Is Human Connection The New Job Security? | BBC Global

I interview people all the time, but there's one answer I got two years ago that's been living rent free in my head ever since. It was about AI and jobs whether we're all going to lose our jobs. But the person who said it wasn't a tech CEO or an AI researcher. It was this woman: Jane Wurwand, founder of the multi-million dollar skincare company Dermalogica. I've known Jane for years and her life story is fascinating. She didn't go to college. started working at 13, sweeping hair off the floor of her local beauty salon. And all that perspective led her to believe something that feels almost radical today, that the jobs will survive this AI era be ones engage in human connection, something she calls high touch. The equal and opposite reaction to that high tech is high touch, service oriented businesses, where humans are doing things that do best. Cooking. Caring. Touching. Kindness. Compassion. Talking. I'm not in the business of just skincare products. I'm in the business of human connection. So now, two years later, with AI having changed our world even more, I called Jane back to see if she still believes all of that and hear what advice she has for young people navigating this high tech, touch world. In this high tech, touch paradigm, you talk about it in the terms of skin care industry when we were together and it's literally an industry where people are getting touched. Right? It's physical touch. But it occurs to me - and the reason I think it's been it's had me thinking so much the last couple of years and talking to people about it is that it's not confined to physical touch, your concept of high tech, touch. It's also about this broader idea of just having a human voice. When you call your kind of - Wi-Fi has gone down and your Wi-Fi provider and you actually get a human voice not bot. Give us some sort of tangible thoughts on which are the high touch jobs and areas of employment that you think survive this rapidly growing technology that may take other jobs away. The jobs that I see are going to be booming, and I see already are the jobs that really can't be replaced. Hospitality, travel, anything in the human being industry. If you are receiving a cancer diagnosis, goodness forbid, an AI bot might have found that or detected rogue cell, but you certainly don't want that bot talking to and giving you the diagnosis. You want a human being to sit with kindness and empathy and hold your hand literally say, we've got a plan, we're going to execute on it. Let's discuss the steps and we've got a whole team behind you. We're here for you. We've got You need to be deeply reassured because you'll terrified. So all of that said, any piece work brings to us, whether you're working in retail, whether you're working in an industry that is full of technology, what can we bring as humans that makes workplace, that business, space kind, empathetic, you feel seen, you feel heard, that matter, somebody knows a little bit about your life so that you can chat and talk. These are all incredibly important social aspects of what being human is. I think what you're describing is actually quite an optimistic spin on some of the fears that people have, because I've spoken to young and I've kind of seen all their comments online, and many of them are sort slightly kind furious about this world that we're in because they felt there was a social contract where you get educated, pay an enormous amount of money to go a university or tertiary education, and then you come out actually there aren't jobs because the jobs have been taken. What do you say to the graduate who has a degree in accounting or coding? I mean, literally, what would you say to the 25 year old who did all the things they thought needed to do, and now finds that tech can do the job. In your approach to skills and the care industry, would you say to that person need pivot totally? You need to retrain? find a way to get into the high touch world? Well, I think you have to take whatever your strength is, whatever called you to that. Like if you studied accounting and say, I actually hate it, I can't stand it, but my dad or mum was an accountant and they wanted me to have a good job then, you know, tick the box and move on. You could change - professions, your career. But if you love it, may not want to. So what can you take from you've already learned? So let's just take accounting. Attention to detail. Numbers. Checking. Organising. You keep spinning that out. There's lots of other jobs that would require that. I mean, you might - this sounds like a stretch, but bear with me. You might be a fantastic event planner because if have great attention to detail and you have high executive skills you're organised and you can communicate - now if fall down on that communication piece, you go, oh, I had all of it, but dang, I don't have that, I'm not very good with people then that's what I would study and start to get good at it. Because even if you stay as an accountant, your human skills should be really high because they need to because you - you're not going to compete with a robot. We don't have those same tech skills. that code in our head. You have everything else that is needed by other humans. So we have to take the strength and move with it. I think you're exactly right that this is where people need to about the jobs, where in kind of AI world, there are actually jobs that you may not think of as being high touch, but event planning demands, in fact, interpersonal skills, as do many jobs. As do many jobs. And even if - it's so we shouldn't box things into that's tech and this is human. There has to this connection. There has to be - remember equal and opposite reaction existing together. And now we do it all the time. so I think that have to take if you're you've graduated I listened to a podcast recently with a group of graduates that did learn coding and they feel really cheated because now they're being told, well, actually, we don't need you to code. know, that's the skill that need. It's obsolete because AI can code it. No one needs to learn code. But do you remember a few years ago, everyone was told you have to learn code? Of course no education is wasted. Education is an amazing thing to have and go for it. However, so many people have graduated, I think, with a degree and it's four year college or three in England that gives you education. But education isn't skill. And what we're really missing right now are human skills. We don't have enough of those skills. I mean, if you want to go into one of the, you know, best top paying jobs right now, it's welding. You know, could become a welder that will really serve well and don't need to go university. So there's this whole resurgance of skills. That's a slightly different thing isn't it? I can see the resurgence of skills. Is that different from the high touch world you're talking about? No. It's all part and parcel of the same, because what's happening is people are saying, you know what we missing that. But we've still got this hierarchy of education where the gold standard is university degree. Like, oh, not for my child, you know what I mean? Like, oh, I love that you need, know, welders, but not for my child. My child's going to go university and study medieval languages or whatever they want to. I think we have to rethink that. And we have to just kind of break down that hierarchy or sort like if you want the elevation of four year college degree, I'm not knocking it, but I never went to university. I went to trade skills school, studied skincare, and it's allowed me to build a business that's global industry. Do you think, I mean talk to the kind of coder - and I think Stanford had a study that showed employment amongst software developers has fallen by something like 20% recently. Talking about those coders, you're right, they feel cheated. Is the key for them or anyone in their 20s who has that background of education may now be obsolete because AI, is actually what we're talking about the key to develop your interpersonal communication skills? Yes, 100 percent. And high touch in the skincare industry is obvious. It's the kind of that's most obvious example it. But actually what you're really wanting is, is saying to people, as a business leader, you need to develop your interpersonal skills. Correct. The things that used to be called soft skills are now the hard skills. You need them. It's not just nice to have, a need have. And so we have to - you've got dig in. And this is a generation unfortunately that seems to be lacking in a lot of the proclivity or the desire to concentrate on those because they're not easy. Listen you go into a room of people you've never met, can you go up and introduce yourself start making a conversation? I know can because learned it in a salon. It's not like I was born with it, but I'm the youngest of four girls, so I guess was, because had to grow up and, you know, have my voice. But you can learn it. And I think that's where we've got to say, that's where you've got to really beef up your interpersonal skills. And if you own the business, don't abdicate person who's answering the telephone to a bot. Don't. I know how much easier it is. I know it seems so much more efficient, but if that human being is not on the end of phone, there is no human connection to your business or company. Your first message of branding is that voice answers the phone. And it doesn't have to be in an office at a desk. It can be obviously - I mean remote, remote. However, it has to be a double down, delicious sort of person who sounds great and is kind and genuinely has empathy because we can hear or spot a fake in 30s. Jane Wurwand, thank you very much. Jane. Thank you so much, Katty.