The future of work is a constellation of innovations that address new or accelerating challenges for companies that aim to be customer-obsessed. High on the list of those innovations are what we can broadly term robots: Artificial intelligence, automation, blockchain, other intelligent software, and even physical robots play a key role in changing how we work. CIOs and other C-level leaders are tasked with designing systems with these technologies that complement the human workforce, transforming how we work.
Yet most employees and their organizations aren’t ready to realize the full potential of this revolution. Your future-of-work initiatives don’t usually fail because of technology or vendor choice; they fail because of a lack of fundamental readiness within the organization to weave those technologies into how your company does business. Today’s employees and organizations too often lack the culture, skills, leadership, processes, structures, and trust needed to succeed with future-of-work initiatives. For instance, only 18% of global information workers agree with the statement, “I have a sense of my career path in a world of automation.” That’s one of many gaps that leaders need to help employees fill.
To help you address this challenge, Forrester created RQ, the robotics quotient. RQ measures the ability of individuals and organizations to adapt to, collaborate with, and generate business results from automated entities. The people, leadership, organization, and trust (PLOT) framework is key to self-assessing areas for improvement. Dozens of leaders and companies have gone through the RQ framework, and we’ve collected their experiences and feedback to create RQ 2.0, an improved assessment tool.
Chief among the improvements? Simplification. Many clients found the original assessment overly long and hard to implement as a result, so we’ve isolated the key factors, and you can even take an interactive version of the assessment right inside the new report.
To learn more, please watch the video above, then clients can download and read the full report, “RQ 2.0: Assess Your Readiness For Artificial Intelligence, Automation, And Robotics.”
J. P. Gownder is a vice president and principal analyst serving CIOs. He leads Forrester’s research on the impact that automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics have on the future of work, the future of jobs, the economy, and CIO strategies. He also covers innovation in the context of disruptive devices and interfaces — from PCs to mobile devices and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) to software and intelligent agents — and how these technologies drive improvements in employee experience and business outcomes. Follow him on Twitter at @jgownder.
