Someone who makes living through IT, and process streamlining.. I enjoyed this book. It has a futuristic view, and was pleased to read about tackling negative perception around 'automation'.

This is a dry, masculine-toned look at business with automation coming through fast. A conference at MIT is referenced early. Section one looks at optimising work automation under headings: deconstruct the job, assess relationship between job performance and strategic value, identify options, optimise work.
Part two looks at redefining the organisation: workers, leaders.

The author starts by informing us that ATMs made it cheaper for banks to open branches, as they could hire fewer workers, so the number of branches and therefore, bank tellers, increased. Well, maybe at first, but here and now bank branches are at an all time low and any staff at the branch are scarce and generally part time. The author agrees that branches have closed in recent years but says the tellers are all online in the same numbers. Yes, but if they are, are they part timers? Banks don't want to be responsible for employees any more.

The author advises that asking which jobs will be replaced is not right; we need to ask which tasks within jobs can best be replaced. Is a task repetitive or variable? Independent or interactive? Physical or mental?
Next thing he's talking about social robotics. Hold onto your hats.
Jobs looked at vary from bank teller to oil rig driller to insurance case worker, pilot, oncologist, and science director in the pharmaceutical industry.
The third computer revolution, mainframes and PCs, are shunted aside by the fourth computer revolution, big data, mobile phones and IOT, which as the author points out, converge on and reinforce one another. Yes, but we all run ad blockers and those of us with sense limit our exposure to data slurps and toxic platforms... while no online chat bot has yet been able to cope with any question I have asked it.

Many tables of details are supplied and graphs with return on performance; also a checklist to help leaders implement automation. We also get case studies held up for us to admire which, I have to say, don't sound woman-friendly or loyal-employee friendly. "As Zhang said, "When employees create value they get paid. If they don't create measurable value, they don't get paid. Ultimately if they don't create value, they have to leave.""
Watch out, they are coming to take away your jobs and pensions. And I don't mean the robots.

The book uses terms like business process reengineering, contingent workers, identifying reskilling pathways for talent, aligning executive compensation to the new business realities, pivotal strategic goals, augmentation with cognitive automation, a pre-defined value adjustment mechanism. I am sure business leaders will find it edifying. I would appreciate some more social and environmental concern (I saw neither, but there might have been a line or two I missed).

Good quote from Alvin Toffler's Future Shock (1970) "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn." Also the World Economic Forum telling us that 65% of primary school children will go to work in jobs that do not presently exist. Because yes, new jobs do get created. But don't expect them to come with pensions and benefits.
Notes P 195 - 201 and some of the articles referenced looked fascinating but weren't gone into in the text. I counted twelve names which I could be sure were female. Index P 203 - 204 (to come in my ARC).
I downloaded this e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.

As many industries are being disrupted by technology, our jobs are also facing changes. Automation is already here and its spreading all over the world of work. This book serves as a guide on how to help organizations as well as individuals work in harmony of the recent changes.

The 4-step process presented by the authors lay out the steps on how to look at our jobs and see how automation can be integrated. It starts with deconstruction of the jobs it to tasks. Then we have to determine whether these tasks are repetitive or variable, independent or interactive, and physical or mental. Tasks that fall under repetitive, independent, and physical can easily be automated through RPA (robotic process automation).

This book will really help those who are industries who adopts technology quite easily.