PwC: HR, become an AI disruptor by being skills-first

“AI is the Industrial Revolution of knowledge work” – that’s PwC’s view.

Based on a deep dive into 500 million jobs across 15 countries, PwC’s 2024 AI Barometer concluded that “AI’s effect on jobs may be similar to that of the internal combustion engine in the 20th century”.

This transformation “reduced numbers of some jobs (such as horse trader) while at the same time creating far more jobs than it displaced (from truck driver to road engineer to traffic police)”, stated the report.

This means that those who are preoccupied with job losses from AI are asking the wrong question.

Instead “AI may be able to help tackle deep global economic challenges”, and if it is “carefully managed”, “the AI jobs transition could deliver a bright future for workers and businesses”, as PwC UK’s Global Markets and Tax & Legal Services Leader Carol Stubbings tells UNLEASH in an exclusive interview.

Stubbings continues: “We believe this is the first report of its kind with such an extensive analysis”, and really beyond simple predictions to really explore real evidenced-based impact.

AI, productivity and labor shortages

PwC’s 2024 AI Barometer found that in the knowledge works sectors with highest AI exposure (aka AI can be readily used for some tasks) – professional services, information and communications, and financial services – there are huge productivity benefits.

The share of job adverts requiring AI skills is higher in professional services (x3), information and communications (x5) and financial services (x2.8) – and the jobs in these sectors are seeing five-fold faster productivity growth that lower AI exposure sectors like transport, manufacturing and construction.

Across all sectors, the postings for AI jobs are growing 3.5x faster than for all jobs, and for every AI job posting in 2012, there are now seven job postings.

This “AI-driven spike in productivity could allow many nations to break out of persistent low productivity growth, generating economic development, higher wages, and enhanced living standards,” Stubbings tells UNLEASH.

Writing in the report, PwC US Global AI and Innovation Technology Leader Scott Likens added: “AI provides much more than efficiency gains. AI offers fundamentally new ways of creating value.

“In our work with clients, we see companies are using AI to amplify the value their people can deliver.

“We don’t have enough software developers, doctors, or scientists to deliver all the code, healthcare, and scientific breakthroughs the world needs.

“There is a nearly limitless demand for many things if we can improve our ability to deliver them.”

PwC’s report also dug into the link between AI and skills.

Employees with specialist AI skills, like machine learning and neural networks, have a 25% wage premium for workers.

While it is important that workers upskill in these deep AI skills, PwC’s barometer report also found that “some of the skills rising fastest in demand are those which cannot easily be performed by AI”.

For instance, performing arts, sports and recreation skills are rising 155% in demand, while there was a 82% increase in demand for personal care and services skills, 58% for energy and utilities and 48% for environment skills.

While the skills in declining demand are those which can be readily replaced by AI – whether that’s IT skills (-26%), design (-23%), sales (-20%) and analysis (-14%).

Ultimately, for PwC, “AI is redefining what it means to be a financial analyst, a software coder, a customer service agent (and many more roles), opening up whole new possibilities for workers to deliver impact.

“Workers who learn to harness AI are likely to have bright futures in which they can generate greater value and could consequently have greater bargaining power for wages – all within a context of rising societal prosperity.”

The question that remains is how organizations can support employees to reap the rewards of AI – UNLEASH got the inside track from Stubbings.

It’s time for a skills-first approach to AI

Stubbings’ advice for HR leaders, especially in the AI-exposed sectors, to capitalize on the AI opportunities is to adopt a ‘can do’ attitude towards AI across the entire workplace.

Along a similar vein to Slack’s SVP of Research Christina Janzer’s perspectives, for PwC, for PwC, experimentation is key.

They need to be looking at not just incremental improvements, but also “be thinking about how AI can be used to expand the frontiers of the possible, creating entirely new roles for people”, shares Stubbings.

By taking this approach, companies can be “the disruptor rather than the disrupted” on AI, and be much more proactive in their response to this tech transformation.

The other key thing here is ensuring that employees are ready for the AI age – PwC’s 2023 Hopes and Fears study found that currently only four in ten employees have a clear sense of how the skills they need for their job will change in the next five years.

“Business should help workers identify and build skills that will be sought after in an AI-driven jobs market”, these could be those that complement AI or are difficult for AI to perform.

To help here, PwC recommends that HR takes a skills-first approach to hiring. This means looking at the skills and competencies themselves, not just how they were acquired (from certain high caliber universities or colleges for instance).

As Mercer has also argued in their Global Talent Trends report, this skills-first approach doesn’t just help broaden and diversify talent pools, but it also “helps workers more rapidly adapt to a fast-changing jobs market”, concludes Stubbings.

HR, are you ready to redesign work with AI and skills at the center?