Is work experience the answer to the NEET issue facing the country? And even if it isn’t, are organisations making the most of this model for finding and preparing new and vital talent for the workplace – and for their organisations?  

In a webinar from The HR World, sponsored by Connectr, hosted and introduced by Simon Reichwald, Founder, UnTappedTalentUk, these issues were debated and discussed. The panel included Kathryn Baddeley, Head of CSR & Inclusion, Cisco UK & Ireland, Marnie Bourne, Senior Manager, The Careers & Enterprise Company and Kate Hawthorn, Director Consultant Talent, FDM Group. Together they explored how work experience doesn’t just bring benefits for employers and future employees but also how the traditional models of work experience do not meet the current challenges in terms of experience and scale. 

The question of opportunity was one that came up early with Simon Riechwald noting that some 81% of young people rely on family and friends to secure work experience. He also explained how Covid and trends such as hybrid working had put additional strain on the traditional work experience model. 

The positive elements of work experience were examined by Marnie Bourne who explained how these initiatives fuelled aspiration and essential skills among young people as well as offering a variety of pathways and routes into work. Done correctly, work experience also opens employers to a wider diversity of talent, an aspect that can mean organisations are generating social value through the opportunities they offer. 

However, while Kathryn Baddeley explained that her organisation offered a wide range of work experience programmes – from day experiences to week-long hybrid experience which includes working from home – she also said there were barriers to making this work. One of the biggest challenge for her organisation, and indeed for many others was capacity – simply not having the resources to do more. 

One answer to this is increasing the flexibility around what work experience actually is. While the traditional model suggests a blocked period of time for teenagers to be in the workplace, there are increasingly more flexible models offering multiple experiences. These can even be 2-3 hour periods for young people to access or day-long sessions rather than requiring a longer commitment. Not only can this be better for employers, it can open opportunities to a more diverse range of students – young people who may not otherwise have been able to access to workplace. 

The webinar went on to discuss the creation of Discover Tech. This initiative brought together a wide variety of tech employers and around 300 students for an immersive two day work experience event. On day one the participants took part in sessions on AI, cybersecurity, programming, and digital storytelling while the second day saw smaller groups visiting employers to find out what working in the sector was really like. 

By uniting employers into this initiative it was possible to offer a great resource for work experience which excited both students and organisations alike. It gave students a real insight into the word of tech and made the idea of working for these businesses something they could relate to and believe in. 

As Kate Hawthorn noted, getting work experience right right now is now less about willingness and more about delivering capacity. From this discussion it is clear that the way ahead lies in creating initiatives that are meaningful and creative, rather than seeking to provide the traditional model.  

The panel encouraged employers to think strategically about what they can provide in order to make work experience in the future scalable, inclusive and sustainable. 

The increasing emergence of AI and related technology featured heavily in the discussion although alongside the idea of technology replacing previous jobs for new starters there was the idea that the current influx of early career applicants are digital natives so can bring skills and attitudes to the workplace which existing staff can learn from in order to get the most from evolving technology. 

The panel also address the need to provide appropriate support and understanding to early careers candidates as they make the transition into the workplace. An appreciation both of neurodiversity and the mental health challenges associated with regular working life means organisation are better placed to get the most from their new recruits in the short and longer term. 

The HR World’s webinar The Lost Generation – the challenge and opportunity for HR, is well worth a view to understand the current state of play for early careers and for organisations looking to ensure their own career pipeline remainseffective in these turbulent times.  

Q: Which skills are most important for your employees to develop at the moment?

A: What I am seeing is a clear shift in the skills that matter most, as the audit profession evolves in an increasingly AI-enabled and data-driven environment.

AI is transforming the profession, particularly for early-career professionals. Our teams are already using AI to automate routine tasks, freeing up time for more strategic, high-value work. This allows professionals to focus earlier on unlocking business insights and delving deeper into complex client issues, while continuing to show healthy skepticism. Recognising the pace of change, it’s important to have a continuous learning mindset coupled with key human-centric skills – our people will need to be resilient, self-motivated, and take both initiative and personal responsibility when it comes to working in an AI future. 

