Episode 209: The Four Reskilling Principles Every HR Leader Should Know (Interview with Anish Lalchandani)
With multiple reports predicting the disappearance of million jobs in the coming years, an urgent need for a reskilling revolution has sparked organisations and governments across the globe.
In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, David Green dives into this pressing topic with Anish Lalchandani, Global Head of Talent Management at Maersk and author of The Skills Advantage: A Human-Centered, Sustainable, and Scalable Approach to Reskilling. Packed with insights, this episode covers:
The “four cornerstones” of reskilling: awareness, application, agility, and alliances, and how they drive sustainable workforce transformation.
The pivotal role of AI in accelerating reskilling efforts and the importance of balancing technological advancement with human-centered skills.
Strategies for building partnerships within and beyond the organisation to foster a supportive reskilling ecosystem.
Key metrics that HR leaders should use to measure the success of their reskilling initiatives and demonstrate value to the business.
This episode, sponsored by Workday, is essential for HR leaders looking to transform their people strategies through AI-driven talent orchestration and offers practical takeaways on how to leverage these tools for organisational success.
Workday is a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for HR and finance, recognised as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud HCM Suites.
Organisations ranging from medium-sized businesses to more than 50% of the Fortune 500— including Netflix, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, and Rolls Royce—have chosen Workday to build their HR systems and implement Workforce Analytics solutions. Join them and learn more at workday.com
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[0:00:00] David Green: According to the World Economic Forum's most recent Future of Jobs report, almost a quarter of jobs are expected to change in the next five years, with 69 million new jobs created and 83 million eliminated. As such, the reskilling agenda is of critical global importance, not just to workers, but to organisations and governments too. I'm David Green, and in today's episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, I'll be exploring this topic with Anish Lalchandani, Global Head of Talent Management at Maersk, and author of The Skills Advantage: A Human-Centered, Sustainable, and Scalable Approach to Reskilling.
Anish's career journey has taken him through a wealth of experiences, leading to his current work on reskilling, and the framework he has developed to help organisations around the world. Today, we'll discuss the four cornerstones of this reskilling framework: awareness, application, agility, and alliances, and how these can be applied to drive meaningful transformation. We'll dive into how AI is accelerating reskilling efforts, the metrics HR leaders need to measure success, and the critical role that partnerships, both inside and outside of organisations, play in achieving these goals. We have lots to cover in our conversation, so without further ado, let's welcome Anish to the show.
Anish, welcome to the show. To kick things off, could you give listeners a short introduction to you and your journey that brought you to where you are today?
[0:01:53] Anish Lalchandani: So, the first phase of my career started in business, looking at consumer finance, looking at business operations, learning how we look at processes and all of that. And what I realised was, in a couple of years' time, that it's great to have some of these processes and operations, but things either succeed or fail purely depending on how people come together. And that curiosity led me to read quite a lot around organisational behaviour, go and do studies in HR, and that led me to the second phase of my career within HR. My first HR stint was really looking at M&A kind of projects, and from that, it led me to do a number of transformation projects and programmes around people, process, technology, OD, looking at how we kind of set up learning academies for digital learning. And it was also quite widespread. It was looking at some aspects in China, to India, to Dubai, to Europe. So, quite diverse people to work with, and also a lot of HR disciplines to look at in that space.
From there, I realised I think I need to specialise a bit, and that's where I think my last decade of my work has been, around talent, leadership, and culture. Now again, in that, it's quite a broad area. So for me, initially, I spent quite a lot of my time on executive succession, looking at management team, succession planning, and development. We started to look at the next generation of leader pools, diverse talent pools, and how do we overall look at talent from a workforce point of view as well. So, quite a lot of interesting work in that space, and at Maersk, I do the same. So, I'm looking at global talent management. We're looking at how we re-imagine talent and performance. And for people who don't know about Maersk, Maersk is a 100,000-odd employees, 120 countries, 100-odd nationalities, so quite massive and complex, and our work is essentially around ocean logistics and supply chain. So, things like Red Sea always bothers us, and that kind of helps us to think of, okay, how do we do things differently? How do we make sure we are always ready for what the business is looking for?
