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EY's investment in AI and Skills Foundry: transforming organizations into skills-based powerhouses

Photographic portrait of Peter Whealy
Peter Whealy

Partner, People Advisory Services | EY Switzerland

3 minute read 11 Dec 2023
Related topics
Workforce
AI
Transformation Realized

Elevate your organization and unleash the potential of a skills-based workforce, with EY Skills Foundry, an AI-enabled solution.

In brief

  • How EY’s investment in AI and technology has enabled the transition to a skills-based organization
  • EY’s lessons learned whilst transitioning into a skills-based organization
  • A skills-based workforce provides unique competitive advantages including agility, adaptability, and higher employee engagement
  • How EY’s experience can help others become skills-based organizations

EY's investment in AI and Skills Foundry: transforming organizations into skills-based powerhouses

AI is rapidly impacting the way we work, and, as a result, gaining new skills and improving adaptability are becoming increasingly necessary. The World Economic Forum estimated that 375 million people need reskilling by 2025, and that an approximate $11.5 trillion in GDP will be lost if this skills gap is not closed. For organizations to remain competitive, upskilling and reskilling the workforce is therefore essential. A skills-based workforce management approach that enables people to be more agile and responsive to changing job demands is now vital.

Many organizations are still unable to measure or track the impact of upskilling and reskilling efforts. Learning and workforce management solutions are often disconnected and fragmented, making it difficult to effectively assess the current skills in the organization, and contrast these with the skills required in the future to remain competitive.

EY has faced the same challenges: How to upskill and reskill our people at scale while tracking L&D initiatives to offer compelling career opportunities, and continuously provide leading-edge services to our clients.

The need was clear, so EY invested in a holistic organizational solution to address the ever-widening skills gap – EY Skills Foundry.

EY Skills Foundry is an end-to-end, AI-powered managed services platform that helps build and continually shape skills-based organizations. It focuses on three essential elements:

ey skills foundary

EY’s investment in AI and technology opens unparalleled possibilities

In recognition of AI’s transformative potential, EY has invested over US$1.4bn in AI and associated technologies to provide deeper knowledge on the power of AI to better and more rapidly serve our clients. Part of this investment focused on reimagining our own employee lifecycle and building a comprehensive approach to enable, elevate, and expand the skills of our global workforce. Skills Foundry was created to help us forge the transition into a skills-based organization. As a result, EY is now significantly advanced on the journey to being truly skills based, supporting a global workforce to adapt and thrive in the ever-changing business landscape.

Consistent AI investment, and a focus on making skills the foundational currency of EY’s employee value poposition, is now resulting in significant performance improvement as well as organizational and employee-related benefits. Having navigated this complex journey, EY is now in a unique position to help clients harness the transformative power that a skills-based approach brings.

Peter Whealy

Partner, People Advisory Services | EY Switzerland

Lessons learned from our own journey

EY has always considered people its most valuable asset. However, the firm had challenges and inconsistencies in how it could benchmark skills and focus on learning, development and career journeys of its 400,000+ workforce. In 2019, building on a constant focus of investing in the workforce’s wellbeing and growth, EY decided to focus attention on upskilling and reskilling, and to move toward becoming a skills-based organization.

One of the most significant challenges EY faced was creating a harmonized approach to “skills and career planning”. Individual proof of concepts had been attempted, but the results were restricted and imperfect. Once EY took a holistic skills approach and applied an AI layer covering all areas in the image below, a transformative and consistent employee experience was created.

ey skiils foundry

EY’s transformation into a skills-based organization is an ongoing journey. EY will continue to evolve and improve the approach over time, but the firm is now able to use a data-driven approach to the way it makes effective and informed upskilling and reskilling decisions. This has helped EY to better align people to its corporate strategy and vision, while empowering them to continuously understand their specific skills-gaps (current vs. future job demands), and to target learning and career opportunities to allow an adaptive and agile workforce.

How EY can help

Creating a unique and competitive advantage with a skills-based workforce

EY’s experience and industry research both show that skills-based organizations have a competitive edge. Those who focus on transforming into a skills-based organization are likely to outperform their peers in several key areas:

  1. Enhanced employee engagement: Research by Gallup shows that companies with highly engaged employees outperform others by 147% in earnings per share. Skills-based organizations that prioritize appropriate and continuous L&D opportunities foster a culture that attracts and retains top talent while keeping employees motivated and engaged.
  2. Improved agility and adaptability: A study published in Harvard Business Review found that organizations that focus on skill-building and agile talent management practices were more effective at navigating digital disruptions. Such organizations were better equipped to respond to market shifts and exploit emerging opportunities.
  3. Increased resilience: The World Economic Forum highlights the importance of fostering skill capabilities to drive workforce adaptability and resilience. A skills-first approach to talent management is essential for organizations navigating uncertainty and maintaining a competitive advantage.

EY Skills Foundry: enabling transformative organizations

Political and economic volatility, technological and organizational change and a lack of insight on future skills and talent requirements present global business leaders with even greater complexity and uncertainty. EY Skills Foundry helps reduce the impact of those challenges and provides a compelling way forward for workforce planning, development and management. EY’s approach to creating a clear pathway for reskilling and upskilling makes it possible to navigate the many complexities related to people, technology and culture.

 

Skills Foundry can help drive workforce transformation by:

  1. Using AI to map the size and shape of your skills gap: Determine essential skills for your organization by comparing them with industry benchmarks, pinpointing skill deficiencies and recognizing upskilling and reskilling possibilities to facilitate your organization’s workforce expansion and transformation.
  2. Developing the skills people need: Powered by the AI output of the mapping process, deploy effective, skill-centric training and learning content from thought leaders and top providers when learners need it most, by engaging and inspiring through a smart, captivating learning journey.
  3. Moving talent to where it belongs: Establish talent fluidity and gain a competitive edge in talent acquisition by better matching employees to opportunities that will test their new skills. This approach helps match individuals with role gaps and enables them to discover new possibilities for growth and development.

Summary

EY has invested over $1.4b in AI, and as part of this, Skills Foundry specifically addresses the global skills gap crisis and is dedicated to transforming organizations into agile, skills-based powerhouses. This end-to-end, AI-powered platform, bridges the gap between current and future skills, propelling EY into a unique position for performance improvement and client service excellence. EY Skills Foundry employs AI mapping, skill-centric training, and talent fluidity, offering a strategic pathway for workforce planning in the face of unprecedented economic and technological shifts. Discover how EY is shaping a resilient, adaptable global workforce through its pioneering skills-based approach. Get in touch to hear more about how organizations are building their workforce of tomorrow, today.

About this article

Photographic portrait of Peter Whealy
Peter Whealy
Partner, People Advisory Services | EY Switzerland
Peter’s focus is learning strategy and implementation, emphasizing design on solutions that improve behavior, mindset and long-term performance. In his spare time, he likes triathlon, skiing, cycling.
Related topics
Workforce
AI
Transformation Realized

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    EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Limited is a Swiss company with registered seats in Switzerland providing services to clients in Switzerland.