Companies are 'significantly underinvested' in reskilling workforce
Erica Volini, Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Leader, joins Yahoo Finance's Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi to discuss how companies are re-skilling their workforce amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Video Transcript
BRIAN SOZZI: All right. Well, while we're all working from home, there's been a lot of attention on technology and the tools to make it happen. But a brand new study from Deloitte finds a lot of companies aren't going far enough to train their people to handle this new reality. Erica Volini is Deloitte's global human capital leader and joins us now. Erica, good-- good to see you again. So what did you-- what are some of the key findings from this report?
ERICA VOLINI: I think number one is what you just mentioned. Only 16% of our respondents-- we had over 9,000 people respond to this survey across 119 countries-- only 16%, one in six, are going to significantly invest in the-- the continuous learning needed for workers to reinvent themselves. And that's pretty scary in light of what we're facing right now, where every job, every role needs to be reinvented to deal with the implications of COVID-19.
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Erica, you know, Fed chairman Jay Powell, in comments over the past few days, talked about these long lockdowns and what they could do to workers. And he was saying that perhaps some of their skills may begin to be eroded. I mean, if that starts to happen, are companies ready, willing, and able to help them sort of reverse that trend and bring them back, you know, stronger than ever?
ERICA VOLINI: I think that's exactly the point. The question is are they-- are they willing? I think a lot of organizations have-- have stepped up and said they're going to make massive reinvestments in skilling. But are they actually able to do so? Our statistics say they're not. They're not making the investments they need in dollars. They're not making the investments they need in time.
And frankly, we're not sure that reskilling alone is the answer. As jobs continue to change, we're seeing the half-life of skills continue to decline rapidly. Is it about reskilling and keeping people employed for the next one to two years, or is it about establishing resilience, giving them the capabilities they need to continue to pivot?
If I think about what Jim Hackett said on your prior segment, right, he repivoted to making PPE in 30 days. We need to tap into that human potential, the potential that workers have to completely reorient themselves with the capabilities for whatever the next new job is going to be.
BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, Erica. It's great. A lot of people are getting reskilled. They're having to do things that they've never done before. And that looks good on the resume, but are they getting incentivized? Are they going to make money? Are companies ready to step up and give employees money to account for all the new skills they've had to learn in many respects overnight?
ERICA VOLINI: Again, our global human capital trends survey says. No only 45% of our respondents said organizations are rewarding individuals for the development of new skills. Only 39% are rewarding leaders to incent their workers to develop new skills. And this goes to the main point in our report, which is it's not just enough to put in the new technology to change the way that work's getting done.
We need to make sure that we are considering the human side of the equation. How are we going to incent workers to develop those new skills? How are we going to put the programs in place to allow them to develop those new capabilities to make sure that they can continue to be employed not just in the next months and years, but in the decades to come? That's the challenge that faces organizations today.
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Erica, did you see any trends in that survey sector-wise? I mean, were-- were tech companies more willing to spend, able to spend more than versus, you know, another kind of industry, say?
ERICA VOLINI: I think we often see that the tech companies are out in front. But frankly, our survey, which cuts across every single industry, did not show tremendous disparity. And that's what I mean. I think this is a worldwide issue that we need to be dealing with right now.
On top of reskilling, the number one trend in this year's report was actually well-being, even making the point further that the human side of organizations need to be considered. We're seeing mental well-being reach its peak. We're seeing a ton of stress in the workplace. And yet a small percentage of our respondents believe that they are ready to handle the well-being challenges that this workforce is going to face coming out of COVID-19.
So on the whole, I would say this is absolutely cross-industry, cross-sector. Obviously, we see some tech companies coming out early with some statements, which is usually the case. But it is very clear that we're going to see industries like retail, travel and hospitality, manufacturing all be impacted in similar ways.
BRIAN SOZZI: Erica, I was reading the report and you gave me a new term, super teams. What are super teams, and is that the-- the future of work?
ERICA VOLINI: We believe it is. Last year in our trends report, we introduced the concept of super jobs, which is all about how automation and AI could be applied into work to transform the way that jobs are being done.
This year, it's about super teams, embedding AI into the team itself to move from AI simply being used as a replacement for a substitution strategy, and instead being used as a collaboration strategy, partnering side by side with humans to make sure the work gets done as efficiently and effectively as possible. Here's some good news. Our survey shows only 12% of our respondents-- this is 12% of 9,000 organizations-- say they're using AI primarily to replace workers.
That's really positive. There's a great opportunity out there. But yet what we find is only 17% are planning to make the investment in skilling around AI that's needed. So we have that gap. In order to form super teams, we need not only technology, but the individuals to be skilled in working side by side with that technology to change the way that work's getting done.
BRIAN SOZZI: All right, well said. Erica Volini, global human capital leader at Deloitte, good to see you again.
ERICA VOLINI: Thanks for having me.
