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Organizational Strategies Induced by the Fourth Industrial Revolution:

Workforce Awareness and Realignment

Chapter · January 2019

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-91334-6_45

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Organizational strategies induced by the fourth industrial
revolution: workforce awareness and realignment

Marcelo Gaspar1, Jorge Julião2, Mariana Cruz2

1
Escola Superior de Tecnologia, Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco, Portugal
2
Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal
[email protected]

Abstract. On the midst of this new Industrial Revolution, a disruptive change of

technological, economic and social systems is expected to take place in a near
future. As job losses and a further de-industrialization are feared with the advent
of such revolution, current debate focus on employees regarding integration and
cooperation with these technologies. In this context, significant changes are fore-
cast to impact the employment landscape over the coming years. New challenges
and new opportunities will arise in this digital landscape, demanding from future
workforce the ability to adapt and grow in such ground-breaking environments.
The objective of this research is to understand the main people-focused factors
related to the shaping of the fourth industrial revolution, as well as to assess Por-
tuguese local workforce awareness and realignment towards the Industry 4.0 par-
adigm.

Keywords: Industry 4.0; Organizational Strategies; Workforce Skillset

1 Introduction

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, is building on the third,
as it is characterized by the use of cyber-physical systems, which result from the fusion
of technologies that are blurring the lines between the physical, the digital, and the
biological spheres [1]. Considering that the term Industry 4.0 derives from a German
government initiative [2] to safeguard the long-term competitiveness of their manufac-
turing industry [3], it can be observed that the government, the academia and the indus-
try are invested to jointly prepare current and future work scenarios. Such mutual co-
operation, typical on a triple helix approach [4], comprises the collaborative relations
amongst those three institutional spheres to foster innovation and promote the skillset
realignment of local workforce towards the Industry 4.0 paradigm.

1.1 Background
Based on what occurred for previous industrial revolutions, new organizational strate-
gies will also be induced by the fourth, as work context and social interactions are fore-
seen to be soon drastically transformed.
2

In the first industrial revolution, an aggregate shift of employment and incomes from
agricultural to industrial activities took place alongside with a sustained increase in
output growths [5]. The combined effect of electricity as a new energy source with the
advances of both production technology and new management tools lead to the upsurge
of the second industrial revolution [6]. More recently, the third industrial revolution
took place based on the extensive use of electronics and information technology [7],
hence allowing current automation of manufacturing, as well as of related processes.
The third revolution came to solve the paradigm of mass-production which was run-
ning into difficulties in relation to growth rates, high levels of unemployment and trade
imbalances. As such, it allowed a transition from an era of mass-production to one of
flexible specialization [8]. It was this flexible specialization that allowed some degree
of manufacturing customization - by opposition to large scale mass-production - linked
to a new breed of flexible electronics-based automation technologies.
Currently, a fourth industrial revolution is taking place based on the preceding one.
Even though the mere designation of Fourth Industrial Revolution is not yet consensual
among current academia, industry or researchers, they all seem to agree that the related
digital key technologies and associated performances are expected to take place in a
relatively near future. Nonetheless, job losses and a further de-industrialization are
feared with the advent of such revolution. Thus, current debate focuses on the organi-
zational strategies induced by this fourth industrial revolution, namely on the workforce
awareness and realignment regarding their integration and cooperation with such
ground-breaking digital technologies and the related significances [9].

1.2 Motivation
The digital age, resulting from the fourth industrial revolution, will need new work
organisation and new work design to effectively prepare and adapt to the impact that
such challenges will comprise. Thus, in a (near) future characterised by increasing au-
tomation and real-time oriented control systems, it is key to ensure that people’s jobs
are good, safe and fair [2].
In this near future, the increase of digital interconnectivity is expected to promote an
emergence of new business models that will no longer be limited to geographic borders
and constraints. To such end, significant changes in business and work models are fore-
cast to impact the employment landscape over the coming years [1]. New challenges,
as well as new opportunities will arise, thus demanding from near future workforce the
ability to adapt and grow in such ground-breaking environments.
New technologies are envisaged as enabling workplace innovations such as remote
working, co-working spaces and teleconferencing, enforcing organizational changes
that may lead up to almost half of current workforce having to look for new work en-
vironments and accept flexible working arrangements in this near future [1]. In addi-
tion, theory related studies show that these technological changes may also cause mod-
ifications in mental work demands [10], thus affecting the way workers face and adapt
to such disruptive set of events.
Hence, the importance of identifying and promoting solutions regarding the shaping
of the new workers’ skillset, as well as to perceive the way companies are preparing
 3

