How AI tools can help businesses identify skills required for growth

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Cognitive technologies have taken the center stage of every business. Companies are re-wiring themselves and focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI), advanced analytics, blockchain, 5G, machine learning, etc. to capture growth across global markets.

Since the agenda of almost every organisation is to work on these advanced technologies, it is creating a huge demand for skilled workforce that can work on algorithms and assist companies in capturing future growth potential.

However, if we dig into the numbers, the talent demand-supply gap is huge. As per a report ‘Talent Demand & Supply Report: AI & Big Data Analytics’ by Nasscom, the total demand for AI and Big Data analytics talent in India is estimated to be around 800,000 in 2021, and the demand-supply gap is expected to grow from approximately 62,000 to around 140,000 over the next three years.

As companies need to transform to cognitive enterprises at a rapid pace, they are looking to hire experts who can work on cognitive technologies from within the limited talent pool.

The way forward

To get the skills needed for the agile teaming and integrated workflows, organizations have to embrace continuous learning as well as new workforce planning tools.

Here, HR and business functions play a pivotal role. They must analyze skills gap, conduct review of the programs for hiring, train and manage talent. This whole exercise should be done frequently between functions as well as the HR.

Technology can help you in this endeavor

The good news is AI can help in identifying skills, transform the way organization hire and make the entire process effective and transparent. AI-enabled systems can provide the business with a deep understanding of what skills the enterprise may require now and in the future, and also shed light on the availability of those skills internally and externally.

The new AI tools and systems can also use data from an organization’s HR systems, its social and collaborative spaces, and other sources, and infer which skills are available with significant granularity.

Once organizations understand the skills they have and those they need, they can run through the same at every aspect of their management system.

It doesn’t just end here

Most organizations consider previous roles as the prerequisite for moving to a new one, similar to the approach often used for external hiring. This puts them in a loop of hiring the workforce with the same skill sets.

However, once an organization shifts to a skills-based staffing approach, AI-enabled coaching tools can suggest potential new roles based on whether an employee possesses skills similar to others who have successfully performed in that role.

In this way, AI can link people to jobs they might not have thought about and, armed with new knowledge about what it takes to succeed, employees are motivated to take on new skills and tasks.

Post-hiring phase

Since employee experience is an important factor, every organisation should cultivate experiential, peer-to-peer learning programs. These kinds of programs emphasize skill building directly from peers and teammates as part of an employee’s daily experience.

Here again, AI can help organizations personalize employee experiences. AI solutions can suggest content tailored to an individual employee, effectively curating a personal, on-demand curriculum for every learner in the enterprise.

Also, AI-enabled learning platforms can help organizations ensure their workforce is accessing the most relevant learning material at all times – as well as mitigate the risk of AI skills and expertise becoming an obstacle to adoption.

Conclusion

New skills are essential for business platforms to effectively integrate people, workflows, exponential technologies and data to deliver new outcomes.

AI technology can give companies to focus on internal skills, how employees can be put on a learning curve and identify and hire talent for an organisation to transform into a Cognitive Enterprise.