TD Magazine Article
Skills, 2025
Learn more about what businesses must do to address skills challenges.
Published Wed Oct 01 2025
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The World Economic Forum predicts that two out of five workers can expect their existing skill sets to transform or become outdated in the next five years. Further, WEF’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 reveals that nearly two-thirds of employers identify skills gaps as the biggest barrier to business transformation. As a result, 85 percent of employers plan to prioritize upskilling their workforce, WEF reports. Is your company among those employers? Read on to learn more about what businesses must do to address skills challenges.
Artificial intelligence is transforming work faster than organizations can adapt. According to Gallup, in just two years, AI use in the US workplace has nearly doubled (from 21 percent to 40 percent of employees), yet many teams still lack the training and confidence to use it effectively.
Global studies show that while most employees accept AI in principle, few have received guidelines for its use. Gallup reports that when leaders communicate an integration plan, employees are three times more likely to feel prepared and 2.6 times more likely to feel comfortable using AI.
The World Economic Forum projects AI will create 97 million new roles by the end of 2025, which will have a greater emphasis on creativity, problem solving, and collaboration. Continuous learning is now essential for workforce resilience.
One pharmaceutical company recognized that, and its L&D team acted by piloting an AI literacy program. By focusing on scenario-based learning and real-time feedback using AI, it saw rapid results:
Seventy-five percent of staff reported higher productivity.
All wanted to continue learning.
As adoption accelerates, AI literacy is no longer optional, and the pressure is on to act fast.
For more on AI literacy and workforce development, visit: umu.com/ailiteracy
North American companies are facing a quiet crisis that, left unchecked, could unravel their future prospects.
As the pace of change quickens, so too does the need for timely and ongoing upskilling efforts. But there’s a belief gap between businesses and their employees that’s sabotaging efforts on both sides. It’s what we call the upskilling belief gap.
A 2025 survey we conducted of 1,000 employees in North America found that what employees think about their upskilling efforts doesn’t match the realities of a corporate learning environment.
Most employees (62.3 percent) said they found it easy to choose learning opportunities that help them reach their goals. And more than three-quarters of employees said they can identify which skills they need for their job or career path.
But they rely heavily on formal feedback from their people leaders to identify where those skills gaps lie. And the biggest barrier between them and upskilling that they reported is that they didn’t know where to start.
Look to your own organization. Are your employees taking professional development opportunities? And if so, have you filled your skills gaps? If the answer is yes and no, respectively, you may have an upskilling belief gap of your own.
Oganizations face an unprecedented challenge: Forty-four percent of worker skills will become obsolete within five years, according to the World Economic Forum. That accelerating pace has elevated L&D from a support role to a survival necessity.
The shift reflects fundamental changes in how companies must operate:
Measuring what matters. Traditional training tracked course completions. Today’s L&D measures actual behavior changes and business results, providing insights into how people make decisions, adapt, and perform under pressure—data that directly predicts business execution capability.
Speed as a competitive advantage. Companies that can quickly teach new skills gain mounting advantages. Research shows that properly validated learning helps organizations develop competent employees 40 percent faster, while slower competitors fall progressively behind.
Owning strategic intelligence. L&D now controls the data driving major business decisions. Questions about technology readiness, market expansion capability, or leadership strength all depend on understanding workforce capabilities.
Building adaptive capacity. Beyond individual skills, L&D develops organizational learning agility—the ability to continuously evolve as markets shift.
That positions L&D as uniquely equipped to measure and develop the human capabilities that determine whether companies thrive or fade in an era of constant change.