and adapting to these (near) future challenges. To this end, current investigation aims
at contributing to the understanding of how the workforce awareness and realignment
is effectively taking place, regarding their integration and cooperation with the new
work paradigm.

1.3 Research question

According to the World Economic Forum [1], in less than five years from now, over
one-third of skills that are considered important in today’s workforce will have
changed. By the next decade, the new industrial revolution will promote an exponential
pace of change in every aspect of how we live and how we work. As what occurred for
the previous industrial revolutions, disruptive changes are expected to take place cu-
mulatively on technological, economic and social dimensions.
It is widely accepted that the major challenge of current industrial leaders is not on
the technology and its fast-pace evolution – it is the people, namely their co-workers.
Thus, while the digital technologies are rapidly becoming a commodity, it is known
that workforce needs continuous learning and adapting to effectively function in such
shifting work environments. Again, the real focus is on people, on their ability to react
and adapt while confronted with the new skillset that they will have to comprise to
adjust to the new industrial paradigm.
Following two previously pilot experiences that were carried-out focusing on the
assessment of a Portuguese Region local workers’ perceptions regarding their intercul-
tural communication skills needed to adapt to the Industry 4.0 model [11], [12], it was
realized that further research was needed to contribute to understanding the main peo-
ple-focused factors related to the shaping of the Portuguese fourth industrial revolution
workforce.
In this third pilot experience, focus will be put in the understanding of the same
Portuguese region recently unemployed skilled workers’ perceptions towards the chal-
lenges encompassing the new industrial revolution. Namely, the aim of current research
is to contribute to the understanding of two combined research questions:
 Are (Portuguese) recently unemployed skilled workers aware of the Industry
4.0 paradigm and its implications?
 Are (Portuguese) recently unemployed skilled workers driven to realign their
skillset towards the Industry 4.0 paradigm?

2 Methodology

Following both quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study combined different
types of records and methods of analysis in order to provide an exploratory account of
the envisaged findings, collecting and assessing the interviewees’ feedback whilst pay-
ing attention to their’ views and practices. The raw data was systematically analysed
and grouped according to the research objectives using clustering techniques, thus al-
lowing for comparing and correlating categories.
4

2.1 Focus group

This study focused on a group of recently unemployed skilled workers applying for a
job at a Portuguese industrial company. The company is located at an inland Portuguese
region, currently classified as low density and peripheral. This company employs over
200 workers and exports over 70% of their annual production to the global market. This
company also integrates a national industrial group that contributes to the Portuguese
world leadership in their niche market of products.
This exploratory research was based on focus group discussions, individual inter-
views and dedicated questionnaires and took place during a two-month period (end of
2017 and beginning of 2018), in which the participants were undergoing a preparatory
period of training to apply to the referred industrial company.
Cumulatively to the individual and group interviews, a self-developed survey ques-
tionnaire was used to identify the perception of these recently unemployed skilled
workers and their points of view on the Industry 4.0 paradigm. The information for the
development of the survey questionnaire was based on structured and semi-structured
interview guidelines. These guidelines were supported on previous studies focusing on
needs, analysis, feedback from informal in-depth interviews and discussions with local
workforce, as well as on the experiences of the researchers.

