Lynda Gratton - The Future of Work

Davos 2018: the imperatives for job reskilling

The mood at Davos 2018 was more upbeat than last year. Recall that in January 2017 those gathered on the snowy peaks were confronted by two unforeseen events – Brexit and President Trump. This year both events are in play – in fact PM Theresa May in her address hardly mentioned Brexit and President Trump gave a conciliatory pro-business speech (accompanied by a marching band). With the central banks and the IMF predicting growth rates of 2% and beyond, Davos man (and woman) are feeling the worst is behind them.

Instead much of the focus was on the impact of AI – ministers and Prime Ministers and Presidents (Emmanuel Macron and Theresa May in particular) worried about big data and issues of privacy; CEOs fretted about how they could transform their companies to make the most of digital capabilities; and there was a general concern about the impact of technology on job loss.

My own focus was on work and education. This year I am a Steward of the WEF Council on Work, Education and Gender and so attended a host of meetings with politicians, non-governmental groups (such as the ILO) and CEOs. Here are my six takeaways about that:

No one knows …

There is an understanding that many tasks will be automated and jobs will be lost, and that new tasks and new jobs will be created. In general, those lost will be routine work, and those gained will be either jobs that are hard to automate (caring work for example) or jobs that rely on creativity and innovation. But right now no one can be specific about the reach or the speed.

AI in the ascendance

What is clear is there is much excitement about AI – Theresa May for example name checked DeepMind in her speech and shared a vision of London as the AI capital of the world, and there were many sessions on AI with long queues to get in. The excitement was palpable about the speed of development (witness for example the computer and analytical power of DeepMind), and the breadth of impact (for example on computing healthcare outcomes). Words like ‘super human’ and ‘artificial general intelligence’ became common parlance. Some said AI would exceed human intelligence within 20 years – others thought earlier.

Disruptions and transition

There was a consensus that we are at a point of major disruption and transition between a past of job security and stability – and a future of flex and continuous learning where ‘combinations’ of art and science would be particularly valuable and where STEM skills would be in the ascendance. Yet many acknowledge that whilst this is a major transition, few governments or companies are prepared. An undercurrent conversation was ‘what is it that humans can do?’ Yes, we can be creative, innovative and inquisitive – but are our corporations and the way we live our lives creating space for these high functioning human capabilities?  And, if work goes, what then brings purpose and meaning to our lives, and are conversations about Universal Basic Income simply sticking plasters on a much deeper issue? 

Partnerships

In gatherings of social groups, governments, educators and companies there was a clear agreement that no one group could solve the challenges of job loss. Who should support employees to make the shift? Could governments step in with financial support, should corporations be ‘nudged’ to do more, should educators finally take the plunge into ‘lifelong learning’, or should the risk be taken by the individual employee who must assume more responsibility for retraining throughout their lives?

Some early movers

We heard of places where governments, educators and companies are moving ahead. I was in sessions with ministers from both the Netherlands and Denmark as they described the initiatives they are taking. Some, like Germany and Singapore, are focusing on apprenticeships as a way to ensure job-ready skills, others like Denmark are creating ‘roadmaps’ to show employees how their jobs will evolve and what they will have to do to make the transition. Similarly, companies like Westpac, TCS and AT&T are trying to bridge the gap by creating a map of the future and putting significant resources aside to motivate, guide and support employees; whilst companies like LEGO are focusing on educating parents to better understand the potential job future of their children. Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer spoke to me about the importance of honesty about job change and creating a context of learning. And a ‘tech pioneers’ group I led spoke of how new technologies in job matching, individual profiling, and learning could significantly reduce the current friction in the job market.

But the truth is …

This transition will create enormous flux that we are not prepared for. So the need for action is crucial. The WEF is working hard on this and the reports published during the week on skills and jobs are important.

There was a clear agreement for rapid and immediate action. Employees need a great deal more clarity about how the job market will shift, what the new and valuable skills will be, and how they will be supported to transition to these new skills. Governments, educators and corporations must step up. Without these actions, the revenue from the growth that are being predicted over the coming year will simply exacerbate the growing inequality between the rich and educated, and the poor and uneducated – a point make forcibly by both Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau.

