This post was originally published on this site.
Your employees need more skills training to future-proof your organization — beginning with better literacy around AI.
That’s the biggest takeaway from LinkedIn’s annual “Skills on the Rise” report, which serves as a wake-up call for employers across all sectors. It found that 7 in 10 skills used in most jobs will undergo transformation by 2030, with AI being the main catalyst.
For HR leaders navigating that reality, the question isn’t whether to adapt their companies’ training programs – but how quickly they can pivot.
The numbers are concerning, with nearly two-thirds of hiring managers reporting a mismatch between available talent and company needs. Meanwhile, 1 in 5 U.S.-based professionals worry that they lack future-ready skills, and more than one-quarter struggle to translate individual capabilities into job qualifications.
That gap creates a perfect storm for HR departments caught between upskilling existing talent and reinventing recruitment approaches. With half of all employers now explicitly using skills data in their hiring decisions, the shift toward skills-first talent strategies isn’t coming — it’s already here.
The stakes are high: according to a survey by enablement platform Seismic, 3 in 4 millennials and more than 3 in 4 Gen Z employees would search for opportunities elsewhere if their employer were to not offer skills development.
“As the pace of skills change, our job as talent leaders is to help our employees build the skills they’ll need to thrive in the next era of work — and today, there’s a big opportunity for every workforce to grow in two areas: AI literacy and human skills,” said Stephanie Conway, senior director of talent development at LinkedIn.
Conway points to companies like Tata Consultancy Services, where 460,000 employees have engaged with LinkedIn Learning over the past two years, more than 60% of them taking courses on AI.
Despite AI’s advancement, distinctly human capabilities are also surging in relevance. Conflict mitigation ranks high, followed by adaptability, according to the report.
“Employers desperately want workers who aren’t just technically qualified but have communication and social skills,” said Ben Eubanks, CEO of Lighthouse Research & Advisory. “It’s very rare to have an employee that operates completely in isolation.”
Yet, there’s a communication gap. Just a little more than one-third of workers have had a conversation in the last three months with a manager about the necessary skills to succeed at work, according to Eubanks, citing his company’s research.
Larry Mohl, founder and chief transformation officer at enablement platform Rali, affirms this balance: “While AI gets all the buzz, the real difference maker for workforce agility is about personal and interpersonal skills,” he said, pointing to leadership, teamwork, emotional intelligence, conflict excellence and critical thinking as essential skills that, when done poorly, “actually causes cultural dysfunction.”
According to the LinkedIn report, there is also a growing premium around business optimization. Process improvement and innovative thinking signal that efficiency and creative problem-solving aren’t just nice to have — they are elemental for business survival. Customer-focused competencies are also crucial, with solution-based selling and customer engagement not far behind, as businesses recognize that customer-centricity must permeate far beyond traditional customer-facing roles.
Rounding out the priorities are strategic management skills: stakeholder engagement, resource management, go-to-market strategy, and growth planning. Leadership development increasingly emphasizes these strategic capabilities across multiple organizational levels.
Transforming all those insights into action starts with understanding your organization’s unique position, according to LinkedIn, which advises conducting targeted skills audits to identify specific gaps, then shifting toward skills-based hiring that values capabilities over credentials.
How should learning be structured? “The No. 1 way that workers want to build new skills is through experiences,” Eubanks said. “Unfortunately, many times employers only offer training courses and content for skill building purposes, which doesn’t address the fundamental need.”
Meanwhile, Conway suggests moving from learning as an event to learning as a continuous, embedded experience. For example, LinkedIn has democratized 1:1 coaching, giving every employee access to career coaches. It has also introduced AI-powered coaching on LinkedIn Learning allowing users to practice interpersonal skills interactively.
Mohl stresses the value of cohort-based approaches. “If I’m in a cohort learning about how to use ChatGPT, for example, the social interaction helps build the soft skills as part of the experience,” he points out, advising that employees engage in journeys where “they learn concepts, apply the concepts in their world of work and share their stories.”
Conway underscores that the top skill employers should prioritize for the future is teaching people how to learn, enabling employees to take ownership of their learning and develop even faster than the company does.
Opportunities to learn new, in-demand skills is the No. 1 factor people globally say would help them grow in their career, according to LinkedIn’s findings. “The companies that will win the talent war aren’t just those who hire the best,” it stressed, “they’re the ones who build the best, transforming potential into performance through strategic skills development.”