This shift is at the heart of our ongoing investment in audit technology and our recent announcement on the rollout of agentic AI, which reflects how we are redefining the audit experience by combining advanced technology with human capabilities at scale.

While AI is often perceived primarily as a tool for efficiency, its real impact is as a career accelerator. It enables faster upskilling, enhances analytical capabilities, and provides exposure to complex problem-solving earlier in careers. Ultimately, the most critical skills combine AI fluency, critical thinking, agility and human judgment, enabling auditors to deliver high-quality work that builds trust and confidence in capital markets.

Q: Does the demand for these skills reflect businesses’ need to be agile and fast-moving in today’s market?

A: Absolutely. Businesses today are navigating constant technological change, evolving regulation and increasing expectations from stakeholders. In this context, audit professionals are no longer focused solely on reviewing the past, they are expected to engage with complexity in real time and provide more forward-looking insights.

We are investing heavily in upskilling our more than 130,000 Assurance professionals globally, with a strong focus on AI, data and analytics.

This requires individuals who can embrace continuous learning, develop a curious mindset, adapt quickly and apply judgment in dynamic environments. This shift in skills demand reflects the evolving value of the audit and the transformation of the audit profession, moving beyond compliance checking to play a more strategic role in uncovering insights and value creation that supports decision-making and reinforces confidence in a rapidly changing landscape.

Q: How are you approaching technology and AI skills, and how are you investing in these areas to ensure employees can use new technologies effectively?

Everyone in your organisation deserves to access the learning and development they need to progress.

We created the The CEO Club to offer this support for anyone in the business who wanted to grow and develop in their role and in the business. CEO stands for coaching, empowerment and opportunity.

We created it for people who wanted to grow or develop in whatever way was good for them. Sometimes that means increasing their confidence, sometimes it means offering management or leadership skills. It’s open to anyone in the organisation but we were particularly thinking about our frontline workers who could feel they were overlooked or didn’t access our usual programmes.

The CEO Club offers a 12 month programme for 12 individuals. We match each of them with a senior manager to mentor them throughout the programme so the whole thing is personalised from the start.

While this programme certainly helped our people internally it also had to have an impact externally for them. I have a passion that we should be developing our peoples for their next job as well as the one they have so the programme is quite flexible and bespoke, keying into the kind of skills and interests they each have.

Learning and development can give anyone company knowledge and skills to do better.

For HR leaders, leadership development has always required a careful balancing act. Senior leaders need time and space to build the judgement, confidence and perspective required to lead effectively, but stepping away from the day-to-day operations is never easy, and it must deliver real value. 

This tension is particularly acute when it comes to directors, who are accountable for decisions that carry significant strategic, financial and reputational weight. And as businesses increasingly operate across geographical borders, those decisions have much wider-reaching implications. 

We live in an era of accelerating global interdependency. Supply chains cross continents, regulatory frameworks are shaped by international precedent, and geopolitical risk is increasingly landing high on the boardroom agenda. And yet, director development for many organisations remains rooted in a single domestic context – across one legal landscape, one set of market assumptions and one cultural frame of reference. 

While this is no doubt valuable, it doesn’t sufficiently prepare boards with the skills needed to interact and compete on a global scale. 

The risk of domestic-centred development

When learning is too narrowly domestic, it can leave boards underprepared. Directors may become fluent in the governance norms of their own market, but lack the comparative perspective needed to understand and learn from how similar issues are approached elsewhere. That matters because many of the challenges facing today’s boards aren’t confined by national boundaries. 

Directors may be considering expansion into new markets, managing suppliers across several regions, responding to international investor scrutiny or assessing risk in an increasingly volatile geopolitical environment. In each case, they need more than technical knowledge of their own system. They need to understand how governance, accountability, regulation and board behaviour vary across jurisdictions – which many director development programmes simply don’t deliver. 

This isn’t only relevant to multi-national organisations. Even organisations with a largely domestic footprint can be exposed to international dynamics through supply chains, customers, funding, technology, regulation or workforce expectations. For HR leaders, that means global awareness shouldn’t be seen as a specialist requirement for a small group of internationally mobile executives. It’s increasingly part of the baseline capability required at board level. 

