When employees are preoccupied with how
A recent survey from EY found that 75% of employees feel AI will replace certain jobs, and 65% respondents were worried their job will be one of them. The impact has workers anxious about their future: 67% said they fear missing out on promotions for being underskilled and 66% said they think they will fall behind for not knowing how to utilize this
Kian Katanforoosh, who started developing online AI learning classes in 2017, noticed similar insecurities among his program's millions of participants. His platform, Workera, which he founded in 2020, gives employees a way to measure and upskill their AI knowledge in the workplace in an accessible and personalized manner.
"We created classes that were meant to democratize access to education, but as people were engaging with these new technologies, they were overwhelmed by the amount of content that's out there," says Katanforoosh. "There's a lot of noise; it's really hard [for people] to know what they should learn and what's in it for them."
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Workera assesses employees on over 2,000 AI-related topics and more than 7,000 skills to give employers customized learning plans and create benchmarks based on the needs of the business. Customers using the platform experience eight times the skill growth speed of non-users and achieve an average of a 24% skill score increase following the second assessment after training.
Not only can AI upskilling help employees in their current position, but it can prime them for higher-paying professional opportunities. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics reports computer science and information technology jobs currently pay an average of around $100,000, and will increase by over 500,000 jobs by 2029.
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For employers, empowering talent from within by upskilling and reskilling drives company culture forward while keeping costs down, as it helps to avoid unnecessary hiring and builds retention. A Gallup poll found almost half of workers say they would leave their current job for one that offered skills training. In contrast, organizations with strong learning cultures see retention and engagement rates increase 30-50%, according to Deloitte.
"You have to know people's skills before you know whether you're going to hire, and how much you're going to reskill and upskill," Katanforoosh says. "By creating alignment between business and skills, you can start measuring employees, and that will ensure that whatever learning material you give them is ultimately tied to the projects and business outcomes, which is beneficial for everyone."
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As employers and employees consider the role of AI in the future of work, training shows an investment in what still matters most: A strong culture that values its workers, Katanforoosh says.
"[When] employers invest in reskilling [they] are saying, 'You match the culture that we're looking to build, you're a leader, your values are aligned with ours,'" he says. "[The company] is going to make sure you will be skilled for what the business needs for the future."
