How to win the race to develop 4th Industrial Revolution talent – The HR Director Magazine

Article by: Professor Stephen Wyatt - Corporate Rebirth | Published: 5 September 2021

Professor Stephen Wyatt - Corporate Rebirth3 September 2021

In 2015 the World Economic Forum (WEF) seized on the phrase the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR). 4IR is enabled by the adoption of new technologies (for example, Biotech, Nano, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics, etc.). However, it also presents the opportunity to address societal inequalities, tackle issues of sustainability and create a more human-centered future. It is driving fundamental changes in the context and speed of business and what businesses need to do to thrive.

The war for talent is over nobody won! The race is on. WEF 2020 Future of Jobs Report estimates that in the 5 years to 2025, 85 million existing jobs will have been displaced whilst 97 million new roles will emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms. The mindset of the war for talent assumed that there was an existing, if limited talent pool that companies had to fight over. The speed and scale of workplace changes being driven by 4IR far exceeds potential supply from traditional executive training and higher education sources; reskilling and upskilling, within the flow of work, are required at scale. The war for talent has been supplanted by the race to develop 4IR talent.

Race to develop 4IR talentEmployers expect to offer reskilling or upskilling to just over 70% of their employees by 2025; it is seen as an imperative for survival as businesses transform in 4IR. Investments at this scale must deliver a clearly identifiable return; increasingly the metric for training & development effectiveness is behaviour change on-the-job, measurably increasing individual or team productivity. Two-thirds of employers expect to achieve a positive return on their development training investment within one year. Development training at this scale is being designed to minimise disruption, both for the employee and for the employer; increasingly just-in-time-learning (or learning in-the-flow-of-work) is being adopted. Whereby training support is available on-demand as the employee faces a situation that they have not encountered before; much as at home we might go to Youtube for guidance on fixing the dishwasher at the moment we notice water flooding onto the floor. Training delivery is being crafted in such a way that the employee resolves the workplace issue during the training, not after. Such training applies to technical skills as well as collaboration and managerial skills. 94% of business leaders report that they expect employees to pick up new skills in-the-flow-of-work.

1: Nothing Changes Unless Behaviour ChangesWinning the race to develop 4IR talent requires designing learning pathways that are highly effective in achieving the behaviour change outcomes desired for the specific personnel being trained. Solutions need to take a holistic view of how to achieve that outcome and then assemble the most appropriate combination of media, platforms, content and formats.

Achieving behaviour change in adults requires simultaneously working in four domains:

Personal motivation of the learner is crucial to attaining a return on investment in training. It usually is high when individuals seek out development opportunities, especially if they are willing to self-finance. However, is often under developed for employees in mandated corporate programmes.

The importance, rate and scale of reskilling required by 4IR compels many companies to rethink their approaches to and investments in talent development. Learner-centric approaches are required whereby individuals engage in the ways that are most impactful for them with a suite of formats and media options, at a rate that suits them. To achieve the performance impact desired it is essential to address the four domains of behaviour change (1) Motivation, (2) Knowledge Acquisition, (3) Application on-the-job, (4) Support and Empowerment. AI will increasingly help the individual learners to define the most suitable pathways for them through the content and how to build strength in the four domains. In 4IR talent development is a strategic activity for the corporation. As such, the Chief People Officer will be increasingly supported by AI to inform ongoing talent development investments and content design as well as increasingly drawing on external expertise for diverse frontier subject knowledge and the design and curation of learning pathways. The increasing adoption of just-in-time learning combined with more fluid resource deployment will further merge the functions of role (job or project) assignment and individual learning; creating a more integrated approach to talent development.

Stephen Wyatt is the author of Management & Leadership in the 4th Industrial Revolution (Kogan Page)

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How to win the race to develop 4th Industrial Revolution talent - The HR Director Magazine