Why comparative perspective matters

The value of international learning isn’t simply in directors acquiring knowledge of other regulatory regimes. Its deeper value lies in helping leaders to question assumptions and avoid defaulting to familiarity. 

When directors learn only with peers who share the same legal environment, market norms or cultural expectations, certain ideas can go unchallenged. But what feels like ‘the way boards work’ may in fact be only the way boards work in one particular context.  

Learning alongside directors from different jurisdictions can disrupt that. It allows leaders to hear their own environment described from the outside and to see familiar problems reframed through a different lens. That experience can be uncomfortable, but it’s also where some of the most valuable development happens.

A director wrestling with short-term performance pressure, for example, may find that the same tension between immediate results and long-term value creation exists across multiple markets. Another may discover that a governance challenge they’ve considered primarily through a domestic regulatory lens has been approached differently, and perhaps more effectively, elsewhere.

They need leaders who are not only technically capable, but also curious, adaptable and alert to the limits of their own assumptions.”

For boards, this breadth of perspective can sharpen decision-making. It encourages directors to look beyond inherited assumptions, test their thinking more rigorously and consider a wider range of consequences, before reaching a conclusion. In complex environments, that ability isn’t a soft benefit, it’s a core governance capability.

The role of peer learning

While formal content is important, some of the most powerful learning at director level comes from peer-to-peer interaction. 

A room of experienced directors, from different sectors, regulatory environments and organisational cultures, offers a kind of conversation and learning that simply can’t be replicated through theory alone. Every participant brings real boardroom judgement, practical dilemmas and lived experiences. 

For HR leaders deliberating development for senior leaders, this point is critical. The value of a programme isn’t only in the curriculum, but in the environment it creates. Who’s in the room? What perspectives are represented? Are participants being exposed to people who will challenge their assumptions, or only to those who will reinforce them?

The strongest peer learning environments allow directors to engage openly and honestly. IoD’s Global Certificate in Company Direction, as an example, is designed specifically to enable global leaders to share both expertise and experience in this way, which also creates professional networks that endure long beyond the programme itself. 

Adopting a more global approach to director development 

The gap between where boards operate and where they’re being developed is becoming harder to ignore. A domestic-centred approach may once have been sufficient for many organisations, but it’s increasingly misaligned with the realities of modern business operations. 

Boards need directors who can think across borders, understand different governance contexts and learn from peers whose experiences challenge their own. They need leaders who are not only technically capable, but also curious, adaptable and alert to the limits of their own assumptions. This is exactly what the IoD’s Global Certificate in Company Direction was designed to tackle. 

The boardroom may still be physically located in one place, but the decisions made there are shaped by forces that extend far beyond it. 

To find out more about IoD’s Global Certificate in Company Direction, visit: https://www.iod.com/professional-development/chartered-director-programme/global-certificate-in-company-direction/

At a time when technology is surging ahead throughout the HR space, the choices facing L&D professionals in terms of how to get new skills and knowledge to their workforce have never been greater or more complex. Never mind trying to understand the hows and whys of AI, the task of upskilling – or perhaps right skilling – an agile and frequently hybrid workforce in a way that will keep the organisation at the forefront of its market is no mean accomplishment. In the face of so many choices, where can an organisation begin if employees are to be engaged in getting the skills they need when they need them?

“Different delivery methods all have their place,” asserts Brad Batesole, Founding Partner at Madecraft. “Face to face works well for collaboration and relationship building. But for getting skills and knowledge to a workforce at scale, video-led learning that happens in the flow of work is the answer.”

Batesole cites the Department of Education’s Employer Skills Survey,  which found employees are currently completing just 3.6 learning days per year. “That’s not an engagement problem, it’s a delivery problem,” he says. “We’ve spent 20 years making learning easy for us to deliver when we should have been making it easy for people to complete it.”

this means supporting colleagues not only to adapt, but to remain confident, capable and future ready as the nature of work continues to change.”

Naturally AI is having a huge impact on the learning space, and seems to have the potential to supercharge an organisation’s ability to upgrade workforces in record time: “The developments we’re seeing in L&D right now are only possible because of AI,” says Batesole. “Not AI creating content, but AI handling discovery, personalisation, and analytics. It can adapt learning pathways to someone’s current role and future prospects without L&D teams manually redesigning training for each person. That’s what gives organisations agility. Instead of rigid programmes that are outdated before they launch, you’ve got systems that adapt as roles and business needs shift.”

