AI’s Skills Shake-Up—What It Means for Your Team

One Thing is Clear, AI is Revolutionary

AI transforms our intellectual property, services, innovation, and human capital practices. We must transform our workforce, learning and development, culture, and speed of innovation. Just as digitization changed everything, AI is set to do the same across all aspects of work and life. That's why learning AI skills and embracing its use is key to staying ahead.

"Companies with the highest ‘productivity advantage’ will win"

Josh Bersin

As part of our recent virtual summit, an expert panel discussed various aspects of AI's impact on organizations, talent, and the challenges and opportunities related to upskilling, in the context of evolving job roles. Here are some highlights from our experts.

Efficiency Gains in Talent Acquisition?

AI will play a role in skills measurement with tools used to infer what skills are held across the organization. However concerns exist about implementing AI-based tools, and so organizations should follow best practices to ensure any tools used for selection mitigate bias, clearly explain AI usage, and consider legal, ethical, and reputational risk.

It is important to recognize that assessment tools will still play a major role in measuring skills in those areas that AI cannot with the same accuracy, such as personality, empathy, ambition, learning agility and manual tasks.

“We have to be careful not to implement something without a deep understanding, or knowing how it could impact us in the future.”

Dr Johan Julin, Senior Manager of Talent Assessments at the LA County Department of Human Resources

Upskilling Talent: How L&D Teams Can Ride the AI Wave

Upskilling in skills around AI will be essential for most businesses. Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, there has been a 20-fold increase in the number of job postings requiring generative AI skills¹, and candidates without AI skills are in danger of being overlooked.²

On the panel, Dr Tiffany Poeppelman, Director of Career Development at LinkedIn discussed LinkedIn's AI skills framework—designed to cater to varying levels of AI knowledge needed across different roles. The framework, derived from insights from LinkedIn's extensive data, categorizes AI skills into distinct levels to help organizations prioritize their training efforts based on job roles and technical requirements.

At the base level this will help employees be AI-literate and able to interact with AI. At higher levels, it will require people with the skills to build, train and specialize in certain areas of AI, and these skills will be of high value. As LinkedIn’s own research highlights how skills are projected to change by 50% by 2030, and generative AI is likely to accelerate that change up to 68%, having a plan in place for skills development will be vital, prioritizing employee career development.

Embracing AI Has Huge Potential for Organizations and Its Leaders

The discussion underscored AI's transformative potential in workforce development and organizational efficiency. Despite uncertainties, there was optimism about how AI could enhance talent mobility and career development if implemented responsibly.

Organizations will rely on developing the right leaders to embrace this change and decide when, where, and how best to leverage AI to meet goals in their given context.

Check out our full Virtual Summit Event to watch the full panel discussion on the skills revolution together with a keynote from Josh Bersin, Q&A and more.

References:

¹https://hiring.monster.com/resources/blog/charting-the-future-emerging-job-roles-in-the-age-of-ai-and-chatbots/

²https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2024/05/19/5-reasons-careers-must-adapt-to-or-die-from-ai-skills-experts-say/