Panel: Transforming our approach to skills

This panel of education industry experts, chaired by Carl Ward, Chief Executive of City Learning Trust, considers the skills required for the changing world of work and why greater emphasis must be placed on core transferable skills like creativity, problem-solving and innovation. 

Key points

• COVID-19 widened the skills gap, but it has also accelerated digital adoption and ability. This needs to be harnessed - we need to build on the skills we’ve been forced to acquire. 
  
  
• Creativity is a human superpower. Technology in itself has no value - its value comes from its application and it’s people who apply technology. We need to tap into human imagination and creativity. 
  
  
• We need to encourage young people to be curious about learning and identify how it can help them in different stages of their careers. This is particularly important in an ever-changing, volatile world. 
  
  
• Including all perspectives and individuals improves productivity and accelerates progress. Talent isn’t the problem - providing opportunity to all people is. 
  
  
• Upskilling is a business imperative. Change is constant, and in order to keep up with and lead change, you need to innovate. To create that, you need an environment where people can experiment. There is no such thing as mastery - the world moves on before you become an expert. 
  
  
• Essential skills include listening, speaking, problem-solving, creativity, leadership, teamwork, aiming higher and staying positive. 

More about the panellists

Paul Drechsler is an Irish businessman and former president of the Confederation of British Industry. He is currently chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce and a non-executive director at Schroders. At the time of the conference, he was chairman of London First. 

Dame Ann Limb is an educationalist, business leader and philanthropist. She is vice-chair of the City & Guilds London Institute and the current chair of the Scouts - the first woman to be elected as chair of trustees in the organisation’s history. 

Craig Fenton leads Strategy & Operations at Google UK and Ireland. A business leader and entrepreneur specialising in the technology industry, he is also an author, angel investor and adviser to several startups. 

Kirstie Mackey is responsible for driving citizenship through Barclays UK and serves as the organisation’s managing director, citizenship and consumer affairs. Since the launch of Barclays LifeSkills, more than 6.7 million young people have participated in the programme. 

Carl Ward is chief executive of the City Learning Trust and chair of the Foundation for Education Development. Over more than 25 years in education, he has worked across a range of schools and positions, including ASCL president between 2017-18 and as an adviser to the government. 

Future Talent Conference 2021 

This talk was filmed at the virtual Future Talent Conference 2021 on Transforming Skills and Inclusion. 

Learn how to accelerate your thinking about how we can transform the capabilities in our organisations to keep pace with the speed and scale of change. 

The conference explored questions including: 

• What skills do we need to thrive?
• How can cognitive diversity support a more creative approach to inclusion?
• How has the talent landscape been transformed?

Our speakers included historian David Olusoga, Harvard Professor Francesca Gino and entrepreneur, CEO, writer and keynote speaker Margaret Heffernan. 

Watch more videos from the Future Talent Conference 2021 here. 

The future of work: developing skills required for the changing world of work 

25% of long-term career success depends on technical knowledge, according to Stanford University.

In a knowledge-based economy, people need emotional intelligence to thrive. Research by PwC found that 79% of CEOs are concerned that a lack of essential skills in their workforce is threatening the future growth of their organisation and is a key concern in all regions across the world. 

Progressive organisations are moving away from traditional classroom training to develop these human skills. 

Instead, they are personalising, digitising, and atomising learning. They are shifting their attention from specific courses to the whole learning experience.

Over the past 10 years, Changeboard has been on a purposeful journey of self-actualisation as it has evolved into committing itself to become a learning organisation.

Future Talent Learning has been in development over the past couple of years as a result of extensive conversations with HR directors, heads of talent and heads of learning & development (L&D).

Many employers have expressed the need for:

• more dynamic training for their managers
• learning that doesn’t feel like learning
• learning that participants enjoy and can put into practice right from the outset

“… And if that could be funded via the apprenticeship levy, so much the better”.

Future Talent’s Transformational Leadership Programme is designed to fit this brief entirely, allowing you to offer your managers and entry-level talent world-class, highly engaging, fully immersive online learning to nurture the mindsets, behaviours and capabilities they need to become better leaders.