The Future of Upskilling and Employee Learning 2023

Future-proof your workforce through upskilling and reskilling

Exclusive Research By HR Research Institute

Out of all the HR challenges facing today’s organizations, futureproofing the workforce is arguably the most important. For many companies, this will require a massive investment in upskilling and reskilling.

The World Economic Forum estimates that over one billion people will need some degree of reskilling by 2030. The focus will not only need to be on high-tech skill sets but specialized interpersonal skills. The Harvard Business Review estimates that 58% of the workforce will need new skills to do their work.

So, it should come as no surprise that 65% of the respondents in a recently completed HR.com report rated upskilling as the most significant future of work trend, overtaking hybrid work arrangements.

In this study, we take a close look at both the state of reskilling/upskilling and the overall learning function.

Given below are the highlights from the report.

The State of Learning Today Is Lackluster

Finding: Employees want to learn but organizations often fail to provide them with opportunities and encouragement

Survey Question: To what extent do you agree with the following statements?

Employees in your organization want to develop their skills

Managers encourage their employees to develop their skills

Employees are given dedicated time for learning

We provide identifiable learning paths for career growth and promotion

Just 30% say employees are organization’s learning culture

Employees are satisfied with the organization's learning culture

We have high levels of self-enrollment in non-mandatory courses

Agree Strongly agree

Eighty seven percent of respondents agree or strongly agree that employees want to develop their skills. Any lack of workforce skills does not appear to be due to a lack of employee motivation to learn.

However, few organizations have what we call “cultures of learning,” meaning that they support learning by providing an environment in which learning can thrive. In fact, just one in three feel employees are satisfied with their organization’s learning culture, and only 37% agree or strongly agree that employees are given dedicated time for learning.

Moreover, only about half (49%) feel managers encourage employees to develop their skills, and only about a third (32%) provide employees with identifiable career paths for growth and promotion.

Upskilling Has Become a Top HR Priority

Finding: The importance of upskilling has risen dramatically in the last two years and is expected to grow in the near future

Compared to two years ago, upskilling has become far more important, with 43% saying it has become much more important and another 38% saying it has become somewhat more important. So, a total of 81% say it has become more important.

What about the future? It looks like it’ll continue to be a priority, with 78% saying that it’ll become somewhat more or much more important in the next two years. We should note, however, that only 23% say it will become much more important, suggesting that the biggest jump in prioritization just occurred over the last two years.

Changing Work Roles, Evolving Priorities and Skills Deficits Are Driving the Need for Upskilling

Finding: The vast majority of HR professionals say at least some jobs will be disrupted by market and technology trends over the next three years

Virtually all respondents (97%) say some jobs/ roles will be substantially disrupted by the market or technological trends over the next three years.

And, well over half (57%) say that 31% or more of roles will be disrupted. Of course, nobody quite knows how this will play out. As this report goes to press, media is humming with discussions and articles about amazing generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications such as Dall-E 2 and ChatGPT. It is clear these technologies have the potential to change hundreds and perhaps thousands of different jobs and work roles.

Sometimes in tandem with changing technologies, shifting market trends can also have a major impact on job disruption, with the move to online retail being a good example.