The Future of Work Podcast

Hello and welcome to the ILO's Future of Work  podcast. I'm Justin Smith. Today we could not  

have a more fitting episode for the Future of  Work podcast because we are talking about the 

future. Specifically, how to prepare for  a future of uncertainty and disruption.  

Before I introduce today's guest, take a second  to imagine what you would do if a swarm of drones  

closed all air traffic over the Atlantic. Or if  that's not close enough to home, what if a cyber  

attack on a messaging platform were to expose  billions of people's private chats on the web?  

Okay, so maybe you miss your flight to Toronto  or your boss discovers an embarrassing chat  

between you and your colleagues. But beyond their  immediate impact, consider the cascade of events  

that each of these scenarios could unleash and the  consequences they could have for our societies, 

our economies and the world of work. As we've  seen over the past decade, from wars to pandemics  

to technological upheaval, the question  isn't if disruptive events will take place,  

it's which disruptive events will take place.  So, what can we do? How can we learn not only  

to expect the unexpected, but to plan for it  and be ready when the next shock arrives? To  

help me answer this question, I'm joined by Rafael  Peels, a Labour relations specialist at the ILO,  

who's here to tell us about strategic foresight,  a methodology for navigating times of disruption  

like the ones we happen to be living in. Raphael,  thanks for being with us. With all pleasure. So,  

what is strategic foresight? How does it work?  And why do you think it's so important right  

now? Let me start with the why question. So,  you already said it. We are living in a world  

including a world of work that is marked by  disruption. You cannot open the newspaper or  

there is a heat wave or a flooding somewhere.  And the same is true for AI and how that shakes  

up our world of work or international trade and  geopolitics. So if disruption is the new normal,  

we have to make the ability to deal  with that disruption the new normal too.  

Yet we often respond or react – or not – to shocks  rather than prepare, anticipate for them. However,  

there are tools to do this strategic foresight.  And that brings me to the what question. So  

strategic foresight is a tool to do strategic  thinking, focusing on forward thinking in the  

long term, looking at the big drivers of change,  how this impacts labour market and with that our  

constituents. Secondly, it allows us to address  uncertainty, for instance by exploring different  

plausible scenarios of the world of work. And  third, it allows to craft creative new solutions.  

We are currently implementing a project where we  push the boundaries of strategic foresight. First,  

we tailor existing methods to the reality  of the world of work and ILO constituents.  

Second, change itself is changing. Instead of  looking at the major trends and transitions,  

we look at disruptions, radical change. And third,  we zoom in on the use of AI to leverage strategic  

foresight. Now, finally, the how question. So,  there are different tools out there to do this  

foresight. As ACTRAV ILO (ILO Bureau for Workers'  Activities) in collaboration with our training  

centre, the ITC, we have been exploring tools like  horizon scanning where you look at the multiple  

drivers of change. So you go broad and long term  spanning how, for instance, tech impacts on labour  

markets and your organization. Or, for instance,  scenario development where you look at different  

plausible scenarios from more optimistic to more  pessimistic. Another tool is road mapping. So,  

how to bring these back, these scenarios, to what  to do today to arrive at or avoid a particular  

scenario. And as mentioned earlier, we are  currently developing additional tools to deal with  

disruptions, that is, to assess sensitivity to  disruptions, how disruptions may evolve over time,  

impact and expose structural vulnerabilities of  the organization. Contingency planning isn't new.  

Thinking about the future isn't new. How is  this different? So, it's certainly related to  

contingency planning. However, it's different  in a sense that contingency planning is about  

preparing for a specific disruption. So, it's  more narrow, practical, and operational regarding

a very specific disruption and developing a  concrete playbook to deal with that. Whereas  

strategic foresight is about exploring multiple  futures. So, it's broader, it's more exploratory,  

it's more creative. So it's about developing  as an organization the mental muscle to deal  

with complexity, uncertainty and disruption. And  as mentioned earlier, this may also touch upon  

structural underlying vulnerabilities of different  sorts of potential disruptions. Sure. So let's  

maybe bring it back a little bit to the services  that we as the ILO provide to our constituents.  

What does that look like? What does strategic  foresight look like for employers and workers  

organizations specifically? Yeah, so strategic  foresight allows for our social partners to  

prepare for major change, to rehearse different  potential disruptions, to reflect upon multiple  

shocks before they happen, to push emerging  small signals of change further and stress test  

their organization or broader system under these  potential future shocks. So this matters to social  

partners because we are obliged to stay relevant  and that means that we have to develop an ability  

to navigate complexity, uncertainty and change  including increasingly disruptive change. And  

this is key to continue to deliver on realizing  decent work and social justice for all. It also  

feeds into social dialogue, being better prepared  as social partners for discussing the key issues  

of the future world of work. And you remember,  that we learned from COVID-19 that the most  

vulnerable suffer most during moments of shock.  So we owe it to them to better develop the ability  

to anticipate to prepare and to respond to these  shocks. And this to avoid that every disruption  

translates into a crisis or a conflict, because  a shock only becomes a disruption if you're not  

able, if the organization is not ready to deal  with the disruption. We'll hear from a few  

constituents who had the pleasure of taking part  in a strategic foresight workshop at the end of  

last year. But before that, let's talk a little  bit about AI. You mentioned putting AI into the  

mix. How exactly does that come into play in terms  of strategic foresight? Sure. So foresight is  

about identifying drivers of change, spotting  weak signals, developing scenarios, exploring  

different futures. AI can support with that. It's  pretty impressive. However, there are certain  

things it can do and certain things it cannot.  AI can support gathering a lot of information,  

synthesizing, translating trends into scenarios,  but also translating scenarios into visuals,  

videos or games to enhance an immersive learning  experience. It's almost unlimited. However,  

there are certain things it can't do. For  instance, sense-making is for humans. So AI can  

support this creative strategic thinking exercise  but you still have to do the work. So for workers, 

employers and governments it does exactly that.  It provides support in analyzing trends, spotting  

emerging signals, looking for interlinkages,  assessing potential and plausible impacts.  

