Udemy Business has just released a short report entitled “2024 Global Learning & Skills Trends Report” which sets out the “top trends for the future of work.”
It advocates that organisations and business leaders need to:
- “Understand how to navigate the skills landscape and why it is essential to assess, identify, develop, and validate the skills their teams have, don’t have, and need, in order to remain innovative and competitive”
- Adapt to the rise of AI, including how generative AI and automation are disrupting the way we work as well as their role in supporting the move to a skills-based approach, and
- Develop strong leaders who can lead through change and build resilience across their teams.”
They see 5 elements to “help guide organisations to a skills-based approach:” skills insights, skills identification, skills gap analysis, skills development (including upskilling and reskilling through multiple delivery modalities (self-service, on-demand, and cohort-based) and tailored learning paths) and skills validation.
The report is quite company oriented, and therefore maybe of most interest to those in VET who are tasked with developing and maintaining relationships with industry and local employers.
One table is reproduced here. It is focused on necessary transitions and entitled:
How Companies Are Evolving to Operate as Skills-Based Organisations
| From: | To: |
|---|---|
| Competencies based on formal qualifications alone and a mentality of: “We need people who can fill these jobs” | A skills-based focus derived from learned knowledge and experiences, competencies, and a shift to: “We need people who have these skills” |
| Organisational structure based on functional hierarchy with jobs attached and with work organized across functional silos | Organisational fluidity with projects that can be delivered by leveraging a skills portfolio with work organized across skills groups |
| Limited to no learning and development technology infrastructure and limited interoperability to support an organisation wide skills strategy | Integrated learning and development technology stack to support a skills strategy with interoperability into the broader tech environment |
| Technology and access to “qualified” candidates are the barriers | Practices, processes, and organisational inertia are the barriers |
| Nice-to-have competencies for job clarity | Must-have skills for organisational scalability |
| Organisational competency framework updated once every few years | Skills framework that is constantly evolving and being adapted |
