AI and Jobs Series: What's Next for Entry Level Workers

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Welcome to Meet the Leader, the podcast where top leaders share how they're tackling the world's toughest challenges. In today's episode, the third in my AI and Jobs series, we talk entry-level workers: what's changing for the future of the workforce and what do leaders need to get in place now.

Subscribe to Meet The Leader on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your favourite podcasts. Don't forget to rate and review us. I'm Linda Lacina from the World Economic Forum and this is Meet the Leader.

Peter Brown, PWC United Kingdom: How do you create that experience for entry-level workers to create those skills which traditionally have been developed through, if you like, the apprenticeship of doing the work and sitting in a room and watching and listening?

How do recreate those experiences and focus on the learning required such that in five, seven, 10 years' time we've got leaders coming through the pipeline to take on the mantle within the organizations around the world?

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Each new generation inherits their own tricky new job market but the latest crop of entry-level workers faces a special challenge. As AI automates the rote tasks that these workers classically took on, what does the first job even look like? No shortage of experts have wrung their hands over some key existential questions like, will these roles just be destroyed? Or if they aren't, how will they transform?

But critically, how can first jobs still serve their unassuming, overlooked and all-important role as apprenticeships, as training grounds for sectors, schooling workers on the critical thinking, collaboration and relationship skills needed in any sector?

We have some thoughts.

In this latest episode in my AI and Jobs series, we'll dig into a special report released just last month from the World Economic Forum on AI and entry-level jobs. We'll speak to the co-author, who shares some of the findings that both surprised him and have him optimistic for what's ahead. He also explains why some of the most dire headlines we've been hearing about what's ahead for new workers aren't really taking shape.

You should stay till the end when we talk to a select group of HR execs and leaders from our chief people officer community on the advice that they wouldn't give new workers any other year. They also share the advice they give their own children to navigate this uncertain job market; it's advice that can help and inspire anyone.

We'll start with Peter Brown – he is the global workforce leader at PwC and he talked to my colleague, Kateryna Gordiychuk, at Summer Davos, the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian, China, this June about our special report, AI and Entry-Level Skills. Get us started with why entry- level roles have been such a hot topic of conversation.

Peter Brown, PWC United Kingdom: Given the impact AI is having on the world of work, I think it puts a magnifying glass, particularly on entry level, because if you think about how jobs are broken down, it's right in the, if you like, in the forefront of where AI is really, I think, forcing those organizations to getting ahead to redesign work.

So look, I'm the father of a 20-year-old, so the whole topic around "what do I do coming out of college, AI is changing the world." But there's other factors I think influencing the world of work beyond the disruptive technology. We've got geopolitical tensions, rising pressures on the economy, we've got supply chain tensions, we've got the demographic challenges.

We do lots of research around what's on the mind of workers. One's called Hopes and Fears, it's the largest survey of workers around the world, some 55,000 workers. When we put a lens on that, younger workers, in particular, they're more optimistic around AI than they are anxious. But that said, I'm a realist, we're all human beings.

Actually, we know also workers around the world are feeling the cost of living crisis, right? So if you're a young person coming into the world of work, I can understand why they're slightly concerned.

Kateryna Gordiychuk, Meet The Leader: You mentioned entry-level jobs are kind of under the microscope when we think about artificial intelligence. Why is it that we are thinking of them as a separate category, that group of people who are just trying to get their first job?

Peter Brown, PWC United Kingdom: Well, I don't actually think of them as a separate category in relation to AI. I think AI is changing the nature of work at all levels, whether you're an entry-level or somebody approaching retirement. But I think the debate is often around AI and the impact on jobs. And I think what our AI Jobs Barometer, which we released last week, is showing, the story is actually much more around productivity and skills.

So in those sectors most exposed to AI, what we're seeing there, the organizations that are getting ahead are seeing a three times growth in productivity, that's where the work is fundamentally being redesigned. So why is that happening when people talk about redesigned work? One thing they're not doing is just layering AI on, bolting AI onto existing ways of working. OK, some organizations have done that in the chase of efficiencies. You might get some incremental efficiencies; you don't see the long-term value.

The organizations getting ahead are fundamentally breaking down work and looking at what is the outcome they're trying to achieve? What's the role of technology? What's the role of the human being?

Now, if you break down a job into tasks and skills, that's where I think AI is really coming to play because there are certain tasks that absolutely can lend themselves to be automated.

