Professor Andrew J Scott: Work and learning over a longer life

London Business School professor and co-author of The 100-year life, Andrew J Scott, shares why he is optimistic about the prospect of a longer working life and an increased capacity for knowledge and skills. Followed by a Q&A with facilitator Robert Rowland Smith. 

Key points

• Longevity and technology are two trends changing the world around us. We are moving towards a multi-stage life, with career transitions spending 60 years. 
  
  
• A longer career will drive investment in education and learning, such as lifelong learning, upskilling, reskilling, 'long-life' learning and unlearning. 
  
  
• Humans need to get better at being humans as machines get better at being machines. Technology can't automate non-routine, non-analytical tasks - i.e. tasks that utilise our human skills.
  
  
• Employers can actively respond to employees extending their careers by enabling multi-stage lives, supporting health through products and work, championing lifelong learning and ditching ageism to leverage age diversity. 
  
  
• Rethinking education and learning delivery is imperative to focus human skills, drive and promote adult learning and achieve inclusivity. 

More about Andrew J Scott

Andrew J Scott is Professor of Economics, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research and a consulting scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Longevity.

His research focuses on longevity and an ageing society and has been widely publish in leading journals in economics and health.

Andrew's book, The 100-Year Life, has been published in 15 languages, is an Amazon bestseller and was runner up in both the FT/McKinsey and Japanese Business Book of the Year Awards.

Future Talent Conference 2021 

This talk was filmed at the virtual Future Talent Conference 2021 on Transforming Skills and Inclusion. 

Learn how to accelerate your thinking about how we can transform the capabilities in our organisations to keep pace with the speed and scale of change. 

The conference explored questions including: 

• What skills do we need to thrive?
• How can cognitive diversity support a more creative approach to inclusion?
• How has the talent landscape been transformed?

Our speakers included historian David Olusoga, Harvard Professor Francesca Gino and entrepreneur, CEO, writer and keynote speaker Margaret Heffernan. 

Watch more videos from the Future Talent Conference 2021 here.

The future of work: longer lives, lifelong learning and transformation

Living for longer provides opportunities across our personal and professional lives. 

Forward-thinking organisations recognise this and are adapting their approach to talent attraction and development. There is a renewed focus on investing in new skills, particularly uniquely human skills - that can't be automated. 

For 20 years, firstly as Changeboard and now as Future Talent Learning, we’ve explored the skills, mindsets and behaviours people need for the changing world of work. 

Find out how you can upskill your employees with the most in-demand human-centred skills, which can be applied and practised in the flow of work.