{"id":40848,"date":"2020-11-24T11:21:38","date_gmt":"2020-11-24T03:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=40848"},"modified":"2020-11-24T11:21:41","modified_gmt":"2020-11-24T03:21:41","slug":"covid-19-accelerating-skills-gap-raising-employee-expectations-of-their-employers-ibm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2020\/11\/24\/covid-19-accelerating-skills-gap-raising-employee-expectations-of-their-employers-ibm\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 accelerating skills gap, raising employee expectations of their employers – IBM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As many business leaders look to close the skills gap and cultivate a sustainable workforce amid COVID-19, a new\u00a0IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) study reveals less than 4 in 10 human resources (HR) executives surveyed report they have the skills needed to achieve their enterprise strategy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pre-pandemic IBM research in 2018 found as many as 120 million workers surveyed in the world\u2019s 12 largest economies may need to be retrained or reskilled because of AI and automation in the next three years. That challenge has only been exacerbated in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic \u2013 as many C-suite leaders accelerate digital transformation, they report inadequate skills is one of their biggest hurdles to progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ongoing IBM consumer research also shows surveyed employees\u2019 expectations for their employers have significantly changed during the COVID-19 pandemic but there\u2019s a disconnect in how effective leaders and employees believe companies have been in addressing these gaps. 74% of executives surveyed believe their employers have been helping them learn the skills needed to work in a new way, compared to just 38% of employees surveyed, and 80% of executives surveyed said their company is supporting employees\u2019 physical and emotional health, but only 46% of employees surveyed agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday perhaps more than ever, organizations can either fail or thrive based on their ability to enable the agility and resiliency of their greatest competitive advantage \u2013 their people,\u201d said Amy Wright, managing partner, IBM Talent & Transformation. \u201cBusiness leaders should shift to meet new employee expectations brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as holistic support for their well-being, development of new skills and a truly personalized employee experience even while working remotely. It\u2019s imperative to bring forward a new era of HR \u2013 and those companies who were already on the path are better positioned to succeed amid disruption today and in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new IBV study, \u201cAccelerating the journey to HR 3.0,\u201dconducted in partnership with global independent analyst Josh Bersin of the\u00a0Josh Bersin Academy, includes insights from more than 1,500 global HR executives surveyed in 20 countries and 15 industries. Based on those insights, the study provides a roadmap for the journey to the next era of HR, with practical examples of how HR leaders at surveyed \u201chigh-performing companies\u201d – meaning those that outpace all others in profitability, revenue growth and innovation – can reinvent their function to build a more sustainable workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional highlights from the study include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7        Nearly six in 10 high performing companies surveyed report using AI and analytics to make better decisions about their talent, such as skilling programs and compensation decisions. 41% are leveraging AI to identify skills they\u2019ll need for the future, versus 8% of responding peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7        65% of surveyed high performing companies are looking to AI to identify behavioral skills like growth mindset and creativity for building diverse adaptable teams, compared to 16% of peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7        More than two thirds of all respondents said agile practices are essential to the future of HR. However, less than half of HR units in participating organizations have capabilities in design thinking and agile practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7        71% of high performing companies surveyed report they are widely deploying a consistent HR technology architecture, compared to only 11% of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn order to gain long-term business alignment between leaders and employees, this moment requires  HR  to operate as a strategic advisor \u2013 a new role for many HR organizations,\u201d said Josh Bersin, global independent analyst and dean of the Josh Bersin Academy.  \u201cMany HR departments are looking to technology, such as the cloud and analytics, to support a more cohesive and self-service approach to traditional HR responsibilities.  Offering employee empowerment through holistic support can drive larger strategic change to the greater business.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Report findings suggest three core elements to promote lasting change<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the report, surveyed HR executives from high-performing companies were eight times as likely as their surveyed peers to be driving disruption in their organizations. Among those companies, the following actions are a clear priority:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7        Accelerating the pace of continuous learning and feedback
\u00b7        Cultivating empathetic leadership to become a more health-oriented company and support employees’ holistic well-being
\u00b7        Reinventing their HR function and technology architecture to make more real-time data-driven decisions<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burger King Brazil is an example of a company who rapidly responded to new employee expectations and needs presented by this moment. Burger King Brazil worked with IBM to create a new virtual assistant based on IBM Watson Assistant, which helped during the pandemic to provide its workforce with self-service support and more transparent communications and connection to each other and company leadership. The solution supports its 16,000 employees, and on average responded to 1,100 questions per day in April alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pre-pandemic IBM research in 2018 found as many as 120 million workers surveyed in the world\u2019s 12 largest economies may need to be retrained or reskilled because of AI and automation in the next three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":33902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1646,772,5131,214],"class_list":["post-40848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-business-intelligence","tag-business-solution","tag-business-tips","tag-ibm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}