Cognitive repetition, AI comes to the fore there. Then back to your question around why entry-level is getting the focus, because actually in those entry-level jobs much of what the tasks they've done traditionally can be automated but what can't be automated is actually what the skills that are in huge demand, two times growth rate in the AI-exposed sector, they're human skills: judgment, problem solving, critical thinking, relationship building.

That's the fundamental question for leaders. How do you create that experience for entry-level workers to create those skills which traditionally have been developed through, if you like, the apprenticeship of, you know, doing the work and sitting in a room and watching and listening. How do you recreate those experiences of focus on the learning required such that in five, seven, 10 years’ time we've got leaders coming through the pipeline to take on the mantle within the organizations around the world?

I think there's a responsibility on business leaders, policymakers and educators. To actually make sure we intentionally design those experiences such that young people can gather them and gain them, such that they do have the confidence when they go into the world of work.

We know from our research that on entry-level skills, employers are asking for seven times greater what we would call seniorized skills, skills that historically you'd have dubbed in the first three to four years, they're asking for those up front. So how do you create those? It's not gonna happen by osmosis; you've got to be intentional about how you do that.

You can protect people. You can't protect jobs. Jobs will change, they'll evolve.

My encouragement to young people is, again, to take heed from history. You know, we've seen, after every sort of revolution in the world of work, there's always been a net increase in jobs. They're just different jobs and I've said for a long time, you know, you can protect people. You can't protect jobs. Jobs will change, they'll evolve. I think the difference in the current era is the speed of that change. It's happening so, so quickly. But I think my encouragement to young people is to be optimistic around the opportunity AI brings but recognize that whereas in the yesteryear, organizations would hire for domain technical expertise, I think now, yes, you need domain expertise but you also need what I call AI fluency.

So for young people, take any opportunity to work with AI, to experiment with it, to create the agility, the adaptability. But the other ingredient that employees are also seeking are those people with those human skills, the ones I mentioned earlier on. So for me, taking any opportunity where you're leading, where you’re organizing and where you are bringing people, a group of people, through some kind of journey.

We have to have, you learn to have difficult conversations, manage conflicts, learn to build relationships, learn to speak and communicate clearly. Any opportunity to do that, be that at school or at university or at college. You know, I'd embrace with open arms.

Kateryna Gordiychuk, Meet The Leader: From experience at PwC, what are some of the ways that experiences could be redesigned for entry-level workers?

Peter Brown, PWC United Kingdom: Well, I think, you know, we, like everybody else, are on this journey, right? So I wouldn't for one minute say we've got it cracked but we have made great progress in terms of how we are intentionally redesigning the experience and work across all our organizations. We have to continually evolve, develop, reinvent to maintain relevance to our customers.

When I joined PWC, I think there were at least 17, 18 ways you could join at the entry-level perspective. It's now down to about five and it will change again. Again, when I joined, it was people from certain degrees and there were certain universities that we hired from.

Again, we're much more diverse and inclusive in terms of how we do that in terms of the people we hire. We hire very much more now for potential and skills, as opposed to badges and career titles. And then we've been very intentional around the experience our colleagues have when they join in those early years.

And I think it's a much broader experience, which, if you like, in terms of, we know from the Hopes and Fear Survey, again, workers want flexibility and they want to be able to apply their skills in a variety of contexts, not just in one particular area.

And I think the way we've changed our experience allows for that to create much greater agility in the workforce, which I think it works for our colleagues but also as a business it works, because it means we can actually apply the right skills people in the right place at the right time much more consistently.

Kateryna Gordiychuk, Meet The Leader: You're the co-author of the new report that we published with the World Economic Forum and PWC, and I was wondering what are some of the findings that surprised you the most in that report?

Peter Brown, PWC United Kingdom: So the report, Artificial Intelligence and the Future on Entry-Level Workers, has been a fantastic collaboration. What surprised me? I think back to the whole debate around AI and jobs, which is something that, you know, if we wanted to write a headline, we could do that very easily, right? And we see that all the time. Dare I say, sometimes those headlines aren't backed up by evidence and data. This report really is.

So lots of organizations have been interviewed to see exactly what they're doing. I think my positive message was that in many cases, they're actually increasing the hiring at that entry level. So there's a couple of organizations in there where they talk about how they're specifically hiring more and actually intentionally redesigning the experience.

