Change Management: Strategy for Successful Transition to the 4th Industrial Revolution

Change management, it has become increasingly common for companies to encounter new and complex challenges that are not possible to solve with old strategies. Some get frustrated and keep trying with more of the same. Other companies opt for new solutions that require their people to have other technical and core competencies that, when adopted, organically transform the nature of the positions and sometimes the structure itself. 

However, what would happen if instead of reactively adjusting jobs, we thought about a transition strategy? 

In 2020, the World Economic Forum launches the "Future of Jobs" report. A report that, in the context of The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the reality of the COVID19 pandemic, forecasts which jobs will disappear and which new ones will emerge. 

It also describes which skills become crucial for professionals to remain relevant between 2020 and 2025 as the market, careers and organizational challenges continue to change with technology adoption accelerating and skills gaps becoming more pronounced at all hierarchical levels of organizations.

Imagine this: each professional will face a series of new challenges with a high level of specificity for his or her field. It is no coincidence that "Active Learning" appears as the second most important competency in the current five-year period. 

If we are honest, the old paradigm that HR is solely responsible for having capable talent must be abandoned as soon as possible if we want to accelerate learning processes. 

Only professionals, who are immersed in their contexts, are able to identify what solutions they need with the necessary level of detail. 

Perspectives on Change Management

A more functional approach to the competency gaps in the face ofl change management in this era is: 

1. From the technical perspective: 

Betting on a new Learning and Development strategy. That is, define a transition plan according to the future of jobs and ensure that they provide all the resources for people to collaboratively take charge of shaping their professional development.

2. From the human perspective: 

Developing the collective competency of Professional Adaptability. Achieving a human talent that identifies its own skill gaps and makes sure to close them without so much bureaucracy, paperwork and permissions. It only makes use of the resources provided by the Learning and Development strategy. 

Change Manegement: a successful reality

For this to become a reality in an organization, it implies a major organizational change in the learning culture, the distribution of roles and responsibilities and a change management strategy that ensures that these new paradigms become a reality in organizations that seek to keep moving in the direction of digitization and the use of data as a competitive advantage. 

It is no secret that all professionals have been reached to a greater or lesser extent by this Fourth Industrial Revolution, so your teams are surely going through the process of expanding their competencies and/or updating knowledge. How orderly is this happening? 

We accompany your transition to change management: 

1. Defining a strategy of evolution of the positions in line with the key skills for your industry, with clarity in the learning objectives that your teams require.
   
   
2. Installing the Professional Adaptability competency in your organization with its 4 elements.

• Awareness: They are interested in the future of their careers. 
• Control. They take responsibility for shaping them. 
• Curiosity. They explore different scenarios to open up new possibilities.
• Self-confidence. They are confident in their abilities to pursue and achieve new goals. 

3. Developing a sense of community in learning: LinkedIn Learning detailed in the Workspace Learning Report 2021 that people who spent their process of learning something new together with others, showed higher levels of connection with the learning process, so the sense of community has a great relevance in the process of installing Professional Adaptability. In this case, the group stays connected using the same tools and the same environment. Each member assumes an active role in the generation of learning, so the community becomes the protagonist of its own education and assumes responsibility for what it learns. 

Undoubtedly, new challenges require new approaches. 

Ensuring that professionals have the conditions to shape their careers within the company and that they count on the company in the process is key to talent development that not only contributes to the success of the organization as it evolves, but also stays connected to the mission and the team. 

Redactado por: Raúl Rodríguez