What Does Talent Look Like in the Age of AI?

AI is rapidly transforming every industry in the world today. Organizations are acknowledging its significance and relevance in every sphere of the workplace—and more so, in the areas of hiring, retaining, and reskilling of talent. As the potential of AI becomes increasingly prominent, leaders must identify gaps in talent and work towards creating a meaningful human-AI collaboration to deliver value.

The creation of this augmented workforce, where humans partner with machines, will not just occur on hiring younger talent well-versed with the technology. It relies on establishing a journey of continuous learning for the entire workforce.?

The AI Talent Transformation?

Rethinking Talent as AI Rises

AI and intelligent automation has made the global skills gap pretty clear. The WEF predicts that?44% of workers’ skills will be disrupted between 2023-2028. With generative AI models getting more evolved, this number could be much greater. It is also expected that new technologies will?disrupt 85 million jobs globally between 2020 -2025 but at the same time, create 97 million new job roles.

Here is a survey of executives as to how AI will transform and redefine conventional job roles.?

The AI Talent Gap?

According to Gartner, the highest demand for talent with AI skills in the last few years has not come from the IT department, but from other business units? such as marketing, customer service, finance, and sales. Organizations are already automating many tasks like summarizing everyday news, offering personalized recommendations, providing automated chatbot service to customers, and so on, so employees can focus on core tasks.

Fostering an AI-Driven Workforce?

Does becoming an AI-driven company mean deploying algorithms and hiring data scientists? It goes far beyond that. Your organization’s AI strategy needs to be customized as per business objectives and workforce. This starts by cultivating an AI-driven mindset. For instance, if you are an ecommerce company, the way you leverage data to meet your sales goals will matter. You may choose to deploy AI models to recommend tailored offerings to your customers or analyzing and predicting buying behaviour and so on.

Riding the AI Talent Wave

Powering your Workforce with AI Skills?

It all starts with a well-designed curriculum for executive education. For this, organizations need to conduct skills assessment tests and develop effective training programmes. The objective of these learning programs must be to understand how AI can facilitate existing talent and augment capabilities. This can include classroom learning, social learning, and on-demand learning.??

Collaborative AI Talent Ecosystems

As per the Hiretual survey, 67% talent acquisition professionals adopted new technologies during the Covid-19 pandemic. These include applicant tracking systems, AI sourcing tools, video interview software, and other collaborative tools. Developing such ecosystems where talent acquisition can work in sync with AI can truly help accelerate and optimise the hiring process.?

Fostering AI Diversity?

As per LinkedIn research, 65% of organizations have set in place diversity initiatives, while 78% focus on diversity to reinforce their cultures. AI algorithms are allowing companies to bring to forth talent that may have been overlooked, which promotes inclusivity. The algorithms also allow for hiring personnel to scan through a wider database and eliminate personal biases while screening.?

Building a Future-Proof Workforce

Promoting Continuous AI Learning

As AI reshapes industries, companies are struggling to adapt. However, proactive organizations are taking the rapid advancements as an opportunity to evolve. It is time that companies begin to promote continuous AI learning with a learner-centric approach, design thinking, and more.

AI Talent Retention Strategies?

Hiring and retaining AI talent is no child’s play. It requires classifying skills and knowing how to acquire them and anticipation of employee needs. While seeking talent from outside can be one approach, developing AI talent within is the need of the hour. For retaining AI talent, organizations need to ensure that the employees are engaged and given purpose-driven roles keeping their personal career growth in mind.

Keeping up with the Future?

AI has significantly transforming the HR department. Eightfold AI’s report The Future of Work: Intelligent by Design revealed that most HR professionals surveyed are already using AI for employee records management (78%), payroll processing (77%), and recruitment and hiring (73%). As AI?takes roots deeper, it is time for organizations to re-examine their policies to adapt to the shift. Ultimately, organizations need to stay future-proof by cultivating a culture of continuous learning and growth.

End Note

It is true that AI and intelligent automation can replace and change many job roles, however, the idea is to work in tandem with technologies for the greater good. For this purpose, reskilling existing talent via continuous AI learning can make organizations future-ready. It is to be borne in mind that AI adoption is not just limited to the technological aspects, as AI alone cannot deliver what humans can.

Hence, AI transformations need to start with a people-centric approach and the very culture of the company.?

Are you excited to learn more about AI in the workplace? I am curious to hear from HR executives and job-seekers.