an organization
(13:45):
has been set up in away that I can't really
access that information.
So what do I have access to?
Well, I receive announcements.
So I'm given my safetybriefing when I come in.
There's flyers, maybethere's bulletin boards.
I'm given announcementsof information,
but I don't have away to ask questions.
I don't have a way to converse.
(14:06):
And if I do, it's maybean HR team of one on site
that's going to have a line outtheir office on the lunch break,
and I can't realisticallyget questions answered.
Not to mention,maybe it's snowing.
I'm wondering if thefactory is closed
or not before Idrop my child off
for expensive childcare forthe day and take that hit.
I don't actually know theanswer to that question
until I show up to the factoryand see that it's closed.
(14:28):
There are justunnecessary burdens
when we don't think toinclude this population
in communication.
And for many companies,we just haven't
thought about how toreach this population.
The amount of turnover thatwe found in our research that
was purely just a worker unableto tell their employer that they
were out sick or had tomiss a shift is unreal.
(14:49):
And that is a cost thatcompanies are constantly trying
to figure out how to reduce.
So there's a realgap here that I
think is just easily solved ifwe actually factor in what's
unique to this population.
One of the things we found inresearch and in the work we've
done since is for alot of organizations,
if you want to just think aboutincluding this population right
(15:09):
away, is look for a way toinclude a text messaging
channel.
So that's aninclusive technology.
A lot of folks havedevices that would work for
even in rural areas,which it's very tough,
especially in rural areasfor deskless workers
where they could, evenwithout a data plan,
have access to informationat your company.
That's a technology youcan absolutely stand up.
(15:29):
And also language is a big one.
The deskless workforceis overrepresented
by speakers of otherlanguages, meaning
they don't speak the primarylanguage of the country they're
working in.
There's so many technologytools to translate these days
and we can solve that gap.
But that's the first biggestone I would focus on,
is communication, and we have toget out of our reality of like,
(15:51):
we communicate all day.
We live in the software thathelps us do that all day.
What is the experience like forsomeone that doesn't have that,
and how do wereach those people?
There's a supplychain Center in Utah
we work with in particular thatstands out to me, that they
have incredibly low turnover.
And it's becausethey constantly talk
about how critical theirfrontline and deskless
workers are to the business.
(16:12):
Like they're constantlysaying, like,
you're the closestto our product.
Tell us any time thatyou see anything,
we want to learn from you.
The leadership team isconstantly saying, hey,
we want to learn from you.
We want to understandwhat we can do better
as an organization.
They include them inplanning meetings.
They include these workersin development programs.
They treat them like theytreat their desked workers.
(16:33):
And I think a lot oftimes for companies,
we invest so much inour desk workers--
we do our goat yoga retreatswith volcanic mud masks.
Like we do allthese investments,
but we haven'teven just consider
just opening the doorto our deskless workers
to be a part of the barbecue.
I talked to so many leaders.
I'm like, first tip,include your deskless
(16:55):
workers and yourall-hands meeting.
You don't have all of yourhands in your all-hands meeting.
Bring them in there.
The more that you'retreating folks with respect,
that goes a really,really long way.
And then the last pillar isjust supporting the workforce
to be successful.
If there's one thing I'velearned about deskless workers,
is they arehardworking people that
(17:17):
want to know thatthey did a good job
and that they are goingto be able to build
a career at your company.
That's a very strong desire.
A lot of times desklessworkers are multi-generational
in their roles.
So my grandfather was a welder.
My dad is a welder.
I'm a welder.
And I'm supporting, as a singlemom, my three kids as a welder,
(17:39):
and I want to besuccessful as a welder.
These are identity-drivenstories they have.
They want to be successful, sogiving the support to do that.
And one of the ways I seethat we can give the support
to do that is in ourtechnology initiatives,
especially right now,stepping into the AI era,
are we thinking about howwe include our deskless
workers when we think aboutaugmenting roles with technology
(18:02):
and supporting theworkforce with technology?
JILL FINLAYSON (18:03):
I want to break that down,
but before we jump to AI, Iwant to talk about something
you just said,which is they want
to be successful in their job.
And I saw a stat that said 4%make it into a corporate role
where 70% want to getinto a corporate role.
What are we doing to help ourworkers see the career path,
(18:26):
understand thegoals or the steps
that they have to take toadvance in their career?
Because that obviously willalso help with the engagement
and reducing turnover.
MURIEL CLAUSON (18:36):
Absolutely.
And this is aninteresting one because--
let's take the US, for example.
Like pretty muchsince the 1930s,
we've told people thatif you want a good life,
go to college and be adesk worker, essentially.
That's the good life.
And so I think that that messagehas been felt by this workforce,
and there is that desire tobreak into that world for sure.
(18:56):
And I think that that is stillthe best path to living wages,
a good life for this workforce.
Now one interestingthing that we've seen
is a lot of the workersthat, if you break down
why they're interested inmoving into desk roles,
it's because they seethat as the path to that.
They want to have a good wage.
That is the way to get there.
(19:18):
I think there'stwo solutions here.
One is helping to createpathways for folks
to move into desk rolesif that's what they want.
The other is toappreciate deskless work
and give pathways forfolks to be successful
and to meet their financialgoals and their career goals
within a deskless job as well.
I don't think thesolution is that we
(19:39):
help 100% of our desklessworkers become desk workers.
I think the solution is that wevalue and create career paths
on both of those trajectories.
So let's take deskwork for a moment
because there's been a lotof really great headway
that's been made across theUS and some other countries
to remove some collegedegree requirements to move
(20:01):
into desk jobs.
I think that is anincredible initiative.
I think every organizationshould ask themselves,
is it really necessary to havea college degree if you've
demonstrated competenciesfor this role working
at our company inanother capacity?
So that, I think, is justtable stakes to do that.
On top of that, one of thebest ways you can actually
(20:23):
begin the upskilling process isjust exposure for the workforce.
So for a lot ofdeskless workers,
they are related todeskless workers,
their friends aredeskless workers.
They actually mightnot even understand
what some of thosedesk pathways are.
And so giving the abilityto have a glimpse into what
those jobs are,getting to know people
in those jobs inthe organization,
(20:44):
understanding whatthey do, especially
if those are role models thatthey kind see themselves in,
you can start to get folks tohave even that vision for what
is possible.
And then additionally, there'sincredible programs that
have focused onhow do we actually
upskill a desklessworkers so they're
getting the skillsthey need today,
but also movinginto those pathways?
JILL FINLAYSON (21:07):
Those are important ways for people
to grow in their career,and I like the fact
that you differentiatedfor those
that want to go into deskjobs, here's one pathway,
but for those who just want toadvance in their technical role
and have advancementopportunities,
there's another pathway.
I think this relates back toyour point about communication
(21:27):
devices.
So if we want peopleto be upskilled,
we need to be able todeliver that upskilling.
And the other thing I wanted tothrow out there and then just
get your reflections is, canthey get upskilled on the job
while they're beingpaid or do they have
to do it on their own time?
Because that's anotherbarrier to participation.
MURIEL CLAUSON (21:47):
There's interesting examples
of different companies thathave tried different things.
We work with a very oldmanufacturing company.
The Chief People Officeris such a great example
of thinking about reallymeeting people where
they are and hasdone a great job
with their deskless workforce.
What she decidedto do is she heard
that some of the desklessworkers were saying,
(22:08):
hey, all these workersget to work from home.
We've never hadthat opportunity.
And she decided toactually get laptops
for their deskless workforceand compensate them
for some work-from-hometime where they actually
were taking the trainings theywould have been taking in a room
on-site on laptops at home.
And that went a long way forretention in that organization
(22:29):
and really helped.
We do see a lot ofsuccess, though,
with on-the-job training.
And it also does actuallyraise an individual's buy-in
even for the work that they'redoing when there is a learning
component to what they do.
That's like a very--
post-onboarding any kindof learning initiative
with your job., itraises your esteem
for that role in generaland across deskless workers
(22:50):
in particular.
And so helping folkslearn on the job,
we've seen really cool examplesof workers even designing
their own approaches to trainingwith generative AI solutions.
Like, that is important.
I think the biggestbarrier to it
is that we don't havetechnology to deliver training,
learning opportunities tothis workforce in general.
(23:11):
Most organizationswe've seen, they still
have the room withthe projector,
and they are just gettingthe most boring presentation.
I think thinkingabout, OK, how are we
investing in learningand development
across our desk workers?
How do we actuallytake a similar approach
across our desklessworkforce is really powerful.
