Characterization of tasks and skills of workers, middle and top managers in the Industry 4.0 context

Abstract

This study intends to make a characterization of the main tasks and skills needed to face the Industry 4.0. Moreover, it gives special attention to the different company’s hierarchical levels. To achieve the goals of this paper, a methodology based on Collaborative Decision Making method was used. Firstly, thirty participants were interviewed to understand their point of views. Next, they were split into Group Works to refine the results. Finally, a Group Concordance took place to create the final list of tasks and skills. The skills were organized into four categories: Technical, Social, Methodological and Personal. The results show different requirements in each level. In the Workers level, due to the presence of more technical tasks, eight of the top ten skills belong to the Technical category. In the Middle Managers level, there are tasks of both leading and analyzing nature and thus the top ten skills needed are split through the four categories. Finally, in the Top Managers level, due to the presence of mainly strategy tasks, the top ten skills are split between the Methodological and Social categories. To the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to use a Collaborative Decision Making methodology to develop a set of tasks and skills that future work environments will demand on the different hierarchical levels of the organization.