Organizations are preparing for the speed and impact of technological transformation. To better understand how leaders view the effects of technology on their workforces and society, strategy+business looked back on two years’ worth of interviews conducted with CEOs from around the world. For more insight, see PwC’s 23rd Annual Global CEO Survey.
We need to help people understand that working for the same company in the long term, right up to the age of 65, no longer makes sense….We must change our approach and be very flexible, because all this transformation will erase many traditional views that we have about labor relations.”
2. Focus on your existing workforce
“I saw an interview with the Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, where he was asked, ‘Where do you get these techies from?’ And he said, ‘I hired the people you fired.’ And this can be done. If somebody gives employees the capability to reinvent themselves, gives them some training, they will do it. That’s what we found. We hired some new people but we reskilled our old people and built this whole cadre to re-architect our internal technology.”
3. Ensure transparency
4. Address foundational issues
You need everyone to be trained before you can start talking about upskilling. You can’t upskill what is not skilled. The quality is fast deteriorating. We have very smart people who, given the opportunity, would do well. We need to begin to think seriously of having the right workforce for the Fourth Industrial Revolution era.”
5. Redefine education
“At Stanford, many years ago, we thought of part-time education as primarily focused on getting people master’s degrees. Today, it’s a certificate — three courses in machine learning, three courses in cybersecurity and blockchain — that can allow people to upskill themselves broadly across the field. And I think we’re going to have to continue to do that. The AI revolution’s going to force us to.”
6.Provide more flexibility
7. Automate the redundant
“[Robotic process automation] is the core of upskilling. If we liberate people from their repetitive chores, they have time to learn new things, to connect better with customers, to develop their soft skills.”
8. Grow the entire company
9. Make the complex easier
“I’m interested in creating a user interface that’s more intuitive so someone doesn’t have to have a four-year college degree to be productive in our factory environment….One possible scenario is using virtual reality glasses to communicate instructions. An employee would only have to know where to look and how to gesture to carry out complex work. They will be productive in a computer-enabled environment. That’s where the future is.”
10. Start from the top
“The power of everything that’s being developed in technology has to be obvious from the top to the bottom of the organization. You can’t outsource that level of understanding. And it’s not just technological learning; it’s business model learning. Mostly you need to learn what you can do with this technology.”
