Maximizing Korea's human capital
By Lukas Beech
A key challenge of our time is not the availability of financial capital, but rather that of Korea's traditional natural resource: human capital. In fact, there are about 137,000 jobs currently available on one of Korea's largest job portals, while over 330,000 more young Koreans (25 to 34 years old) could be working (according to Statistics Korea, for July this year) and over 1 million more people are seeking work.
This misalignment between the commercial demand for and a simultaneous underutilization of Korea's human capital is partly due to various social paradigms that accentuate the problem, including the false belief that a “safe job” is a “good job” and that it's acceptable to live a professionally unfulfilling life as long as your paycheck comes from a large or prominent organization.
With the growth of the gig economy, where project and flexible positions are common in the workplace, the number of “regular” positions is dramatically decreasing. In fact, according to a Shinhan Bank survey, only 60.5 percent of people employed in their first job are hired as “regular workers,” down from 83.4 percent over the last 12 years. This trend will continue until a majority of people are working independently, as the paradigm shifts away from a correlation between “regular” and “good jobs.” Furthermore, the “Future Job” report of the World Economic Forum highlights this shift away from a “regular,” towards a dynamic way of working, indicating that in about three years, “everyone will need an extra 101 days of learning” to deal with the “shift in the division of labor between humans, machines and algorithms.”
So, how do we maximize human capital? We can immediately start by thinking of a “job” as a “project” and by understanding that our work is a series of projects. As “jobs” quickly become automatable processes for algorithms, the work of individuals becomes a series of original solutions to diverse projects. We can then begin to think about our projects as missions accomplished in accordance with each person's individual strengths and weaknesses, and by those whose natural passion and enthusiasm align with each mission, regardless of work history. Ultimately, words such as “regular” lose their meaning as we apply our intelligence and mastery to more purposeful work and unique projects.
When our main success factors are enthusiasm, tenacity and mastery, we can successfully compete against any algorithm. Projects may last five years or five hours and each person will develop their brand identity as a master in their chosen passion, focusing on projects that correlate to their personal expertise, interest and passion.
We are already seeing an ecosystem of enablers becoming increasingly available, and they are set to transform the way we work. Think of something like AirBnB ― not in terms of accommodation assets, but rather for human capital assets: each individual's skill and passion. Companies such as Upwork or MissionHeroes are already offering solutions to this way of working by defining each person's brand according to their unique capability and value, and by enabling the interaction between businesses and individuals to execute challenging projects in a sharing economy model. As individuals and companies begin capitalizing on this relationship, Korea's primary natural resource ― human capital ― can be maximized once again.
Lukas Beech (
info@missionheroes.com
) is a partner at DHR International and a director at Mission Heroes, Inc.