Mining human capabilities: how CIOs can build an inclusive workforce

Tech chiefshave an opportunity to use certain technology to tap into the talent pool among the 17.7 per cent of Australians living with some type of disability, saysGartner research vice president, Brian Prentice.

“We have all of these people in our society, who have so much to offer but it’s buried underneath those disabilities,” Prentice said during this year’s Gartner IT Symposium in the Gold Coast.

“So can we actually find ways to using this technology to tap into that and find that talent pool, such that these disabilities actually are leading to super abilities. It also transforms the working environment that we’re in.”

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2018, just over one-quarter (28.3 per cent) of all people with disability of working age were employed full-time.

According to Prentice, by 2023 the number of people with disabilities employed will triple due to technologies like artificial intelligence reducing barriers to access.

“I think there’s a couple of different ways that we’re going to see this starting to happen. The first is to allow people with disabilities to be able to do the jobs that already exist,” he said.

Prentice cited an example of a business that has integrated Braille into its reservation system, which has allowed visually impaired people to actually start to do that job within the organisation.

“Another category that we’re going to start to see is allowing disabled people to be able to do whole new job classes. And again, we’re seeing restaurants are starting to experiment with artificial technology that allow people with disabilities to remotely operate in the work with these automated waiters,” Prentice said.

“And the third area we’re going to see is technology that is going to empower people with disabilities to enter the workforce.

“And a really good example here is this area called augmented communications technology, which are used by people who are on the autism spectrum to improve social skills, so they can find themselves back into the working environment,” he added.

This is part of Gartner’s Top Strategic Predictions for 2020 and Beyond, which lists 10 technologies that are changing how we live. Gartner predicts that by 2023, 30 per cent of IT organisations will extend BYOD policies with “bring your own enhancement” (BYOE) to address augmented humans in the workforce.

A self-regulating association for oversight of AI and machine learning designers will be established in at least four of the G7 countries and 40 per cent of professional workers will orchestrate their business application experiences and capabilities like they do their music streaming experience.

Most concerning is the prediction that by 2024 the World Health Organisation will identify online shopping as an addictive disorder, as millions abuse digital commerce and encounter financial stress.

Gartner also predicts that digital transformation initiatives will take large traditional enterprises on average twice as long and cost twice as much as anticipated in the next 12 to 24 months.

By 2023, Gartner expects up to 30 per cent of world news and video content will be authenticated as real by blockchain countering deep fake technology and individual activities will be tracked digitally by an “Internet of Behaviour” to influence benefit and service eligibility for 40 people of people worldwide.

In the next five years, we’ll see AI identification of emotions influence more than half of the online advertisements. And by 2025, 50 per cent of people with a smartphone but without a bank account will use a mobile-accessible cryptocurrency account, according to the research firm.

@Samira_Sarraf

Samira Sarraf attended Gartner IT Symposium as a guest of Gartner.