By 2030, as many as 375 million employees, or roughly 14 percent of the global workforce, may need to switch occupational categories as digitization, automation, and advances in artificial intelligence disrupt the world of work. To put that shift into context, it will have about the same impact on the workforce as the Industrial Revolution. To prepare for this massive shift, organizations will have to put considerable effort and resources into reskilling their employees.

What Is Reskilling?

Reskilling refers to the process of learning new skills so someone can do a different job or training people to do a different job. Upskilling, reskilling, retraining, and even new-skilling are used interchangeably for the process. Training these workers requires teaching technical skills along with creativity, interpersonal skills, adaptability, and the capacity to continue learning.

Organizations Leading The Way

- Amazon: Fulfillment-center employees can take a 16-week certification program in classrooms located inside Amazon warehouses and, if the retailer hires them as data technicians, their wages will rise from an average $15 an hour to $30.

- AT&T: 180,000 employees have participated in its Future Ready program. Workers can assess their skills then pursue short-term badges, nanodegrees taking up to a year to complete, or master’s degrees in fields like computer science and data science offered in partnership with institutions such as the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Notre Dame.

These companies are just the beginning. Sixty-two percent of executives believe they will need to retrain or replace more than a quarter of their workforce between now and 2023 due to advancing automation and digitization. The Harvard Business Review even posits that this shift will require adding a chief skills and learning officer (CSLO) to the C-suite in the same way that the role of chief technology officer became commonplace over the past two decades.

Looking to reskill your workforce but not sure where to start? With courses offered in multiple languages and available on multiple devices, OpenSesame helps companies like yours develop the world’s most developed and admired global workforces. For more information about how OpenSesame can save you time and money by curating the right courses for your organization, contact us at [email protected] today.