Tag: Education

Why Capability, Not Age, Should Define the Future of Work

For decades now, many organisations have treated career progression as a straight line – climb the ladder, reach the top, then step aside for the next generation. But as working lives now stretch well into our 70s – and even 80s –  that model no longer fits the modern reality. By 2033, almost a third of over-70s are expected to still be working. The challenge for businesses isn’t how to manage an ageing workforce – it’s how to unlock capability across every age.

The End of the Career Clock

Korn Ferry’s recent Workforce research revealed a clear mismatch between how long people are working and how often they’re allowed to learn. Nearly half of baby boomers and more than a third of Generation X said that they had been excluded from opportunities to learn new skills or technology. That gap risks becoming one of the biggest talent blind spots of our time, particularly with the rapid growth of AI agents in our workplaces.

As Michael Kienle, global VP of talent acquisition at L’Oréal, put it: “Talent management stops at your very last day in the company. It’s not a question of age, it’s about skills and competencies.”

That shift in mindset – from chronology to capability – should be redefining how leading organisations think about work, growth, and opportunity.

Skills Don’t Expire – They Evolve

Too often, mid- and late-career employees are treated as “finished products.” But as Zoe Cunningham from technology consultancy Softwire argued, “experience isn’t a ceiling – it’s an asset”. Her team has seen how younger engineers teach new coding frameworks, while seasoned professionals teach client management and problem-solving.

“That’s what a healthy culture looks like,” she said. “Skills don’t expire, but they do need updating. The mindset of curiosity is what keeps people relevant.”

This idea — lifelong, bidirectional learning — is what will keep organisations innovative as they grow older. It replaces one-way knowledge transfer with collaboration and mutual growth.

The Skills-First Revolution

Mastercard has fully embraced this approach. Its Unlocked platform acts as an internal marketplace where employees post their skills and interests, then match with mentors, projects, or learning opportunities.

Lucrecia Borgonovo, the company’s Chief Talent & Organisational Effectiveness Officer, explained: “We’re taking a more skills-first approach versus focusing on traditional parameters like degrees or years of experience. That helps democratise access to opportunities.”

By making skills, not seniority, the foundation for advancement, Mastercard is showing how capability-led cultures attract, retain, and empower people of all generations.

Redefining Career Paths for Longer Lives

At L’Oréal, this thinking extends into practical programs like L’Oréal for All Generations, which pairs reverse mentoring in AI and digital skills with senior-to-junior coaching. The company has also created pre-retirement seminars and flexible role transitions to help people redefine what “later career” looks like.

Michael Kienle called this the “dual-edged sword” of longevity – people are working longer, but organisations must ensure that doesn’t block younger talent. The answer lies in fluid career pathways, where people can move sideways, up, or even reinvent themselves entirely.

It’s Never Too Late to Start Again

Perhaps the most inspiring examples featured in the research are people like Kim Aitchison Kim Aitchison, who re-entered the workforce in her late fifties after nearly 30 years away. With support from the Career Returners programme, she joined the Bank of England, relearned digital tools, and now mentors younger colleagues.

“A young colleague teaches me technology, and I help her with confidence in meetings. It’s mutually beneficial,” she says.

Her story captures the essence of the new work era: age isn’t an obstacle — it’s experience waiting to be applied in new ways.

The Bottom Line

As technology evolves and people live longer, capability is becoming the new currency of work. The companies that thrive won’t be those that chase youth, but those that cultivate curiosity, learning, and flexibility across every life stage.

All HR and Talent leaders should take onboard the words of L’Oréal’s Michael Kienle: “It’s not about how old you are. It’s about how ready you are to keep growing.”

Why Starting a Career Feels Tougher Than Ever for Young Professionals

Today’s emerging workforce are facing challenges that previous generations didn’t. Entry-level opportunities – and other early career pathways – are getting fewer, and those that exist might seem harder to access. Traditional routes such as trainee roles, apprenticeships and trial periods appear to be getting harder to access. For many of the younger Gen Z group starting a career, or even finding interesting or challenging work, is becoming harder.

I discussed this with Danielle Farage during one of our recent From X to Z podcast chats. Despite what some more senior level professionals might think, this isn’t a problem bought about by a lack of ambition or drive amongst the emerging workforce, but instead a result of the way businesses now tend to be structured, resulting in four main challenges that early career workers now face:

➡️ Fewer career levels: There just aren’t as many steps to climb. An increase in flatter organisational structures means reduced opportunities for progression or promotion

➡️ Rising pressure to move fast: Digital channels and social media platforms fuel comparison and motivation to move ahead quickly, but then so do real economic pressures – like stagnant salaries in a time of rising inflation, and increased housing costs.

➡️ Wages that don’t reflect reality: Salaries for early-career roles haven’t kept up with inflation, meaning companies are offering less than they paid for the same entry level roles a few years ago.

➡️ Fewer entry-level roles: Some companies are cutting back on junior roles, or beginning to replacing them with AI. On top of that, many young professionals complain of poor management and limited mentorship opportunities, which can further stall development.

The result? A generation hungry to grow, but often stuck without support.

You can listen to our conversation or watch it below, and let me know what you think and how you’re seeing businesses support the emerging workforce:

Pity the Child Who Has Ambition…

“Pity the child who has ambition, knows what he wants to do
Knows that he’ll never fit the system others expect him to” (Chess)

When I blogged about youth unemployment just over a year ago I pointed out that many of the traditional lower skilled entry level jobs within the economy were now being done by unemployed graduates. The level of youth unemployment had been rising since 2001 and the level attributable to 16-18 year olds (ie those leaving school at 16) was close to 50%, with the very real possibility that many of those would never know permanent, full time work.

