Business, Featured
IN the next four years PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC, will spend $3 billion to upskill its employees and develop share technologies to support clients and communities. PwC said it has become increasingly apparent that one of the world’s most pressing challenges is the growing mismatch between the skills people have and those needed for the digital world.
The company said there has been an urgent need for organisations, governments, and educators to come together to fix this growing problem and business has an important role to play. The $3 billion investment will be spread over the next four years.
Robert E. Moritz, global chairman PwC International said in a statement: “The skills gap is an issue that goes to the heart of our purpose and we have the scale and experience to make a measurable impact. That’s why today we are launching ‘New world, New skills’ – a commitment to tackle this important problem for our people, our clients and the communities in which we operate,” he said.
Moritz has been working at PwC for 24 years and was the head of the U.S. division before moving into the global role a few years ago. PwC has been upskilling a select group of employees for a while now, but then it became clear that this programme should be opened up globally to the company as a whole.
Joe Atkinson, chief digital officer, PwC, who is overseeing the developing of the training apps and tools, said the upskill programme, which will be available for all of PwC’s 276,000 employees, will focus on four key areas.
PwC is going to roll out different programmes that meet their particular needs ranging from skills academies to digital fitness apps to leadership development. And a proportion of PwC’s workforce will develop specialist skills in areas like data analytics, robotics process automation, and artificial intelligence.
This would help PwC’s workers understand the potential of new technologies so they can advise clients, communities, and other stakeholders. And PwC is also advising its clients on the challenges posed by rapid technological change and automation.
This includes identifying skills gaps and mismatches against likely future needs, workforce planning, upskilling programmes, and cultural change. Plus PwC is going to work with governments and institutions to reach more people. This is evidenced by PwC in Luxembourg helping develop the Luxembourg Skills Bridge — which brings together trade unions, associations, and businesses to build digital industries and develop digital skills, including among those populations most “at risk”.
PwC will also help millions of people improve their skills and knowledge for the digital world by making upskilling a focus of our not-for-profit initiatives by working with students and teachers — which will help ensure opportunities are more evenly spread and we reach people who may otherwise be left behind.
“As we’re on the edge of a new world of work, which is brimming with possibilities ranging from automation, AI, data analysis, and other emerging technologies, these tools are only as good as the leaders who identify these opportunities.
“But, generally speaking, technology is only as good as the leaders who identify its opportunities, the technologists who deliver it and the people who work with it every day. That’s where companies can come up short: their people may lack new skills and those skills can be hard to hire for.
“As a result, 46 percent of global CEOs said that their first priority to remedy the issue is upskilling their existing workforces. Even though many leaders are saying that upskilling is not providing a return-on-investment, organizations need to set up a new approach.
“The approach should be the right mix of skilled and adaptable people who are aligned to the right culture and with the right mindset to power their business. And as automation and ‘thinking machines’ are replacing human tasks, changing the skills that organizations are looking for in their people becomes much more important,” the statement said.
PwC said it could help identify skills gaps and mismatches, build a future-proof skills strategy, lay the cultural foundation, develop and implement upskilling, evaluate the return on investment, identify skills gaps and mismatches, and assess the current environment and challenges.
Plus it can define future workforce and understand the impact of automation, assess current workforce capabilities, understand the organizational culture, identify skills gaps and role adjacencies, and validate the case for change. And it can rapidly review and refresh upskilling strategy, make inclusion a priority, improve the effectiveness of learning organization and technology, and test strategic alternatives and scale best-performing programmes.
– Oct 11, 2019 @ 17:57 GMT |
Tags: PwC to spend $3bn to upskill its employees
