Outlook 2023: Ready Every Employee

Capabilities are the new black. As businesses prepare for the future of work, learning is more pivotal for growth than ever. Over 50% of organizations are now prioritizing learning strategies and developing a culture of continuous learning to keep up with the changing environment. In the backdrop, the task for Learning and Development (L&D) and HR leaders is to foster behavior, mindset, and organizational knowledge that drives innovation while building technical skills required for transformation.

Mint, exclusive boardroom — "Outlook 2023: Ready Every Employee," in association with Coursera, constituted on March 3 in Bengaluru discusses the same. Dulles Krishnan, Managing Director, Coursera, chaired the event. Sumedha Bose, AGM, Mosaic Digital, An HT Media Group company, moderated the session. The boardroom was attended by the industry's top leaders from different business segments such as technology, IT consultancy, data management, and more.

The sole purpose was to discuss, assess and chart — why do workforce leaders invest in the human and digital skills that will continue to power the economy? How is skills-first learning helping leaders to transform business and scale? How are L&D leaders fostering the development of the workforce—and do so in a way that supports other key business priorities like capability-building, skill development, etc.

Sumedha Bose kickstarted the discussion by focusing on the continually evolving business needs of today’s workplace and how workers are expected to acquire new abilities at an undeniably fast pace to perform in their jobs. She believed that the 3 W’s- Work, Workplace, and Workforce- of an organization are modifying. Forces of change and rapid technological advancements are impacting three key components of work: the work itself, who does the work, and where work is done.

Moving on to the next topic of the emerging soft skills and knowledge gap, one of the leaders from a top consultancy firm elucidated that during the pandemic, the majority of workers lacked interpersonal, cognitive, and various other soft skills necessary for future development. Now, as the pandemic disappeared, it developed a new hybrid workplace culture. From “working from home” to “coming back to work”, this new normal is widening the soft skills gap that has already been there but is now prominently visible to organizations.

An L&D head from a leading technology giant shared his outlook on the challenges faced by his company in bridging the skills and knowledge gap. He felt that transformations are hard to execute and even harder to maintain. These include:

• Engaging and aligning several thousands of employees, regardless of their location and language
• Making learning accessible in their flow of work
• Utilizing reskilling to create new roles internally where recruiting is not simple

Upon this, Dulles Krishnan responded that an effective capability-building program is intrinsic to inspiring employees and aligning a team for a vision. He believed that “skills change but capabilities endure.” Encouraging a capability-led transformation is more crucial than reskilling or upskilling in the future of work. Across industries, businesses that welcome, foster, and develop enduring capabilities throughout their workforce will likely reap benefits, because their employees will have the mindset and attitude towards rapid learning that is needed to flourish in a competitive and evolving environment.

Echoing these sentiments, another L&D chief stressed the need for L&D leaders to work together with their people to build the workforce of the future; power a meaningful metamorphosis and maximize their potential. He also said that they are working with knowledge partners to identify job groups, plan competencies as per jobs, and provide layered learning through a blend of courses, certifications, and virtual programs.

Summarizing the discussion, Dulles Krishnan emphasized how Coursera is promoting the transition to a digital, knowledge-based economy. They are offering millions of learners, spanning all ages and demographics, a robust and diverse dataset to learn from- that goes beyond the traditional training of employees. His closing remarks were, “Coursera is delighted to be a part of the organization’s transformation journey and employees’ career trajectory.”