Learning To Work

Freya Owen, Senior Research Consultant at Arcadia Consulting discusses the impact of AI on the world of work.

Workers are facing the exciting and somewhat unnerving presence of AI in the workplace. In their 2023 Future of Jobs report, the World Economic Forum found that 75% of organisations are likely or highly likely to adopt AI over the next five years. In the same way that the computer rapidly integrated into the world of work from the 1980s onward, so too is it expected by many that AI will become an integral part of work for most if not all of us. 

Exactly how AI will change the world of work is uncertain. What we can say is that the impact of new technologies including AI in the workplace will continue to change the way we learn and help us and evolve the skills necessary for success.

AI is transforming the way we learn 

The 70:20:10 model of Learning and Development states that around 70% of our learning and knowledge accumulation comes from on-the-job experiences. This is particularly true for apprenticeship-style industries such as accountancy, banking and law, where juniors spend years ‘earning their place’, performing administrative tasks while accruing industry experience and learning off their seniors. 

In a world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) many jobs will be assumed by smart technologies. With this technology faster, cheaper and better than a junior, how do people gain experience and knowledge? 

One answer is that AI will enhance the way we learn, negating the previous necessity to spend years accumulating knowledge and skills. AI is not only enhancing the enjoyment of learning, through creating interactive, multimedia learner experiences, such as simulations, it is also optimising learning outcomes. Utilising algorithms and learner data, AI enables the creation of personalised learning paths, where content can be tailored to suit individual styles and preferences, strengths and weaknesses. 

Tailored recommendations can be made for specific courses, materials or activities that best suit individual learners’ needs. Furthermore, AI allows for the adjustment of pace, difficulty and content, based on real-time feedback and performance metrics. Taken together, this intelligent technology is expected to ‘significantly enhance the overall learning experience’ (expressed by 31% of respondents to Arcadia’s 2023 global L&D survey).

AI will also mean that jobs will evolve in a way that necessitates skilled-based hiring, rather than hiring based on experiences or suitability to a static job-description. Former IBM CEO, Ginni Rometty, explains how a ‘Skills First’ approach to hiring – seeking out candidates based on abilities to take on new challenges – is the way forward, as jobs and the workplace evolve at pace. She believes that companies would benefit from hiring people who are ‘Olympic learners’ and curious: “where someone starts their journey, should not determine where it ends”.

Evolving Skills for Success

So, what skills should companies be searching for? The increasing presence and influence of AI in the workplace is evolving the skills necessary for success. This has been highlighted by the  World Economic Forum in its  Future of Jobs 2023 report in which companies surveyed predicted that 44% of workers’ skills will be disrupted in the following five years. LinkedIn’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 describes how jobs won’t necessarily go away in the face of AI but that they will change as will the skills necessary to do them.

Aside from the obvious need to upskill on utilising AI, including on how to think critically about the outputs of platforms such as ChatGPT, the change brought about by disruptive technologies is increasing the need to build skills relating to both resilience and adaptability. In the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs Report, resilience, flexibility and agility, as well as curiosity and lifelong learning, were ranked in the most important group of skills for workers of the future. 

In its 2023 global L&D survey, Arcadia Consulting found a third of respondents ranked agility in their top three skills for the future, and many mentioned resilience in an unprompted question about the future workplace. While McKinsey’s  in-depth international study, looking into the skills necessary for the future workplace, found adaptability and coping with uncertainty to be associated with a respective 24% and 18% increased chance of employment.

In addition to resilience and agility, there is one other skill – or set of skills – increasingly in the limelight in the face of AI. It stems from the enduring desire for human connection. Amid widespread adoption of AI, the ability to be human – to connect and empathise, communicate effectively, to be authentic – is emerging as a key component of success. In a large-scale survey of professionals on LinkedIn, 92% of US executives agreed that people skills are more important than ever. In an unprompted skills-based question at the end of Arcadia Consulting’s 2023 global L&D survey, participants emphasised the importance of ‘human skills’ development including emotional intelligence, ‘being more human’, and empathy. It’s perhaps no surprise then that these so-called ‘soft’ skills are increasingly being referred to as ‘power skills’, a potentially more representative term of their importance and value.

Artificial Intelligence is undoubtedly changing both the way employees learn and what they need to learn. The disruption to the workplace caused by AI will inevitably alter the makeup of jobs, with implications for learning and development. The overarching impact on learning might be positive, with new technologies expected to transform the way we learn – improving learner engagement and experience and optimising learner outcomes. At the same time, the increasing presence of AI is changing the skills necessary for success in the workplace, increasing the need for critical thinking, resilience, agility and so-called ‘human skills’. Organisations that adapt to the changing workplace and workforce of the future, appreciating these new skills necessary for success will be the ones to succeed.