AI, it would seem can power an almost infinitely personalised training resource, ready to adapt to any employee’s circumstances – both their position and their training needs.

As Sally Lane, Head of People Development at E.ON UK points out, this can be very important in a workplace that rarely stands still: “The workplace is evolving faster than ever,” she says. “Hybrid working is now a reality for many roles, reshaping how organisations think about communication, collaboration and learning.” E.ON UK employees have an addition challenge in aiding the transition to a low carbon economy requiring new green skills, particularly in technical and engineering roles. “For us, this means supporting colleagues not only to adapt, but to remain confident, capable and future ready as the nature of work continues to change,” she says.

At E.ON UK learning is no longer a choice between classroom or online delivery but the creation of the right blend of delivery in each case. “Face-to-face group training can be enhanced through technology to create more engaging, realistic learning experiences, while digital learning can be strengthened through group participation and gamification,” Lane explains. “What matters most is the experience of our colleagues and ensuring they can access the learning and upskilling they need.

“Our inclusive development networks are central to this, providing opportunities for colleagues to access learning resources in a way that works for them,” she adds.

An example of this approach is embodied in the company’s Net Zero Training Academy, a national programme designed to equip colleagues with the technical, digital and customer focused skills needed for the transition to cleaner, smarter energy. In this context, technical training combines specialist trainers, real-world equipment and digital tools to support colleagues across field engineering and customer facing roles.

An Employer Research Study from training provider BPP, based on responses from 500 senior HR leaders, has highlighted three main priorities for learning among businesses. First, organisations are doubling down on workplace success skills that technology cannot replicate – adaptability, critical thinking, collaboration, communication and resilience are now regarded as hugely important.

Second, and perhaps unsurprisingly, digital fluency and AI literacy are rapidly rising. Finally sector and role-specific training remains critical, particularly in regulated industries. “As automation and regulation evolve, technical and compliance knowledge needs more frequent refresh, while learners expect flexibility and shorter, more accessible formats,” says Emma O’Dell, Skills and Capability Director, BPP.

“In today’s hybrid environment, employers are less focused on choosing one mode over another and more on using each where it adds the most value,” O’Dell continues. “Online learning works well for knowledge-based content. It offers flexibility, speed and cost-effective scale, making it ideal for technical updates, regulatory changes and digital skills that need regular refresh.

“However,” she adds, “it is less effective for behavioural change and leadership development. Skills such as communication, collaboration, judgement and ethical decision making benefit from discussion, practice and feedback.”

Workshops, coaching and peer learning create the conditions required for challenge, reflection and confidence building, says O’Dell, while acknowledging these types of education initiatives are harder to scale and more resource demanding than tech-based formats.

if you can’t be bothered, why should they? It’s the quickest way to signal you don’t care about them.”

Paul Buller, Head of Learning Content and Coaching Adviser, Mindtools Kineo says that even when taking a blended learning approach, employers cannot take employee engagement for granted. Technology led learning, he argues can be a double-edged sword and employers must demonstrate it is being offered as a positive choice rather than an easy option: “Used wisely, technology can be an enormous aid to empower employees. Almost all of them will regularly use technology in one form or another so it won’t be a shock to them. Use it lazily, though, and you risk breaking the psychological contract – so if you can’t be bothered, why should they? It’s the quickest way to signal you don’t care about them.”

In addition to this, Buller argues, any provision of learning needs to acknowledge the individuality of the learners involved. They must not be treated as an homogenous mass and part of that means ensuring there is still a human touch present even when technology is being used to deliver learning: “We have to be so much more attuned to people’s individuality,” he says, “they will feel that even more acutely now that AI is so prevalent. It means we have to make human contact much more engaging, personalised and meaningful. That’s where true person-person learning comes from.”

Taking the right steps forward, argues Buller, means caring – caring about how others want to learn and caring about the differences that can exist between diverse parts of the business. “Don’t assume one size fits all,” he says. “Listen to people, and care about what they tell you. You can’t do everything for everyone but you can use technology to help understand so much more than we ever could about how people learn.”

the job is not to completely eradicate in-person training for online training, or vice versa.”