Can Paul Ryan move the needle on work/life balance?

Last week, Republican candidate Paul Ryan was confirmed as the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives. However, his acceptance of the post was on the condition that he would travel less than previous speakers in order to preserve valuable time with his family. Of course this type of demand from such a high-profile man garnered a lot of press attention, as notions of family time and flexible working remain rooted in the ‘working mum’ domain in many countries, industries and companies. It’s still (sadly) rare to hear as may working dads negotiating school drop offs with busy work schedules, as working mums. So, will Mr. Ryan’s bold statement be a catalyst for change?

My work at the Future of Work Research Consortium highlights time and again the importance of role models when it comes to shifting an organisation’s culture. No matter how many policies and practices HR may devise around flexible working and work/life balance, if those at the top aren’t using them, then those attempting to climb the ladder will take this as a signal that they shouldn’t either.  Having leaders simply avail of flexible working options isn’t enough either. They need to use the options in a way that is visible to the rest of the organisation. One of the most interesting comments I heard recently from leaders at a Professional Services firm was that they were working flexibly and assumed that others in their teams were doing so as well. However, this was not the reality. Their teams were often unaware that they were taking this approach as the leaders weren’t communicating about it and hence the signal that this kind of autonomy in working style was accepted and, lo and behold, normal was not being received. Mr. Ryan’s very visible commitment to work/life balance will hopefully act as the cue to his team that making time for family is not a barrier to success.

That is the implication for his own team, but what about the wider American and Global audience? What impact can this action have on a larger scale? These are tougher questions. While Mr. Ryan has the bargaining power to make such demands, the average American worker does not. Moreover, he has previously voted against providing paid family leave for federal employees, which has made him an unlikely advocate for a cultural shift in favour of work/life balance. It’s promising to see signs of his change in views on this and we will have to expect that as a matter of course, he will now work for these rights to be extended broadly so that it is both socially acceptable and financially viable for all dads – and not just those in powerful political positions – to exercise the same choices.

So, can Paul Ryan move the needle on work/life balance? My view is that he can certainly change one important aspect of the dialogue. We need more male leaders to demonstrate their desire to be actively involved in their children’s upbringing and highlight the challenges they face in juggling responsibilities – and of course the flexibility they avail of in order to strike a balance. Making this a conversation that managers have with all employees, rather than a request working mums submit to HR, will be a significant step in achieving work/life balance and gender parity.

Beyond Our Nature - Insights from Davos 2015

The global challenges facing the world – such as rising poverty, youth unemployment and climate change – are not themes that are new to Davos. What is new for Davos 2015, is a growing realisation that to address these challenges we have to go beyond human nature. Let me explain. Underlying all these global challenges are many stakeholders each of whom have their own approach and way of looking at the world. Take youth unemployment as an example. When young people are able to get jobs it is because many stakeholders work together: companies create jobs for youngsters; governments shape fiscal and regulatory environments that encourage job creation; educators focus on skills that are important to the job market and the young people themselves are motivated and able to look for work. When it works it is because within this complex system, multiple stakeholders are able to understand each other, and to act on this understanding.

And here is the rub. As the neuroscientists at Davos reminded us, we humans are evolutionarily exquisite at working with small groups of people who are very similar to us – and particularly so if they are related. In fact, as Dunbar has shown, anything above 150 people and natural groups break up. We are pre-disposed to like people who are like us, we imitate people we admire, and across our networks our behaviours and attitudes are contagious.

So whilst we are exquisitely evolved to work in tribal groups, little in our evolution prepares us for the sorts of challenges we are now facing. Challenges that can only be solved if we are able to work in huge groups, containing many different types of people, negotiating across complex alliances.

Of course technology (which is accelerating some of these global challenges) is also providing an array of solutions. When thousands of people are able to work together in virtual communities and when their insights are augmented by artificial intelligence, then complex problems are more likely to be understood.

But is understanding sufficient to get them solved? One of the sessions I attended at Davos this year looked more deeply at alliances. What became clear was that the alliances that are capable of addressing these global challenges – indeed of addressing the challenges of innovation and resilience – are extraordinarily complex. They require people who are very different from each other to have some empathy for each others’ position; they require a process to build trust when many of the stakeholders are virtual strangers and don’t spend much time with each other; and they require a process of commitment making that is more complex than much we have seen before.

