Professional resilience in the digital age

Throughout my career, I've committed never to stop learning. No matter where we are along our career paths, there are always so many new professional skills and experiences to cultivate.

The concept of continuous learning is even more important in today's global marketplace, where competition for jobs that require a mix of skill sets is intense. We are in a time of rapid technology changes, which creates its own global competitive dynamics. Not only are there more talented individuals applying for the same positions, but the nature of the skills required are also in greater flux than ever before, necessitating constant upskilling.

In January, the World Economic Forum (WEF) estimated that more than 1 billion people will need reskilling by 2030 to future-proof them from technological change. In the coming years, the WEF expects that 75 million jobs will be lost to automation.

In 2018, 45% of employers worldwide said that they couldn't find employees with the skills they needed; that was up from 40% just the year before, and the highest rate in more than a decade. It's why the WEF launched the Reskilling Revolution, a global partnership between industry and countries, to provide 1 billion people with better education and skills within the next decade.

Professionals must keep their knowledge and skills relevant to ensure they can constantly maximize their value to employers in a hyper-competitive and borderless job market and continue to grow their careers.

Doing so is a challenge for both employees and industry. Employers must create an environment that encourages thoughtful interaction and feedback, giving employees the opportunity to improve their skills and even experience failure at times. We need to encourage a culture of rewarding experimentation.

For employees, access to exceptional professional learning tools and platforms has not always been easy or cost-effective. This is despite the progress that leading universities, learning companies, and other entities have made over the past decade to evolve the physical learning experience into a digital one.

At Genpact, we have given our more than 95,000 employees access to upskilling through our continuous learning platform, Genome. This platform uses experts to curate knowledge and harnesses the collective intelligence of our employees to enable easy learning for our distributed workforce.

We have organized Genome as a series of channels, each of which focuses on a particular skill and features 100 hours of bite-sized learning content, including videos, articles, blogs, podcasts, and more.

We have opened up this platform, to offer upskilling opportunities to all individuals across the globe, free of cost, and we are calling it Adapt and Rise. The role-based platform harnesses the power of Genome and offers upskilling opportunities across 13 key business roles, including business analyst, human-resources professional, process operations, project manager, risk and compliance professional, and tech support engineer. Adapt and Rise features 14 expert-identified skills common across roles, including artificial intelligence, change management, customer experience, design thinking, digital business strategy, people leadership, and storytelling.

Immersing oneself in a channel offers the ability to become a more effective, valuable, and versatile employee by learning a critical skill required to succeed in the digital age. Whether it's a graduating student, a transitioning worker, or a working professional who uses Adapt and Rise, we aim to help improve professional potential and drive meaningful impact in the world.

It's true that we're not the first to offer this type of learning platform. Many other companies have made available their own professional learning platforms and resources to an array of external stakeholders. But even more can do their part to provide broader access to key insights, as well as learnings honed from their business and expertise for the benefit of the global workforce.

There is no question that the need for this type of platform has become clearer and more urgent throughout the COVID-19 crisis. With working from home becoming the norm across industries and professions, employers are becoming comfortable with the ability to look at new, disparate geographical locations for impressive talent, while simultaneously working to ramp down business expenses; both trends that put added pressure on their existing talent pool.

We must adapt to the disruption around us. Now is the time to help your employees thrive by staying up to date on the latest skills they'll need to remain competitive in a business world that is increasingly in flux.

We encourage everyone to explore what Adapt and Rise has to offer. I can confidently say that my attitude toward a life of continuous learning has been one of my greatest joys, one that has resonated and impacted everything that I do.