2024 employee benefits & workplace predictions: Reskilling & upskilling
Industry leaders share their thoughts, comments, and concerns about the reskilling and upskilling of today's workforce and how it will affect their 2024.
The workforce is ever evolving, especially with five generations of the workforce working together. There is also new tech enhancing the jobs that employees might not be familiar with, like AI. But how does one keep up?
Industry leaders share their thoughts, comments, and concerns about the reskilling and upskilling of today’s workforce and how it will affect their 2024.
The definition of skills is unclear
HR has turned its attention to skills in a big way in 2023. Yet often the definition of ‘skills’ is unclear, but there tends to be a focus on technical/functional skills as organizations grapple with the pace of new and emerging skills. The focus on technical skills has helped HR hire people who can hit the ground running and deliver quickly. Yet the pace of change and the emergence of ever new skills will mean that organizations will fall into a constant race to find people with the latest and greatest technical skill of the day. In 2024, we will see the pendulum swing to a focus on behavioral skills; identifying individuals who have the agility to learn new skills, who can problem solve and communicate their findings to others. In doing so, a focus on recruiting, developing, and mobilizing talent with the soft or behavioral skills to succeed in the future will become the greatest competitive advantage to HR.
Lucy Beaumont, Solution Lead, Manager & Leader, SHL
The “now of work” skills become critical
The pace of change in the world — and in the workplace — is faster than ever before. Technology, globalization, and other forces are rapidly reshaping industries and jobs. It’s no longer about the future of work, it’s the “now of work”. To thrive in this environment, we must develop strong self-leadership capabilities — it’s the key skill for the future of work in 2024. Employees at all levels will be expected to demonstrate tremendous self-motivation, self-care and energy management, and personal accountability as organizations rely on individuals to manage their growth and direction.
Alanna Finke, SVP Content and Head of Learning, meQuilibrium
Skills over degrees
Hiring managers, talent acquisition leaders, and job seekers will see a continued focus on candidates who can demonstrate what they know. The ability to showcase your skills will reduce pedigree bias, which means hiring leaders will focus less on where a candidate previously studied or worked. At Karat, we focus on assessing candidate’s skills with live coding exercises, project discussions, and adaptive technical assessments for software engineering roles. Other industries incorporate things like writing samples and case studies into the hiring process.
Don Gannon-Jones, VP of Content, Karat
In-demand tech and soft skills
A recent study found that workers with in-demand tech and soft skills will find themselves in high demand, specifically for organizations in the IT industry (34%) looking to hire. The top skills I’m looking for in technologists and software engineers in 2024 are soft skills, such as creativity, perseverance, being bold and questioning the status quo. Technologists with these skills will be able to learn and adapt to the ever-changing needs of a growing business and help move an organization forward. Ultimately the ability to connect the dots between business goals and technical work is what is needed and what I’d most like to see exhibited in potential talent and new hires.
Preeti Kaur, Senior Vice President of Engineering, Honor
”Brain Drain” will look different from previous decades
The “brain drain” phenomenon of knowledgeable workers retiring out of the workforce and leaving organizations with information gaps looks different today with the normalization of remote work, millennials and gen Z making up much of the workforce, and fundamental changes to workflows in the digital world. Millennials weren’t gaining the historical knowledge quickly enough from baby boomers and the ‘in-demand’ skills of the modern workforce weren’t exiting the organization with retiring baby boomers – namely technical skills and savviness interacting with enterprise products. However, organizations today are losing the softer people skills – negotiation, persuasion, continuity building, interpersonal communication and more. Younger generations and especially those accustomed to remote work aren’t flexing those soft skill muscles, and these aren’t skills that can be augmented by AI or other technology. In 2024, organizations will need to overcome the latest brain drain, that of soft “human” skills exiting and being replaced by technical ones.
Hubert Palan, founder & CEO, Productboard
Learning and development
While hard skills have always been thought to be priorities to leaders, we will see a shift in 2024 focusing on effective coaching to enhance human-centric power skills such as self-awareness and improved self-regulation.
Greg Hill, Chief People Officer, Exos
The age of AI
Upskilling and reskilling the workforce will be a top priority across industries as organizations continue their digital transformation agendas. Employees across IT, fields sales, customer service, manufacturing and R&D will all be directly impacted by tech innovations driving new ways of working. Employers play a critical role when it comes to the challenging task of upskilling and reskilling staff in the age of AI, so investing in L&D technology, training and skills development will pay off for them in the new year. Both the C-suite and employee groups see upskilling and reskilling as a main enabler to drive continuous innovation and growth.
Michael Hendrix, partner, Infosys Consulting
Cooperative skill building
There will be a rise in organizations giving employees the time, ability to choose, and recognition for developing skills.
Educating and developing employees not only strengthens connection and increases their sense of fulfillment, it also dramatically boosts retention and innovation. Skill building helps employees gain additional training and education to excel in their jobs and develop their careers. In 2024, we’ll see an increase in employers encouraging and giving time and options to help employees develop more skills in order to benefit both the organization and the individual. Skill building has the potential to bolster growth, inclusion, and a sense of community. But it doesn’t end there — recognizing people during and after their training and growth improves the employee experience and reinforces the value of new skills.
Mindi Cox, chief people officer, O.C. Tanner.
Prioritize development and plan for career growth
The coming year should be defined by laying out clear career paths, providing the right resources, and ensuring everyone has the support they need. Consider introducing mentorship programs, ongoing learning opportunities, and opportunities to exchange regular, constructive feedback.
Jenny von Podewils, co-CEO, Leapsome
Performance reviews
As we enter 2024, it’s important to acknowledge the possibility of a recession next year. The pressure to achieve more with fewer resources will persist. HR teams will either remain small or become even smaller, resulting in more employees per practitioner and reduced hiring. This, in turn, implies a slower pace of talent acquisition, with organizations potentially requiring fewer TA reps. The bottom line will hold significantly greater importance, prompting companies to scrutinize performance more closely. Anticipating potential layoffs, performance reviews will become crucial, demanding HR to provide quantifiable answers to questions about underperformers.
Josh Merrill, CEO and co-founder, Confirm