To upskill a company, PwC says to create a 'digital baseline'

When COVID-19 forced industries to get comfortable with remote work, it also forced employees to adopt technologies and digital tools they may have otherwise been able to resist. By October 2020, in fact, McKinsey estimated that the digitization of businesses had already been pushed three to four years ahead of schedule. 

But that doesn't mean that every worker has been able to keep the pace. According to a 2020 PwC report on upskilling and talent, 74% of CEOs are worried about the skills of their teams in an increasingly automated and digital world. But just 18% reported having made "significant progress" in building upskilling programs.

"Here's the problem: They don't know where to start," says Suneet Dua, chief growth officer for PwC's U.S. products and technology. But the solution can be simple, he explains. Start by establishing a digital baseline for an organization's talent. "What skills do you have? What skills do you want to have? What roles do you want to eliminate and what processes do you want to automate?" 

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In his role, Dua is tasked with running products and solutions for the firm, and he knows firsthand that developing tech-driven solutions to business problems aren't impactful if you're not upskilling talent along the way. That's why he helped PwC create a program to digitally upskill its own workforce — and help the firm's partners do the same.

ProEdge, PwC's upskilling program and platform, gives organizations a roadmap for upskilling an organization at scale, and helps businesses find the best path forward for their unique needs and workforce. But for any organization that's looking to strengthen its skill sets, Dua says the first steps can be as easy as understanding your own digital baseline, and then challenging employees with simple tasks.

"If you're producing a quarterly business report, and you're sharing your monthly results on paper, well, create a data visualization instead — that's the easy stuff," he says. "Once you take the horse to water, they can really start multiplying on those skills."

When it comes to upskilling, Dua says most workers will fall under two categories: those who need support and guidance to understand and embrace digital concepts; and those who are craving more intense upskilling and want to join the ranks of "edge" workers to create big solutions to big challenges. 

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Though it's easy to assume that older workers may need more motivation and support, getting people comfortable with new automation and tools in the workplace can be a challenge for workers of any age, Dua says.

"It's really generation-agnostic, and it's more about telling people who've been doing the same job that they can be a part of the new world of automation — you're not going to be left behind," he says. "And that's what I talk to CEOs about: those employees have a lot of talent, industry and company knowledge that you'd potentially let go versus reskilling them."

Still, when it comes to talent and retention in a challenging market, the opportunity to be continually upskilled at a job is of particular importance to the fast-growing population of Gen Z workers, who are expected to make up more than a quarter of the entire workforce by 2025. Raised in a digital-first world, this up-and-coming talent is bringing a new level of savvy to the workforce. 

"They're so willing to try new things and get instant gratification, and they're also willing to do the new, and build new things and makeover antiquated processes in any company," Dua says. "They see other people taking four steps to achieve something, and they know how to eliminate two of those steps to get the same result." 

Organizations may be tempted to lean on that tech-savvy generation to help upskill the rest of their workforce, which Dua says can work — if you do it at scale. Internally at PwC, Dua says they've found ways to "gamify" digital upskilling to get buy-in from all corners of their workforce, offering incentives if a certain portion of the staff completes upskilling tasks; that's empowered PwC's tech-forward employees to serve as ambassadors who can motivate colleagues who may otherwise drag their feet toward progress. 

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"The feedback we got was, 'This wasn't hard,'" Dua says of recent upskilling assignments. "People realized they can learn this stuff, and while it was baby steps, it's still pushing us forward as a company."

As PwC brings this method of upskilling to its partners, one remaining challenge is that most organizations expect to see an immediate ROI. But to understand the value of upskilling, organizations should reconsider what exactly they're measuring.

"Some of this return doesn't show up right away, but it shows up a number of years later," Dua says. "But the other return is that attrition drops and employee satisfaction on people surveys increases. People feel it when you're investing in their future careers — and that's the value equation to consider, in addition to eventual financial results and returns."