All of this is indeed possible, but it goes beyond our human nature. So the question I think we face is whether we will be constrained forever by our evolutionary behaviours and attitudes, or whether we are able in a sense to leap beyond them. How we do this then remains the key issue. When human nature changes (for example our attitudes to slavery or women’s rights) it is because across society the narrative and stories change, owing to courageous role models. The societal discourse itself then begins to evolve.

Addressing many of the world’s challenges requires us to move beyond our human nature. Now is the time for stories to be told about how it could be, and for role models to courageously act out collaboration and alliance building beyond the tribe.

 

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Davos 2014 – what is on and off the radar screen?

One of the interesting aspects of attending and blogging about Davos each year is that I can look back and reflect on my impressions of previous years. For example, looking back at my Davos 2012 blog, I wrote: “The pervading theme this year is of extraordinary change and challenge: ‘we don’t have a moment to lose’; ‘we have to do things differently’; ‘this is a unique moment in history’; ‘there is a crisis of consent’ are phrases I’ve heard from academics, CEOs and politicians.”

By Davos 2013, I wrote of some change: “Looking back to the 2012 Davos, the talk was all about the final playing out of the financial crisis and the deep concerns about the break up of the Eurozone. Just a year later, and the mood seemed more optimistic, though with a strong undercurrent of realism”.

Looking forward to Davos 2014, what can we expect? The Eurozone has now stabilised and the prospects for a less turbulent world are emerging. But this is also a world that FT Editor Lionel Barber in his pre-Davos briefing described as likely to experience ‘terminally tepid growth’. It is a world of low growth and low inflation. In light of these facts, here is what I think will be on (and off) the radar screen at Davos 2014:

 

On the radar screen:

The rise of nationalism

A crisis is in a sense a great way of diverting attention. Now that the realities of ‘terminally tepid growth’ are beginning to be apparent, many people across the world – and in particular the developed world – do not like what they see. Economies may be healthier, but people are unhappy. And so we are already seeing issues of identity, atavistic politics, and the emergence of fringe populist parties. Those gathered at Davos will be concerned that this will destabilise labour and capital flows and impact on economic recovery.

The misery of youth unemployment

Last year, I saw youth unemployment as one of the major emerging themes at Davos, and I think the debate will continue in 2014. Youth unemployment continues to be a structural issue that is particularly damaging in the fragile economies of Africa and the Middle East. What makes this worse is the ever widening gap between the needs of the work place and the education system. Last year at Davos many of us were entranced by a session in which a young Pakistani girl talked about the incredible progress she had made by using an on-line learning module created by professors at Stanford University. As fascinating as her story was, it’s clear that her experience is the exception rather than the norm. For the vast majority of young people the promises of low cost education and flexible labor markets are yet to be delivered.

 

Off the radar screen:

After the crash and the crisis it is remarkable how quickly the old systems are re-emerging – and as a result some of the challenges we thought might begin to be solved through disruption, seem instead to be moving off the radar screen:

Climate change

Right now what is emerging is a dissipation of political will, for example shale gas has brought the prospect of cheaper energy and disincentivised the investment in renewable energy sources. Governments and corporations alike are still finding it difficult to tackle global problems like climate change which involve multiple stakeholders and there is a growing realization that we don’t yet have the requisite global infrastructure – so I expect the debate about climate change to be pushed onto the back burner.

Gender parity

As any visitor to Davos will notice, women participants make up a tiny proportion of those who attend. Next week at Davos I will be chairing one of the workshops on the subject of diversity, but I don’t expect much to happen in gender diversity in 2014. The glacial movement of women assuming senior positions is surprising and disappointing to those who expected more. As always I expect there to be talk of quotas and much debate about the Norwegian experience. But I don’t expect to see much action. 

5 Trends to Watch in 2014

The start of a new year is a natural point for thinking ahead and planning for the future.  Just before 2013 ended, I sat down for an interview with the BBC's Peter Day, continuing a conversation he and I have been having for over 20 years.  During the interview I talked not only about the changes I’ve observed since he and I last spoke, but also about the five trends I see emerging in 2014 and beyond.