But again it is still for our constituency  to give sense to it. Rafael, in December,  

you organized a workshop with ILO constituents  at the International Training Centre in Turin,  

Italy. I had the pleasure of being there. And  during the workshop, we were able to speak with 

two participants, Melissa Ansell Bridges, who  is the National secretary of the New Zealand  

Council of Trade Unions and Đorđo Borović, who  represented the Montenegrin Employers Federation. 

Let's hear what they had to say about how unions  and employers view this approach to preparing for  

disruption. Well, look, I suppose at our heart,  unions are always thinking about how do we help  

our members? How do we help working people?  And you know, it's one thing to be responsive  

to workers needs in the moment, but actually if  we're going to make a real difference, then we  

need to be able to look ahead to the future. And  you know, there are plenty of tools which exist  

which we regularly use which will help us do that  this year, maybe the next year. But we know that  

as Rafael has discussed, that the changes that  we're seeing right now are happening so rapidly,  

and there's so much uncertainty with them as  well, that actually those tools that we've been  

relying on are of limited use. You know, if we're  really going to be doing this in a meaningful way,  

we need to be able to look further a field into  the future. And we need to be able to use a tool  

like strategic foresight, which holds space for  uncertainty, for multiple different futures,  

for the complexity, which you know as trade  unions we we deal with on a daily basis anyway,  

but is made so much more so with the kinds of  challenges that we're facing now. But also,  

it's not just about how we respond to the  risks that these challenges pose, but also  

how do we maximize the potential benefits and the  opportunities of them as well for working people.  

And then lastly, I suppose for unions, you know,  one thing that I know to be true is that there's,  

there's always more that we would like to be able  to do than what we're going to be resourced for,  

right? And I think that that's probably true for  a lot of us, you know, more broadly than unions  

as well. But what it means is that especially  when posed with all of these challenges is that  

we need to be really strategic with where we're  putting our resources. What are we investing in?  

What skills are we trying to develop in our  people to prepare ourselves for the future?  

What technologies are we investing in? You know,  what approaches are we taking to organizing? What  

policy research are we doing? And so using  a tool like strategic foresight allows us  

to be really strategic with where we put our  resources to be best prepared for the future.  

Strategic foresight in our country could be  explained like an astrological natal chart in that  

we all want to have an astrological natal chart  for our company and we want to know what will  

happen in the future. But when we come from the  stars to the earth reality is not too familiar,  

we're not too good and when we speak about future  we always think about something bad will happen  

in future. And it's a reality. And companies are  different – the diversity of companies – because  

we speak about the small companies who need  strategic foresight, but they don't have any kind  

of resources, any kind of thoughts about strategic  foresight, because they are dealing with daily  

business problems. They just think about tomorrow,  not the foresight for the one month, one year or  

seven, 10 years up front, but that could be very  challenging. I want to say thanks for the ILO,  

because these kind of opportunities to share with  us and create some programmes for the companies,  

business members organizations to improve  strategic foresight, to reduce costs of the  

strategic foresight experts for different kinds  of companies. And in our country we are trying  

to help them how to (use) strategic foresight to  deal with different types of problems, because we  

are a small country and I think that we are aware  of everything that's happening in the world. We  

want to help them and we can, together we can  speak, we can help, with the help of the ILO  

and the International Training Centre, that could  be a good opportunity for us, strategic foresight.  

Rafael, what do you think? I think I couldn't  agree more with both Melissa and Đorđo. First  

starting with Melissa. So indeed, trade unions,  workers are facing multiple transformations in the  

world of work. I think Melissa mentioned various,  underlying the need to deal with complexity,  

uncertainty and change. So yeah, I think  that's the first element. But then also second,  

I think Melissa mentioned the implications for  resources and I think she's very right. It's not  

only about resources but also resourcefulness.  So what are the resources that you have and then  

the strategic use of these resources. And then  with regard to the the input of Đorđo. So yeah,  

I think many organizations are confronted with  that. We don't have time for this. Everybody's  

taken up with daily business. But it's really  about taking a step back of your daily business,  

taking the luxury of doing that, which in the  end will save you time. So, yeah, I couldn't  

agree more with with both views of Melissa and  and Đorđo. And I think it really shows, I think,  

the relevance for both workers' and employers'  organizations. Rafael, with that in mind,  

and before we wrap up, what is the one thing that  you think that we should all be doing, workers,  

employers, decision makers and government  to begin preparing for the future? So maybe  

I take the opportunity to come back to one idea I  mentioned before, and that is really the essence,  

so it is about developing a mental muscle of  thinking forward really long-term of dealing  

with uncertainty, developing different scenarios  of gathering information systematically and  

building that into your daily organizational  practice. So today it may be disruption and  

AI. Tomorrow it may be something else. But  the muscle to navigate that complexity,  

uncertainty and disruption that will be  there. Well, thank you Rafael for being  

with us and for sharing your thoughts. As  we've heard today, strategic foresight is  

not about predicting what will happen, but about  expanding our capacity to imagine what's possible,  

to prepare, and to shape for the future of  work we want. If you'd like to know more about  

the ILO's work on strategic foresight, you can  find resources and links in the episode notes.  

You can and also should follow us on social media  on YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn @International  

Labour Organization and on Instagram, X, Blue  Sky and Threads @ilo.org. Thanks again for  

being with us. I'm Justin Smith and we'll see  you next time on the Future of Work podcast.