In one organization, it talks about hiring 25% more against a rationale of, if we don't invest in the... at the start of the pipeline, how are we going to have leaders in five, 10 years' time, right? So that's why I was encouraged by that.

Another one was actually was a large technology company, where again there's often a view that actually where it's coding, so it'll be a machine, so you don't need human beings. They're actually saying that actually for their coders that they're bringing on, they are actually still developing them in fundamental coding experience before they're sort of letting them loose into the AI world. Why? Because they want coders who have got that human judgment, you know, because at the end of the day, it's the humans that will be making the decisions, not the technology. So they want their coders to have that human judgment so they can make better decisions going forward. So great examples for me of humans and technology working together.

Kateryna Gordiychuk, Meet The Leader: I have some data here showing that 81% of employers surveyed in the report say they prioritized applied experience, actually and 34% said they prioritized degrees. How do you view this interesting dynamic? Do you think this could be a catch-22 for graduates? How should they perceive this skills versus degree dilemma?

Peter Brown, PWC United Kingdom: I think the Catch-22 you describe is an understandable dilemma. We've got employers who are seeking entry-level workers with applied experience, and yet the path to get that experience in order to get through the door in the first place can appear to be quite challenging.

So I think it's around making sure we have a variety of routes into that world of work. Yet for some people going to university and getting a degree is absolutely right for them; for others a more apprenticeship approach makes sense. But I think there are a variety of ways in which we can prepare young people but I think that requires a lot more focus from business leaders, from educators, from policymakers to actually make sure that we're doing that.

It's not going to happen by accident, we've got to be very intentional about that and I think that requires a lot of collaboration across organizations to make that happen.

Kateryna Gordiychuk, Meet The Leader: What do you think people misunderstand about AI and the future of work? What are some things that often people have a certain notion of and you wish to clarify?

Peter Brown, PWC United Kingdom: I think the two biggest misconceptions for me are one is that AI automatically means job loss. For me, it's actually around the productivity and the skills story and much more around work design. And indeed that's what our data is consistently showing us. We are seeing that those organizations that are getting ahead are redesigning work and they're seeing greater levels of productivity, revenue per employee and actually we're seeing an increase in their hiring there as well.

I think the second misconception is that AI automatically means that human skills become less important and actually we're seeing the reverse. Actually, as AI is getting more advanced, actually, the requirement for more advanced human skills is increasing, hence why I will keep talking about the importance of developing people with those human skills, those skills that AI can't do.

Kateryna Gordiychuk, Meet The Leader: And acknowledging, I guess, that the world of work is changing already, not being in denial about it, right?

Peter Brown, PWC United Kingdom: The change is well advanced, right and I think, you know, when people come talk about the future of work, well, that's now, right? So I think that's the urgency, given the pace of change. This is not something we can just sit idly by and hope, right, that is not really a strategy.

We've got to be intentional, we've got to work together to actually make sure that we're preparing young people for the world of work now and for the next 20, 30, 40 years.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: We were lucky to have a host of chief people officers and HR leads in our New York office this spring. I'll finish this episode with the advice they'd only give new grads this year. We'll start with Carina Cortez. She's the chief people officer at Cornerstone OnDemand. She'll share the risks to avoid, how to think beyond the task at hand and to lean into your fears.

Carina Cortez, Cornerstone on Demand: So my advice for new grads that I think is a lot different than what I would have done previously is to focus on the outcome or the wisdom versus the task. Again, when I think about how I grew up and how a lot of my cohort that came into the workforce came in, it was doing a lot of the task work. It was understanding how something worked. What was the whole process? Can we continuously improve this process?

That's all being done by technology nowadays. So, what's really critical now is to focus on what's going to happen as a result of that and then what are the critical thinking skills or what is the accountability I need to put on top of that. And so I think that's a lot different than what I would have been asking people to think about previously as new grads coming into the workplace.

The risk is if someone does not focus on outcome and is really task-based, that role is going to be obsolete. And we just keep seeing that day after day. Of the routine work and the efficiency plays, those are going into place in a lot of organizations because we want humans, we want people to focus on higher-order work. We want them to be much more strategic. We want to understand how we can keep up with our competitors in the marketplace, et cetera, much more quickly than we have been before.

