To Deal with Disruption, Focus on Workforce Education
If you’d like to know the archetype company that will survive and thrive in the 21st Century, read no further than the World Economic Forum’s 2016 “Future Workforce Strategy” report. The report discusses some fascinating trends that they have observed and companies have reported about disruption, the changing nature of jobs and the evolution of skills in industries.
Demand for Employment & Skill Stability
The key focus lies with two questions:
- Will there be a high or low demand for skills in a particular industry?
- What will the stability of skillsets in those industries be like?
The World Economic Forum’s 2016 “Future Workforce Strategy” report shows that almost no industry has both stability in future employment opportunities or skills. The growing trend we’re seeing is that skills that matter in today’s workforce will mostly be irrelevant tomorrow. The rest of the report goes on to highlight the most effective ways that companies can prepare themselves for a radically different world that has a need for fundamentally different skills. Companies today are beginning to realize that their inability to cope with challenges and grasp future opportunities is a consequence of the instability of their staffs’ skillsets, and how change is managed and implemented within their organizations. The majority of those surveyed in this report agreed that an “insufficient understanding of disruptive change” was the greatest barrier to the implementation of change.
Misunderstanding What “Disruptive Change” Means
The first problem the report addresses is the difference between “disruption” and “iterative change”. What the World Economic Forum calls “disruption” is more of an opportunity for progress and improvement, rather than radical alterations to industry practices. Disruption is change to an industry in radically unpredictable ways, such as the combustion engine to the horse, or the internet to mail, or printing to handwritten copying. Companies that think they are ‘in danger’ of being disrupted show a fundamental lack of understanding about what disruption actually is. If they see around them ways to do their jobs better, that is opportunity for iterative development, not necessarily outright disruption. What challenges incremental change tends to be bureaucracy, inertia and a lack of skills. On the other hand, what stands between a company and disruption is time and agility.
The companies that focus on constantly equipping their workforce to continuously learn and upskill themselves will be most agile in dealing with disruption, or lead the disruption themselves. So what kind of companies are best suited to face this uncertain future?
A Fork in the Road for Companies to Choose
Almost all the points in the 2016 report can be summarized into two types of companies that operate side-by-side in today’s economy.
- Companies that are focused on short-term hiring, including increasing the number of workers on contracts as opposed to full employment agreements. These companies do not have specific inclusionary practices or a set workforce diversity strategy. They look towards replacing workers in out-of-date or redundant skill sets and tend not to invest in skills and talent development.
- Companies who focus on long-term hiring and minimize the number of staff on contract agreements or short-term employment terms. They have clearly set out inclusionary hiring practices that account for a diverse workplace in terms of sex, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation. They put change management and long-term talent development front and center in their overall company strategies.
The data in the report is supported by multiple findings this past year that clearly demonstrate diverse, inclusionary companies which prioritize employee education and provide the security of a long-term working environment will in turn get more invested, creative, and risk-taking staff who are best prepared to deal with and implement radical change within a company.
To Deal With Disruption, Focus on Education
The World Economic Forum report concludes that beyond short-term course corrections, such as implementing diverse hiring practices, re-thinking the HR role, and using data more wisely, there are a number of long-term steps that companies should consider. All of them have one thing in common: Learning.
If there is just one takeaway from WEF’s report, it is the urgency and necessity for businesses to make lifelong learning a core part of their working cultures. Far too often when businesses face competitive pressure, the first programs to be cut are the Learning and Development ones, if they were ever seriously implemented. Making learning a central part in business strategy can be a challenge due to the relative intangibility of results. If done properly, learning happens continuously over months and can be difficult to measure ROI. But what this report and many before it point at is that a focus on education is the best defense against disruption and a future where job descriptions and skillsets are in constant flux.
Christopher Schrader is CEO and cofounder of Pathship — the world’s first intelligent learning system.
To see how your workforce can use Pathship’s network of experts and learning platform to handle disruption, schedule a chat with us.
