Software Advice, a consulting, research and user feedback company on enterprise software applications, member of the Gartner network, surveyed 1,000 French people, aged 18 to 65, working full or part-time in a company with less than 250 employees, last November. The survey focused on their expectations regarding the accelerating adoption of digital tools and task automation in the workplace.

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the world of work: thanks to it, robotization and automation are becoming more and more important in companies. If some jobs concerning repetitive tasks risk being eliminated, as machines remain dependent on humans, new ones will emerge. The survey shows that the employees of the SMEs questioned are rather optimistic about the digital transformation of their company, but that they expect it to provide training in new technologies.

53% of survey respondents believe that their current job could change dramatically over the course of this decade due to task automation tools, and are very mixed about job prospects. For 16%, there will be more job opportunities due to automation, 32% think there will be only a few more, 32% think there will be fewer and 20% have no opinion.

A rather optimistic, even enthusiastic view of the future of work

64% of employees surveyed believe that the pandemic has accelerated the use of digital tools in their company: collaboration tools to facilitate organization and communication between remote teams, project management tools or task organization tools.

38% of respondents say they are optimistic, 13% enthusiastic about the impact, real or expected, of the adoption of these digital tools, but 12% say they are anxious and 10% nervous.

Employees expect their companies to provide digital training

77% of respondents believe it is their employer’s responsibility to train them in new digital technologies, while 13% see no need, and 10% did not answer this question.

While 62.5% of respondents agree that their employer helps them “understand and improve their knowledge of the latest technologies relevant to their industry.” the remaining 37.5% disagreed with this statement.

53% would like to learn new digital skills as part of their job in data analysis, computer programming, machine learning or artificial intelligence, for example. On the other hand, 32% feel that their current knowledge is sufficient and are not interested in learning new skills.

Beyond digital, the desire to acquire ” general professional skills “, whatever they may be, is displayed in 42% of responses.

Face-to-face training

Respondents who are taking or would like to take training, and who could choose all or part of the proposed answers, favored face-to-face training:

• Face-to-face, group with tutor: 41
• Online, one-on-one with tutor: 32
• Online, in a group with a tutor: 26
• Online, on an à la carte platform: 22
• Face-to-face, one-on-one with tutor: 19
• A mix of online and face-to-face training: 14

Face-to-face training is undoubtedly preferred because it offers the possibility of using equipment, of carrying out exercises under the eye and advice of the speaker, and allows for interactivity, all the more so when the employee is not used to group videoconferencing.

Lack of time, an obstacle to training

To the question ” What are the obstacles encountered in learning new skills, especially digital skills? “, respondents interested in acquiring new digital capabilities cited lack of time (49%), inflexible schedules (31%), limited financial resources of their company, lack of training program (25%), lack of energy (23%), 16% fear being incompetent, 12% fear not being able to assimilate the content in a short time.

The survey shows that while automation is a must for companies that want to compete and optimize their productivity, employees are ready to adapt to the digital transformation.

Translated from Comment les employés des PME envisagent-ils l’avenir de leur emploi face à l’automatisation?