Mike is fed up of automation. Throughout his career, he’s been involved in numerous industries at high risk; in many cases, it’s actively lost him work. From the early technological changes of the high-street banking industry to more recent roles in customer service, he’s faced the cutting edge of automation – and he hasn’t always come out on top.

His first job role, working initially as a bank clerk for a major retail bank in the 1980s and 1990s, was the first to be impacted by advances in technology. To begin with, he says, there were plenty of things to do: he had daily face-to-face contact with customers who came in to cash cheques and manage their accounts. But when online banking came onto the scene, opportunities to speak to customers dwindled. Mike’s team was cut, and he was forced to move on.

Later roles had a similar trajectory. For a time, he worked in accounts for a magazine publisher: though this required less contact with the public, there was still a solid customer service side to the work. He spoke to the publisher’s clients and other businesses, dealing with invoices and other queries: he describes it, primarily, as a “problem solving role”.

“That was all fine,” he says. “Until they decided all of that stuff was going to go online. That’s when they culled quite a lot of staff – including me.” His most recent role, working with a transport regulator, met a similar fate: customer service and complaints handling was automated, and his team of eighteen was cut.

Despite his high level of exposure to automation, Mike has received little to no training to help him upskill or improve his job prospects; he is currently still looking for work. His last role involved some training – but it was more about “how to respond” than it was developing new skills or learning about different areas of his work: “everything used to come in by letter,” he says, “and then they changed the system so enquiries were done online, and people lodged their complaints themselves online as well.” Learning how to adapt was useful for him, he says. But it didn’t give him any particularly sellable new skills.

With so much experience in the area, Mike has plenty of opinions on how both businesses and the government could help those struggling with the impact of automation – including consumers who may be faced with a new and often confusing landscape.

Mike has also been working with a non-profit organisation, Resource Centre, which he says offers many of the retraining and learning opportunities that employers themselves should be offering.

After attending a seminar with the organisation, he signed up to receive advice and networking and learning events; he also has a caseworker who helps him search job boards, apply for new roles and prepare for interviews. His caseworker also helped him rewrite a CV: “I had no idea how to tailor my CV or upload it online,” Mike says. “They helped with that too.”

As employers, Mike believes they, too, should be providing seminars and training courses to help people keep up with new technology.

“Find out where your company is going, and in what sort of avenues automation is going to happen,” he says. “Tell your employer: I need to be trained on this.”