One other piece tothis, though, that I
(23:32):
think is really important isif we talk about just advancing
in a deskless pathway, that,honestly, for a lot of companies
we talked to, has to bethe goal because they
have a real shortageacross this population.
So part of that is thinkingabout different compensation
tiers, but another part of thisis actually thinking, well,
(23:52):
how are we investingin technology
that's going to augmentcertain parts of this work,
and then how are we helpingworkers adapt to that
and grow alongsidethe technology
so that they're able to use it?
And so a lot of thecompanies we work with,
when they're thinking aboutthings like generative AI, like,
this is actually thepopulation that we
say you have to look at first.
(24:12):
It's not the population tolook at last because this
is the population that it hasthe biggest shortage that you
literally will not be ableto staff the operation fully,
so you needaugmenting technology
to support this workforce.
JILL FINLAYSON: So tell me, then, (24:24):
undefined
what is the use case forusing AI, generative AI,
for the dustless worker?
MURIEL CLAUSON (24:32):
So there's so many,
and I'll take a stepback for a second
because if youremember in 2013, there
was a working paperthat came out,
Frey and Osborne out of Oxfordwhere they were miscited
by pretty much everynewspaper in the world
to say the robots aregoing to take our jobs.
They did some work wherethey did a Bayesian analysis
where they basically lookedat jobs that exist today,
capabilities of AI, and thenwhich jobs have the potential
(24:55):
to be automated.
And their work wastotally miscited
and turned into thisbig conversation around,
oh my goodness, the robotsare going to take our jobs.
And that work especiallymade people think,
well, the robots are goingto take deskless jobs.
Like, these are the jobsthat are going away first.
And you still seethe ripple effects
of young people opting intothings like manufacturing
(25:16):
based on our misinterpretationof what we talked about in 2013.
It's really interesting.
But what we learned followingon from that research--
and there's beenseveral iterations--
I wrote the textbookthrough Cambridge
where academics writereviews of a lot of research,
and basically when wewere doing that work
preparing this and lookingat all the studies around job
automation, wefound that what has
(25:38):
been really the most accurateview of how technology changes
work, particularlydeskless work,
is this idea of augmentation.
So historically if you look atautomation, replacing a job,
automation typically actuallyleads to total worker growth.
So we'll see what's calledthe capitalization effect.
The more you invest inreplacement technology,
(26:00):
the more net growth youhave across your workforce.
It's an interesting concept.
You can look into it.
It's called the capitalizationeffect if you're interested.
So that replacementtheory didn't
hold up at all, and particularlynot with the deskless workforce.
What did was thisidea of augmentation.
It's the opposite philosophy.
Instead of saying, OK, well,what's technology good at
and how do we use thatto replace a worker,
(26:21):
we instead say,what is this worker
doing that is hard or repetitiveor dangerous or just not as
effective as it could be?
And is there technology that canaugment and help this worker?
So it's really just flippingit upside-down from how
we thought about it before.
We have seen augmentationhave a profound impact
(26:44):
on especially deskless workerson many kinds of fronts.
So safety is a huge one.
There are just safetyrisks that exist
across deskless jobs that don'texist for a lot of desk workers.
That is an incredibleplace to invest
to make these jobsbetter, to make
sure you can actually continueto fill these positions.
(27:04):
We've seen incredible examplesof learning being accelerated.
So we have amanufacturing company
we work with tryingto do a transition
from basic manufacturingmachines on the floor
to advanced manufacturing.
And one of the workers saidthat he played with ChatGPT.
He's like, I think thatwhat's possible is actually
if we took this whole trainingcontent that you developed,
(27:27):
we took the manualfor the machines,
we took the OSHA safetytraining requirements,
and we ingested them into ourcompany's version of ChatGPT,
each of us workers couldactually ask it questions
and learn as we goon the machines.
And this idea was so effectivethat the training that
was supposed to take 18months for this transition
ended up onlytaking a few months.
(27:48):
And so it accelerated thelearning of this workforce.
There's also justefficiency gains
that can come for workers,which workers want.
There's not this idea of,oh, if I'm more productive,
I get replaced.
They're seeing theshortage on site
and they're seeingwhat is possible.
So there's a lot of great ideas.
One thing I'm reallybullish on, though,
is that the executivesat the company
(28:10):
should not have theideas, the workers should.
So workers oftenhave the best ideas
about how technologycan support their jobs.
We just don't ask them,we don't talk to them.
We don't give themthat opportunity,
but workers know what'shard about a job.
They know best howto augment a job,
and augmentation works betterthan automation any day.
JILL FINLAYSON (28:29):
That's an important thing,
that the frontline staff areengaged with the problems.
They understand the issues,they understand where
their biggest pain point is.
And so if you can givethem access to the tools,
they'll figure out how tosolve it for themselves.
So what do we haveto do in order
to give them toaccess to these tools?
Because as you pointout, they don't even
(28:50):
have basic communication, howare we giving them access to AI?
MURIEL CLAUSON: This is like where (28:53):
undefined
I've been investing most ofmy efforts over especially
the last couple of yearsbecause I think that this
is the piece we have to getright to actually include
everyone in the AI era.
You found the thing that Iget really passionate about,
so here we go.
The leader's rolein an organization
is to create a climateof AI readiness,
not to come up with use cases.
(29:15):
I don't think leadersand companies should
be coming up with use cases.
So what does AI readiness mean?
Well, AI is only as impactfulas basically the data
that you use within it.
And for companies, especiallyfor trying to augment work,
you have really greathistorical, structured and
unstructured data that can helpin learning initiatives, safety
(29:37):
initiatives, productivityinitiatives, all
of these different thingsthis technology can help with.
And we're talkingright now specifically
about generative AI.
A lot of us have triedthings like ChatGPT.
Basically what companieshave the ability to do today
is use something calledRetrieval-Augmented Generation.
So that is basicallya RAG for short.
And what RAG doesis it basically
(29:58):
takes the power of alarge language model
to generate text to soundhuman, all of those good things,
but then layers ina constraint around,
well, what is true in the model?
What is the data thatwe're going to rely upon?
So instead of relyingon the internet,
you rely on the enterprisedata, the enterprise knowledge
that you've put into the model.
And so if you dothat, you're actually
(30:21):
able to give every workeraccess to all of the data
that you put in there tosupport them in their job.
Now, why is that different thanthings that we've done before?
Well, the main differenceis that how do you actually
access that and make use of it?
Well, you don't needspecial software.
You don't needspecial coding skills.
(30:41):
You don't need to design allof these point solutions.
What you need is just aconversational interface.
So if you open upto your worker--
let's take the manufacturingcompany learning example.
If you give them access toSlack, Teams, a widget, maybe
a text message where theycan just write a sentence,
that worker can designtheir own AI tool
(31:05):
as long as your enterpriseknowledge is inside
basically your RAG model.
And so because it's that simpleto work on those use cases,
I think the job of a leader,the job of the IT team,
the technical team,the executive team,
is to say, OK, let's getour security in place.
(31:28):
Let's make sure wehave our data in here
and we have theright data quality.
Let's make sure thatwe have observability
of how this is used.
And then let's have theright adoption channels.
Let's make sure everyworker in our organization
has a conversational interfacewhere they can essentially
query this data.
And there's ways to controlpermissions and make sure data
is in going places it shouldn't.
(31:50):
But if you do those fourparts, you've set up a culture
where you don't have todecide as executives what
use cases you'll have aroundAI to support workers,
every worker can actually designtheir own augmentation tool.
If you're interested in learningmore about those four parts,
we did write awhitepaper about this.
You can go really deep on it,and I can give information
in the show notes.
JILL FINLAYSON (32:11):
And not to be too literal, but what do they
access this on?
What has to happen so they havethat conversational interface?
MURIEL CLAUSON (32:18):
That's one of the big investments
you need to make of the four.
Everyone needs anadoption interface.
So some place theycan type a sentence.
In manufacturingplants, we've seen
people add widgets to machines.
So web widgets to machines.
We've seen companiesexpand their Teams or Slack
licenses to includetheir deskless workforce.
We've seen some companiesthat, yes, choose text message,
(32:40):
and yes, you can dothis via text message
in a more limited way.
We've seeninstallations of things
like iPads on the shopfloor and all of that.
If you want to seeyour investment
pay off tenfold and morebecause of what is possible,
make sure everyworker in your company
has a conversationalinterface where
they can type a sentence ifyou want to include everyone
(33:01):
in the AI era in your company.
