Cartoon Coffee Break: Upskilling for the future of work

You’ve heard it. Work is changing. Technological innovations, economic fluctuations, climate change, political shifts and so many more factors are adding to the complexity and pace of this transformation. To survive in today's rapidly changing world, you need to develop your employees to meet these evolving demands.

You need to send your people to space.

Well, metaphorically. (Although, hello, to all our astronaut readers. How's space?) Think of the astronaut stories you've heard — The Martian, Apollo Thirteen, Gravity, hundreds of others. These types of stories tend to be about survival. Something goes wrong, and our heroes only have limited resources and their wits. So to make it back home, they have to be adaptable and agile. And that's what you and your people need to be to thrive as work continues to change.

As a talent leader, you're mission control. You're the hub ensuring your people can learn new skills and continually adapt as challenges and opportunities emerge. And in a world where constant change has become a fact of life, your organization needs resilience and agility to thrive.

Your employees and managers need to be able to learn new concepts, acquire skills and evaluate their work methods to grow. And by creating a culture centered around learning, you can teach employees how to take the initiative, expand their skillset, and strive for better results.

In the HR space today, we hear a lot about upskilling or new skilling the workforce to prepare for changes — whether it's adapting to new technology or new ways of doing business. Roles, interests, and workflows become more fluid as employees can enjoy more freedom, creativity and flexibility. By reorienting your organization as a talent leader around skills, your HR team can better understand, develop and provision talent to dynamically meet your organization's needs.

You may have heard us talk about Gigs quite a lot.

Gigs are short-term, skill-building opportunities at your organization that anyone can sign up for. Any department that needs a hand with a project or just wants to teach a teammate something can create and run a gig. They're great ways to open another learning avenue for your people to build their skills outside their usual department. We have a thriving gig program here at Cornerstone that we surprisingly call Cornerstone Gigs.

The gig program has been brilliantly successful for our people. 250 applicants and counting are working to create better jobs for themself and their coworkers. They're enhancing skills, growing their careers and bringing different colleagues together for projects.

Connect your people with the essential skills they need to adapt, grow, and be future ready. As employees find new opportunities at your organization, show them the skills they need to build and the content that will support them. With EdCast by Cornerstone, what your people see adapts to the skills they have in their backgrounds, the skills they want to develop and the skill your organization needs.

No one can tell you exactly what the future of work will look like. Maybe we will all be astronauts. And the best way to prepare for our possible spacefaring future, or whatever work will look like, is to help your people build the skills they need to stay agile and adaptable. You and your organization can only succeed if you change along with work.