Hello and welcome to Working It.
I'm Bethan Staton, deputy work and careers editor on the FT, and I'm standing in for Isabel this week.
Tomorrow is the longest day of the 12 months. I used to be interested to learn this week that the summer solstice is related to work, in response to some readings. In early cultures, midsummer celebrations can have marked the change between harvest cycles, with rituals comparable to bonfires designed to make sure that the 12 months's work paid off and produced harvest.
Shorter nights are also changing our work experience lately: early sunrises can mean we’ve got a while before heading to the office, and perhaps get some exercise outside. Long evenings and warmer weather provide opportunities for socialising after work: on Thursdays at the moment of 12 months, the streets across the FT office are crammed with the noise of beer-drinking, suit-clad crowds gathering outside town centre pubs – the sound of after-work in summer.
Below are a few of my thoughts on the subject of ancient agricultural knowledge and the way contemporary expertise could also be at risk of being lost.
The end of experience?
People losing practice as technology replaces us at work is a well known risk of artificial intelligence. But in feverish predictions about how it’s going to make our lives easier or bring a couple of job apocalypse, AI's more subtle dangers are sometimes neglected.
So this month for the FT I used to be delighted to review Matt Beane's , an anthropological tackle skill development. Beane argues that to construct expertise, we want to start out with easy tasks and progressively challenge ourselves by making them progressively harder with the assistance of individuals we trust. Technology can thwart this by removing challenges or doing the primary, easy things for us.
It's pretty obvious that giant language models could exacerbate this problem. I've already noticed that many corporations are touting the ways during which AI increases efficiency, often by taking up work like poring over legal cases or basic research that might normally be done by inexperienced employees.
I asked Beane what he thought LLMs might mean for skills and learning. He has bad news: New technology appears to be “making learning harder.” By allowing us to skip steps of a task, LLMs isolate us from “frictional” activities — like looking something up or asking colleagues for advice — that help us learn. The technology might help produce “barely above-average” work much faster, but this “reduces the challenge that might improve your skills over time.”
That's to not say that these shortcuts are bad, or that we must always stubbornly follow old ways of doing things. But it's price enthusiastic about how people can develop their skills as work becomes automated. In this context, three pieces of recommendation from Beane have stuck in my mind.
First, if you would like to continue learning, be certain that you're maintaining interpersonal connections: asking questions, working with colleagues on tasks, helping less experienced employees. Make sure mentoring continues. “If you don't construct relationships of trust and mutual respect with other people, your skill development will stall,” says Beane.
Second, challenge yourself or be certain that others in your team are in a position to accomplish that. “The Western world has turn into, to place it very generally, a padded playground in terms of work,” says Beane. “When you're now not in a position to work at your limits and do somewhat lower than you normally would,” it means you're not having opportunities to learn.
This brings us to a 3rd point: Remember that the best paths also include pitfalls. Beane argues that corporations give attention to productivity fairly than skills development – they make things easier or faster fairly than creating conditions during which employees can improve. “Maybe that gets you somewhere within the short term. But what does that get you in the long run?”
Of course, the power to make use of AI well is a skill in itself. And among the skills we outsource to AI are ones we probably won't miss much anyway. Expertise in crop cycles and constructing campfires is less useful today than it was when our ancestors celebrated the summer solstice – even when a few of us still benefit from the long midsummer days very much.
Will AI stop us from acquiring the abilities we want? I might love to listen to your thoughts – email me at
This week within the Working It podcast
What is the state of AI in recruiting? Does chatting with an avatar as a substitute of a human interviewer help candidates overcome their nervousness – and forestall hiring managers from succumbing to their very own biases? I wanted to seek out out what the most recent developments are on this (extremely) fast-moving field, so on this week's episode I speak with Ali Ansari, founding father of micro1, home of the robot interviewer, and Chano Fernandez, co-CEO of Eightfold, an AI-powered HR platform. I'm still undecided on whether an AI recruiter is “higher” – but it surely's definitely faster.
Five top stories from the world of labor
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Interested in the house office argument? Focus on the evidence: Do more flexible approaches to work improve performance or make it harder to attain goals? The results of this in-depth study on hybrid working are in – and in the event you like working out of your lounge for just a few days, the news is sweet
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‘Insane’ salaries for young London lawyers raise concerns about corporate culture: I admit I won't lose an excessive amount of sleep over junior lawyers' £150,000 salaries, but this text from the front lines of the war for talent amongst London law firms raises some necessary questions on what the trend towards turbo-charged pay means for culture and equality.
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London is depressing British productivity: London remains to be rather more productive than the remaining of the country, but the most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the gap is narrowing. That may very well be an indication of a less unbalanced economy, but it surely is also a red flag for overall national growth.
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Understanding Generation Z: Employers seek answers about younger employees: How is Generation Z different from other generations? It's a matter employers are increasingly asking – and a brand new generation of consultants is able to answer it. This entertaining article delves into what they need to say.
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Employees welcome WFH (work from hairdresser): Flexibility in where and whenever you work means a visit to the salon might be especially productive now, with some employees taking Zoom calls while getting their hair washed and cut. In response, entrepreneurial corporations are establishing co-working facilities.
Just one thing
I'm currently reading a book by Asako Yuzuki. Inspired by the true story of the Japanese 'Konkatsu Killer', it's an entertaining tackle the oppressive expectations placed on women within the workplace and in relationships, and likewise a surprisingly insightful have a look at life as a journalist. Everything within the book is conveyed through its relationship to food, which implies it introduced me to some deliciously easy recipes – the book's descriptions of rice with butter and soy sauce will make your mouth water.