So practically yes,that is like a big gap
that you have to fill, Ibelieve, as an employer.
JILL FINLAYSON (33:08):
So let's take it up one level.
What shouldgovernments be doing?
MURIEL CLAUSON (33:12):
You know, my background
was working withgovernments on strategies.
Early on-- and we were havingconversations around this,
I remember in 2015 where wewere talking about generative AI
in particular, AIis a huge world.
Generative AI is one tinycorner of that world.
And if you've played withsomething like ChatGPT,
you've tried one tinycorner of the gen AI world.
(33:35):
It's a big realm.
But generative AI isunique in the sense
that because it's so accessiblefrom a language perspective,
you can just write asentence and mold the tool
to do what you want it to do.
This is really anopportunity, I think,
to make technology moreinclusive than we ever have.
So you don't necessarilyneed a ton of special skills
(33:57):
to access it.
You don't need toknow how to use
a mouse, click arounddifferent icons on a screen.
You don't need to have skillseven on how to use the internet
or anything like that.
You really canuse it if you know
how to type a sentence--and even type a sentence
with poor grammar ormaybe in a language that
wasn't the preferred languageof your organization.
(34:17):
This technology reallyhelps to detect what
you intend from a sentence.
So in the context of genAI, the most important thing
for policymakers to think about,I believe, is human in the loop.
Because what we alreadytalked about is,
OK, we have theselarge language models
that basically are really goodat replicating human dialogue.
They're good at creatingcontent, sifting
(34:39):
through how we write things tohelp us retrieve information.
We then use RAG on top of it,Retrieval-Augmented Generation,
to help us retrieve theright information that
constrains what is true.
So in organizations, that can bedata that exists in the company.
And then we haveour semantic layer
on top of how do wegovern that data,
which, if you want to readmore about those four parts,
(35:00):
you can read the whitepaper.
So from a policy perspective,where do we really, really have
to get it right?
Where we have to get it rightis human-in-the-loop approval
of basically how thatdata is ingested and used.
So that really criticalpiece is data quality.
When we think aboutenterprise knowledge, what's
true in a model, I think oneof the most important things
(35:23):
is that you have aperson that is verifying
that the knowledge that's inthere, that the truth that's
in there is correct, thatit's in the right form,
that it will be usedfor the right things,
and that it will go to the rightpeople for those use cases.
And that is something thatI believe, from a policy
perspective-- andthe EU AI act did
(35:43):
a great job of addressing this,we have to require of our tools.
I think if we give up thatpiece, that is where we're
going to see a lot of problems.
We have to know thatwhen we're giving access
to data, that we're givingpeople this support,
that that's informationwe can trust,
and I think that that is the bigpiece that we have to get right
(36:04):
from a policy perspective.
So the human-in-the-loop pieces.
I do believe from apolicy perspective,
the EU AI Act doesa really great job
of setting the standard.
I encourage everycompany we work
with in whatevercountry to abide by it.
We require it on our platform,that you abide by the EU AI Act
because I'm a bigsupporter of it.
If I had to pick just one piece,human-in-the-loop data quality
(36:27):
approval has to be there.
JILL FINLAYSON (36:30):
And something we've seen on the desked worker
side is they'restarting to use ChatGPT
whether the company hasgiven them permission or not,
sort of shadow IT.
And so are you seeing thiswith the deskless workers?
Are they jumping into thison their own time already?
MURIEL CLAUSON (36:46):
Yes.
So there has been apull for this technology
like we've never seen before.
So usually, I mean,think of SaaS, Software
as a Service, solutions.
Somebody in leadership decideswhich SaaS platform to buy,
and then you disseminateit down to the workforce
and the workforce uses it.
That has flipped on its head.
The biggest adopter body withincompanies of generative AI
(37:10):
solutions has justbeen individuals
throughout the company.
If you look at most ofthe adoption reports--
MIT did a great onewith Databricks,
you basically see thatthere is so much more pull
than push of this technology.
So what havecompanies done well?
Most we talked to, they'relike, we are just putting up
firewalls, basically, to protectagainst any of these tools being
(37:31):
used by our workforce, andthere's this just pause
being thrown down.
And you'll understand.
I mean, companies can have theirdata ingested by external tools
that they don't know whatthey are, and all of that
makes sense.
It's really valuable thatyou maintain that data.
But I think that that's a reallygood sign for organizations
that you have to belike, great, our workers
have ideas of how to use this.
(37:53):
They want to use this.
Let's set up the AIreadiness that we
need so that they can do thisin a way that we can approve.
And so I love talking to leadersthat are at that firewall
juncture and ready tomove to the next step
and empower the workers.
But how cool that theworkers have the ideas.
As we talked abouteven back in 2015,
(38:13):
I think this is the mostinclusive technology that we've
seen in a reallylong time, and I
see that's playing out withthe workforce and all workers.
JILL FINLAYSON (38:20):
So let's talk about the worker
and what they can dobecause if their supervisors
or their companyare not creating
this enabling environment,what are the options for them
and how should they beinteracting with generative AI?
MURIEL CLAUSON (38:34):
So one of the things
we tell individual workersis like, if you have
a really good idea on how to usegenerative AI to help augment
your work-- so to help youdo more, better, faster, more
effective, learn, tell yourorganization because most
executives thatwe talk to do have
a bit of a crisisof imagination.
(38:55):
Most companies we go into, wemeet with their executive team,
they're like, we havea really good idea
of how to use generative AI--
customer service.
And we're like, OK, cool.
What else do you have?
What else do you have?
Like, that is really wherea lot of companies are at.
Like, they reallyhave just scratched
the surface of what's possible.
So if they haveworkers that have
ideas that areexcited to use it,
(39:18):
share those ideas becausemost executive teams
we work with are trying tofind the opportunities of how
to augment work andnot coming up with,
I think, as rich of ideas aswe hear that the workforce is.
JILL FINLAYSON (39:31):
Given the power dynamics,
and in some cases,as you were saying,
the languagedynamics, how can they
start to raisethese issues if they
don't feel empowered to do so?
MURIEL CLAUSON (39:42):
I put a lot of onus on the leaders to do that.
If you do have a power dynamicwhere people can't share
and communication andlanguage barriers where
people can't share, you don'tget to hear these ideas.
So that's actually oneof the first things
that we say before we're evenwilling to work with a company,
is we're like, we're not goingto help you get ready if there's
not a way for your workersto drive use cases,
(40:02):
let's set that up first.
That's often, I would say,step one in the process,
is how do we learn from ourworkers on the use case front?
Because you're right, ifsomeone's not empowered,
you're never going to hear.
And what a bummer forall these companies.
They've got all thesebrilliant people
across their desklessworkforce that they are never
going to hear any oftheir ideas because they
speak a differentlanguage or don't
(40:23):
have communication software.
What a bummer.
JILL FINLAYSON (40:25):
And what a missed opportunity
to be able to innovate andbe competitive and retain
the workforce that they have.
MURIEL CLAUSON (40:34):
And when there's one deskless worker
for every eightjobs, they're just
not going to workat your company
if you're not a companythat is empowering them
with these tools.
They're just not.
JILL FINLAYSON (40:44):
So what is the future of work look
like for the deskless worker?
MURIEL CLAUSON (40:48):
I think really bright.
There's theseinteresting flex points
throughout history of work thatI think we're in right now.
I think that there is asupply-and-demand shift that
is happening arounddeskless work
where these aregoing to actually
be some very celebrated roles.
These are going to bewell-compensated roles.
There's going to be roleswhere we treat people well.
(41:09):
I think we're in thatmessy transition point
where companies arelike, what's going on?
And workers still don't knowhow much they can ask for.
But I really see thatwe're coming into an era
where we celebrate desklesswork much more than we do today
and compensate well for it.
I'm very optimistic aboutthese types of jobs.
I think if you havea child that is
(41:31):
interested in goinginto this type of work,
I would encourage that.
I would support that.
I think there's a really goodera for this worker coming.
JILL FINLAYSON (41:38):
So what are your final words of advice
for our listeners about how toadvance equity and inclusion
for deskless workers?
It's 80% of the workers.
It's a huge percentage.
How can we enable them to bemore effective in championing
their needs?
MURIEL CLAUSON (41:54):
So first and foremost,
acknowledge that they exist.
It is so funny howmany times we talk
to leaders thatare like, oh, yeah,
we haven't includedthese people in anything.
So just having thatrealization, that moment
of humility of like, wow, we'vereally dropped the ball here
I think is step one.