Buller’s final note signals the use of AI and data within L&D in order to inform and improve delivery from everyone’s perspective. This, too, he places on the continuum of L&D activities throughout the years: “Learning how to blend human interaction with technology is something we’ve been doing for centuries and this is just the next step,” he says. “Starting small – for instance, using your organisation’s GPT to analyse a spreadsheet of course feedback, building on the outcomes with more of your own questions and asking for suggestions on how to improve the learning based on the feedback, is a great way to become comfortable with what AI can do for you, and how it can partner you rather than be a threat.”

The future may seem complex, but at the end of the day the principle objective is still the same – to create a knowledgeable and skilled workforce in the most efficient and effective way. To that end, as Jon Neale, Growth Director UK & Ireland at Kahoot! notes, the outcome isn’t really to do with the delivery method at all: “For L&D and HR managers, the job is not to completely eradicate in-person training for online training, or vice versa,” he states. “It’s about understanding what a particular learning objective requires, and what format serves it best. Sometimes an in-person workshop can be effective, while an online refresher session might be more worthwhile another time. Finding the right balance between in-person and online training is integral to the functioning of a healthy, engaged workforce.”

Most L&D functions are busy… but very few are truly valuable.

Across organisations, teams are delivering more than ever; programmes, pathways, platforms, and vast libraries of content. And yet, the same questions continue to surface. Why aren’t managers more effective? Why do capability gaps persist? Why isn’t performance improving fast enough?

The issue isn’t effort. It’s focus.

L&D has become exceptionally good at delivering learning. But organisations don’t need more learning. They need capability.

The Problem with ‘More Learning’

In many organisations, the default response to any problem is still the same: create training.

A new system is introduced – training is commissioned. Performance dips – training is requested. A transformation programme begins – training is expected to support it. But learning, in isolation, is rarely the answer.

Having led large-scale learning operations across complex, multi-site environments supporting over 20,000 employees I’ve seen this play out repeatedly. It is entirely possible to deliver high-quality learning at scale, achieve strong engagement, and maintain near-perfect completion rates, and still see little meaningful shift in performance.

Because capability isn’t built through content alone.

It is shaped by clarity of expectations, reinforced through real experience, embedded in day-to-day work, and sustained through leadership accountability. When those elements are missing, learning becomes an activity rather than a driver of change.

From Content to Capability

If L&D is to remain relevant, it needs to fundamentally shift its centre of gravity.

For years, the focus has been on courses, programmes, and content libraries. But the organisations seeing real impact are focusing elsewhere. On roles, skills, and performance. This is what I describe as Capability over Content.

AI will undoubtedly reshape L&D but not in the way people think.”

It is a simple shift in thinking, but a significant one in practice. Instead of starting with the question, “What learning should we provide?”, the starting point becomes, “What does great performance actually look like, and what is preventing it today?”

That reframing moves L&D away from being a reactive service function and towards becoming a strategic partner to the business.

Why Technology isn’t the answer

The rapid advancement of learning technology has only added to the complexity. AI-powered platforms, personalised learning journeys, and evolving skills architectures all promise faster and more tailored development. AI will undoubtedly reshape L&D but not in the way people think. It’s not about faster content creation, but more personalised, skills-based learning, real time support in the flow of work, and better use of data to identify gaps and accelerate knowledge transfer. In doing so, it will also expose weak L&D practices, where the focus is on content over capability. 

But technology is not the solution. At best, it is an enabler, and in some cases, a distraction.

The core challenge is not access to learning. It’s application. It is the gap between knowing and doing.

In organisations where L&D struggles to demonstrate impact, the issue is rarely the platform itself. More often, it is a lack of clarity around what capability actually looks like in practice, where the real gaps exist, and how learning connects to performance in the flow of work.

Without that clarity, technology simply enables the faster distribution of content, rather than improving outcomes.

The Missing Link: Performance

One of the most persistent challenges in L&D is measurement. Success is often defined through completion rates, satisfaction scores, or attendance figures. While these metrics are easy to capture, they offer little insight into whether anything has actually changed.

