The world of work is undergoing rapid socio-economic and technological change. Against a backdrop of global disruption, every aspect of life and work has been affected by the pandemic, geopolitical conflict, climate change and a cost-of-living crisis. https://www.crossroadsfeedandseed.com/ The workplace of the future must evolve and education systems must adapt to the changing needs of the labour market and employer expectations.
From the Great Resignation to the Reskilling Revolution – one thing is certain, the status quo between education systems and the labour market is undergoing a seismic shift.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 highlights the range of job roles and skills that will increasingly be in demand. According to the report, 69 million jobs will be created in the next five years, driven by new technologies and the green transition. But these gains will be offset by 83 million jobs being put at risk by economic pressures and automation. This means one-quarter of today’s jobs will be disrupted in the next five years.
Andreas de Neve, CEO, TechWolf
“To overcome inherent biases, organizations should focus on the skills required to excel in a role with an understanding of a candidate’s potential, rather than a prescriptive approach to career paths or qualifications. Talent managers should keep an open mind to alternative routes to acquiring skills and be aware and attuned to less conventional career paths and the value of diverse life circumstances when assessing potential candidates.
“In developed economies, a typical career path was to attend university, front-load formal accreditations and use that same skill set in the same industry (if not the same company) for the next 40 years. Shifts in technology, global trade, labour markets and other macroeconomic factors mean the job-for-life concept is dwindling in favour of less traditional employment relationships
‘Upskilling is truly where it is’
Ben Wright, Founder and Chairman at Velocity Global
“I’m personally of the belief that upskilling is truly where it is. You can go to a university or college, and you can learn a lot of core and basic skills. You can learn basic coding, you can learn how to work in Excel and you can work how to learn how to write proficiently. But the actual skills to do the job still need to be taught.
“Today, places like Silicon Valley have an advantage are they’re being taught oftentimes by professors or people who have already worked in those spaces. And so you are coming out of that education system with a slightly better experience – even if it’s by osmosis.”
‘What needs to happen is evolution’
Sean Hinton, CEO, Skyhive technologies
“Education is having a run for its money, although this is nothing new compared to the last industrial revolution in the early 1900s. What needs to happen is evolution, evolution of credentialing, modelling. But those credentials are in place typically from regulated occupations that are enforcing those credentials. We need to be having engaged conversations across government regulatory bodies, industry associations, as well as academia and other types of training institutions.
Real opportunity to rethink the entire landscape’
Sultan Saidov, Co-Founder and President, Beamery
“I definitely think there’s a future not just for higher education, but also for the value of in-person learning unless it’s online learning. I think it’s going to be important for us to adjust what we leverage in-person time for, including in higher education, and also how we think about the curriculum of these things. There’s been a lot of talk around the connection of learning and work and how do we think about unbundling what skills we want to teach and some of the top skills that we see emerging as in demand or sunrise skills as it’s far too often in areas that are broader, such as, problem solving, creative thinking.