3 Findings

A recent global Industry 4.0 survey [13] conducted amongst over 2.000 respondents of
more than 26 countries (including Portugal) emphasises that, on what regards to the
new industrial revolution paradigms, the focus has to be put into people and culture to
drive transformation. This study concludes that while investing in the right technologies
is important, ultimately success or failure will depend mainly on a broad range of peo-
ple-focused factors.
Thus, in order to contribute to the further understanding of these human-related fac-
tors, current investigation focuses on a group of Portuguese recently unemployed
skilled workers and their underlying perceptions and attitudes towards the recent work
paradigms related to the new industrial revolution.

3.1 Participants characterization

To encompass the respondents’ perceptions and points of view in this Industry 4.0 in-
vestigation, a preliminary characterization of the group is needed to support, put into
perspective and contextualise their underlying
Thus, a brief outline of their personal attributes, e.g., their age and gender, as well
as their personal qualifications may help situating the group towards the maturity level
and professional expectations. Additionally, as the group has a common attribute of
being recently unemployed, their previous work experiences, as their personal work-
related abilities may also allow inferring about the participants’ attitudes and perspec-
tives towards new and future work opportunities.
 5

Age and gender

Even though all participants were categorised as recently unemployed, their age
range and their previous work experience was very varied. Hence, the age range of the
participants varied from the mid-twenties to the early fifties. On what refers to the gen-
der of the participants, the group presented a 41% male and 59% female distribution.

Academic qualifications
All participants shared higher education qualifications. Fig. 1 shows the distribution
of the group’s degrees. Thus, the minority of the individuals (6%) referred having a 3
school-year higher education degree.

Fig. 1. Participants’ academic qualifications.

On what refers to those referred holding a licentiate (65%), no distinction was made
towards identifying those having a 3-year degree and the ones having a 5-year degree
qualification. The individuals with the 5-year degree had their graduation previous to
the Higher Education Bologna reorganization process, which took place in the
2006/2007 academic year.
Finally, the participants referred having a master degree have attended a 2nd cycle of
studies additionally to their previous degrees. They all mentioned that such specializa-
tion was important to their performance in the future work environment they were ap-
plying to the above mentioned industrial company.

Previous work experience

On what refers to the participants’ previous work experiences, the respondents men-
tioned that all had previous work experience with varied time-periods. 58% of the en-
quired participants claimed having performed mainly high-level technical tasks in their
previous jobs, whilst the remaining 42% referred doing mainly regular, non-skilled
tasks, during their professional background.
6

Personal work-related abilities

When asked about «what characteristics you consider to be essential in defining your
profile to a potential employer? », the respondents mentioned mainly work related char-
acteristics, such as being a «hard worker», always «arriving on time», being «eager to
learn», amongst similar others.

3.2 ICT tools and skills

As above referred, the participants underwent a preparatory period of training on the
process of applying to the local industrial company. The preparation comprised regular
face-to-face training sessions and blended learning classes using virtual learning envi-
ronments. Online tasks were custom-designed in order to improve the trainees’ engage-
ment with these different forms of participation and to enhance their learning outcomes.
This latter aspect is key; as current industrial companies need digitally skilled workers
to make sure that they contribute to drive the change that is needed regarding the new
Industry 4.0 paradigm.

Personal computers vs. computers at work

Nowadays, industrial companies need to develop a robust digital culture that chal-
lenges their co-worker to continuously improve upon their online communicational and
functional skills.
On what refers to the participants that were performing a training period during their
appliance to the local industrial company, when asked if they owned a personal com-
puter, all of the participants referred having one with microphone and camera, which
allowed perceiving their ability to communicate using online Web 2.0 tools and envi-
ronments.
When talking about their previous work experiences, the participants were asked if
they had a computer allocated to them. Thus, almost all respondents (95,7%) confirmed
having had a computer at their workplace. However, when asked about such computers
having online communication accessories, more than half (63,6%) referred having
loudspeakers and less than half (45,5%) stated they also had a microphone and a cam-
era. This allows concluding that for the majority of the respondents, online communi-
cations were not a demanded task at their previous work experiences.