So, bringing all of these experiences together, from our practice leadership to also reading and writing around skills, that led me to write this book. But funny enough, if you would have asked me this question when I was younger, I would have told you I want to join the army. I don't know what I would have been thinking of, maybe just the cool uniform. But as things have evolved, I found my space, and I really love what I do now.
[0:04:44] David Green: In your book, and I'll give the full title here for listeners, The Skills Advantage: Human-Centered, Sustainable, and Scalable Approach to Reskilling, you write in detail on the importance of reskilling the workforce. Now, we hear a lot about upskilling, but I really enjoyed your focus on reskilling. Maybe you could explain to listeners what the difference between upskilling and reskilling is, and why you think reskilling should take priority.
[0:05:11] Anish Lalchandani: So, David, when I started writing this book, it was all around the way that business models are being disrupted, how people are looking at the entire business cycle. If we look at the S&P companies, the tenure of S&P companies used to be, say, 30, 35 years in the 1970s, and that's reduced to 15 years now. And we're talking about big, massive S&P companies, if you ask S&P-listed companies. And that led me to start thinking, how will this really play out for us, for any organisation? We've been always focusing on upskilling people into their current jobs so that they can perform better. But that would essentially warrant that we start to look at new jobs, new job families, and that requires reskilling. And that requires a bit different approach than purely upskilling, and that is where I see the biggest transformation happening. It's not about how we're going to take all our colleagues on this journey, but how we reskill them so that they're ready for the new jobs which are coming.
Even if we look at the World Economic Forum studies or research, it talks about 89 million jobs disappearing by next year, 90 million new jobs appearing. That raises a big question, what does that mean then? And then if we add the third aspect, which is what I call in my book is around talent uprising, people are looking for meaningful jobs, they're looking for meaningful careers, they're looking for how does it connect to their purpose. They're not passively going to accept anything which is going to come their way. That would mean a huge change management effort, which is human-centred, as well as we can sustain it. And that led me to really think, okay, if we're really looking at this, we need to do things differently than what's done today. And reskilling is where you start to essentially look at all of these aspects, but then bring them back in this entire journey, which I kind of think the analogy of it is like a roller coaster, you know, something is going up, something is going down and it is spinning, it's quite messy and disruptive, not only in the business side, but also of people.
That's been my attempt to say, how do we connect these dots from business point of view, from people point of view, from HR point of view, and look at this bit differently? So, that was the main purpose for me to zoom in around reskilling and how we can do things a bit differently, and how we bring that out across HR.
[0:07:40] David Green: In The Skills Advantage, you break down the reskilling strategy into four cornerstones of reskilling: awareness, application, agility, and alliances. Could you walk us through each of these, walk listeners through each of these, and how they work together in practice?
[0:08:00] Anish Lalchandani: It's like a recipe, if you ask me. So, in the recipe, you have ingredients. And the cornerstones, in a way, are the ingredients to that recipe. And there's definitely a kind of a step-by-step process of how you build that strategy from planning, identifying, developing, deploying, and measuring. But if I look at these cornerstones, the reason I chose to write it this way, because I feel every organisation has a bit different context the way they operate. There's going to be no playbook, which is going to be very, very standard and everyone can just pick it up and apply. So, it has to be business context and how they look at some of these cornerstones and what it makes sense for them. Yeah, that's how, if you ask me, it all comes together.
So, when I talk about the first one, which is essentially around awareness, it's all about, are we really, really very clear why we are doing all of these programmes? What does it mean for the individual? Many times, actually, we are chasing people to do their post-schools, get them into programmes, track their attendance, because we don't get that engagement. And that's the tricky part, because we haven't solved the 'why' in that matter, yeah? So, we're always looking for, okay, what do we do, what programmes, content we bring in? But we haven't solved 'and why?', we haven't solved what's in it for me for the individual. So, that's where I think it's important for us to bring all of our colleagues in this journey to be self-aware, but also to be aware about what's happening to the jobs outside. What's the future of work, where the industry is going? And if we do that in a manner, which a number of firms have done, it will be far easier for us to manage that change management effort. So, that's the first one.