The organisations making real progress are approaching this differently. They are starting with the business, not the learning.

They ask what outcomes they are trying to achieve, what behaviours drive those outcomes, and where performance is currently falling short. Only once those questions are answered do they consider what role learning should play. And in many cases, learning is only one part of a broader solution.

What Actually Works in Practice

Over the past decade, working across large and fast-moving organisations, a consistent pattern has emerged in what drives impact.

It starts with a focus on roles rather than programmes. Generic learning interventions rarely change behaviour in a meaningful way. What does make a difference is clearly defining what capability looks like within specific roles, what skills are required, what “good” looks like in practice, and what situations individuals need to be able to navigate. This creates clarity not only for L&D, but for managers and employees themselves.

Equally important is designing for application rather than attendance. Learning only has value when it translates into action. That requires creating opportunities for people to practise in real contexts, ensuring managers are equipped to reinforce expectations, and embedding development into day-to-day work. The question shifts from whether someone attended a session to what they are doing differently as a result.

L&D becomes not just a support function, but a driver of workforce agility.”

Finally, sustainable impact comes from systems, not one-off solutions. Programmes may create moments of progress, but systems create lasting change. When capability development is integrated into performance management, owned by the business, and continuously refined based on data, it becomes part of how the organisation operates, not just an add-on.

Enabling an Agile Workforce

This shift is not just about improving L&D effectiveness. It is about enabling organisational agility.

Every organisation is now grappling with the same challenge: how to ensure the right skills are in the right place at the right time. This is often framed as a learning challenge, but in reality, it is a capability challenge.

L&D has a critical role to play here. By focusing on skills visibility, enabling internal mobility, and supporting rapid, targeted upskilling, the function can directly influence how quickly an organisation adapts to change.

In this context, L&D becomes not just a support function, but a driver of workforce agility.

A Different Role for L&D

This requires a shift in mindset as much as in approach.

It means moving beyond fulfilling requests for training and instead interrogating whether learning is the right solution at all. It means building deeper partnerships with business leaders and focusing conversations on performance rather than provision.

Perhaps most importantly, it requires the confidence to say no, because one of the most valuable contributions L&D can make is to stop doing work that does not create impact.

Final Thought: Less Learning, More Impact

L&D does not need to do more. It needs to do what matters.

The organisations that will succeed are not those with the most content or the most advanced platforms. They are the ones that build capability, consistently, at scale, and in direct alignment with business performance.

That is the real opportunity for L&D and it is a far more impactful role than delivering learning has ever been.

There is a tension running through corporate learning that we rarely acknowledge out loud. We celebrate curiosity. We encourage continuous development. We design ever more pathways, programmes, and platforms to help people learn. And yet, the people we are asking to learn are under immense pressure. Their roles are changing. Their workloads are expanding. Their attention is fragmented. Learning, in practice, behaves less like a gift and more like a tax on time, energy, and cognitive bandwidth.

This is not a moral failing on the part of employees. It is a systems problem. We have built learning functions that assume infinite capacity to absorb change, while the reality of work keeps getting heavier. At some point, the maths simply stops, well, mathing. No amount of inspirational messaging about growth mindsets compensates for the fact that people still have jobs to do.

To keep people curious is noble. To keep people employed is divine.”

This is why curiosity alone is not enough. To keep people curious is noble. To keep people employed is divine. That shift in emphasis changes how we think about learning altogether.

For years, the dominant response to disruption has been ‘more upskilling’. More content. More courses. More learning journeys. More time spent away from work to prepare for work. Upskilling became a virtue in and of itself, largely disconnected from questions of timing, relevance, or return. In practice, this often resulted in well-intentioned overload. We asked people to learn everything, just in case they might need it one day.

Rightskilling starts from a different premise. It assumes that learning capacity is finite and therefore precious. It forces us to be intentional about what we ask people to learn, when we ask them to learn it, and why. Not every skill gap deserves a learning intervention. Not every capability needs to be built internally. And not every future scenario warrants preparation today.

The supply chain problem

In my book, The Eight Levers of EdTech Transformation, I describe skills as a supply chain problem because it is one of the few metaphors that captures the operational reality of what organisations are already doing, albeit poorly and without visibility. Skills enter the organisation through hiring, learning, and experience. They decay. They become obsolete. They sit unused. They spike in demand with little warning. Most organisations have no real-time view of what they have, what they are short on, or how long it would take to close the gap.