The second one, and we'vetalked about it a lot,
is you have to openup a communication
(42:15):
channel for reasons wetalked about around just
basic retention, basic respect,basic relaying of information
for your operationsto run smoothly.
But now, stepping into the AIera where we have generative AI
is only available to people thathave a conversational interface
that they can writea sentence in.
So communication channels havenever been more important.
(42:37):
We have to includeall workers in this.
And then third, and I think thisis where it starts getting fun,
is actually listento these workers.
If it's a service-typerole, they're
the closest to your customer ofany worker in your organization.
If it's a goods productionor movement-type role,
they're the closest toyour product of any person
in your organization.
(42:57):
These are incredibly importantworkers, they have great ideas.
Just wait if youopen up the channels
to actually learn from them.
JILL FINLAYSON (43:05):
I think even Elon Musk
said humans are underrated.
They can reallyproblem-solve, they
can really get outthere, and be the engine
to drive your businessinto the future
and drive their own careeradvancement into the future.
MURIEL CLAUSON (43:19):
Absolutely.
And that was a manufacturingcontext, which is often,
I think, the first placewe look to replace workers.
And it just hasn't borne out.
Augmenting workersis the way to go.
Supporting workers to domore is the way to go,
and absolutely,humans are underrated.
JILL FINLAYSON (43:35):
Amazing.
Thank you so very muchfor all of your insights
and really appreciateyou opening up this topic
and creating thedialogue that's needed
to be able to move thedial forward in inclusion.
MURIEL CLAUSON (43:48):
Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it, Jill.
JILL FINLAYSON (43:52):
And with that, I hope
you've enjoyed this latestin a long series of podcasts
that we'll be sendingyour way every month.
Please share withfriends and colleagues
who may be interested in takingthis future of work journey
with us.
And make sure to check outextension.berkeley.edu to find
a variety of coursesto help you thrive
in this new working landscape.
And to see what's comingup at EDGE in Tech,
(44:13):
go ahead and visit.
edge.berkeley.edu.
Thanks so much for listening.
And we'll be back nextmonth with another look
at the future of work.
The Future of Work Podcastis hosted by Jill Finlayson
produced by Sarah Benzuly,and edited by Matt
DiPietro and Natalie Newman.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(00:03):
MURIEL CLAUSON: Imagine today, we (00:06):
undefined
have one deskless workerfor every two jobs.
We're essentially going tohave one deskless worker
for every eight jobs anemployer would like to fill,
which is very excitingbecause this is an undervalued
type of work that we are goingto have to start to value.
JILL FINLAYSON: Welcome to The Future (00:25):
undefined
of Work Podcast withBerkeley Extension
and the EDGE in Tech Initiativeat the University of California,
focused on expanding diversityand gender equity in tech.
EDGE in Tech is partof CITRIS the Center
for IT Research in the Interestof Society and the Banatao
Institute.
UC Berkeley Extension isthe continuing education arm
of the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley.
(00:47):
This episode, we'returning our attention
to the desklessworker, those who
work in manufacturing, frontlinesupport, health care, and so
many other areas.
Their job does not requirethem to be at a desk
or in a traditionaloffice setting.
They're on the go, in thefield, working in environments
that demand mobilityand flexibility.
How do we accelerate thelearning and upskilling
(01:09):
of the deskless worker?
Is it through AI,advanced communications,
introduction tonew opportunities?
How do we incorporatemore inclusion
for this majoritygroup of workers?
To discuss thisimportant topic, we're
delighted to speak with Muriel.
Muriel Clauson is theco-founder of Anthill,
which is an IT governanceplatform that fuels AI adoption
(01:30):
for non-technical workers.
Anthill is focusedon helping deskless
and overlooked workershave the same support
and access to technologyin their careers
as their desked peers.
Muriel has been an activeresearcher and an advisor
on the future of work andartificial intelligence.
She has authoredscientific publications,
was a scientific advisorfor several governments
(01:53):
and organizationsaround the world,
and is an Advisory BoardMember for Humans for AI.
Welcome, Muriel.
MURIEL CLAUSON (01:59):
Thank you so much for having me.
- Well, this isan exciting topic,
and I was hopingyou could help set
the stage for our conversationby defining the deskless worker
and how many folks fallinto this category.
Yes.
And so first of all, why arewe using this word "deskless?"
So there's a few synonymsyou can think of.
Frontline, historicallyreferred to as blue collar.
(02:21):
You can think of these workersas folks who, as you said,
don't sit at a desk orcomputer to do their jobs.
And when we actuallyasked a whole bunch
of these types of workers,hey, what word best describes
what you do?
They agreed,deskless was the term
because they said theywere free of desks.
We're out there in the world.
And I love that ideaof the empowerment
that comes with that.
So we call themdeskless workers.
(02:42):
That's the wordthat I like to use.
Deskless workers represent over80% of the world's workforce.
So this is the main way thata human being on planet Earth
works.
And I think it's reallyeasy to overlook that.
A lot of the people who do theresearch, build the software,
come up with the HR programsin our organizations
aren't desklessworkers and maybe
(03:02):
haven't been sincemaybe their first job.
And so it's often, I think,an overlooked type of work.
It's a type of workthat maybe we're
undervaluing inour organization,
but this is work thatkeeps our world moving.
So deskless workers sitacross eight industries.
Over 90% of employers employat least one deskless worker.
(03:24):
Even countries that we don'tthink of as mostly deskless work
countries typically havea majority deskless work
population.
So the US, Brazil,many parts of Europe
all have, at a minimum,60% of their workforce
working in a deskless capacity.
So these are folks thatare doing important work.
They're everywhere.
(03:44):
This is the main wayof working and we
don't talk about it enough.
JILL FINLAYSON (03:48):
I like the freedom
that comes with what you said.
That they're not tied to a desk.
They actually havefreedom and flexibility.
People think aboutrestaurants and hospitality,
but there's construction.
There's people who areworking in manufacturing.
Shipping.
Drivers.
Say a little bit moreabout all the variety
because this isn't onetype of worker either.
MURIEL CLAUSON: It's a big group. (04:10):
undefined
It encompasses a lotof types of work.
But the main distinction isbetween this idea of desk work,
meaning I sit at a desk, Iuse a computer to do my job.
I interface andcommunication technologies
for most of my day,which is important,
and we can get intowhy that is later.
And then deskless workis really everybody else,
(04:30):
folks that aren'tnecessarily sitting at a desk
or at a computerto do their work.
So you're right, theyexist in many types
of jobs and many pathsto get into those jobs.
I love to use theexample of the pandemic
to think about thereality of this work.
So one of my favorite things isthat a lot of conferences right
after the pandemic, thespeakers would be like,
man, we all worked fromhome the last few years.
(04:52):
And that's just not true.
That's not true.
Less than 20% of peopleworldwide ever worked from home
during the pandemic or ever willbecause there's many, many jobs
where that's just not possible.
And so think about those folksthat weren't actually working
from home during the pandemic,folks that were preparing
your food in agriculture,folks that were producing goods
(05:13):
and manufacturing plants, folksthat were moving goods around
and supply chain, folksthat were servicing people
in all kinds of service roles.
Hospitality.
Health care.
There are so manyimportant functions
that folks are doing thatwe all really rely upon,
and we see theimpacts really quickly
in our world when these kindof jobs are understaffed.
JILL FINLAYSON (05:34):
And what are we seeing?
Are the number of these jobsincreasing, staying the same?
What do you expect to see happento this 80% of the workers?
MURIEL CLAUSON (05:43):
Well, so there's an interesting phenomenon going
on across the workforceright now globally.
Just on the whole, theworld is getting older.
We have more workers over55 than we've ever had.
We have fewer workers enteringthe workforce globally.
And so in general, that's havinga really interesting impact
(06:03):
on particularly deskless work.
Right now in the Unitedstates, there's about half
a person for every deskless joban employer would like to fill.
It's about 0.52is the statistic.
And so that's having a reallyinteresting impact on all of us.
But it's interesting,I think, also
to look at, well, whyis this happening?
Well, one reason is that olderworkers are overrepresented
(06:24):
in deskless jobs.
So there is a prettylow replacement rate
for younger workersentering the workforce.
And if we look at the bestprojections from Bureau
of Labor Statisticsand a few other bodies,
if we look at 2030,which is pretty soon,
and we even factor into recessionary events,
during that time,we're projected
(06:44):
to add about 12 millionnew jobs in the US.
If you look at folkswho will retire,
folks who willenter the workforce,
we end up with about1.5 million people.
