The world of work has changed. It’s a shift that began before the pandemic with the rise of digitisation and automation and one that’s continuing to accelerate rapidly, thanks to the sweeping movement towards the automation of roles and functions, economic volatility, and a truly global marketplace. 
In this modern data-driven world, skills have become the new currency. The way organisations continue to scale and thrive is by resourcing an abundance of skills to make their perceived value increase. 
Just like with money, the value is not necessarily in the money itself — its value comes from what that money allows one to do. Same thing with skills; the value is not in the skills themselves, but rather how those skills can be utilised across every area to create value for the organisation.
Data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning are the keys to unlocking exciting new opportunities to scale upskilling and adapt to rapid change. With Sisense, organisations can leverage data-driven decisions that are automatic and instinctive. And even more, everyone – from the most tech-savvy developers down to the non-technical business users – is empowered to make intelligence-driven decisions.
Data’s crucial role
Data plays a crucial role in understanding where an organisation’s strengths lie. By understanding the skills of its people and mapping them back against the organisation’s strategy, a powerful skills gap analysis can be created to guide the executive team in their decision-making processes. 
According to Ben Betts, CEO of Learning Pool, “An AI-infused analytics platform like <a href="https://www.sisense.com/blog/transforming-the-future-of-learning-with-analytics/">Sisense</a> helps businesses understand the value that learning/training is providing in the workplace. Analytics models, supercharged with AI, are being leveraged to recommend content to users based on who they are and where they work. The captured data determines how engaged a learner is in a specific topic or how well they understand that topic.”
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“An AI-infused analytics platform like <a href="https://www.sisense.com/blog/transforming-the-future-of-learning-with-analytics/">Sisense</a> helps businesses understand the value that learning/training is providing in the workplace.”
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If an organisation is woefully short in a skill area that the go-to-market plan calls for, then that’s a good reason to rethink the strategy. Equally, a deeper dive into the analytics of learning can uncover exactly what tactics help improve time to competency in a given area the fastest. 
“It&#8217;s not enough to just know where you are strong or weak as a company; you need to know the levers you can pull to quickly upskill and retrain the workforce without wasting time and energy on initiatives that don’t close the gaps,” Ben says.
Unlocking skills ‘equity’ with AI and machine learning
Traditionally, understanding which skills are actually useful ‘on-the-job’ has always been a bit of a dark art. Twenty years ago, organisations spent fortunes on a constant cycle of competency mapping and job descriptions, trying to explicitly capture what made each role tick. But this was always doomed to a never-ending cycle of documentation, trying to keep pace with reality – things moved too fast then and they move even faster now.
Ben agrees AI, specifically machine learning, can help map and understand the jobs people really do and the underlying skills ontologies that underpin the work. 
“By analysing large data sets, companies are becoming increasingly capable of determining the common skills and themes that underpin certain job roles and functions. These sets of skills can adapt and change in real-time. They aren’t a written document like they used to be, but a model that learns and changes as the work evolves,” he says.
Infusing analytics in learning platforms
When it comes to infusing analytics in learning platforms, simplicity is key. Collating and analysing complex data is challenging for nontechnical users. But organisations shouldn’t need to have a dedicated team of data specialists to make good use of learning data. 
Instead, they should have the data available in a more accessible, simple-to-use, and easy-to-understand way. “This is where leveraging tools like Sisense come in, helping to remove any and all barriers to understanding data,” Ben says. 
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Learning Pool <a href="https://learningpool.com/learning-pool-announces-addition-of-insights-to-learning-suite-powered-by-sisense-inc/">recently announced</a> it is embedding Sisense to combine the power of its leading AI-driven analytics platform with the LRS Learning Locker. This partnership has culminated in a valuable new addition to the Learning Pool suite, ‘Insights,’ which serves up granular learning data combined with Sisense’s AI capabilities to bring personalised and automatic intelligence to every user.
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Optimising your ‘competitive edge’
The future is complex and uncertain. But it also presents fresh and exciting opportunities. Going forward, organisations and individuals alike must remain agile and adaptable if they are to meet tomorrow’s challenges successfully. The best way to do that is through the development of skills that optimise their ‘competitive edge’.
“This is because a highly skilled workforce is more resilient in the face of change and most equipped to seize the moment when an opportunity presents itself. In turn, learning and development that fosters skills acquisition can no longer be limited to job titles. After all, investing in your skill equity is about what you need to do next, not what you’ve already done,” Ben concludes.

In a data-driven world, skills are the ‘new currency’

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