The Skills Gap We Created

Tonight, I was walking around the city, no real destination, just passing by stores and shops. What struck me was the line-up of people in various stores and shops. The exact same pattern everywhere: people in line, on their phones. Now, this is nothing new of course. We’ve seen this kind of behaviour more and more over the last couple of years. Why it struck me today was that I just had read IBM’s report on closing the skills gap. There has been some chatter around it on LinkedIn today (see thread and link to report here). There is a ton of good insight and surprising facts. Two things really jumped out at me:

First, approximately 120 million professionals need to be reskilled to deal with AI and new digital business environments. Yet the biggest gaps are not digital skills, but behavioral skills. And here I am walking around the city, seeing people, young and old, in an environment in which they could easily practice these behavioural skills. Yet, everyone chooses to hide behind their phones. Isn’t it ironic that the very technology that is disrupting not just our personal lives, but our professional careers could be the very reason that we actually have these behavioural skills gaps? 

The second fact that stood out to me has to do with the question who’s responsible for reskilling. The report states: "In addition, many executives tell us it’s not the enterprise’s responsibility to provide reskilling and retraining. According to a recent survey on AI and ethics, only 38 percent of CHROs say their organizations have an obligation to retrain or reskill workers impacted by AI technology. If nations aren’t prepared for the challenges associated with adopting intelligent automation and most CHROs don’t believe reskilling is the organization's responsibility, what is the path forward?" Clearly, things need to change in the educational system, before workers join organizations. But at the same time, I feel very strongly about an organization's responsibility to retrain if they want to stay competitive. We live in interesting times and learning professionals, in my humble opinion, have a responsibility to consult organizations when it comes to reskilling. We are in dire need to address these challenges head-on and offer employees the best possible options to fill the skills gap. 

Let’s take a step back, understand employees’ needs and personalize training, reskill staff as needed, cross-train them and find roles within our organizations that might be a better fit for them. It’s not rocket-science, but someone has to take responsibility!