Every day we hear about new technology that is changing the way we work and live.

There is a growing conversation about how robots and smart machines will change our jobs and the employment prospects of young Australians. Some predictions suggest 5 million Australian jobs will be at risk over the next five years.

So, what jobs are vulnerable to this shift? We are already seeing highly repetitive tasks being automated, but the real answer is we don’t know for sure. The question isn’t how do we compete with technology and protect our jobs, but how do we prepare ourselves for the changing world of work.

This will require a shift in mindset and a new way of thinking about the way you work. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

• Embrace a learning mindset. With the pace of change, we will need to be more agile and prepared to learn on the job. Your original training will have a shelf life and the people that embrace continuous learning will be the ones that thrive.
• Build a transferrable skill set. Don’t limit your future by your current job title. Your future employability will be more about the skills and capabilities you have been collecting from job-to-job and your ability to apply these in new and different ways. What transferrable skills are you collecting for the future?
• Flex your creative muscles. Creative thinking is one of our greatest human assets. All of us have the capacity for idea generation and creative problem solving. Tomorrow we challenge you to start your day with a creative mindset and ask how might tackle a problem or opportunity in a new or different way?
• Get digitally connected. Work of the future will have a strong digital component. Accept that technology will be a big part of our future, so use it to your advantage. How can you use technology to free up your time and to make faster and better decisions?
• Maintain flexibility in everything you do. We throw around phrases like agility and adaptability. What does this mean? For you and your team this is about loosening your grip on the status quo and being change ready.

In a recent survey conducted by PwC, “73% of participants think technology can never replace the human mind”. If you embrace these human strategies you will not only maintain but create a future in this changing world of work.