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New technologies are reshaping not just the work we do, but the way we do it. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 identifies four macrotrends that are also having an impact on the way job skills are valued. Together, they are:
As the stock of certain skills rises or falls in response, talent managers will be assessing the capabilities that already exist within their own workforces and planning for what comes next. Changing the mix of skills among your employee base—workforce transformation—isn’t a short-term undertaking, but it’s essential to stay at the forefront of your industry (and ahead of the competition) as markets shift.
Employers in the US have a range of strategies for workforce transformation at their disposal, but the unique mix of pressures in the American economy will make some of them more feasible than others. If organizations can develop the right transformation strategy and execute it well, they can do more than just keep pace with an evolving market—they can leverage that change into an opportunity for growth.
Let’s dig into what workforce transformation will look like in the coming years, and what role applied learning has to play in helping it succeed.
The rise of AI is leaving its mark. Technological evolution is expected to be the single biggest reason for skills change globally over the next five years, and it’s not hard to see why. Jobs directly related to AI development are on the rise, of course. But AI is also having a broader impact on the way work happens, with virtual assistants and AI-enhanced processes stepping in alongside human employees in a growing range of industries. As a result, analytical thinking and systems-oriented thinking will be increasingly valuable across the board.
In the US, demographic shifts are also playing a role. The working population is getting smaller, and is growing older on average, making experienced workers a bigger percentage of the workforce. These employees recognize the pressure to adapt, and are asking their employers for structured development strategies like talent management, mentoring, and soft skills training.
Of the plans that leaders listed for shifting the skill base in their organizations, by far the most popular was upskilling, with 85% of WEF’s survey respondents planning to pursue it.
In all, the report lists eight potential strategies for workforce transformation. Of them, four have a clear relationship to learning and development (L&D):
Notably, these strategies are four of the five most popular, and each one is being used by more than half of the organizations surveyed. Together, they highlight learning as absolutely pivotal for productivity and success over the next five years.
And we can already see the shift in action. One recent PwC survey checked in with human resources leaders and found that slightly more of them were cutting back on hiring. At the same time, more of them were increasing their investments into “skills-based talent architecture” and prioritizing manager training to boost the value of real-time feedback. It’s a trend that, assuming the WEF report holds true, will only continue to grow.
In a moment when learning is essential to near-term outcomes, it makes sense that L&D managers would want to minimize time to value for their learning investments. The faster your workforce can integrate new information, the faster your transformation progresses, and the sooner you can realize the full productivity benefits of your upskilled team.
Applied learning is the peak of efficient upskilling. In an applied learning model, knowledge is integrated directly into the flow of work. Instead of being forced to stop work and switch contexts to research a question or navigate a hurdle, employees have access to essential information as they’re working. Often, applied learning offers workers the solution to a problem they haven’t even encountered yet.
With knowledge at their fingertips, your team spends less time hunting for answers. They can stay focused on their work and tackle new challenges confidently. In this way, applied learning also acts as a complementary technology, one of the transformation strategies listed above: it augments workers’ capabilities by supplying key information in the moment, at the point of need. Employees make fewer mistakes, and work quality stays high—even on tasks where they have less experience.
Applied learning also leverages skill assessments and reporting to pinpoint skill gaps within your workforce, giving you a way to precisely target learning for maximum relevance. And when learning is hyper-relevant and immediately applicable, workers can turn around and use their new knowledge right away, helping to solidify retention for the future.
As workforce transformation becomes a priority in a shifting economy, applied learning is emerging as an indispensable tool. Eagle Point’s flagship Pinnacle Series LMS embraces applied learning as a central design principle and goes beyond providing a simple library for training content. Instead, Pinnacle Series integrates with your organization as a whole, capturing and sharing institutional knowledge alongside industry content as a comprehensive knowledge management solution.
To see Pinnacle Series in action and start building toward your workforce transformation, request a demonstration today.
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