The shade of your future depends on where you are

Something that has become abundantly clear in recent years is that whether your future seems bright or dim depends on where you live. Young people in Europe, for example, are facing an extremely tough time and face the prospect of being less prosperous than their parents generation. But for their counterparts in India or China, expectations are entirely different, with many of them looking forward to a higher income than their parents.

It’s my belief that the youth unemployment we see affecting many countries is structural not cyclical. The past few years have been marked by the hollowing out of work, by which I mean that the  middle-skilled jobs traditionally taken on by graduates have been outsourced or being replaced by technology, leaving only low-skilled jobs or  high-skilled jobs which require more experience and education than the average twentysomething has to offer. This can leave young people adrift, without that very first job role from which to move upwards.

Online education

One major game-changer which I see having a huge impact in 2014 is online education. Online courses are becoming widely available – and they are revolutionising the scope of what people can aspire to. Suddenly, people all over the world are enrolling on courses that were previously only available to affluent individuals in specific locations. I saw a living example of the impact this is having at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2013.  There I watched a panel with Bill Gates, the head of Stanford, the head of MIT – and a 13 year-old Pakistani girl. If you’re wondering why this girl was invited to join these eminent figures, the reason is simple: this young teenager came top in Stanford’s online examinations. This struck me as an outstanding example of how the world is changing: here is a girl who even five years ago would have had no opportunity to leave Lahore, but thanks to a world-class university putting its courses and examinations online, she has the world at her feet. There is no doubt that this will create huge competition for young people in the West.

Quotas for women?

It’s astounding to think that while 50% of graduates are women and 30% of managers are women, only 10% of business leaders are women. For someone who thought that the glass ceiling was about to shatter 20 years ago, this is extremely disappointing. Despite all our hopes to see more women at the top of leading organisations, the speed of change has been glacial. It seems that large organisations remain hierarchical, bureaucratic and have a tendency to pay lip service to the concept of having women in the boardroom. Frequently, they are not places where women feel comfortable holding senior positions. One solution that has been put forward is that of female quotas, but this is an issue which divides opinion amongst senior women. For my part, I’m on the side that thinks quotas are a good thing. The way I see it, if you are in a situation where nothing seems to be moving, a shock is what’s needed.

The business side of social media

I also think we’ll start to see organisations using social media within their businesses as elegantly as people use it in their everyday lives. A trend that has emerged in the last year or two is that there is technology that connects every single person in an organisation in a very sophisticated way. For example, I’ve seen this happening at Tata Consulting Services, a business that employs over 150,000 people under 24 and connects them to each other using social media. The result of this is that people naturally form communities to get things done, to discuss ideas, and to have fun. Since their Knome platform was launched, TCS employees have formed themselves into 3,500 communities. My team at the Hot Spots Movement helps companies do this in a more targeted fashion with their FoWlab jams: facilitated online conversations which companies can use to engage their employees on issues as diverse as brand values, job design and meaningful work.  I see this becoming a model that many other companies will follow. 2014 promises to bring some interesting organisational changes led by technology, particularly the kind that allows people to communicate on a many-to-many basis. This kind of communication model will have a huge impact on how people work together – and on the role of leaders.  In fact, it has the potential to change the very nature of what we call leadership. After all, if information is flowing easily and horizontally – what does a leader do?

Reconsidering trust

Both online education and social information sharing rely enormously on trust – something that will prove challenging for some. For those of us who are Baby Boomers or from Gen X, building trust has always been based on face-to-face interaction – and building trust in a virtual environment can prove challenging. People from younger generations, on the other hand, have grown up working online and playing games virtually, which gives them the advantage of being able to develop trust easily without the need for face-to-face contact. A workforce is emerging where humans can build trust in a virtual environment and this promises to revolutionise how information is shared and how knowledge and expertise flow within organisations.

 

 

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The Online Education Revolution Drifts Off Course | NPR

The Three Paradoxes Of Generation Y

Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed a considerable amount of attention focused on Generation Y from both the media and business world. The May 20 issue of Time Magazine led with a cover story labelling them the ‘Me, Me, Me’ generation: narcissistic, fame-obsessed, and self interested; Meanwhile PwC reported findings from a comprehensive Next Gen study of its Gen Y employees – a cohort that will make up around 80% of its workforce within the next three years.

