When PwC announced it was launching a new immersive technology training programme for UK employees, chief people officer Laura Hinton says she was blown away by the response. More than 2,000 people in the UK applied for the 250 digital accelerator positions, launched in September 2019, which would take applicants out of their current roles for nine months while they learned about applied data analytics, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and other technologies.
“[Our digital accelerators] are our super users; they help people join the dots,” Hinton says, adding that it’s just one part of a broader upskilling initiative for all employees. “We can send everybody on a training programme but if they don’t really know how to use [those skills] back in their day job, then actually it won’t help us as an organisation … Our digital accelerators are the people over the shoulder, saying: ‘Have you thought about doing this?’ The feedback has already been really positive, they’re making a big difference to projects.”
Hinton believes the popularity of this initiative is further proof that employees are looking to their employers to be given opportunities to upskill. Research by PwC, covering 22,000 people in 11 markets, found that 54% of UK workers (and 67% of 18-34-year-olds), want to learn new skills to improve their future employability. Three-quarters (73%) say they would take the opportunity to learn more about technology, and 58% say they are worried automation will put their job at risk. Despite this, only 49% are given the opportunity to improve their digital skills outside their normal duties. That means UK workers are given the fewest chances to upskill compared with employees in countries such as the US, Germany, India, China, France and South Africa.
Thanks to the fourth industrial revolution, the world of work is changing rapidly. The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2022, no fewer than 54% of all employees will need significant upskilling. At its annual conference in Davos in 2019, Carol Stubbings, global head of PwC’s people and organisations practice, said the future skills gap was a topic everyone was talking about. “This is a global issue. Every company in every country is facing a huge upskilling challenge.”
Yet, despite an understanding that technology will alter many jobs beyond recognition – as many as one in three could be automated by the mid-2030s – there has been a lack of progress made by educators, governments and businesses when it comes to finding a solution to the skills gap. “Everybody could see the problem, but everybody thought it was someone else’s problem to solve,” Stubbings says, adding that companies are investing heavily in technology worldwide but aren’t necessarily seeing a significant rise in productivity or a fall in costs. “That’s because they haven’t invested in building the skills of their own employees to work alongside that technology,” she says. “This isn’t about teaching everybody to be data scientists. This is about teaching people to be more digitally aware. Equally important are skills such as critical thinking, emotional intelligence, resilience, and the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn.”
Recognising the scale of this societal challenge, PwC has committed $3bn (£2.2bn) globally to its New World, New Skills programme. This will see all 270,000 of its people around the world upskilled, as well as millions across society. In the UK, as well as the digital accelerator initiative, there’s an intelligent digital hub for self learning, badges for employees to earn, and a digital fitness score to track progress. Staff members will also be encouraged to attend two days of face-to-face training at PwC’s digital academy, learning more about some of the technology the executive team believe will be critical for the business in the future. That can be difficult to predict in an ever-changing market, Hinton says, which is why it’s important for employers to adopt a culture of continuous learning. “I don’t think it works to say we will give you these specific skills, or we will teach you to be x, y and z,” she says. “Because, actually, in five years’ time, the skills needed will be d, e and f.”
At a community level, PwC is behind the Tech We Can initiative (which more than 130 other organisations have signed up to since its launch), working with schools to get children, primarily aged 10-13, interested in technology. That’s particularly important for those from socially disadvantaged backgrounds – and girls. “We know girls opt out of maths, science, tech-type subjects really early on in their schooling,” Hinton says. “And we’re doing more around work experience and upskilling of people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds to make sure they’re able to access this new world of work.
“Technology is a great leveller,” she adds. “Nobody has an inherent advantage when it comes to tech skills because, actually, it’s all new. The more we can do to make these skills really prevalent, the better it will be for everybody.”
Stubbings hopes that research, such as that compiled by PwC, will act as a wake-up call to the global business community, which faces a significant mismatch in the skills it currently has and what will be required in years to come. “At the moment, I don’t think education, corporations or governments are really focused on that in the way they need to be,” she says.
“Jobs, as they are today, fundamentally need to be deconstructed and reconstructed for the future,” she says. And despite the UK’s current position at the bottom of the upskilling table, she believes there is hope to make a change: “If you look at the UK in terms of its leading position on education, innovation and its role as a global hub for business – I do think we’re in a great position to make a difference.”
