Workplace disruption isn’t going away. Here’s how to stay resilient.

The pace of paradigm-shifting threats to business seems to be speeding up. Since COVID, companies have had to address the impact of social protests, generative AI, and political instability—with more on the horizon. 

Although disruptive changes can take unexpected shape, the fact that disruption will continue to happen is beyond dispute. The question is: how will people leaders prepare their organizations for it?

This note from giant insurer Allianz sums up the outlook of many economists and strategists: "The year 2024 is set to be one of significant political upheaval and economic instability. As countries representing 60% of the global GDP head to the polls, governments, businesses, and households are adopting a widespread 'wait-and-see' attitude that will likely delay critical economic decisions."

Future-ready workforces don’t come as a result of waiting and seeing—especially when we know jobs and businesses will continue to change.

Instead, here’s what you can do to ensure your organization is agile and resilient when those inevitable changes arise:

People: Are we taking the right steps to help our talent grow? 

Your ability to make major pivots hinges on your entire workforce, not just your leaders. Successful future-ready strategies center on helping today’s employees see and realize their potential. 

Take steps to deeply understand who your people are and where they want to go. Frameworks and buy-in matter, but if your investment in future-readiness doesn't start with the needs and identities of the people in your workforce, it will fail at any scale. 

“The #1 most impactful practice for driving business, talent, and innovation outcomes is creating extensive career growth opportunities.”

The Josh Bersin Company research study of 94 L&D practices across 1,000+ organizations

1. Rethink “high potential.” 

It’s easy to think of high potential as something that’s proven: employees are expected to achieve a certain job level or credential before real investment in their development kicks in. 

But building workforce agility requires entire workforces to be future-ready. That means the path to workforce resiliency can’t be paved with reserving development for an elite few. That approach overlooks the potential that sits within frontline and entry-level roles — or 70% of the workforce. 

2. Build occupational identity. 

Your people need to view their current roles as part of their career journey, rather than just a job. When they don’t, upskilling in their current role feels pointless. (Hint: this is one of the reasons why “owning your own development” doesn’t fly.)

That’s where occupational identity, or how we see ourselves as workers, comes into play. 

Give your managers the tools to lead career conversations and exercises that foster the self knowledge and self-belief (like this reflected best-self portrait) that help individuals build this sense of identity. 

Once employees have this, the conversation shifts to growing skills and careers in ways that complement their individual talents and interests, and where there may be overlap between these and priority roles they might grow into.

3. Offer mentoring and job exploration. 

First-generation college students often face a barrier known as “the hidden curriculum,” an unwritten set of norms and expectations for navigating college that other students learn from their college-educated relatives.

A similar phenomenon can happen with first-generation managers. The knowledge that makes career growth possible isn’t always universal, and this can cause bottlenecks in your internal pipeline. 

Mentoring programs can provide employees with the confidence and know-how to navigate internal job growth and understand the opportunities before them. 

Similarly, job rotation and ‘stretch’ assignments can help employees explore growth avenues within the company while developing relevant skills and experience.

4. Align skills with mobility.

We hear a lot about skills-based hiring these days. On the whole, it’s a good thing: removing degree requirements can open doors to roles that were previously out of reach for many. But without a strategy to help your people continue to grow their skills alongside their careers (with or without degrees), it’s just another un-scalable approach to job-matching.

Instead, complement your employees’ willingness to grow their skill sets with the right structures to make it possible, at scale.

Building career mobility pathways that make it easy for employees to transition from entry-level and frontline roles into “destination” roles within the organization is critical.

Out-skilling can happen, eventually. But only after companies realize better retention for providing the opportunity to up-skill in the first place (to say nothing of the halo effect of employee brand advocacy). 

[Get a step-by-step framework for building career mobility for your workforce.]

Training: Are we being strategic with skilling?

We don’t know all of the skills that will be needed in the future. But we can invest in skills we know will endure, and forge partnerships with institutions that prioritize employees’ needs as learners to gain skills efficiently.

1. Balance durable and perishable skills. 

“Skilling” often over-focuses on short-term gains, like backfilling existing gaps, or trying to get ahead of high-demand “hard” skills (think AI prompt engineering).

Although these gains matter, focusing too much on the hard skills of the moment isn’t strategic, and it won’t go far in ensuring a workforce is future-ready.

92% percent of companies agree that human or “soft” skills matter at least as much as hard skills. 

Deloitte

Time management, goal setting, problem solving, giving and receiving feedback, and collaboration are prerequisites for nearly every role in an organization—but they are often overlooked.

Becoming strategic starts with thinking of skills in terms of their durability or perishability. Durable skills not only have a longer half-life than perishable skills, they’re often foundational to more specialized skillsets. 

Ensuring employees have access to strengthening their durable skills early on will set them on a path to make lateral or upward transitions into new roles—including leadership roles. 

2. Prioritize learning how to learn.

Where change is constant, learning must be constant. Helping employees see how the skills they’re learning and using in their roles today can translate across future roles is a critical part of preparing them for whatever the future may hold. This approach can encourage a learning mindset, rather than viewing learning as just a means to an end.

For example, the “people” skills that clinicians use when helping patients understand and make decisions about their health are rooted in the ability to communicate well with a breadth of people. Retail associates and customer service representatives are building those foundational, durable communication skills in their day-to-day roles, too.

And as generative AI rolls out, the skill of “learning how to learn” new skills will be fundamental to making the most of not just the technology now, but any future iterations of the technology.

[Identify the right metrics that matter for skilling investments.]

Future-ready in action

The combined aftereffects of the pandemic caused a critical spike in healthcare vacancies. Like many healthcare organizations, Bon Secours Mercy Health was forced to drastically increase short-term spending on contract labor alongside operating income losses.  

“We have over a million patient encounters a year. Staffing our facilities is a matter of life and death; that is the critical short-term need,” Allan Calogne, Chief People Officer, Core Operations for Bon Secours Mercy Health said at Guild’s 2023 Opportunity Summit. 

The need to ease staffing exigencies now while finding a better long-term solution to them quickly turned future readiness into an operational imperative. 

For the long-term, that meant investing in today’s employees, and building pathways for them to access the skills and credentials needed to move into critical roles. 

The result? Thousands of employees enrolled in programs aligned with mission-critical roles, resulting in better retention rates and reduced shortages in mission-critical roles. 

“The long-term view ended up helping us in the short term. We’ve seen our turnover plummet, our vacancy has reduced by about 45% since the heart of the pandemic.”

Allan Calogne, Chief People Officer, Core Operations for Bon Secours Mercy Health

So, while not all future disruptions can be foreseen, there are practical steps you can take to guard against them.

About Alex Cannon

As a versatile writer and strategist, Alex is leaning into the productive tension between the future of learning and the future of work.