The second one is essentially around doubling down on application of skills. So, can I learn driving by watching a YouTube video? Possibly not, and that's the bit we need to be thoughtful about. Courses can help us to build knowledge, but may not be the skills. And that is the reason I also call out learning in the flow of work. For reskilling, it has to be taught a bit differently, because you actually prepare people for jobs which they're not doing, and they're not even there today. So, how do you take a bit different approach, but really zoom into how do we look at application of skills and bring, of course, there's technology to do it, to scale it, but how can we then keep that human-centred element also connected with that, what people really like?
Then the third one is around agility, the golden thread, I call it, of agility, because what I find is, as I said, there's no standard playbook. The business needs will keep evolving and pivoting. At times, we're actually catching up in terms of what we're doing for the business. So, how can we be proactive? How can we use data insights and foresights to really understand why we're doing this, how we design some of this work? And if it needs to change, we have all the building blocks, like Lego, to move around it very fast. So, how do we build that agility into the way we do things through data and also through technology? Because there are a number of tech solutions which are there which can help us to amplify this quite a lot, and help us in this journey to make it easier and scale it as well. So, there's strategies around how can we do this better, how some organisations are doing it, and it will help us overall to have the effectiveness in terms of reskilling.
The last one is the most interesting, I think. It's around alliances. It means there's always a question, who's responsible for reskilling? For me, I think it's about how can different players and partners come together? There's definitely a role of a leader, individual; but many other organisations, government, and number of other players who come into this. So, how can we bring and look at this as an ecosystem change and bring all of them together so that we can actually progress on this, and be agile enough so that we're able to address the business needs? So, these are the four cornerstones. And as I said, it's a matter of how you pick and choose, but they're all connected as you see in that manner.
[0:12:20] David Green: Some of the recent research that we've done at Insight222 on the people analytics ecosystem, and I think this applies here as well, is that building external and internal partnerships is essential to being successful. So, I wonder really, what are some of the collaborations that you value in at Maersk that you've seen that really made a difference in reskilling?
[0:13:46] Anish Lalchandani: It's partnerships, the way we're looking at, either internal or external, they're going to really help us progress on this journey. Let's look at what does it mean from a skills point of view at internal. And this is where also I talk in my book quite a lot about which team is going to do it, and I've made it use the very loose term, "HR team". And I explain why, because it's very, very clear we have to get analytics, talent acquisition, talent management, L&D, HR business partners, all of them involved in this. And that needs to be, again I would say, done in a way where we partner on different phases of some of this work, how do we essentially then also start looking at bringing them together, and build on each other's expertise in that manner, which is where I think agile teams to solve some of these big problems have to come together.
That's what I've seen, I think, working for us as well, we bring in a number of people and people solutions and other teams together to kind of start looking at this internally. Because if we don't do this, and this also I have seen in other organisations, is we would have a very silo approach. We would possibly put solutions out where the narrative is not going to connect for leaders and colleagues. And that integration, in my view, is very, very important. And in the context of skills, definitely, because as you said, it touches across the entire life cycle. So, I call it a skills life cycle, rather than an employee life cycle now. So, it has to be that.
When we look at external, I also think there's a lot of innovation going on in the market. There's a lot of insights and research which is there, and we need to use it to our advantage. We need to be very clear as again, business context, business problem, and where do we strategically look at different partners who can come in, help us in some of this, or we can even use some of the research to influence people. So, there are different ways, essentially, we can then start to look at building those partnerships. And of course, we work with some of the partners as well to say, how do we do this, how do we do that? Or even, as you said, like at Insight222, how do we go into some of those conferences or specific events where people can come together and share this? Because there's no secrets in this, but there's of course definitely a lot of insights and learnings which can be shared. As long as I think it helps us to be on this journey and be connected to business, I think the partnerships have all really been helpful.