This recent focus on Gen Y reflects a building sense of nervousness around how this generation, the biggest since the Baby Boomers, will reshape work. It’s a nervousness I’ve felt from the HR leaders in my executive programme at LBS who often despair that this generation just aren’t accepting ‘the way things are done around here,' and are instead challenging long-standing processes and practices.

But is this anxiety justified? Are Gen Y really so different from their predecessors? And, if they are, do organisations need to change to accommodate them?

Here are three paradoxes I’ve uncovered that can help us answer those questions.

Short-term focus, but equally committed – Gen Y are fast movers. We know they will change jobs, and perhaps even entire careers, many times in their long working lives. This is a stark contrast with the ‘job for life’ career pattern of their Baby Boomer parents, and the HR leaders at my executive programme. It also shows their desire for meaningful, stimulating work from day one, and their lack of interest in traditional career paths that promote slowly.

This focus on short-term success is sometimes used to depict Gen Y as less committed to work than their Gen X and Baby Boomer peers. Yet this stereotype is certainly not true of those surveyed in the Next Gen study. According to Dennis Finn, Global Human Capital Leader at PwC, ‘this generation is as engaged, committed and prepared to work as hard as previous generations’. They don’t mind working. They just think there are better ways to work.

Tech savvy, but value face-to-face - Gen Y is known for its intensive use of social media and virtual communication. In the USA, this generation send and receive around 88 texts a day according to research by Pew, and 70% check their phones every hour. With these statistics in hand it’s easy to view this generation as happy to conduct their lives, both professional and private, exclusively through their phones, iPads and laptops. But PwC’s research tells us that Gen Y’s aptitude for electronic communication augments rather than replaces face-to-face interaction. Particularly when it comes to performance and career discussions where personal interactions are still the preferred method.

Require recognition, but not necessarily more trophies - Time Magazine rather negatively dubs Gen Y the ‘trophy generation’ who, as a result of receiving too many participation trophies as children, have a sense of entitlement far beyond that of their older peers. It’s easy to see where this assumption comes from. Just look at games such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, which provide satisfying rewards for every action the player takes. So, it should come as no surprise that, according to a study cited by Time Magazine, 40% of Gen Y believes they should be promoted every two years, regardless of performance.

 But again, this may be misinterpreting the issue. We know Gen Y place an real emphasis on continual learning, and the drive for regular promotion should not be confused with the desire for regular feedback, which many see as a vital part of their personal and career development. Though a visual indicator of progression, promotion does not always bring with it greater learning opportunities.

So, what do organisations do about these paradoxes and how can they truly understand what drives their Gen Ys? PwC’s Next Gen report has a few recommendations, but one stands out to me as particularly important for this fast-moving, tech-savvy group: ‘Invest time, resources and energy to listen and stay connected with your people’. If there’s one thing we know for sure about this generation, it’s that they like to have their voices heard, and to feel empowered. Whether in the virtual or real world, perhaps the key to understanding this generation and knowing how to engage them is to simply listen to them.

Many of the insights from PwC’s NextGen study came out of Hot Spots Movement FoWlab jam methodology. Have a look at our website to find out more.

 

The Frustration of Diversity

I found myself recently spending almost three days with an extraordinarily diverse group. Of the eight people with me, there was someone from Canada, America, Argentina, Japan, Indian, China, Germany and the UK; we ranged in age from 27 to 58; and in terms of specialism there was a psychiatrist, an international ice hockey coach, the head of HR for a global IT company, a couple of entrepreneurs and the provost of a major design college. I cannot image a more diverse collection of people spending time together.

What had brought us from all corners of the world was the World Economic Forum in Dubai, where more than 1,000 experts had gathered to consider a range of global challenges. The focus of our specific council was the rather ambiguous question about the future of leadership. This extraordinary and rather frustrating experience gave me an opportunity to reflect again on what research has helped us to understand the power of diversity. For, while the experience was indeed deeply frustrating at times, the outcome of our time together was without doubt deeper and more profound than it would have been if we were a group of similar people.

