98 The great reskill

The great reskill

Reinvention is the name of the game for the next generation of employees.

Business is changing—and required employee skillsets are changing with it. As the digital revolution races on, brands are realizing that the fastest and most effective way to keep pace is to upskill their existing workforce. Where specialized college or graduate degrees may once have been a prerequisite, companies are now encouraging employees to learn as they go.

Rachel Carlson, cofounder and CEO of Guild Education, predicts that this will give rise to a new formula for education—one that may even supplant a college degree. Carlson told the Masters of Scale podcast that the “four and 40,” which previously saw the majority of employees go to school for four years, then work for 40, is “dead” and supplanted by a new model. “What’s now is the every four,” said Carlson. “You’re going to have to learn some sort of new skill every four years.”

Levi Strauss & Co announced a new company-wide digital upskilling initiative for its employees in May 2021. The keystone of the initiative is the Machine Learning Bootcamp, an eight-week, full-time, paid program that offers employees training in digital skills such as coding and machine learning. Graduates of the bootcamp will either return to their current job with new skills or will join the company’s strategy and AI team.

Verizon invested over $200 million in employee learning and development programs in 2020, offering training in topics like data science, 5G technology and artificial intelligence. By the end of 2021, Verizon had equipped 100,000 employees with digital skills “to ensure team members are ready to keep pace with ever-changing demands of building the future.”

Walmart employees can earn a high school or college degree for $365 (or $1 per day for a year), through a partnership with Guild Education. From April 2020 to April 2021, Walmart said the program saw a 93% spike in both high school and college graduates.

Why it’s interesting Traditional career trajectories are being reinvented, replacing specialized degrees with practical education and on-site reskilling.