[0:16:11] David Green: And then measuring success, we talked about connecting what we're doing to business strategy. How do we go about measuring success? What are the key metrics, if it is metrics, that HR leaders should focus on? And how can they know if their reskilling efforts are really making a difference?
[0:16:28] Anish Lalchandani: That's, again, a good one, yeah, because at times we say, "Let's do a pilot or a small thing and we'll see". I think the agility is needed, but I would definitely think as we start any of this work, we need to be very, very clear on the problem statement. I use three lenses of what's the business imperative of doing this? Like, are we expanding, are we shrinking? Are we increasing the number of products, what we can offer? Are we changing the service model? What is that business need, if you ask me? Then, the second one is also around people. What are people looking for? What are we hearing from listening sessions, engagement surveys? What is that?
The third one, which kind of I like and not like, is the financial imperative. Because, yes, I think a lot of people look at it, okay, so what's going to be the cost benefit of this? What's the ROI of this? So, again, I give options for people to say how they can update and evaluate the ROI, but we need to move in terms of measuring beyond the ROI, in my view. We need to start looking at what's the value this is going to create for the business, how we measure that. And it can be in different ways. It can be around innovation, how are we using skills intelligence, skills data, bringing teams together, having that right ambition and purpose to innovate something or to manage a risk or to solve a business problem, yeah, and how do we really start to bring that value length and value chain to our business leaders when it comes to measuring. But also for us, because if we can just start looking at measuring an option, which is great, like how many people attended, number of clicks, number of sessions, that's all great, but that's not going to tell us the impact; it's not going to tell us the effort of what we're doing.
So, we need to be very thoughtful in balancing this, because this can itself become a very complex area to measure. But we need to start thinking of ways of, okay, am I increasing my skills pool for the high-demand skills? Am I looking at proficiency level of skills changing? Are we looking at saving costs because we redeployed a number of people and didn't do redundancies? So for me, I think when you specifically lean into the reskilling piece, the measure of success is a bit different than upskilling, yeah? And that all boils down to connecting it to the business problem, but being very, very thoughtful, like two or three big super measures we can go after, and there are others which we start to kind of collect the data. And again, technology is going to help us in many ways because when you start planning and designing, that's where you start seeing, we get all of this interesting data, and how do we then use that to use iterative cycle of improving. Because, as I said, you can start an experiment, but you'll have to have actually a lot of measures to see if it's working or not working. And that's the kind of a cycle we get used to.
So, yeah, there's a number of ways to do this, but I always think it's also, you have to be very, very focused on this.
[0:19:30] David Green: You mentioned technology, and AI is clearly one of the catalysts that's driving the urgency around reskilling, given how work and organisations are transforming faster, partly because of technology. But technology can also supercharge and actually almost act as the bullet train that helps us reach our reskilling goals, by actually powering some of the technology that does the reskilling as well. But then there's always that conversation that we have around the potential detrimental effect that over-reliance on AI and technology can have on our cognitive abilities. I'd be interested to hear from you, as someone that's actually doing this work at the moment as Global Head of Talent Management, how do we strike the balance around that?
[0:20:18] David Green: Oh, that's a tough question! But let's look at multiple maybe perspectives around this topic. The first aspect, what you highlighted, is true. It means using technology can help us scale, help us amplify, help us reskill people faster, for sure, if you ask me. Yeah, I mean, when we look at it from an architecture and ecosystem point of view, yeah. But then, when we look at the impact of AI and skills, and this is what I wrote in one of my recent newsletters, it becomes very, very interesting, and let me give a couple of examples. All of us use GPS when we drive, and it's not even AI, it's just a technology. But actually, research has pointed out that when you start using GPS, your abilities around the sense of direction, they call it spatial skills, actually has deteriorated, because GPS has been there for a while. The other AI and ChatGPT is new. So, we don't have any research on that.