Here are the lessons I took away from my experience:

• Diversity comes at a cost. Our council had been speaking virtually for some time, yet when we met we still struggled to really understand the unique framing each brought to our conversation. My previous conversations with a bunch of psychologists like me was a great deal easier than the conversations in Dubai. And my guess is that was true for the psychiatrist and the ice hockey coach. It’s significantly easier to establish a way of working between people who have the same mindset and experience. So be aware that if the question is ambiguous and the team diverse then they are going to really struggle.

• The power of suspending judgment. So it’s important, given the struggles to understand each other, that each tries to suspend their judgment. In our own group we were helped enormously by a chairperson who frequently asked each of us to reflect on what we were thinking. That means that in these circumstances, being prepared to suspend judgment and simply to listen to each other is crucial.

• Staying with it. We had committed to spend three days together – in the same room, talking about the same subject, with the same people. That’s an extraordinary commitment and one that I know few people are prepared to give. But what we found was that, without that commitment, it would have been impossible for us to truly make some of the breakthroughs in our thinking. We simply had to get through the barriers to bridge to each other and this took time and being present. For me, the point here is that it takes a significant time commitment to make any sort of breakthrough when working on ambiguous questions.

• Focus, Focus, Focus. We had come to the WEF meeting to talk about one question, and one question only: How will our models of leadership have to change over the coming decade? We each had our own perspective on this question – drawn from our professional experiences and what we had learnt in our own countries. This focus was crucial to our coming to any breakthrough thinking. Without this, our individual experiences and perspectives could have led to us simply passing by each other with no real connection. Getting the question right is crucial to pulling the disparate ideas of the team together.

Will I be doing it again? Absolutely! But for the moment I am spending the next month with people just like me!

The Skill Gap: Asian Style

One of the paradoxes of contemporary business life is that, just as unemployment soars, the number of unfilled vacancies increases. In the USA right now there are over 3 million unfilled jobs, while in countries like Spain, youth unemployment stands at a jaw dropping 47%. The extent of the gap between what employers need and what the labour market provides in terms of skills and talents seems to be continuously widening.

Why the skill gap is here to stay.

This is not a surprise. There are three trends that we believe will only gather momentum and, as they converge, will continue to impact on the extent of the skill gap. None of these trends will go away fast; in fact, our research suggests that they will only accelerate in their velocity.

The most obvious creator of the gap is technological advancement within work. This has been felt most in semi-skilled work, where business analytics have replaced many clerical activities, while much service work has been outsourced from the high-cost West.

Historically, these were jobs that those with minimum educational qualifications could perform.  But it’s not just about technology replacing semi-skilled work. Increasingly, the knowledge and skills that high value jobs demand has shifted to engineering, IT and the sciences. This is good news for countries like Germany and India, where these disciplines are considered a good professional choice – but bad news for the UK and the USA, where fewer students take these options. To make matters worse, the Asian students who fill the science classrooms of the West are increasingly likely to take the first plane back after graduating, rather than staying and filling those vacancies as they might have in the past.

Demography is also playing a hand in the skill gap: Over the next decade, the largest workforce cohort the world has ever seen - the Baby Boomers - will rete in their millions. Many will take with them the deep tacit knowledge that has come from a lifetime of experience, and which they have often failed to bequest to those members of Gen X who follow them. This demographic time bomb is particularly deadly in sectors such as aerospace and pharmaceuticals, which have traditionally had long apprenticeships.

 

The Asian Response

Anxieties about the skill gap are no less prevalent in Asia. With 15% compound growth rates and, in many countries, a missing management class, companies across the region are deeply aware that this could prove a significant barrier to growth.

However, what is interesting is the speed, depth and complexity of their response. Take Singapore: here is a country, with few resources save its people, with aspirations to play a significant role in the industrial life of Asia. For them, closing the skill gap is crucial. This is achieved by actively creating close ties and a constant information flow between the key stakeholders, be they in companies, the government or educational establishments. The Ministry of Manpower and the Economic Development Board have the role of coordinating this flow of information, and provide the resources to  ‘nudge’ when necessary. This could mean, for example, supporting Unilever’s opening of a major leadership campus, funding scholarships in high value skills, or working closely with pharmaceutical companies and Western universities to build a cluster around bioengineering.

