The dwindling shelf life of labour skills is concerning - but never underestimate the power of informal learning

It’s becoming depressing reading reports and listening to workplace experts telling us that if we don’t upskill, reskill, retrain and generally create shiny new versions of ourselves every few years, we’re going to get left behind in the fast-changing world of work.

This is not a happy prospect for those who find change and new learning uncomfortable and stressful. But the dwindling shelf life of skills is a cause for concern. The World Economic Forum says workers need to assess their skill level every two to three years to keep up with things and that there’s already a gap opening up between the skills people have and those demanded by their current job.

Adding to the problem is the fact that whole job categories, such as repetitive office administration roles, are in decline due to advances in automation, which potentially leaves a whole group of people out in the cold with a skill set that’s no longer in demand.

Knowledge doesn’t only reside in one place, and there’s a huge reservoir of know-how among those who have been there and done that and are willing to share what they know for free

The burgeoning market in online courses has made it much easier for individuals to pick and choose the programmes best suited to keeping their professional skills and competencies up to scratch. However, according to some commentators, formal learning is struggling to keep pace with the speed of change in the working environment.

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Formal training, whether that’s via a traditional executive education programme or through one of the trendy new teaching methods such as game-based learning, provides an essential theoretic grounding in specific areas. But knowledge doesn’t only reside in one place, and there’s a huge reservoir of know-how among those who have been there and done that and are willing to share what they know for free.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review a few years ago, Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn, co-wrote a piece about how we should learn from people, not classes, because “our formal education system treats knowledge as a fixed asset acquired during a certain phase of life. In reality, knowledge is constantly changing and good leaders never stop acquiring and assimilating it.”

That’s won’t go down well with those who make their living from business education. To be fair, Hoffman acknowledges that formal education has its place, especially for the acquisition of specific skills.

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One of the concerns being voiced about hybrid and remote working is that new recruits to the workforce are missing out on the tacit learning that goes with being around older and more experienced colleagues. But they’re not alone. Covid effectively wiped out informal learning for great swathes of employees, from newbies to those in the C-suite, as people were no longer mixing in the office or at business events where useful nuggets of information are often picked up in casual conversation.

Hoffman says that to keep pace with change and avoid being sidelined by ageing skills, those in the workforce and especially business leaders need to become “infinite learners” for whom change, learning new things and acquiring new skills is an ongoing process. Silicon Valley’s most successful entrepreneurs, he adds, are those, “distinguished by the speed at which they can zip up the learning curve”, and one of the ways they short-circuit the process is by tapping into “network intelligence”- or the expertise and experience of others.

Where a formal programme doesn’t exist, it’s worth approaching the person identified as a potential eminence grise directly. All they can say is no

“Granted, it’s usually easier to build a learning network if you’re employed by a well-known firm, have a broad existing network, or have something in your background that will incline people to respond to your request. But it’s worth the effort, given the potential of learning via one-on-one conversation. In that setting, people often offer observations they might not share in a large group, online or in writing. And because learning via conversation is driven by your questions, the lessons are delivered at your level,” he says.

As an internet entrepreneur and partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners, Hoffman is familiar with how luminaries behind companies such as PayPal and Airbnb fast-tracked their knowledge acquisition. He mentions Airbnb’s Brian Chesky, who sought counsel from Warren Buffett and approached the ex-head of the CIA for a chat because he needed to understand safety and security. He also quotes Dropbox cofounder Drew Houston, whose advice on Hoffman’s Masters of Scale podcast was to “look for people who are one year, two years, five years ahead of you. You [will] learn very different and important things.”

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For those who might feel self-conscious about cold calling someone they don’t know to pick their brains, a more gentle way of acquiring knowledge from experienced professionals is through finding a mentor. In some companies it’s standard practice and there’s a well-trodden route to follow. But where a formal programme doesn’t exist, it’s worth approaching the person identified as a potential eminence grise directly. All they can say is no.

This person can, but doesn’t have to be in-house. It could be someone who has impressed at an event or in a meeting, and many people are keen and willing to share what they know.

Much has been written about the future of work and what lies ahead. Robots and AI aside, a lot of it makes sobering reading because of what Donald Rumsfeld famously called the “unknown unknowns” that lie ahead. Hoffman’s advice for how to meet them? “Talk to people who have faced similar situations. All you need to do is ask,” he says.