So we have 1.5 million peoplefor these 12 million new jobs.
So jobs are growing in general.
But then on top of that,the replacement rate
for deskless workersis projected to be 20%.
(07:05):
So if you crunchall those numbers,
basically the punchlineis, imagine today we
have one deskless workerfor every two jobs,
we're essentially going tohave one deskless worker
for every eight jobs anemployer would like to fill,
which I think is very excitingbecause this is an undervalued
type of work that we are goingto have to start to value.
(07:26):
There is going to be an economicimperative for us to compensate
well for these jobs, to treatpeople well in these jobs,
and I think that that is avery good thing ultimately
for people, becauseI think these
are jobs that can be good jobsif we start to value them more.
JILL FINLAYSON (07:39):
What do you think are the most common myths
that people believeabout deskless workers
that we need to setthem straight on?
MURIEL CLAUSON (07:46):
I think that they're bad jobs.
So any job is a bad job ifyou're not compensated well
and you're nottreated with respect
and given the supportthat you need to succeed.
Any job is bad.
I don't care if you'remaking a bunch of money,
even if you justhave the other two,
I'm not giving thesupport I need to succeed,
I'm not treated with respect,that's going to be a bad job.
(08:07):
So in general, folksassume that deskless jobs
are not good, and oftenbecause of the compensation
side of things.
But there's actually a lotof interesting research
that's shown that some ofthe boundaries that you get
to have mentally withwork are so much healthier
in deskless jobs.
So think about ifyou have a desk job
and you're working on projectsor teams or collaborating,
(08:29):
you're reachable byemail all the time,
you are never not working.
You are never emotionallyfully removed from that job.
In the back of your mind,there is always something more
that you can be doing.
But a lot ofdeskless jobs really
have these healthy boundaries.
You made your widgets that dayand there are no more widgets
you can go make at home.
(08:50):
You are done, and youreally get to unplug.
And there's a lot of actuallypositive mental health outcomes
for folks that leavedesk work and go
into deskless work becauseof that healthy boundary
that we have.
So I think a bigmisconception is
that these are always bad jobs.
Now, they are bad, though, ifthey're not compensated well,
if you're nottreated with respect,
you're not given thesupport to succeed.
(09:11):
And too often, companiesare undervaluing these jobs,
so all three of thosefactors are there,
and they are bad jobs.
But I think that thatwill continue to change.
JILL FINLAYSON (09:20):
Yeah, it's interesting
because you point out thatthey do have the boundaries.
In some cases, theycan be outdoors,
which has also been shown tobe very good for your health.
Maybe they're morephysically active
because we talk aboutsitting is the new smoking.
It's not good foryou to sit all day,
and desk workers arecertainly doing that.
But there are a lotof challenges that are
(09:41):
unique to the deskless workers.
MURIEL CLAUSON (09:44):
Absolutely.
Getting back to thatpoint of support
on the job, becauseI think compensation,
that one's prettystraightforward.
You have to compensate peopleat a living wage and/or above it
for people to do well in a job.
So there's clear trendsthat need to change there.
I think the populationshortage and then
the demand for this labor willhelp to correct some of that,
(10:06):
that there's more pressure onemployers to compensate well.
So let's parkcompensation for a second.
Outside of that, what can wedo to support this workforce?
Well, what are thesupports that help someone
be successful on the job?
So we've been doing researchwith this population
for many years, allthe way back to when
I was a grad student in myPhD program doing research.
And the most common thingthat just blew my mind
(10:28):
is how we just makeit unnecessarily
hard for this population.
So I'll give you an example.
We have a companythat we work with that
had really, really high turnoverrates for their first shift
at a fulfillment center.
And most of the folks atthis fulfillment center
were Spanish speakers.
The people in leadershipwere not Spanish speakers,
so there was reallyno communication.
(10:49):
They didn't invest in any kindof communication technology
to support that.
So there was reallyjust announcements given
with some basic translation.
No two-way conversationever happening.
Well, there was really highturnover in this first shift.
Finally, they figuredout a way, which
is not too hardwith the technology
and tools available today,to ask these workers,
(11:10):
hey, why is everybodyquitting this first shift?
And they found outthat there literally
is just a publictransportation schedule
that they could have looked intowhere, for that first shift,
workers either have to be overan hour early to that shift
or 10 minutes late.
And so for a lot of workers,that extra hour of time
they had to invest wasjust too much, especially
for a population thatoften was working two jobs,
(11:32):
had children, other thingsthat they were accountable for.
And so that organizationjust asking the question,
finding out they wereable to shift the start
time for that shiftback very little
and fix their retention issue.
And I give thatexample because I
think it's such a goodone of the support
that this workforceis often asking for
is not a drain on the company.
(11:54):
It's actually something thatis helpful to the company
to the workers that we'veworked with over many years
and thousands of them.
They're not asking for luxuries.
They're not asking forbeing coddled or anything
over the top.
They're asking forjust very basic support
that helps them besuccessful at your company.
And often, the biggest gapthat we find is communication.
(12:17):
And we can get intowhy communication--
I think there's a biggerconversation there,
but communication is the biggestdifference between the desk work
experience and thedeskless work experience,
and it has a lot ofimpact on the support you
can receive in your job.
JILL FINLAYSON (12:30):
How does a deskless worker
communicate with their boss.
How did they communicatewith the company
if their schedule has to change?
How does that work today andhow should it be working?
MURIEL CLAUSON: Yeah, so they don't. (12:41):
undefined
And it's not becausethey don't want to.
Think of your work experienceif you're a desk worker,
and think of allthe technology that
exists to help you getquestions answered,
access information, understandhow to submit requests,
share feedback,collaborate, share ideas.
You have a suite ofsoftware that probably
(13:02):
gives your IT team a headache.
There is so muchavailable to you
and there's so much enterpriseknowledge available to you.
So something as simple as, Iwant to enroll in the Health
insurance that mycompany offers,
you have access to all of theinformation you need, and it's
still challenging,you still probably
sometimes have questions.
Well, what's the desklessworker experience equivalent
(13:24):
in most companies?
Well typically, ifI'm a deskless worker,
I don't have a computer.
I'm not given acompany-issued computer.
I probably wasn't given acompany-issued email address
in over 95% of cases.
I might not evenhave personal email
or a personal device like that.
And so your whole ecosystemas an organization
(13:45):
has been set up in away that I can't really
access that information.
So what do I have access to?
Well, I receive announcements.
So I'm given my safetybriefing when I come in.
There's flyers, maybethere's bulletin boards.
I'm given announcementsof information,
but I don't have away to ask questions.
I don't have a way to converse.
(14:06):
And if I do, it's maybean HR team of one on site
that's going to have a line outtheir office on the lunch break,
and I can't realisticallyget questions answered.
Not to mention,maybe it's snowing.
I'm wondering if thefactory is closed
or not before Idrop my child off
for expensive childcare forthe day and take that hit.
I don't actually know theanswer to that question
until I show up to the factoryand see that it's closed.
(14:28):
There are justunnecessary burdens
when we don't think toinclude this population
in communication.
And for many companies,we just haven't
thought about how toreach this population.
The amount of turnover thatwe found in our research that
was purely just a worker unableto tell their employer that they
were out sick or had tomiss a shift is unreal.
(14:49):
And that is a cost thatcompanies are constantly trying
to figure out how to reduce.
So there's a realgap here that I
think is just easily solved ifwe actually factor in what's
unique to this population.
One of the things we found inresearch and in the work we've
done since is for alot of organizations,
if you want to just think aboutincluding this population right
(15:09):
away, is look for a way toinclude a text messaging
channel.
So that's aninclusive technology.
A lot of folks havedevices that would work for
even in rural areas,which it's very tough,
especially in rural areasfor deskless workers
where they could, evenwithout a data plan,
have access to informationat your company.
That's a technology youcan absolutely stand up.
(15:29):
And also language is a big one.
The deskless workforceis overrepresented
by speakers of otherlanguages, meaning
they don't speak the primarylanguage of the country they're
working in.
There's so many technologytools to translate these days
and we can solve that gap.
But that's the first biggestone I would focus on,
is communication, and we have toget out of our reality of like,
(15:51):
we communicate all day.
We live in the software thathelps us do that all day.
What is the experience like forsomeone that doesn't have that,
and how do wereach those people?
There's a supplychain Center in Utah
we work with in particular thatstands out to me, that they
have incredibly low turnover.
And it's becausethey constantly talk
about how critical theirfrontline and deskless
workers are to the business.
