The future of work won’t be about college degrees. It’ll be about skills.
That’s the new global reality shaping the job market. Highest performing organizations are reinvesting in their talent to fuel profits and business growth. By investing in training and development efforts, companies can enable their well-rounded employees to perfect their set of skills to succeed in their jobs.
The reality is that employers are looking for more than knowledge — they want skills, top-tier tech companies such as Google, Apple, and IBM have gone public “offering well-paying jobs to those with nontraditional education.” For these and many other companies, a solid, skills-centered non-formal education is all that separates ambitious students from top-paying jobs. A formal education is no longer the best path to launching a successful career.
The skills gap is widening and companies are struggling to find the right talent. A recent Gartner research supports this premise by highlighting that companies need to shift from external hiring strategies towards their current workforces and apply risk mitigation strategies for critical talent shortages. According to Gartner, most organizations are undergoing a digital transformation that directly impacts how they do business, yet 70 percent of employees have not mastered the skills they need for their jobs today, and 80 percent of employees do not have the skills needed for their current and future roles.
Re-skilling was also hot topic in this year’s Davos event. According to a World Economic Forum report released just ahead of the event, a total of 1.4 million US workers might lose their jobs over the next decade as a result of new technological changes and inadequate skills compete effectively. However, the report found, it will be possible to transition 95 percent of at-risk workers into positions that have similar skills and higher wages through re-skilling. The report further indicates that the rapid evolution of machines and algorithms in the workplace could create 133 million new roles in place of 75 million that will be displaced between now and 2022.
Too often, college degrees have been thought of as lifelong stamps of professional competency, perpetuating the notion that work — and the knowledge it requires — is static. The shift to a skills-based economy enables individuals to compete for employment based on what they can do for a company. At the same time it gives companies a tremendous opportunity to more efficiently integrate continual learning into work routines and implement reskilling and upskilling initiatives.
Here at Udacity we are working with global companies to help them:
- Launch an upskilling initiative across their company (communicate the mission, how employees can get involved, what is expected of them, duration and how success is measured)
- Develop flexible learning journeys to help employees reach the next level and prepare for tomorrow
- Encourage our stakeholder(s) to invest in frequent, regular communications about the employee experience
- Work collectively to employ incentives, learning models, leadership communications, and other motivational campaigns to drive completion rate of upskilling programs.
Udacity for Enterprise provides tailored, end-to-end learning paths for your company and entire workforce. We’ll help companies choose the right learning path for their workforce and help their high-performing employees continue to gain the right skills to excel and innovate.