To be clear, calling skills management a supply chain does not reduce people to inventory. It acknowledges something far more sobering: running a business without understanding your capability pipeline is reckless. Organisations already make sourcing decisions about skills every day. They just do it implicitly, inconsistently, and without data. The cost of getting this wrong is not theoretical. It shows up as burnout, redundancy, stalled strategy, and people being trained for roles that quietly disappear.

To see what this looks like when done well, it helps to look at a modern, digital-native supply chain. Consider Amazon’s handling of something as unremarkable as greeting cards. Amazon does not attempt to design, print, and warehouse every possible card variation just in case someone might want it. Instead, it makes constant, data-informed decisions about what to stock, what to source from third parties, what to produce on demand, and what to replace entirely with a digital alternative. Inventory shifts with seasonality, geography, and demand signals that update continuously. When demand drops, products disappear without ceremony.

Some skills should no longer be bought or built. They should not even be borrowed. They should be automated.”

This is the level of precision most organisations lack when it comes to skills. We talk about “needing more AI capability” or “building digital skills” as if those statements are meaningful on their own. They are not. What matters is knowing whether you need 16 people with a particular capability or 17. That difference determines everything. Including whether learning is the right lever at all, urgency and cost. It determines whether you build, buy, borrow, or do something else entirely. There is now a fourth option that must be taken seriously: Bot (thanks to Annee Bayeux for introducing this model).

Some skills should no longer be bought or built. They should not even be borrowed. They should be automated. This is not a statement about the value of people. It is a statement about the value of their time and the importance of efficiency. Data extraction, summarisation, scheduling, first-pass analysis, reporting, and signalling tasks increasingly fall into this category. Training humans to perform these bot tasks deeply is not an act of respect. It is an avoidance of harder decisions to rethink workflows entirely. This type of thinking also frees up humans to do the type of work that is high-value and meaningful.

Creating the eco-system

None of this is possible, however, without a proper backbone. In The Eight Levers of EdTech Transformation, I argue that skills only become useful when they sit inside an ecosystem, not a standalone platform or a static taxonomy. An ecosystem connects skills data to the systems where work actually happens: HR, talent, learning, project management, performance, and increasingly, AI agents operating across those environments. Without this connective tissue, skills remain descriptive. Interesting, perhaps, but inert.

Now, there are endless debates about whether skills are the ‘right’ unit of measurement. These tend to be a distraction in my opinion. The unit matters far less than the discipline of measurement and the courage to act on it. You could model tasks. You could model competencies. You could model outcomes, pints, kilograms or yards! What matters is that you choose something, track it intentionally, and use it to make decisions that change investment patterns and behaviour.

Curiosity and growth still matter. But they must be anchored in relevance, timing, and constraint.”

Rightskilling is not a softer version of upskilling, it is an extension of it with more rigour. It asks HR and L&D leaders to stop broad-stroke sheep-dip programmes and pathways, and instead, optimise for activity, outcomes and usefulness. To accept that saying no to learning is sometimes the most responsible decision you can make. Afterall, our first leader to serve in L&D is the learner, after the business. We need to advocate for them.

To be clear, curiosity and growth still matter. But they must be anchored in relevance, timing, and constraint. In a world where work is accelerating and capacity is shrinking, restraint is not a lack of ambition. It is a signal that we better understand the system we are responsible for.

In the age of AI, every employee is being tasked to learn new skills – whether through redeployment in a new role, or simply to understand how to leverage GenAI to improve efficiency and productivity in their role.

Traditional expectations around learning new skills are that these are gaps to be filled, leading to a perception of starting from scratch, which can feel overwhelming and with the expectation that this will need heavy investment of focus and time in order to be successful – and development is often low on individual’s priority list.

However, this learning can be accelerated by building self-awareness of your internal motivators and energisers – what we at Strengthscope call ‘strengths‘. Our definition of strengths is that these are ‘underlying qualities that energise you and are great at (or have the potential to be great at)’.