(16:12):
Like they're constantlysaying, like,
you're the closestto our product.
Tell us any time thatyou see anything,
we want to learn from you.
The leadership team isconstantly saying, hey,
we want to learn from you.
We want to understandwhat we can do better
as an organization.
They include them inplanning meetings.
They include these workersin development programs.
They treat them like theytreat their desked workers.
(16:33):
And I think a lot oftimes for companies,
we invest so much inour desk workers--
we do our goat yoga retreatswith volcanic mud masks.
Like we do allthese investments,
but we haven'teven just consider
just opening the doorto our deskless workers
to be a part of the barbecue.
I talked to so many leaders.
I'm like, first tip,include your deskless
(16:55):
workers and yourall-hands meeting.
You don't have all of yourhands in your all-hands meeting.
Bring them in there.
The more that you'retreating folks with respect,
that goes a really,really long way.
And then the last pillar isjust supporting the workforce
to be successful.
If there's one thing I'velearned about deskless workers,
is they arehardworking people that
(17:17):
want to know thatthey did a good job
and that they are goingto be able to build
a career at your company.
That's a very strong desire.
A lot of times desklessworkers are multi-generational
in their roles.
So my grandfather was a welder.
My dad is a welder.
I'm a welder.
And I'm supporting, as a singlemom, my three kids as a welder,
(17:39):
and I want to besuccessful as a welder.
These are identity-drivenstories they have.
They want to be successful, sogiving the support to do that.
And one of the ways I seethat we can give the support
to do that is in ourtechnology initiatives,
especially right now,stepping into the AI era,
are we thinking about howwe include our deskless
workers when we think aboutaugmenting roles with technology
(18:02):
and supporting theworkforce with technology?
JILL FINLAYSON (18:03):
I want to break that down,
but before we jump to AI, Iwant to talk about something
you just said,which is they want
to be successful in their job.
And I saw a stat that said 4%make it into a corporate role
where 70% want to getinto a corporate role.
What are we doing to help ourworkers see the career path,
(18:26):
understand thegoals or the steps
that they have to take toadvance in their career?
Because that obviously willalso help with the engagement
and reducing turnover.
MURIEL CLAUSON (18:36):
Absolutely.
And this is aninteresting one because--
let's take the US, for example.
Like pretty muchsince the 1930s,
we've told people thatif you want a good life,
go to college and be adesk worker, essentially.
That's the good life.
And so I think that that messagehas been felt by this workforce,
and there is that desire tobreak into that world for sure.
(18:56):
And I think that that is stillthe best path to living wages,
a good life for this workforce.
Now one interestingthing that we've seen
is a lot of the workersthat, if you break down
why they're interested inmoving into desk roles,
it's because they seethat as the path to that.
They want to have a good wage.
That is the way to get there.
(19:18):
I think there'stwo solutions here.
One is helping to createpathways for folks
to move into desk rolesif that's what they want.
The other is toappreciate deskless work
and give pathways forfolks to be successful
and to meet their financialgoals and their career goals
within a deskless job as well.
I don't think thesolution is that we
(19:39):
help 100% of our desklessworkers become desk workers.
I think the solution is that wevalue and create career paths
on both of those trajectories.
So let's take deskwork for a moment
because there's been a lotof really great headway
that's been made across theUS and some other countries
to remove some collegedegree requirements to move
(20:01):
into desk jobs.
I think that is anincredible initiative.
I think every organizationshould ask themselves,
is it really necessary to havea college degree if you've
demonstrated competenciesfor this role working
at our company inanother capacity?
So that, I think, is justtable stakes to do that.
On top of that, one of thebest ways you can actually
(20:23):
begin the upskilling process isjust exposure for the workforce.
So for a lot ofdeskless workers,
they are related todeskless workers,
their friends aredeskless workers.
They actually mightnot even understand
what some of thosedesk pathways are.
And so giving the abilityto have a glimpse into what
those jobs are,getting to know people
in those jobs inthe organization,
(20:44):
understanding whatthey do, especially
if those are role models thatthey kind see themselves in,
you can start to get folks tohave even that vision for what
is possible.
And then additionally, there'sincredible programs that
have focused onhow do we actually
upskill a desklessworkers so they're
getting the skillsthey need today,
but also movinginto those pathways?
JILL FINLAYSON (21:07):
Those are important ways for people
to grow in their career,and I like the fact
that you differentiatedfor those
that want to go into deskjobs, here's one pathway,
but for those who just want toadvance in their technical role
and have advancementopportunities,
there's another pathway.
I think this relates back toyour point about communication
(21:27):
devices.
So if we want peopleto be upskilled,
we need to be able todeliver that upskilling.
And the other thing I wanted tothrow out there and then just
get your reflections is, canthey get upskilled on the job
while they're beingpaid or do they have
to do it on their own time?
Because that's anotherbarrier to participation.
MURIEL CLAUSON (21:47):
There's interesting examples
of different companies thathave tried different things.
We work with a very oldmanufacturing company.
The Chief People Officeris such a great example
of thinking about reallymeeting people where
they are and hasdone a great job
with their deskless workforce.
What she decidedto do is she heard
that some of the desklessworkers were saying,
(22:08):
hey, all these workersget to work from home.
We've never hadthat opportunity.
And she decided toactually get laptops
for their deskless workforceand compensate them
for some work-from-hometime where they actually
were taking the trainings theywould have been taking in a room
on-site on laptops at home.
And that went a long way forretention in that organization
(22:29):
and really helped.
We do see a lot ofsuccess, though,
with on-the-job training.
And it also does actuallyraise an individual's buy-in
even for the work that they'redoing when there is a learning
component to what they do.
That's like a very--
post-onboarding any kindof learning initiative
with your job., itraises your esteem
for that role in generaland across deskless workers
(22:50):
in particular.
And so helping folkslearn on the job,
we've seen really cool examplesof workers even designing
their own approaches to trainingwith generative AI solutions.
Like, that is important.
I think the biggestbarrier to it
is that we don't havetechnology to deliver training,
learning opportunities tothis workforce in general.
(23:11):
Most organizationswe've seen, they still
have the room withthe projector,
and they are just gettingthe most boring presentation.
I think thinkingabout, OK, how are we
investing in learningand development
across our desk workers?
How do we actuallytake a similar approach
across our desklessworkforce is really powerful.
One other piece tothis, though, that I
(23:32):
think is really important isif we talk about just advancing
in a deskless pathway, that,honestly, for a lot of companies
we talked to, has to bethe goal because they
have a real shortageacross this population.
So part of that is thinkingabout different compensation
tiers, but another part of thisis actually thinking, well,
(23:52):
how are we investingin technology
that's going to augmentcertain parts of this work,
and then how are we helpingworkers adapt to that
and grow alongsidethe technology
so that they're able to use it?
And so a lot of thecompanies we work with,
when they're thinking aboutthings like generative AI, like,
this is actually thepopulation that we
say you have to look at first.
(24:12):
It's not the population tolook at last because this
is the population that it hasthe biggest shortage that you
literally will not be ableto staff the operation fully,
so you needaugmenting technology
to support this workforce.
JILL FINLAYSON: So tell me, then, (24:24):
undefined
what is the use case forusing AI, generative AI,
for the dustless worker?
MURIEL CLAUSON (24:32):
So there's so many,
and I'll take a stepback for a second
because if youremember in 2013, there
was a working paperthat came out,
Frey and Osborne out of Oxfordwhere they were miscited
by pretty much everynewspaper in the world
to say the robots aregoing to take our jobs.
They did some work wherethey did a Bayesian analysis
where they basically lookedat jobs that exist today,
capabilities of AI, and thenwhich jobs have the potential
(24:55):
to be automated.
And their work wastotally miscited
and turned into thisbig conversation around,
oh my goodness, the robotsare going to take our jobs.
And that work especiallymade people think,
well, the robots are goingto take deskless jobs.
Like, these are the jobsthat are going away first.
And you still seethe ripple effects
of young people opting intothings like manufacturing
(25:16):
based on our misinterpretationof what we talked about in 2013.
It's really interesting.
But what we learned followingon from that research--
and there's beenseveral iterations--
I wrote the textbookthrough Cambridge
where academics writereviews of a lot of research,
and basically when wewere doing that work
preparing this and lookingat all the studies around job
automation, wefound that what has
(25:38):
been really the most accurateview of how technology changes
work, particularlydeskless work,
is this idea of augmentation.
