Definition of Future-Ready Workers
Future-ready workers are a minority group of talent who are flexible, tech-savvy, and proactive. Bringing many advantages to the table, they are willing to adjust to the changing environments and welcome innovation with arms open. Future-ready workers are reported to be comfortable working with AI. In fact, they experiment with different ways of integrating.
Looking at AI as an opportunity to develop new skills and progress at their career, future-ready workers are regularly investing their time off work studying and developing their AI skills. This makes them able to perform more efficiently than most workers. However, future-ready workers are currently taking up only 11% of the global workforce.
To learn more about the future-ready workers and keep up with the next wave of trends to come, download our latest report; ‘Working through change: adapting to an AI-driven world of work.’
Where Can Future-Ready Workers be Found?
According to the Adecco Group’s latest report; ‘Working through change: adapting to an AI-driven world of work,’ future-ready workers are most likely to be found in regions like India, China and, the USA, with 32% of them working in the financial and services, insurance, legal and professional services space. Other industries are also seeing a rise in future-ready workers. The consumer goods, retail, e-commerce, and supply chain sectors lead with 18% of this workforce. The transportation, mobility, and automotive industries follow closely, housing 14% of future-ready talent, matched by the technology sector with another 14%. Meanwhile, manufacturing and logistics contribute 11% to this forward-thinking group of professionals.
When it comes to position, most future-ready workers are Managers (56%.) Other positions where you can see these types of talent are: Senior Managers (25%), Leaders (9%), non-managers (8%), and entry level (2%.)
How You Can Nurture the Future-Ready Workforce
Future-ready workers are shaped by their employers. Essentially, they are a group of workers who are being supported by their employers for career development like upskilling or internal mobility. Based on the Adecco Group’s study, over 93% of future-ready workers frequently participate in leadership training provided by their employers.
It goes without saying that employers can essentially develop any of their workforce to become proactive and ready to tackle the challenges and changes that tomorrow brings.
So, how do you start developing your workforce? You can simply start with these four strategies:
- Assess: Regularly assess the suitability and relevance of current skills among your workforce.
- Communicate: Approach your workers and inform them about areas of development and offer progressing opportunities.
- Develop: Work with your employees to design a personalized career development plan.
- Train: Invest your resources in training and developing the skills of your workers. It can either be proper training or on-the-job learning.
One thing to keep in mind though, is that you will see your workers becoming future-ready and eventually leaders in the coming years if you maintain the employee development trajectory. On the other hand, if you take your focus away from developing future-ready workers, you will see these talents walking away rather quickly.
Based on the Adecco Group’s latest study, future-ready workers will be loyal to an employer that makes them feel valued. 89% of them intend to stay with their company over the next 12 months, while nearly half of the future-ready workers revealed that they could find new opportunities elsewhere within one month if their current employers don’t value development.
This goes to show that future-ready workers prioritize upskilling over traditional career progression. They understand the value of non-linear career paths and adaptability. So, it’s to employers to put their effort into molding their workers and preparing them to step up and take the lead in the near future.
Conclusion
It’s safe to say that the talent landscape is always in a state of flux. The arrival of future-ready workers is the key evidence of the constant change that keeps circling around the talent scene. Although they are still a rare group of workers, many signs have shown that we will see more of them as they take a step and become leaders in the future. So, it all comes down to organizations to prepare and shape their workforce to be ready to adapt to the changing environment and excel.