But there's also very clear research around, if you're not using your skills, you're not applying those skills, they will deteriorate. The concept is called skill atrophy, that they will deteriorate and people have done empirical research on this topic in different ways to look at that. Now, we don't know exactly how it's going to be for ChatGPT, but I think it will be, because that's been even more in our lives and work, if you ask me, compared to any other technology. So, this is a very interesting discussion which has started, if you ask me, because purely we think, okay, ChatGPT and all of these models are coming into play.
One of the things we need to be thoughtful about is where are we using AI and technology, and where are we not? So, if it's low-value, repetitive tasks, we know those skills. In my reality, it's okay, it helps you to be more productive. But when you are, say, coming into a new job or starting a new job, really looking at building your skills and capabilities, then those shortcuts are not going to help us, in my view. And the third aspect also is, how do you have that balance and integration of using technology, using tools, but also being independent in some way? So, this is, in my view, a fascinating topic to kind of explore further and further.
But what I definitely think is all organisations need to start a discussion on this, because we have all these interesting AI laws coming in, but how are we looking at that adoption within an organisation? And the big question for organisations is, what kind of workforce do we need in the future? Do we need people who can use all the AI technology and just solve everything, be very productive? But when things change, will they be able to adapt to different circumstances and really use the human skills which are really required, which makes us different, and be successful? So that's, I think, a big discussion and dilemma, if you ask me, in many ways for many people. I'm still researching and looking at how this will span out in the future, but it's a fascinating topic.
[0:23:34] David Green: When we talk about reskilling and in many organisations, a lot of emphasis is placed on the organisation itself and individuals within the organisation to take ownership of their own careers and their own learning and reskilling. Clearly organisations can provide the tools, but equally individuals should be proactive in obtaining new skills, but as long as they're given the climate and the means to do it. But I think as you've talked about, and I think with the initial conversation we had around alliances, this goes beyond an organisational challenge. So, I'd love to hear your thoughts around governments and educational institutions being able to do more, and I think you've got some specific experience of that, of course, in Singapore and in other countries as well, that are far more proactive, I guess. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
[0:25:17] Anish Lalchandani: So me, I think, it's always a big debate topic, who's responsible for re-skilling? I think we need to convert this debate into a dialogue and the dialogue needs to be with education institutes, government bodies, organisations, industry bodies. And as you rightly said, there's a clear role and need for leaders, mentors, and coaches, and also the agency of the individual, so all of that, that's there. And that was my kind of also curiosity when I was researching about this, which is we need to think about this more holistically. So, if we are getting graduates in an organisation and they don't really have the skills, then we need to reskill them at that stage. So, what happens before? Who's responsible for it?
So, I actually spoke to the Finland Education and Innovation Department, and they're kind of one of the best in the schooling system. And I was fascinated in terms of how they are looking at future of education. As you talk about future of work, they are looking at future of education. So, they are looking essentially at how to learn, not just what to learn. They're also looking at how do we bring in multidisciplinary approach in terms of problem-solving. So, not only teaching you science or arts, they're actually looking at how does science and art come together. And when you start picking that up and looking at, okay, how do I solve a climate change problem, that becomes very, very experiential, applying the skills and also helpful. So, they're building the next generation based on that basis, not only the knowledge, but also the agility for them so that they can actually solve bigger problems, they can actually adapt to different circumstances. They can also then learn a new skill or a new technology, which comes in very fast. So, that was very, very interesting for me.
I think, as you rightly said, then also the role of governments. So, Singapore, there's a huge, I call it movements of skills future, where government is bringing in industry bodies and organisations together. They're also building their own entire ecosystem around skills, job descriptions, job redesign, and helping, and I think that help is quite a lot more focused also on SMEs, because think of it; big organisations will set up their own things. But for SMEs, actually it's very, very difficult for them. They are constrained by resources and knowledge. So, as a nation, they're looking at how we build skills for all the people who are there in Singapore. And that's another unique approach I've seen in Singapore. The other countries who are doing different parts of it in Denmark, in India, in France as well.
