"Helping people upskill and adapt to a fastchanging world of work will be the defining challenge of our time. We need aggressive workforce development to address the widening gap between the Haves and the Have Nots. Now is the time for leaders to be responsive and responsible: we cannot slow the rate of technological advance or globalization, but we can invest in employees’ skills to increase the resilience of our people and organizations. Individuals also need to nurture their learnability," Jonas Prising, President and CEO of ManpowerGroup Inc and a frequent speaker of the World Economic Forum in Davos shared at the Skills revolution event organized in partnership with AmCham on May 10. 

A Skills Revolution: FROM CONSUMERS OF WORK TO BUILDERS OF TALENT

 
ManpowerGroup interview millions of people every year all over the world. We know a lot about the labor market. We live today in a very interesting time – good economy, low unemployment.

We are seeing the emergence of a Skills Revolution — where helping people upskill and adapt to a fastchanging world of work will be the defining challenge of our time.

Those with the right skills will increasingly call the shots, create opportunities and choose how, where and when they work. Those without will look to the future and not be able to see how their circumstances will improve. This polarization of the population that is playing out in front of our eyes is no good for society or for business.

We need aggressive workforce development to address the widening gap between the Haves and the Have Nots. Now is the time for leaders to be responsive and responsible: we cannot slow the rate of technological advance or globalization, but we can invest in employees’ skills to increase the resilience of our people and organizations.  

Individuals also need to nurture their learnability: their desire and ability to learn new skills to stay relevant and remain employable. We need to take immediate action to fast track the upskilling and reskilling of existing employees to ensure we have a workforce with the skills required for the future. We also need to draw in those that are not fully participating in the workforce.  

We need to be ready for new jobs and new skills. That’s what we mean by the emergence of the Skills Revolution. 

Notes from the event >>> How to succeed at the time of the technological revolution that transforms business companies? What is important in talent sourcing and what the discussion during the event was about: 

• The way we recruit, retain and retrain employees
• More women, more diversity in companies
• Continuous learning – example: in China - when you sign a contract, you are committing to develop yourself
• Learnability - LQ (Learnability Quotient), hiring potential and longterm employment
• Be prepared for new work models with more robots and automatization 

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JONAS PRISING

President and CEO of ManpowerGroup Inc., a global company on the Fortune`s 500 ranking and the most influential human resource company.  

Jonas Prising is a frequent speaker of the World Economic Forum in Davos and a honored expert in the future of the labor market.