Organisations need a strategic approach to skills in the AI world

The mantra of successful technology projects has been "people, process and technology" since it was coined by American management psychologist Harold Leavitt in the 1960s. And it has become even more important as the pace of change has accelerated. While technology has powered forwards, people are often left behind, and training and education often struggle to keep up with the demands of emerging technologies.

Darren Cook, the CEO of Lumify, has worked at the intersection of technology and people for the past two decades.

"Organisations can always choose technology and deploy great tech. But the results always depend on how people use them, their skills are and their confidence," he said.

Technology evolution outpaces our ability to adapt. As a result, organisations rarely get full value from their investments because they haven't undertaken or received education, they need to understand what they have. Cook says the rapid pace of technology change means many organisations are thinking about deploying new technology before they have fully considered how to prepare their workforce.

This creates a gap between where the technology is going and where the workforce is and how it can benefit their jobs. Cook said the gap is widening.

"We're getting to a stage now where organisations have made their technology decisions and spent the money but they're not seeing the full benefits they were promised. Organisations are realising that the best way to get ROI on their investments is to train their people. Not only in how to use the technology but improve their skills so that they can adapt to the changes."

Cook said there are visible productivity improvements in eliminating the mundane tasks in people's roles.

"What we're not seeing at this stage is revenue hitting the P&L. A lot of companies are seeing the benefits on the cost side, but not necessarily in terms of generating and growing business."

For Lumify, this has created new opportunities. While training remains important, Cook said organisations are looking for support to make better decisions around technology adoption and taking a longer-term view of education. Rather than delivering commoditised training, the focus is on helping organisations maximise the return on their technology investments.

Lumify is seeing an ever-increasing need by companies seeking advice on how they develop their workforce. They are looking for guidance to find the right technology partners to help them make these changes, develop the required capability, and ensure ongoing workforce development and change management.

While supporting workers as they adopt to new technology is important, there is a significant skills gap in Australia.  

"We're at a real fork in the road," said Cook. "We either really start to knuckle down on how we're going to help the workforce align with technology's advancement, or we're going to have a really big problem on our hands."

The higher education sector, Cook said, has an important role to play in setting an individual up for success during their career. But he said we can't continue sending people to universities or other institutions to re-qualify. He sees day training courses, micro-credentials, and other training opportunities as essential to filling the gap.

"If you do a cybersecurity degree now, it will teach you the basics of cyber architecture, governance, reporting, and those types of things. But it doesn't teach the latest tricks, tools or skills on how to combat AI. People need a common base knowledge and understanding when they enter the workforce with these jobs and skills, but they need on-the-job training and micro-credentials and other training to expand their knowledge over time."

A trend Cook expects to see is fewer people attaining higher degrees and going directly to micro-credentials.

"I think the whole ecosystem is going to be challenged, but there's definitely an opportunity for everyone to play," he added.

While technical skills are important, Cook said human skills, such as learning how to learn, communicate, have empathy and work as a team will remain critical for ongoing career success. These are areas where Lumify has invested through acquisitions and ongoing development.

"We have two important parts of our business, the Plain English Foundation and Effective Negotiation Services [ENS]," explained Cook. The Plain English Foundation is all about communication in relation to writing and communicating with others. ENS is focussed on soft or human skills around negotiation, communication and presenting. We're teaching people how to communicate effectively. It underpins the technical training and the change management we do."

As technology develops at breakneck speed, organisations need to ensure their people are prepared for the technology being deployed and able to adapt as things change. A robust deployment strategy is about more than whether the technology works as intended. The strategy must empower people to gain the maximum possible benefit from the tools today and prepare them for the changes that will inevitably come.

It's not enough to be ready for day one of a new deployment. Organisations must prepare their workforce for a fast-changing future.