“Education is broken,” says Sean Hinton, Founder and CEO of SkyHive, in a new report on megatrends shaping business. "There is no substitute for the holistic education that a university can provide, but formal education is not moving fast enough to keep up with the demand for skills that businesses have.”
To develop these skill sets, Hinton sees businesses building their own private training programs through relationships with curriculum developers and trainers. If they don't have the money for that, they should help employees find online courses, given how many options are now available.
This need to find creative upskilling and reskilling options, outside of formal channels when necessary, is one of six "megatrends" listed in a new report published by the global law firm Ashurst. The report was based on in-depth interviews with Hinton and six other experts, as well as a survey of 300 senior executives, more than half C-suite, conducted by Economist Impact. Survey respondents were based in Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK, and the U.S.
In addition to that education-related trend, called "Skills for the Future," other trends identified in the report include:
Changing global dynamics. Organizations must improve risk management to adapt to the increasing number of political, health, and other global shocks. The report says that new technologies will be increasingly important to risk managers as they build their capabilities. “What we have available to us now that we’ve never had before is the ability to see ahead through data, analytics, and AI,” says Hinton in the report.
Net zero transition. Organizations need to reduce their "climate risk." Hinton says that "millions of new jobs will be required in the green economy over the next decade." He adds that companies "need to start reskilling their workforce to achieve this.”
Digitalization. Businesses will fall behind if they don't improve value, efficiency, and convenience using technology. The report says the metaverse may take a decade to adopt, but will ultimately become a part of our lives.
Demographic change. Businesses will be more successful if they consider both the aging workforce and the younger generations’ changing preferences. Hinton told Economist Impact he expects an inversion in the way we think of the supply and demand of labor. "Employers have traditionally represented demand and the labor pool—supply. That will shift. Prospective hires will come to represent demand, increasingly able to choose who to work for, and under what conditions, from among competing suppliers of jobs.”
Resilient cities. As cities become denser, they must also be safe and affordable places to live and work. Top-tier cities like New York and London will compete with smaller ones like Lisbon.
While these six trends were identified in the report, Economist Impact says "they will shift." Knowing that, government and business should, the report suggests, "take the time to identify what is over the horizon, the timing of when these trends will hit, and how they might shape the global corporate environment."
