Competencies in Digital Work

Abstract

Decisions to integrate digital technologies into work processes have a wide influence in work organizations and needed competencies, now and in the future. This chapter concentrates on exploring how digitalization is related to present and future competencies by transforming work processes, task and job contents, and the organization of labor, and finally products and services. Changes in work processes produce changes in job and task structures: jobs and tasks are replaced and destroyed when human labor is removed, hybridized when new features and demands are added, and recreated when new, previously unseen work requirements emerge. This, in turn, creates the need for reorganizing. In this way, digitalization increases pressures to rearrange work system elements anew. In addition to new ways of working and leading, new competencies are needed. Future-oriented competencies are needed at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. They include competencies to adapt and create new ways of working, anticipation, and digital competencies.