Bring Your Own Device

During the training period, the candidates were asked to bring a mobile communica-
tion device to participate on the dedicated online learning environment tasks. To that
end, all participants brought their own mobile devices to the training classes: 74%
brought laptops, 17% used their smartphones and 9% brought a tablet. All of the job
candidates participated with success on the online tasks.
It is widely recognised that the use of smart phones, tablets and laptops has become
an integral part of schedule of work in most organizations and corporations [14], and
the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) methodology [15], in which users make their own
personal devices available for company use, is also a commonly accepted procedure.
 7

This offers a wide variety of advantages with economical and usage benefits both for
the companies and the employees. However, in current experience, not all of the par-
ticipants were keen to bring their own computers to the workplace if it was required in
their future work environments.
Thus, even though all of the trainees have brought their own personal devices to the
company training, when questioned about «are you available to bring your own com-
puter to the workplace? », only the female participants answered more positively to the
question (84,6%), as can be observed in the chart of Figure 2.

Fig. 2. Participants’ answers to the question «are you available to bring your
own computer to the workplace? ».

When analysing the above-presented chart, it can be observed that almost all of the
female participants showed to be available to bring their own computer to the work-
place. whilst only half of the male answered positively to that question. On the opposite,
less than 8% of women stated not being available to bring their own computer to work,
whilst that percentage increased up to 30% for men.

In a nutshell
Current industrial companies need to attract, retain, and train digital natives and
other employees who are comfortable working in a dynamic ecosystem environment
[13]. Thus, on what concerns to the participants’ digital tools and skills, it is possible
to identify that, even though almost all of the participants owned a personal computer
with online Web 2.0 communication tools and skills, the same availability to use (and
bring) such skills and tools to the work place decreased significantly.
8

3.3 Industry 4.0 related skills

According to the World Economic Forum report [1], the future of jobs, skills and work-
force strategy will soon be drastically changed. The ability to correctly interpret and
perceive these changes will allow current and future workforce gain a higher level of
awareness to prepare and adapt and allow the organizational alignment with such work
paradigm change.
Thus, amongst the set of the future skills mentioned on that report, the relational,
intercultural & communicative, collaborative and ICT skills can be highlighted as core
work-related skills to invest-on, and to prepare accordingly to the envisaged work de-
mands. To encompass the participants’ perceptions and points of view towards such set
of skills, a brief survey was proposed to the group, highlighting the main skills identi-
fied in the above mentioned report.

Digital skills
Again, digital skills are key! Most reports on the Industry 4.0 paradigm point-out that
companies’ dependent upon the digital qualifications of their employees, who need to
be digitally savvy to carry-out ICT-based processes and services to improve the com-
panies’ performance and efficiency.
Even though the WEF [1] report refers to the ICT skills as mere basic skills, to per-
ceive the awareness of current study participants’ towards such skills, a quick question-
naire was designed using a dedicated Likert scale. This survey was then uploaded on
the training class online learning platform. The chart of Figure 3 shows the results of
the survey. It can be observed that, even though the Likert scale may comprise 5 con-
secutive levels [16], it is easily perceived that when the participants answer «neither
agree nor disagree» as opposite to agree (strongly or regularly), they mean not being
aware of such skills.

Fig. 3. Participants’ assessment to the statement «I’m aware of my digital skills».

Additionally, as observed on all of the remaining questionnaires, none of the (disa-

gree/strongly disagree) received any answers by the participants. Thus, as an apprecia-
tion of the questions asked to the participants, it should have been used a dual checkbox
to this type of assessment (agree or disagree) or, as an alternative, a 3 level Likert scale
 9

(strongly agree, agree, disagree). Thus, the data of the charts in this section will be
analyzed based on the latter proposal.
The observation of the chart on Figure 3 chart allows concluding that three-fourths
of the participants showed to be aware of their digital skills, with approximately 29%
referring being fully aware of those skills. However, a group of one-fourth of the par-
ticipants showed that they are still unaware of the importance of that skills have to their
future jobs, particularly when considering that they were undergoing a job application
process at the moment of the survey.

