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Technological Changes and Human Resources Set
coordinated by
Patrick Gilbert
Volume 4
Employability and Industrial Mutations
Between Individual Trajectories and Organizational Strategic Planning
Edited by
Florent Noël
Géraldine Schmidt
First published 2022 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd
27-37 St George’s Road
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UK
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
USA
© ISTE Ltd 2022
The rights of Florent Noël and Géraldine Schmidt to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), contributor(s) or editor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ISTE Group.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021950756
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-743-9
Foreword by Patrick Gilbert
While technological change is, at least potentially, a source of progress, it also brings its share of uncertainties and fragilities. This is true of their effects on employment. Industrial change has always had consequences in this area. At the level of nations, organizations and individuals, the difficulty is always to assess the scope of these changes and to prepare for them.
Industrial revolutions have followed one another with well-known consequences on the content of work and the volume of jobs. Today, the “digital revolution”, while giving rise to the hope of new jobs, also poses certain threats with the rise of automation and the emergence of artificial intelligence. A recent OECD report (2019) on employment prospects estimates that, in the next 20 years, 16.4% of French jobs will be threatened and 32.8% will undergo a radical transformation.
In a period marked by these major transformations, companies are therefore led to reflect, very early on, on the actions to be taken on human resources. Hence, the notion of employability is becoming central and cannot simply be left to the initiative of each worker and the State. Beyond the institutional injunction to be responsible for one’s own destiny, what does this notion of employability cover? What is its history? What issues does it address? What are the respective roles of public policies, managerial practices and individual actions? What can be said (and done) about unemployability? How can we meet the challenge of the digitalization of jobs? What are the levers for building employability?
This book, which brings together researchers from different specialties around these issues, aims to shed light on the current changes in work by addressing the theme of employability in all its complexity. I am proud to welcome it to this series.
Patrick GILBERT
Professor at IAE Paris-Sorbonne
Head of the series
“Technological Changes and Human Resources”
November 2021
Foreword by IPSI
1980s… 1990s… At the trade union level, the word employability was not acceptable. It was seen as a tool for the exclusive use of employers to organize terminations and support outplacement.
Today, the ability to be employed has become one of the major challenges for companies, so that employees can adapt to the internal and external changes taking place. The exponential digitalization of all work relations is one of the concrete illustrations of these changes.
The ability of human beings to adapt to changes in their work is, more than ever, a key element in the success of these transformations. However, sociological constraints remain and the initial suspicion is sometimes still present. Although significant efforts have been made in training to “nurture” and develop skills, this is not enough.
The initial mistrust will only disappear completely if firms help to set up work organizations that promote and develop the ability to be employed. This requires employers accepting, internally, a different distribution of powers, in order to free the initiative and the responsibility of the employees.
It is at the price of this “revolution” that the ability to be employed will gain the support of all the actors in the company. If the work organization parameter becomes a central element of the management method, adaptation to change could be more natural, because it is permanent.
Today, it is not enough to have good ideas. They must be shared. The conditions for employability must therefore be worked out in concert with