But if you start to, as I said, look at the ecosystem, we need to start then looking at what are the best ways we can actually tap onto that. How do we not really go and reinvent the wheel in different areas, but how do we talk to all these partners, bring them together, and use that? And I think even in the UK, I'm sure, the number of financial subsidies that people get or organisations get, so how do you use not only the financial aspect, but the research aspect, but the ecosystem aspect, and bring that together. And if we do that, I think it's going to help us to accelerate this journey of reskilling.
[0:28:33] David Green: Yeah, I think you're right, things are changing so fast. Industry can't be going in a different direction from education and government. Ultimately, education is so important because it's our workers of the future that are being produced, and it's got to be connected to what business needs and what the data tells us that we're going to need as well in the future. So, it kind of makes sense. It sounds easy, it's actually very, very difficult to pull all that together. And so, Anish, we're getting to the penultimate question now. So, this is the question of the series that we're asking everyone in this series of the podcast. How can organisations use workforce data to drive culture, inclusion, and engagement?
[0:29:21] Anish Lalchandani: So, as I say, data is the new gold. So, you need data for all of these aspects. And I think one very simple way for us to start thinking is, if we have a business strategy and a people strategy, we need a roadmap to achieve our people strategy. And to understand and really prioritise what we need for that roadmap, to me it would be all your EVP levers, how we look at developing people, how we look at inclusion, how we're looking at engagement. And if you start getting that data, and a lot of it I'm sure many organisations would have, or they can start getting that insight, we can start to look at what are the hotspots? What are the gaps we see? Do we need to look at redesigning a proposition or a policy? Do we need to really carefully look at, okay, we maybe start a new project in a particular area?
So to me, I think it actually helps you to look at the entire ambit of the employee lifecycle, the employee value proposition. And that insight into the gaps and also the insights can help us to start thinking what's next. And it's all again, as I said, connected. It can also be you start to look at analysis on under-represented groups. You can start to look at difference by gender, how are we looking at career development, and what's the perception around it. So, it can get us really rich insights of the pulse of our employees, and that can help us to build the strategy forward. So to me, I think it is super important for us to always look at how can we be always listening, if you ask me, in different ways, but also use those insights for decision-making, because that's an opportunity lost if you don't do that. So, constantly we need to kind of look at some of these key levers, I would call it, and that is going to help us to overall build that roadmap and be very, very close to what we do and see that improvement as we go along in this journey.
[0:31:21] David Green: Well, Anish, I've really enjoyed our conversation, and I really enjoyed your book, The Skills Advantage, as well, and I definitely recommend listeners dig into that. Before we part, can you let listeners know how they can find out more about you on social media? You mentioned that you publish a newsletter regularly as well, and find out more about the book and all the other great work that you're doing as well, Anish?
[0:31:43] Anish Lalchandani: So, first of all, David, thank you for inviting me for this conversation. I really enjoyed it. And again, thank you also for you, because you've been doing amazing work for the HR community. And I read your newsletter, which has been very insightful as well.
[0:31:55] David Green: Thank you!
[0:31:57] Anish Lalchandani: For me, it's very easy, it's LinkedIn. So, I think I would love a conversation around this topic or any questions people have. A lot of the book-related resources or the newsletter is on my website, which is www.anishlalchandani.com. So, they can find me there.
[0:32:16] David Green: Great. Well, thanks for the kind words as well, Anish, that's very generous of you. And thank you as well for being a practitioner that's sharing your experiences and your expertise and your knowledge with the wider community. It's really helpful. It helps us thrive as a community and hopefully get better at what we do, and ultimately help our employees get more purpose from work, which ultimately has got to be what it's all about. So, Anish, thank you very much for joining me today.
[0:32:44] Anish Lalchandani: Thanks, David.