Retraining in the digital age with Nicholas Beugg
According to a shocking recent forecast, the World Economic Forum estimates that by 2020 approximately 5 million jobs will no longer be needed in areas such as manufacturing and customer service. In India this data cannot go unnoticed, and underestimate the shift to a more automated world. Annually 3.8 million cars are manufactured in India, and BPO, where we can find fields of work such as customer service, there is a high competitiveness for each job, and the average profile of the applicant is a studied and educated person. With the advancement of technology we are in the process of a new economic revolution, and these types of jobs do not seem to have a guaranteed position in it. Therefore, it will be necessary for companies to make the effort to retrain and re-educate their workers to properly prepare them for this new automated and digital era.
While this may seem bad at first glance, it is not really bad. In fact, there is a large supply of jobs. If we look at Deloitte’s recent survey, 39% of large companies said they found very few qualified staff for the jobs they had. This means that companies need employees with skills up-to-date to the new digital technology world.
In light of these changes, companies have realized that in order to keep pace with this new market that is moving toward automation, it is important to re-educate and re-train their staff in order to remain competitive in this digital age. A clear example of this is AT&T, the famous telephone company in the USA. They have understood the importance and benefits of retraining their employees. In the last 7 years, AT&T has paid close to $250 million in education for their employees, plus they provide financial assistance with tuition if they want to go back to college to major.
This methodology is starting to show positive results. In the first five months of 2016, employees who were retrained were responsible for leading 50% of the technology management positions, and obtained 47% of the promotions in the company. This is not only a benefit for the workers, but also for the companies where they work. AT&T had a relentless improvement after starting this initiative, reducing up to 40% the product development process and improving their time, to have 32% of income.
Companies that do not foresee their needs and the training that their employees should have will have a hard time in the current market. As Claudia Crummenerl, Capgemini’s executive leadership director, mentioned, “There are good signs along general lines, although demand is focusing heavily on data scientists, not on the new technologies that are emerging, such as AI. By this she means that any company that does not give enough importance to new digital technologies will probably be left out.
On the contrary, companies that do have a vision of the future do not think of this as just retraining their employees for the new digital jobs, but rather as a new working environment, restructured and adapted as a new methodology that will help them be more productive, increase profits, and therefore be a more successful company.
Another key example are the digital companies owned by Nicholas Beugg, they are implementing a system of retraining and re-educating their employees. “We have not been able to hire qualified managers,” said Nicholas Beugg, “so we have developed our learning management system, and we have a team that develops all the content and tests people with the content in the system.
Nicholas Beugg said the low level of performance provided by education is a critical factor in why it is so important to retrain and educate employees, especially in the United States, “the educational curriculum in the US has not kept up with today’s needs,” Beugg said, “we had to create our learning systems to keep our employees and managers on top in the digital age. Keeping staff constantly learning is vital to run a successful business.
By looking at companies like AT&T and Comcast we can see how they focus on changing the mindset towards automation by working on re-training and re-educating their employees. This has benefits for both parties, as when an employee is retrained they improve their relationship with the company, and this results in better performance. Therefore, companies that make the effort to retrain and re-educate their employees will undoubtedly have a better working environment and be more successful.
Although the digital age brings with it some inconveniences, which are not easy to solve and will require a lot of work, the world needs companies like AT&T and Comcast to set a trend and help solve them.