Collaborative work skills

The WEF [1] report includes the social skills of coordinating with others in the set
of cross-functional skills needed to encompass to the Industry 4.0 work-related para-
digm. Thus, a quick survey was proposed to the participants regarding their awareness
related to them about such skills. The results can be observed on the chart of Figure 4.

Fig. 4. Participants’ assessment to the statement «I’m aware of my collaborative work skills».

To be able to collaborate and cooperate with others is essential to function in current

organizational cultures and environments. As the mere scale of the tasks performed
nowadays by each individual in a company are usually related with group of co-work-
ers, the success does not usually rely on the single worker, but on the whole group being
able to function and perform together.
Most of the participants seemed to be aware (over 80%) of the importance of the
collaborative work skills, with a group of approximately 2 out of 10 not being aware of
their own collaborative and cooperative skills. Again, to what was mentioned on the
above comment on the digital skills, this is concerning considering that they were un-
dergoing a job application process when they participated in this quick survey.

Intercultural and communicative skills

When considering the design principles for Industry 4.0 scenarios, intercultural and
communicative skills are highlighted as one of the main principles to guarantee the
interoperability of such work paradigm [17]. Thus, the ability to communicate amongst
workers using digital resources to promote effective and efficient cooperation networks
10

is a key issue on which to plan in-service linguistic programs that should also take into
consideration the basic skills workers already possess, their perceptions on how they
learned foreign languages and suggestions on Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 technologies to
enhance workers’ performance. Thus, a quick survey was proposed to the participants
regarding their awareness related to their intercultural and communicative skills in a
working scenario. The results can be observed on the chart of Figure 5.

Fig. 5. Participants’ comment to the statement «I’m aware of my intercultural and

communicative skills».

As what occurred for previous categories (Figures 3 and 4), most of the participants
seemed to be aware (over 80%) of the importance of the collaborative work skills, with
a group of approximately 2 out of 10 not being aware of their own intercultural and
communicative skills. This further contributes to the fact that a significant number of
participants seem unaware of the role of such skills to their professional profile and the
effect on their future job.

Relational skills
The social relational skills, such as emotional intelligence or the negotiation abilities
were highlighted on the Future of Jobs report [1] as cross-functional skills in an Industry
4.0 scenario. To this end, it is important to identify and forecast skills and abilities that
show to be relevant not just in current work scenarios, but also that show to remain or
become so in a near future.
On what concerns the social skills classified as relational skills, the participants were
asked about their personal perception towards such abilities. Figure 6 presents a chart
with the results.
When compared to previous surveys of Figure 3 to 6, the results varied significantly.
Even though the majority of the group still refers being aware about their relational
skills, the group of participants unaware of such set of skills increased to almost the
double of previous categories (from 18% to 36%).
Again, as what was referred for previous categories (Figures 3 to 5), a significant
group of participants seemed to be unaware of the significance of the relational skills
 11

related to their personal performance in a future work scenario, with more than 3 out of
ten respondents to assume that lack of skills.

Fig. 6. Participants’ comment to the statement «I’m aware of my relational skills».

4 Summary and Conclusions

The purpose of this study was to further contribute to the understanding of the main
people-focused factors related to the shaping of the fourth industrial revolution in mod-
ern business environments that affect the new skillset alignment needed to fully imple-
ment and adapt to the envisaged Industry 4.0 paradigm.
Considering this set of skills, the aim of the research was mainly to assess local Por-
tuguese workforce awareness and realignment, namely assessing the viewpoints and
perceptions of recently unemployed skilled workers.
This study allowed concluding that the majority of the group interviewees’ referred
being aware of their main Industry 4.0 related skills. Nonetheless, a significant number
on the group of participants seemed to be unaware of the significance of such skills
when related to their personal performance in a work scenario
As future developments of this study, further research is needed to complement the
findings of this exploratory experiment. Additionally, the viewpoints of the companies
related to the same issue may also contribute to the understanding of local Portuguese
workforce awareness and realignment towards the Industry 4.0 paradigm.

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