Employees may not understand which skills they need — and are losing resources that may help them develop said skills, according to an Oct. 7 report from WTW, a global advisory company.
Work is changing quickly, the report noted, but fewer employees surveyed said their manager helps develop their abilities, dropping from 84% saying as much to 78% over the past four years. And while the 7,000 employees surveyed acknowledged that work is changing, they expressed uncertainty over whether they can keep up, WTW said, creating what the company called “capability anxiety.”
Notably, only about 30% of the more than 500 employers surveyed said they’ve established processes for identifying and tracking worker skills.
To address this growing gap, WTW recommended employers give workers clear visibility of the paths their careers could take — including learning opportunities and internal roles — as well as equip managers to discuss skills and development with their direct reports.
Managers, in particular, serve a key role in learning and development, recent studies show. The time managers can spare to assist workers with their development is directly correlated to stronger engagement and retention, a Wiley Workplace Intelligence report said.
But as artificial intelligence changes the nature of work, thus necessitating quick adaptations to new skills in the first place, AI itself may be responsible for the lack of critical skill development, a Talogy report said. Entry-level tasks, especially, are often handed over to AI, but those tasks are often where workers experiment and learn skills that can lead them down the leadership pipeline. If those tasks aren’t performed by people, the pipeline could be at risk, Talogy said.
Coqual Global Lab reported a similar finding, suggesting that core human capabilities — and thus, future leadership — may be at risk if companies do not carefully consider their development protocols.
“Workforce transformation is more likely to succeed when employees can see a clear path to growth and organizations have the infrastructure to support it,” Jill Havely, global employee experience leader at WTW, said in a statement.