So, if we're focusing, if you as a new grad are focusing just on the tasks to be done, you're going to get left behind from the people who are actually able to level up, if you will and really think about the outcome impact that initiative or project that you're working on is going to have.

Yeah, words of comfort I would give to anyone entering the workforce for the first time is something I wish I would have learned earlier in my career is if you're scared, do it anyway. I think that those opportunities where I had the most fear, I had most trepidation, I didn't know what was going to come next. I love to plan things.

However, the opportunities that I jumped into where I was feeling those things have been where I have learned the most and I think have made me the leader I am today, have made the person I am today, the mother, et cetera, et cetera. So jump into that, lean into that. Lean into the fear and I think you'll do a lot of learning and growing if you do so.

Leaning into the fear and leaning into the yes, if you will, is really important in this fast-changing environment because if you can lean into that fear and try something new out, you're going to learn so much more yourself. You are going to now have an applicable experience to apply to something else.

I am very forthright with my team, by the way, in letting them know, look, I'm taking myself a vibe coding class because I wanna understand what we're asking other people to do. Does it scare me? Yes, I'm not a technologist by nature. I went into the human resources field for a very specific reason but I also understand that if I don't, I'm gonna get left behind because I'm going to understand enough.

And so I think to stay current is this opportunity to keep leaning into new things, trying new things out, figuring out what works and what doesn't for you. Just because somebody else likes it and loves it doesn't mean it's gonna work for me but I'm not gonna know that unless I try it.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Maria Flynn is the CEO of Nonprofit Jobs for the Future. You might remember her from last week's episode on fixing the skills mismatch. You'll want to bone up on that one. But here's the advice that she is giving her daughter. Advice that's valuable to workers of any age.

Maria Flynn, Jobs for the Future: My oldest daughter is graduating in May, so I am living this in real time and talking with her and a lot of her friends. I would say two things really come to mind. One is where you start is not going to be where you finish, right? So it's like understanding that even in the best of times, that first job is likely not going to be your dream job.

And I even say to my daughter, you know, I wasn't a CEO coming out of college and you know, I was an entry-level government worker working with, you know, five other women in Philadelphia. You know it was not a glamorous lifestyle.

But wherever you start, really be sure that you are learning from that experience both in terms of really identifying the skills that you're learning, identifying what you like and don't like about that experience. And how that can help you guide to your next thing. So it's really, you, know, understanding that nothing is forever, right? Your first job is not going to be the job you have forever but yet every job, including that first job, can really give you a wealth of information and experience and skills that you can build upon.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: We'll finish this episode where we started with Peter Brown. Here's his advice for entry-level workers. It's a reminder on passion that can give even veteran leaders a North Star during an uncertain time.

Peter Brown, PWC United Kingdom: I think a number of things I would suggest, again, with my own children, I try to have this kind of conversation with them. First, don't lose that excitement, right? What are you passionate about? And where possible, can you follow that passion and do something that you really enjoy where you think you could make a difference? So I think do something you're passionate about.

I think secondly, I would say, don't necessarily view it in terms of traditional jobs. View it in terms of skills, right, as the world of work is changing, the focus on skills is much more profound. And I think that in that skills lens, you know, yes, there'll be an area of domain tech, if you like, your technical skills that you're going to focus on but actually aligned to that, I think, take any opportunity to experiment with AI tools, to get that experience, to apply it in whatever context you're in and create that agility and that sort of fluency.

And thirdly, I think that focus around developing those human skills, which we know are in such high demand, particularly at entry level. So any opportunity to learn leadership skills, how to develop relationships, teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, really easy to say, hard to do but take any opportunity. And there's all sorts of contexts of young people where they can potentially go and develop those skills.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader And that's the final episode in our AI and jobs series. Thanks so much to all of the leaders who have talked to me and my colleagues for this series. If you know someone wondering what's ahead for AI, jobs and skills, and really that should be everyone, send them this episode.

I mentioned our AI entry level jobs report. I'll have a link to that in our show notes as well as the PWC reports Peter mentioned, the Hopes and Fears survey and PWC's Global AI and Jobs Barometer.

To listen to more podcasts, including my colleague's podcast, Radio Davos, go to wef.ch/podcasts. This episode of Meet the Leader was produced and presented by me with Taz Kelleher as editor and Gareth Nolan driving studio production. That's it for now. I'm Linda Lacina from the World Economic Forum. Have a great day.