And when I blogged about the future organisation I drew attention to the fact that the UK is a world leader in underutilising the skills of its graduates.

Well, another week another group of articles appear in my timeline all with views on what tomorrow’s workforce need to do to be ready for work. You know tomorrow’s workforce… the one whose hard work and taxes will pay for our pensions, healthcare and the like.

First up was Allister Heath suggesting that we stop encouraging kids to go to university.  He tells us that only 5 of the 30 fastest growing professions in 2020 will require a university degree and 10 will require no qualification at all. The first three he mentions are retail sales staff, food preparation (including fast-food restaurant jobs) and customer service reps…all roles that graduates currently do. I’m guessing that business to business sales people don’t really need a degree either but having one has largely been a pre-requisite for these roles for years.

Unsurprisingly for a right of centre commentator, especially one who also speaks for the Taxpayers Alliance, it’s the State’s fault that graduates end up as baristas…as if the private sector never wanted better educated trainees. They don’t need further education, they need work experience and traineeships which the State has to enable and guarantee. So having got the kids to largely fund their own further education it now needs to be replaced by state/taxpayer funded work experience. “To many employers, university education has become little more than a signalling device, a means to filter out potential staff” he identifies.

And there’s also a strong recommendation for Gove’s sepia tinged longing for applied maths, Latin and cold showers…whereas I would have thought programming and communication would be much more important. Soft skills for a social world.

The view from the US was more optimistic and creative. Children shouldn’t be college ready but innovation ready – “We can teach new hires the content, and we will have to because it continues to change, but we can’t teach them how to think — to ask the right questions — and to take initiative”.

No longer will they be able to ‘find’ a job as previous generations have, but instead will need to ‘invent’ a job.  As Harvard education specialist Tony Wagner says:

“Every young person will continue to need basic knowledge, but they will need skills and motivation even more. Of these three education goals, motivation is the most critical. Young people who are intrinsically motivated — curious, persistent, and willing to take risks — will learn new knowledge and skills continuously. They will be able to find new opportunities or create their own — a disposition that will be increasingly important as many traditional careers disappear.

We teach and test things most students have no interest in and will never need and facts that they can Google and will forget as soon as the test is over. We need to focus more on teaching the skill and will to learn and to make a difference and bring the three most powerful ingredients of intrinsic motivation into the classroom: play, passion and purpose”

Clearly the view here is one of optimism and opportunity. Instead of relegating much of the future workforce to a life of shifting low paid work, and turning the clock back for education, as Heath seems to suggest, in the US article they look to Finland’s innovative economy “They learn concepts and creativity more than facts, and have a choice of many electives — all with a shorter school day, little homework, and almost no testing”

Back to corporate UK and we had the Homebase example. Here you had a major company recommending that store managers make use of the free labour available through workfare to do the work that may otherwise require paid employees – with an internal document bearing the message:

How the work experience program can benefit your store.
Would 750 hours with no payroll costs help YOUR store?

So is this the ultimate future for the lower skilled workforce? A variable cost, paid by the taxpayer to provide free labour to the private sector in the hope that this may help them secure a paid assignment elsewhere?

And finally we square the circle with the latest research from the New Employment Foundation. A perfect conundrum:

“Those with good graduate degrees are facing months of unemployment or free interning in order to gain access to paid work. Those with no or few qualifications are being left out in the cold”

Whilst

“Graduates who “dumb down” their employment aspirations can find themselves stuck in low-skilled jobs for years”

So there we have it. You don’t need a degree because most future jobs don’t need one…but then if you haven’t got a degree you may not be considered for the jobs that don’t need one.

And if you take any job, because work must pay…then you risk not being considered for a job that really pays.

But ultimately…it’s down to you to create your own job anyway…

Confused?

Skills to Pay the Bills

Late August always seems to bring education angst to the chattering classes. A-level and GCSE results always raise the questions:

  • Are exams too easy?
  • Are students studying too many ‘soft’ subjects?

Then we get the inevitable

  • The education system isn’t providing the future workforce with the skills they need
  • Why do so many need to go to university, why don’t they go straight into work

This year I had more than a passing interest in the annual kvetching– my son got his GCSE results and is studying a couple of ‘soft subjects’ for A levels.

I certainly don’t think that the exams are getting easier and find the comparisons of results before the merging of O Levels and CSEs into GCSEs with those since pointless. Results are now partly based on coursework and controlled assessments…surely a much better was to assess someone’s grasp of a subject and work ethic than relying solely on a three hour cram-a-thon jumble of facts and figures shorn of much context and relevance.

The shift from quota based marking to criteria based…away from having set numbers achieving each grade to recognising the attainment of a level of achievement…has also clearly helped to create the impression that grades are more easily achieved.

So what of the soft subjects? Well Drama has given my son confidence, an ability to express and project himself, and experience of teamwork – many of the things supposedly lacking in today’s workforce. Additionally he has had the opportunity to be part of a group creating a production from scratch, which was assessed as a whole, with each group member getting the same grade. Real project experience with teamwork and interdependency…great experience for the workplace. Continue reading “Skills to Pay the Bills” →