35% Off your first year! Join Mind Tools
Invest in Your Future – 35% Off Mind Tools Subscriptions!
Unlock expertly crafted courses and resources to boost your management skills and lead with confidence into 2025.
Save 35% Now
MAIN MENU

Sign-up to our newsletter

Subscribing to the Mind Tools newsletter will keep you up-to-date with our latest updates and newest resources.

Close
Working on it...
Successfully subscribed to the newsletter
Sorry, something went wrong
December 19, 2016

It's Just the Economy, Stupid!

Keith Jackson

, ,

Share this post:

We've highlighted how organizations are suffering because their senior leaders are too slow, or too unwilling, to drive innovation. Research showed that they're failing to use technology to achieve a competitive advantage and to become winners in the digital economy.

But such is the pace of change of technological development that now, just a few months later, the term digital economy is already considered "old hat" in some quarters. Yet alarm bells are still ringing about our inability to keep pace with the rate of change, as individuals, organizations, industries, and even entire economies.

Andreas Schleicher, Director of Education and Skills at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental agency that aims to promote economic and social wellbeing around the world, has warned that there is a widening gap between technological advances and the skills needed for the workplace.

He said, "Technology is racing ahead of the skills people have. This is the challenge of our times. There is no longer a digital economy, there is the economy."

Schleicher argues that governments, organizations and individuals need to invest in "fostering lifelong skills" and "making lifelong learning a reality."

But technological development is nothing new – we have lived with it since the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th Centuries. So, why do we have to worry about it now? And what does it mean for workplace learning, managers and team members?

"We Have To Invest In People"

According to the OECD, it’s the increasing pace of change that is new, and that is rendering traditional learning almost obsolete. As Schleicher points out, it was only 10 years ago that "we didn’t have the iPhone®, Google Maps® or digital printing."

He warns that, as a manager, chances are that you are – or soon will be – in charge of a team that works harder than it ever has, but with declining levels of productivity. And without continuous relevant training and learning, graduates will find that they don’t have the skills that workplaces need, and employers will find it harder to find people with the skills that they need.

But Schleicher believes that the workplace can be one of the best places to learn. He said that integrating the world of work and the world of learning should be a priority for economies. He describes the workplace as "an amazing opportunity to learn."

The challenge for organizations and employees is to take ownership of their learning. The rewards for doing are considerable, and the price of not meeting the hanging demands for skills is daunting. The OECD estimates that people with the skills that employers want are three times as likely to earn a good wage than those struggling to acquire the learning they need. But outside some northern European countries such as Sweden, Finland and Denmark, and also Vietnam and China, a lack of investment in lifetime learning is damaging many societies.

Schleicher said, "We do not have another choice. If we just focus on institutionalized learning we will fail. We have to invest in people. We have to shift toward making lifelong learning a reality."

Share this post:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Invest in Your Future – 35% Off Mind Tools Subscriptions!

Unlock expertly crafted courses and resources to boost your management skills and lead with confidence into 2025.
Save 35% now!

You may also like...

November 16, 2023

Digging Into Conflict: How to "Play Nice" at Work

"It leads to what the author calls “assertive play” – not brick-on-skull assertive, but self-confident engagement, where people know they have things to contribute, and stake their claim."- Jonathan Hancock

, ,

November 6, 2023

What's Your Story?

"A story never ends because it changes who we are, how we think, what we do. Its threads and impact continue to grow in ways we know, and don't know." - Yolandé Conradie

, ,

October 19, 2023

Transitions

Some transitions are harder to face than others. The Mind Tools coaches share their experiences of going through transitions, and their tips on how to deal with change.

,

© Mind Tools Ltd 2024. All rights reserved. "Mind Tools" is a registered trademark of Mind Tools Ltd.
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram