44% of Workers To Require "Reskilling"

Welcome to THE BOTTOM LINE!

Hope you have had a great week so far.

100s of top decision-makers (approaching 1000s) from around the globe rely on THE BOTTOM LINE for the intersection of business + artificial intelligence.

Thank you for all the encouragement and feedback.

- Alan

During a slower week in AI, the conversation always returns to jobs.

Fear of job loss, more specifically.

Personally, I can’t stand fearmongering and projection, but I do understand it.

So instead of hyperbole, let’s look at some data.

Last week, the World Economic Forum released “The Future of Jobs Report 2023.”

The report sheds light on workplace predictions in the near term.

Key takeaways:

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The report is full of strong forecasts and projections, but the most glaring prediction, by far, is that:

The most important thing to note about this prediction is the use of the word "reskilling" and not "upskilling.”

• Reskilling: Learning entirely new skills

• Upskilling: Improving upon existing skills

Read that again.

And this isn’t five years out…it’s already happening - it just hasn’t trickled down to SMBs yet…

So what are business leaders on the forefront doing about this shift?

They are looking to both automate parts of the operations process AND retrain their staff simultaneously.

People are generally resistant to change.

Their routines are comforting and anything that disrupts them will be seen as a nuisance and at most a threat.

But the biggest barrier to change?

Mindset.

So how do we reframe this challenge into an opportunity for ourselves and others?

Make Learning Cool Again!

Instead of firing off an abrupt memo, start massaging this in slowly.

Just like in last week’s issue where the guy used ChatGPT to get himself “addicted to running.”

The program worked by taking him from being completely sedentary to losing 26 pounds in 90 days by making tiny incremental improvements.

By the time he was a month in, he was so hooked that he even took his own initiative to explore numerous additional aspects to improve his running like getting good sleep, eating healthy, and more.

Start by publically rewarding and highlighting the success stories of people and employees who embrace learning.

Since this letter goes out to a wide variety of businesses, I’m always trying to balance directly actionable tips while also keeping them generalized enough to make sense to most readers.

In the following Twitter thread about the future of professional development, I cover some great ways AI will improve the learning process, but relevant to this specific issue is what I refer to as the “Career Upskill Frequency.”

In a nutshell, different industries are “forced” to adapt at different rates to remain competitive in the market.

If you want to dig deeper into this, we hosted a Twitter Space covering this exact topic where business leaders from around the globe (but primarily the US) contributed to the implications of the great “reskilling.”

More on this to follow. Have a great weekend, and thanks for reading!

See you next week. Ping me with any questions or comments and upgrade to get a private AI Business Strategy consultation.

Looking forward,

Alan

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