Conference Presentation, Panel
Visions for the Future: Leaders Shaping Tomorrow’s Workforce | Global Conference 2024
Milken InstituteManeet Ahuja, Jason Buechel, Debbie Dyson, Lisa Gevelber, Ravin Jesuthasan, Igor Tulchinsky, Robin J. Suthasin, Kathleen Murphy
- The labor market is expected to disrupt workplaces at an unprecedented pace, with organizations required to treat work design, skill development, and the agile redeployment of talent at speed as core strategic capabilities to bend both demand and supply curves.
- Automation and AI are predicted to substitute some activities while augmenting others, necessitating a shift where skills become the primary currency of work rather than degrees, with specific goals to democratize education through WorldQuant University and Google Career Certificates.
- Specific growth targets include OneTen's mission to secure 1 million jobs within 10 years (122,000 achieved in 4 years), WorldQuant Education Technologies launching micro-classes on any topic in minutes, and Whole Foods expanding from a few annual store openings to 30-plus locations.
- Demographic and educational data indicate that only about a third of Americans will obtain four-year degrees, leaving 80 million excluded from top jobs, while WorldQuant University anticipates a student body split evenly between developed nations and regions like China and Africa.
- Reskilling initiatives focus on moving talent from sunset to sunrise roles, with a UK Financial Skills Commission study suggesting a potential saving of £50,000 per employee, alongside Google's plan to fund nonprofits for AI training and launch an AI Essentials course.
- OneTen will implement accountability measures by requiring coalition partners to submit hire, promotion, apprenticeship, and retention data twice annually, utilizing a balanced scorecard to compare performance across companies like Delta and United.
- Future workforce challenges include a significant portion of Americans not knowing their work schedule for the following week, high rates of degree holders in non-degree jobs, and the need to equip workers to use AI as an equalizer to bridge experience gaps.
- Sector-specific strategies involve Whole Foods leveraging AI for ordering and upskilling to create an "always on" experience, while a large insurance company recently achieved a 600% productivity increase among developers and a financial services firm positioned 50% of its capacity for customer service.
- Risks and conditions for success include the necessity for organizations to constantly elevate human capability amidst accelerated change, the requirement for workers to learn AI tools to realize their potential as equalizers, and the expectation that staying the course on vision leads to effortless upskilling.