the W
Future P
The future of work is all about skills.
Employers and employees must ensure
continuous education, further training
and reskilling in the professions with
high talent shortages to be able to cover
for the future demand and maintain a
competitive skill level.
With the expected transformation of the labour market to a
more digitally oriented economy, the gap in digital skills needs
to be closed to ensure market relevance, employability and
therefore employment.
62%
of employees
consider themselves
as primarily
responsible for not
acquring new skills
The active promotion of a lifelong learning infrastructure is key
to reduce the gap between the over and undersupply of skills.
In addition, all actors in the market such as the Government,
businesses and policy makers need to continue focusing
on a working social dialogue and thinking about who is held
accountable for the resulting costs of re/upskilling.
We conducted a recent study with Boston Consulting Group
across nearly 5,000 workers which found that while workers are
generally optimistic about their ability to acquire new skills, there
is a lack of systematic evaluation of the potential gaps between
workers’ current skills and those they will need in future.
It also highlights a disconnect between employees’ willingness
to acquire new skills and the degree to which they will take the
initiative. Workers see the main obstacles to acquiring new skills
as the lack of time and the cost of training.
Meanwhile, interviews with executives reveal that most
companies grasp the importance of giving their workers
opportunities to acquire new skills. Yet they are still not investing
sufficiently and developing long-term horizons when it comes to
skills’ development.
The challenge is one of incentives; companies may be paying
to reskill employees who, as a result of changes later on, may
not continue working for them. Moreover, it is challenging for
companies to take decisions in the face of an uncertain future.
Yet while it may be hard to predict what skills will be needed
in the years ahead, companies cannot afford to make decisions