Employers seek learning ability as AI disrupts jobs

INSEAD expands programmes as workers face pressure to reskill quickly.

Companies are hiring for how fast employees can learn rather than what they know, as artificial intelligence (AI) shortens the useful life of skills and forces workers to adapt more often.

“As the shelf life of skills goes down, we need to have the ability to develop new skills,” Sameer Hasija, dean at INSEAD’s Asia campus, told Singapore Business Review. “Investing in skills like learnability allows us to use our previous experience while augmenting them with new learnings to create new skills.”

A February survey by the National Trades Union Congress showed 47% of workers see a need to upskill due to AI.

Séverine Guilloux, chief marketing officer at INSEAD, said companies are seeking help to understand how AI  would affect their operations and strategy.

“There is still a thirst from organisations to develop the leaders who can drive the complexity and make sense of that complexity,” she said in a separate interview. She added that the pace of change has increased as AI forces companies to rethink strategy more quickly.

Data from the Ministry of Manpower showed 71.5% of companies have yet to adopt AI. Among those that have, 70.7% reported productivity gains, with smaller shares citing improvements in decision-making and innovation.

Hasija said companies that focus only on productivity might miss wider opportunities to reshape business models, target markets, and go-to-market approaches.

He said organisations need both “dreamers” who imagine how AI could be applied and “doers” who execute those ideas.

To meet this demand, INSEAD is expanding its leadership and governance programmes, including AI-focused courses.

“We’ve recently launched programmes such as AI for Boards and AI for Business to help leaders and board members better understand the strategic, organisational and governance implications of artificial intelligence,” said Guilloux. 

“These programmes are designed not only to build AI literacy, but also to help executives make informed decisions around transformation, risk, ethics and long-term business value,” she added.

INSEAD has also introduced INSEAD for Impact, a three-day programme that helps executives respond to disruption, turn strategy into action, and build resilience. The first session will be held from 22 to 24 June.

Hasija said the programme brings leaders together to assess change and evaluate how their organisations should respond.

Guilloux added it reflects what companies are asking for as they deal with rapid shifts in technology and business conditions.

“Alongside the open-enrollment programmes, we are also working with organisations on customised programmes tailored to their specific transformation priorities, spanning digital innovation, responsible AI adoption, leadership development and organisational resilience. The objective is to help executives work on their resilience and make sense of their disruption,” she said.