So historically if you look atautomation, replacing a job,
automation typically actuallyleads to total worker growth.
So we'll see what's calledthe capitalization effect.
The more you invest inreplacement technology,
(26:00):
the more net growth youhave across your workforce.
It's an interesting concept.
You can look into it.
It's called the capitalizationeffect if you're interested.
So that replacementtheory didn't
hold up at all, and particularlynot with the deskless workforce.
What did was thisidea of augmentation.
It's the opposite philosophy.
Instead of saying, OK, well,what's technology good at
and how do we use thatto replace a worker,
(26:21):
we instead say,what is this worker
doing that is hard or repetitiveor dangerous or just not as
effective as it could be?
And is there technology that canaugment and help this worker?
So it's really just flippingit upside-down from how
we thought about it before.
We have seen augmentationhave a profound impact
(26:44):
on especially deskless workerson many kinds of fronts.
So safety is a huge one.
There are just safetyrisks that exist
across deskless jobs that don'texist for a lot of desk workers.
That is an incredibleplace to invest
to make these jobsbetter, to make
sure you can actually continueto fill these positions.
(27:04):
We've seen incredible examplesof learning being accelerated.
So we have amanufacturing company
we work with tryingto do a transition
from basic manufacturingmachines on the floor
to advanced manufacturing.
And one of the workers saidthat he played with ChatGPT.
He's like, I think thatwhat's possible is actually
if we took this whole trainingcontent that you developed,
(27:27):
we took the manualfor the machines,
we took the OSHA safetytraining requirements,
and we ingested them into ourcompany's version of ChatGPT,
each of us workers couldactually ask it questions
and learn as we goon the machines.
And this idea was so effectivethat the training that
was supposed to take 18months for this transition
ended up onlytaking a few months.
(27:48):
And so it accelerated thelearning of this workforce.
There's also justefficiency gains
that can come for workers,which workers want.
There's not this idea of,oh, if I'm more productive,
I get replaced.
They're seeing theshortage on site
and they're seeingwhat is possible.
So there's a lot of great ideas.
One thing I'm reallybullish on, though,
is that the executivesat the company
(28:10):
should not have theideas, the workers should.
So workers oftenhave the best ideas
about how technologycan support their jobs.
We just don't ask them,we don't talk to them.
We don't give themthat opportunity,
but workers know what'shard about a job.
They know best howto augment a job,
and augmentation works betterthan automation any day.
JILL FINLAYSON (28:29):
That's an important thing,
that the frontline staff areengaged with the problems.
They understand the issues,they understand where
their biggest pain point is.
And so if you can givethem access to the tools,
they'll figure out how tosolve it for themselves.
So what do we haveto do in order
to give them toaccess to these tools?
Because as you pointout, they don't even
(28:50):
have basic communication, howare we giving them access to AI?
MURIEL CLAUSON: This is like where (28:53):
undefined
I've been investing most ofmy efforts over especially
the last couple of yearsbecause I think that this
is the piece we have to getright to actually include
everyone in the AI era.
You found the thing that Iget really passionate about,
so here we go.
The leader's rolein an organization
is to create a climateof AI readiness,
not to come up with use cases.
(29:15):
I don't think leadersand companies should
be coming up with use cases.
So what does AI readiness mean?
Well, AI is only as impactfulas basically the data
that you use within it.
And for companies, especiallyfor trying to augment work,
you have really greathistorical, structured and
unstructured data that can helpin learning initiatives, safety
(29:37):
initiatives, productivityinitiatives, all
of these different thingsthis technology can help with.
And we're talkingright now specifically
about generative AI.
A lot of us have triedthings like ChatGPT.
Basically what companieshave the ability to do today
is use something calledRetrieval-Augmented Generation.
So that is basicallya RAG for short.
And what RAG doesis it basically
(29:58):
takes the power of alarge language model
to generate text to soundhuman, all of those good things,
but then layers ina constraint around,
well, what is true in the model?
What is the data thatwe're going to rely upon?
So instead of relyingon the internet,
you rely on the enterprisedata, the enterprise knowledge
that you've put into the model.
And so if you dothat, you're actually
(30:21):
able to give every workeraccess to all of the data
that you put in there tosupport them in their job.
Now, why is that different thanthings that we've done before?
Well, the main differenceis that how do you actually
access that and make use of it?
Well, you don't needspecial software.
You don't needspecial coding skills.
(30:41):
You don't need to design allof these point solutions.
What you need is just aconversational interface.
So if you open upto your worker--
let's take the manufacturingcompany learning example.
If you give them access toSlack, Teams, a widget, maybe
a text message where theycan just write a sentence,
that worker can designtheir own AI tool
(31:05):
as long as your enterpriseknowledge is inside
basically your RAG model.
And so because it's that simpleto work on those use cases,
I think the job of a leader,the job of the IT team,
the technical team,the executive team,
is to say, OK, let's getour security in place.
(31:28):
Let's make sure wehave our data in here
and we have theright data quality.
Let's make sure thatwe have observability
of how this is used.
And then let's have theright adoption channels.
Let's make sure everyworker in our organization
has a conversational interfacewhere they can essentially
query this data.
And there's ways to controlpermissions and make sure data
is in going places it shouldn't.
(31:50):
But if you do those fourparts, you've set up a culture
where you don't have todecide as executives what
use cases you'll have aroundAI to support workers,
every worker can actually designtheir own augmentation tool.
If you're interested in learningmore about those four parts,
we did write awhitepaper about this.
You can go really deep on it,and I can give information
in the show notes.
JILL FINLAYSON (32:11):
And not to be too literal, but what do they
access this on?
What has to happen so they havethat conversational interface?
MURIEL CLAUSON (32:18):
That's one of the big investments
you need to make of the four.
Everyone needs anadoption interface.
So some place theycan type a sentence.
In manufacturingplants, we've seen
people add widgets to machines.
So web widgets to machines.
We've seen companiesexpand their Teams or Slack
licenses to includetheir deskless workforce.
We've seen some companiesthat, yes, choose text message,
(32:40):
and yes, you can dothis via text message
in a more limited way.
We've seeninstallations of things
like iPads on the shopfloor and all of that.
If you want to seeyour investment
pay off tenfold and morebecause of what is possible,
make sure everyworker in your company
has a conversationalinterface where
they can type a sentence ifyou want to include everyone
(33:01):
in the AI era in your company.
So practically yes,that is like a big gap
that you have to fill, Ibelieve, as an employer.
JILL FINLAYSON (33:08):
So let's take it up one level.
What shouldgovernments be doing?
MURIEL CLAUSON (33:12):
You know, my background
was working withgovernments on strategies.
Early on-- and we were havingconversations around this,
I remember in 2015 where wewere talking about generative AI
in particular, AIis a huge world.
Generative AI is one tinycorner of that world.
And if you've played withsomething like ChatGPT,
you've tried one tinycorner of the gen AI world.
(33:35):
It's a big realm.
But generative AI isunique in the sense
that because it's so accessiblefrom a language perspective,
you can just write asentence and mold the tool
to do what you want it to do.
This is really anopportunity, I think,
to make technology moreinclusive than we ever have.
So you don't necessarilyneed a ton of special skills
(33:57):
to access it.
You don't need toknow how to use
a mouse, click arounddifferent icons on a screen.
You don't need to have skillseven on how to use the internet
or anything like that.
You really canuse it if you know
how to type a sentence--and even type a sentence
with poor grammar ormaybe in a language that
wasn't the preferred languageof your organization.
(34:17):
This technology reallyhelps to detect what
you intend from a sentence.
So in the context of genAI, the most important thing
for policymakers to think about,I believe, is human in the loop.
Because what we alreadytalked about is,
OK, we have theselarge language models
that basically are really goodat replicating human dialogue.
They're good at creatingcontent, sifting
(34:39):
through how we write things tohelp us retrieve information.
We then use RAG on top of it,Retrieval-Augmented Generation,
to help us retrieve theright information that
constrains what is true.
So in organizations, that can bedata that exists in the company.
And then we haveour semantic layer
on top of how do wegovern that data,
which, if you want to readmore about those four parts,
(35:00):
you can read the whitepaper.
So from a policy perspective,where do we really, really have
to get it right?
Where we have to get it rightis human-in-the-loop approval
of basically how thatdata is ingested and used.
So that really criticalpiece is data quality.
When we think aboutenterprise knowledge, what's
true in a model, I think oneof the most important things
(35:23):
is that you have aperson that is verifying
that the knowledge that's inthere, that the truth that's
in there is correct, thatit's in the right form,
that it will be usedfor the right things,
and that it will go to the rightpeople for those use cases.
