Trend 4
Retrain
Technological change is widening the skills gap. Retraining and empowering your people — not recruitment — is key to closing it.
Generative AI has arrived, the metaverse is lurking around the corner and the third iteration of the web is about to take shape. Like all technological breakthroughs that have come before (and each one that’s yet to arrive) they’re going to reinvent operations, processes and entire industry segments while simultaneously reshaping consumer preferences and customer behavior.
These changes can, and typically do, cause disruption, but they also create opportunities and facilitate new solutions.
However, for many organizations, simply attempting to keep pace creates challenges they believe can only be overcome through recruitment and entering a war for talent — as the continuing shrinking of the labor pool on both sides of the Atlantic over the past three years can attest.
Yes, technological strides are creating new professions, while redefining or even putting at risk the continued existence of others. And these developments should be taken seriously by every C-suite. But these giant steps forward are also revolutionizing learning and skills development to the point where delivery can be tailored to reflect individual learning needs.
And this is key, because recruitment, unless it’s part of an enterprise-wide approach to upskilling and reskilling, runs the risk of creating capability or knowledge silos within an organization and severely damaging business resilience.
From pandemics and geopolitical risks to inflationary pressures and economic uncertainty, recent events should have highlighted the importance of strength in the face of adversity. And while the business world has taken steps to reinforce their operations, that reinforcement begins with the existing workforce. It’s empowered people, rather than tools and technologies, that will ultimately decide how flexible, agile and resilient a business really is.
Clearly, investing in your existing workforce is more cost effective than a recruitment drive, but doing so also strengthens company culture and reduces employee attrition while increasing productivity and increasing the success of any future project aimed at adopting new tools or technologies.