Remember when we were scared of escalators?

What excites me on the other hand, is the way our world is changing due to technology. But, it seems, that scares many people.

This dawned on me on two different occasions in the past week. Firstly, when giving a talk on how technology will change the workplace at one of Aon’s Breakfast with Benefits events (video available soon, I am told). Secondly, at Mercer’s breakfast on ‘How digital is transforming employee engagement’.

At both events the conversational chatter was along the lines of ‘isn’t it scary?’.

Generally, human beings have been scared of technological or machine-driven change the first time they experience it. Try searching ‘people using escalator for the first time’ to see what I mean. My favourite is the one from Lagos.

I bet it wasn’t any different in 1911 when London Underground installed its first escalator. Except they didn’t have video smart phones back then to capture the mirth.

So now we look forward to a world where we control and access everything around us via a small device, perhaps a phone, perhaps a watch, perhaps a chip in our brain (yes, that is happening already).

Did you see the Bloomberg story this week about the smartest building in the world? The Deloitte office in Amsterdam is one of the clearest examples of the 'internet of things' we have seen.

And it is all geared to make employees more productive, attract talent, and make the workplace sustainable.

The new reward and employee benefits platforms and Apps that I am seeing coming onto the market are all using elements of these new ways of thinking. They are focussing on personalisation, connectivity, engagement and experience.

Change might feel daunting right now, but if we take it step by step (to go back to the escalator analogy) we will soon forget we were ever nervous of it. And perhaps we'll even laugh at ourselves in hindsight.

Debi O'Donovan
Founder
Reward & Employee Benefits Association (REBA)

Twitter: @debiodonovan @REBA_global