The part of the description in brackets is really important, as by playing to strengths, we would have higher developmental ceilings compared to areas where we are not motivated or energised. This is also backed by research showing that learners using strengths when developing skills at work are more likely to achieve:

• learning goals faster and with higher levels of skill acquisition¹
• fulfilment of psychological needs and greater sense of well-being²
• enhanced cognitive flexibility, creativity and problem solving³
• higher levels of motivation and can practice more intensely and persistently⁴

So here are three top tips we would give when looking to use strengths in the arena of skills development:

Encourage skill development in areas of natural strengths

This is particularly important with skills that are role-relevant since levels of persistence and competence are likely to be higher in these areas. 

Example a. Strategic mindedness strength: strategic planning, strategic thinking skills

Example b. Efficiency strength: project and programme management skills

Example c. Persuasiveness strength: negotiation and influencing skills

Use strengths to fuel skills development

Encourage employees to select the strengths which will be most beneficial to their learning/skill acquisition, making the links specific, e.g. 

I will use my Results focus strength to ensure that I have completed Modules 1-3 by the end of this week  

I will use my Collaboration strength to find a learning partner interested in developing skills in the same area as me and we will hold each other accountable for completing learning in this area

I will use my Enthusiasm strength to ‘teach out’ my new learning to my team and encourage them to gain skills in new areas.

Allow individuals to find their own method of learning

Strengths profiles are unique. At Strengthscope we measure 24 strengths and the chances of anyone having the same top 7 rated strengths in the same ranking order as another person is 1 in 1.3 billion. It is the combination of strengths than will fuel learning in each different context with the different outcomes expected. To highlight this, here is some of our own research from our Team Effectiveness in the Workplace 2025 report, which shows the different strengths of leaders in different functions.

This means it is key that the skills development required may be applied in different ways – so with the awareness and intention use of strengths, the learner will be able to make the right choices on how to maximise their development potential and apply the learning effectively in their role.

^{1 Moore, Bakker, van Mierlo and van Woerkom (2023)
2 Linley, Nielsen, Wood, Gillett and Biswas-Diener (2010)
3 Fredrickson (2001; 2006)
4 Csikszentmihalyi (1990) and Csikszentmihalyi, Abuhamdeh and Nakamura (2005)} 

Companies often overlook their internal talent

Many companies tend to focus on hiring externally because it’s what they’ve always done, or they think it will bring fresh ideas and innovation. This can mean missing out on talented individuals and valuable ideas from people who already understand the business and culture.

Our EY Mobility Reimagined survey found that, in 2025, only 52% of employers say it’s easy to find the required global talent to meet business needs. As employers face skills shortages and a competitive labour market, it’s a great time now more than ever before to look inwards for candidates and to offer reskilling opportunities to those who are already valued.

At EY, we’ve introduced AI-powered tools like My Career Hub to help uncover internal talent and make it easier for people to move into new roles. Users create a skills profile, market their qualifications and experiences, and identify gaps where they want to build competencies. For EY, the data enables us to manage and develop our workforce to deploy skills where we need them and to meet current and future market demands.

Organisations can identify the full potential of current employees, even if managers and employees may have fixed views about their role

It starts with changing how we think. At EY, we make efforts to encourage open career conversations anytime – not just during formal reviews. This helps us understand what people want out of their careers and how we can give it to them. We also help managers look beyond job titles to see transferable skills. Programs like NextGen Leadership and our Recruiter Academy support this, and we help our people to match people’s skills with new opportunities. 

only 52% of employers say it’s easy to find the required global talent to meet business needs

Instead of static roles, organisations can try offering new challenges or encouraging new experiences like rotations and secondments across teams, functions and even geographies to bring out the full potential of employees. An EY example is Mobility4U, our global mobility program where participants can work across cultures and borders. Eighty-four percent of assignees report a positive impact on their careers over the long-term, and those who have taken an assignment have a 24% higher promotion rate.

Learning and development can support internal recruitment

Traditional L&D often focuses on climbing the ladder in one area. At EY, we support sideways moves and cross-team growth. Our learning programs are tied to real roles and career paths, helping people build in-demand skills that lead to new opportunities. We also offer mentoring and stretch assignments to help people grow in different directions.