In India, the speed and scale of the response has taken a very different form, spearheaded not by government, but by the private sector. Indian companies face a huge potential skill gap for, while the technical education in the Indian Institutes of Technology is of a high level, the general education standards across the country are poor. For Indian’s rapidly growing IT sector, represented by companies such as Wipro, Infosys and TCS, this could be a disaster. Yet instead of accepting this, these companies have reached out into communities across the continent to significantly impact the development millions of youngsters. Executives at Wipro, for example, work with tens of thousands of colleges across India to train teachers to develop IT skills, build state-of-the-art curricula, and encourage students to become what they term ‘work-ready’. With a recruitment target in 2011/12 of 60,000, the teams at TCS play a similar role in helping young people across India understand from an early age what the most valuable skills for the future are, and how best to acquire them. Like Infosys they also work closely with hundreds of thousands of teenagers to actively increase their skills.

The global skill gap is here to stay for as long as technological advances, globalisation and demography continue to redefine work. For some countries, it will be the government that takes the initiative to bridge the gaps. For others, it will be companies themselves who will step up to the challenge. What is clear is that, if neither of these stakeholders are actively engaged nor prepared to put significant resources into the problem, the unemployment rates now seen in Spain could become the norm for many countries in the West.

It's Education, Stupid

It’s that time of year when I spend much of my time reading the books that have been nominated for the FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year. It’s a judging duty that is both a pleasure and a pain. The pain is the sheer amount of time it takes to wade through thousands of pages.  The pleasure is reading books that would not necessarily cross my path. This year, as with the last, many of these books are written by economists and, understandably, focus on the state of the world economy. It is interesting to read how many agree that education and training are crucial to long-term economic success, for individuals, companies and countries. I made a similar argument in my most recent book The Shift, focusing in particular on the types of education and training that create specialization. Here are the two reasons why it has never been so critical to become educated:

• Rampaging connectivity - will see at least five billion people around the world using some form of mobile device to download information, access knowledge and coach and teach each other. Some will have the intellectual capacity and motivation to really make something of this extraordinary opportunity, wherever they happen to be born. These people will want to join the global talent pool and, if possible, migrate to creative and vibrant cities. By doing so, this vast crowd of talented people will increasingly compete with each other, continuously upping the stakes for what it takes to succeed.

• The technological revolution - brought mobile devices to billions, and is now transforming how work gets done. Robots are taking the place of unskilled and semi-skilled workers, while business analytics, modelling and collaborative technologies are taking away much of what has traditionally been the role of the middle manager. However, while technology may be replacing the mechanical aspects of work, it is not replacing the more complex, skilled work that involves creativity and innovation. That’s the high value piece that remains, and it is once that requires education and training. 

As high quality education becomes more of a premium, we can expect the sector to begin to transform itself even more rapidly. Just what this transformation will look like is difficult to predict with accuracy. But here are two emerging trends that I believe will shape it over the coming decades:

The Gutenberg Project: the race is on to digitalise many of the books and articles of the world, while the professors of academic institutions such as MIT are making their key lectures available on the web. Combined with hyper connectivity and the potentially global reach of the Cloud, this means that knowledge and wisdom will be available to anyone with access to the Internet. This could see the development of new ways of educating that leapfrog those of normal educational institutions, creating more fluid, virtual and vibrant networks of learning. 

Virtual Schools and Universities: there has been a great deal of research over the last decade focusing on how people learn. This has looked at e-learning, face-to-face teaching and over-the-phone coaching. What has become clear is that none of these on their own are the best; it’s the combination of all three that has the greatest impact. This is important for educational strategies since at least two of these processes are virtual, and F2F can largely be substituted by video conferencing. I saw the speed of this transformation recently when I visited UOC (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) in Barcelona. Its sleek headquarters are the hub of a virtual university that has 60,000 students (and growing) taught by a faculty of over 3,000 virtual educators. Using simulations, games and collaborative environments, the institution is building deep expertise in supporting education across the world.

Some have argued that, of all the institutional forms, education has changed least over the past few decades. It looks as if the need for deeper knowledge and rapid advances in learning technologies may change all that.