And that is something thatI believe, from a policy
perspective-- andthe EU AI act did
(35:43):
a great job of addressing this,we have to require of our tools.
I think if we give up thatpiece, that is where we're
going to see a lot of problems.
We have to know thatwhen we're giving access
to data, that we're givingpeople this support,
that that's informationwe can trust,
and I think that that is the bigpiece that we have to get right
(36:04):
from a policy perspective.
So the human-in-the-loop pieces.
I do believe from apolicy perspective,
the EU AI Act doesa really great job
of setting the standard.
I encourage everycompany we work
with in whatevercountry to abide by it.
We require it on our platform,that you abide by the EU AI Act
because I'm a bigsupporter of it.
If I had to pick just one piece,human-in-the-loop data quality
(36:27):
approval has to be there.
JILL FINLAYSON (36:30):
And something we've seen on the desked worker
side is they'restarting to use ChatGPT
whether the company hasgiven them permission or not,
sort of shadow IT.
And so are you seeing thiswith the deskless workers?
Are they jumping into thison their own time already?
MURIEL CLAUSON (36:46):
Yes.
So there has been apull for this technology
like we've never seen before.
So usually, I mean,think of SaaS, Software
as a Service, solutions.
Somebody in leadership decideswhich SaaS platform to buy,
and then you disseminateit down to the workforce
and the workforce uses it.
That has flipped on its head.
The biggest adopter body withincompanies of generative AI
(37:10):
solutions has justbeen individuals
throughout the company.
If you look at most ofthe adoption reports--
MIT did a great onewith Databricks,
you basically see thatthere is so much more pull
than push of this technology.
So what havecompanies done well?
Most we talked to, they'relike, we are just putting up
firewalls, basically, to protectagainst any of these tools being
(37:31):
used by our workforce, andthere's this just pause
being thrown down.
And you'll understand.
I mean, companies can have theirdata ingested by external tools
that they don't know whatthey are, and all of that
makes sense.
It's really valuable thatyou maintain that data.
But I think that that's a reallygood sign for organizations
that you have to belike, great, our workers
have ideas of how to use this.
(37:53):
They want to use this.
Let's set up the AIreadiness that we
need so that they can do thisin a way that we can approve.
And so I love talking to leadersthat are at that firewall
juncture and ready tomove to the next step
and empower the workers.
But how cool that theworkers have the ideas.
As we talked abouteven back in 2015,
(38:13):
I think this is the mostinclusive technology that we've
seen in a reallylong time, and I
see that's playing out withthe workforce and all workers.
JILL FINLAYSON (38:20):
So let's talk about the worker
and what they can dobecause if their supervisors
or their companyare not creating
this enabling environment,what are the options for them
and how should they beinteracting with generative AI?
MURIEL CLAUSON (38:34):
So one of the things
we tell individual workersis like, if you have
a really good idea on how to usegenerative AI to help augment
your work-- so to help youdo more, better, faster, more
effective, learn, tell yourorganization because most
executives thatwe talk to do have
a bit of a crisisof imagination.
(38:55):
Most companies we go into, wemeet with their executive team,
they're like, we havea really good idea
of how to use generative AI--
customer service.
And we're like, OK, cool.
What else do you have?
What else do you have?
Like, that is really wherea lot of companies are at.
Like, they reallyhave just scratched
the surface of what's possible.
So if they haveworkers that have
ideas that areexcited to use it,
(39:18):
share those ideas becausemost executive teams
we work with are trying tofind the opportunities of how
to augment work andnot coming up with,
I think, as rich of ideas aswe hear that the workforce is.
JILL FINLAYSON (39:31):
Given the power dynamics,
and in some cases,as you were saying,
the languagedynamics, how can they
start to raisethese issues if they
don't feel empowered to do so?
MURIEL CLAUSON (39:42):
I put a lot of onus on the leaders to do that.
If you do have a power dynamicwhere people can't share
and communication andlanguage barriers where
people can't share, you don'tget to hear these ideas.
So that's actually oneof the first things
that we say before we're evenwilling to work with a company,
is we're like, we're not goingto help you get ready if there's
not a way for your workersto drive use cases,
(40:02):
let's set that up first.
That's often, I would say,step one in the process,
is how do we learn from ourworkers on the use case front?
Because you're right, ifsomeone's not empowered,
you're never going to hear.
And what a bummer forall these companies.
They've got all thesebrilliant people
across their desklessworkforce that they are never
going to hear any oftheir ideas because they
speak a differentlanguage or don't
(40:23):
have communication software.
What a bummer.
JILL FINLAYSON (40:25):
And what a missed opportunity
to be able to innovate andbe competitive and retain
the workforce that they have.
MURIEL CLAUSON (40:34):
And when there's one deskless worker
for every eightjobs, they're just
not going to workat your company
if you're not a companythat is empowering them
with these tools.
They're just not.
JILL FINLAYSON (40:44):
So what is the future of work look
like for the deskless worker?
MURIEL CLAUSON (40:48):
I think really bright.
There's theseinteresting flex points
throughout history of work thatI think we're in right now.
I think that there is asupply-and-demand shift that
is happening arounddeskless work
where these aregoing to actually
be some very celebrated roles.
These are going to bewell-compensated roles.
There's going to be roleswhere we treat people well.
(41:09):
I think we're in thatmessy transition point
where companies arelike, what's going on?
And workers still don't knowhow much they can ask for.
But I really see thatwe're coming into an era
where we celebrate desklesswork much more than we do today
and compensate well for it.
I'm very optimistic aboutthese types of jobs.
I think if you havea child that is
(41:31):
interested in goinginto this type of work,
I would encourage that.
I would support that.
I think there's a really goodera for this worker coming.
JILL FINLAYSON (41:38):
So what are your final words of advice
for our listeners about how toadvance equity and inclusion
for deskless workers?
It's 80% of the workers.
It's a huge percentage.
How can we enable them to bemore effective in championing
their needs?
MURIEL CLAUSON (41:54):
So first and foremost,
acknowledge that they exist.
It is so funny howmany times we talk
to leaders thatare like, oh, yeah,
we haven't includedthese people in anything.
So just having thatrealization, that moment
of humility of like, wow, we'vereally dropped the ball here
I think is step one.
The second one, and we'vetalked about it a lot,
is you have to openup a communication
(42:15):
channel for reasons wetalked about around just
basic retention, basic respect,basic relaying of information
for your operationsto run smoothly.
But now, stepping into the AIera where we have generative AI
is only available to people thathave a conversational interface
that they can writea sentence in.
So communication channels havenever been more important.
(42:37):
We have to includeall workers in this.
And then third, and I think thisis where it starts getting fun,
is actually listento these workers.
If it's a service-typerole, they're
the closest to your customer ofany worker in your organization.
If it's a goods productionor movement-type role,
they're the closest toyour product of any person
in your organization.
(42:57):
These are incredibly importantworkers, they have great ideas.
Just wait if youopen up the channels
to actually learn from them.
JILL FINLAYSON (43:05):
I think even Elon Musk
said humans are underrated.
They can reallyproblem-solve, they
can really get outthere, and be the engine
to drive your businessinto the future
and drive their own careeradvancement into the future.
MURIEL CLAUSON (43:19):
Absolutely.
And that was a manufacturingcontext, which is often,
I think, the first placewe look to replace workers.
And it just hasn't borne out.
Augmenting workersis the way to go.
Supporting workers to domore is the way to go,
and absolutely,humans are underrated.
JILL FINLAYSON (43:35):
Amazing.
Thank you so very muchfor all of your insights
and really appreciateyou opening up this topic
and creating thedialogue that's needed
to be able to move thedial forward in inclusion.
MURIEL CLAUSON (43:48):
Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it, Jill.
JILL FINLAYSON (43:52):
And with that, I hope
you've enjoyed this latestin a long series of podcasts
that we'll be sendingyour way every month.
Please share withfriends and colleagues
who may be interested in takingthis future of work journey
with us.
And make sure to check outextension.berkeley.edu to find
a variety of coursesto help you thrive
in this new working landscape.
And to see what's comingup at EDGE in Tech,
(44:13):
go ahead and visit.
edge.berkeley.edu.
Thanks so much for listening.
And we'll be back nextmonth with another look
at the future of work.
The Future of Work Podcastis hosted by Jill Finlayson
produced by Sarah Benzuly,and edited by Matt
DiPietro and Natalie Newman.
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