Generative AI has opened workers’ eyes to how much they can learn using the tool—and how quickly.
Most workers (86%) are motivated to use AI to learn new skills at work, according to a survey of more than 500 adults commissioned by Bright Horizons-owned EdAssist and shared exclusively with HR Brew.
When asked their motivations for upskilling with AI, 45% (the highest share) said they’re using it to help them be more efficient with new learning opportunities and picking up new skills.
“There may be components of a new skill or a new task that you’re being charged with that is made up of variable components. Can you use AI to say: How can I make this more digestible?” said Diane Bartoli, senior vice president at EdAssist by Bright Horizons.
But the challenge that employers face is addressing that many workers still lack the skills to understand if they’re prompting AI correctly, and evaluating the quality of what the technology gives back to them.
“This is where we see organizations really kind of wrestling with: How do we put together programming and support for employees that helps them harness the power of AI effectively?” she said.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for creating this programming. The specific approaches employers take to helping workers harness these skills will vary based on industry and even specific functions within the company, Bartoli said. However, pushing for soft skills such as leadership capabilities, communication, critical thinking and reading between the lines, have been a focus for many corporate leaders.
Quick-to-read HR news & insights
From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.
“These are things that historically don’t have courses attached to them. We’ve sort of treated them as you either are a people person, or you aren’t,” Bartoli said. “I think that there’s increasingly increasing recognition [that] we can actually train for these things…In fact, we’re going to need to.”
This is particularly pertinent to Gen Z workers. They’re more likely to embrace AI tools—according to the survey, 43% of Gen Zers want to pursue AI upskilling to achieve better work-life balance, compared to 35% of all respondents, and 42% want to pursue AI upskilling to allow them to focus on more meaningful work, compared to 31% of overall respondents.
However, early-career workers are also reportedly more concerned about how AI could affect their jobs. For example, if young bankers aren’t spending as much time in Excel spreadsheets because AI is taking over many of those tasks, they won’t have that learned experience to vet the quality of its output without additional training.
“We need to ensure that younger generations, who don’t necessarily have that wealth of experience to be able to know when something is not correct, are armed with the proper analytic skills, and skills to say: Is that actually right?” Bartoli said.