The U.S. economy and labor market remain as complex—and perhaps confusing—as ever. The swirl of news on any given day may lead companies and workers to vastly different interpretations of their current circumstances and future prospects.
Over the past year, generative AI has captured the public’s imagination, but within the workforce, its widespread integration and penetration are only beginning. This has created speculation, excitement, and some apprehension about how its use will transform the way people work.
Amidst this environment, it is perhaps unsurprising that human resource (HR) leaders and learning and development (L&D) professionals are focusing intently on bellwether workforce topics—employee experience (EX), skills-based approaches to hiring and development, HR technology systems, AI-enabled innovation, and the interactions across these forces.
CompTIA’s Workforce and Learning Trends Report delves into the many facets of these changes as business leaders and workers navigate the year ahead. The report incorporates qualitative insights from subject matter experts along with data from a quantitative survey of nearly 1,200 HR and L&D professionals.
Skills-based hiring and related skills-first approaches continue to make waves in workforce discussions. A confluence of recent factors has shifted how HR professionals conceptualize skills-based hiring and a “skills-first” approach.
CompTIA’s Workforce and Learning Trends survey found about half of HR professionals agree a skills-based approach to hiring is a “new and compelling strategy,” rather than simply a repackaging of an older idea. Granted, employers have always sought skilled workers able to get the job done, relying on various direct or inferred measures of skill and competency, but HR professionals now appear to view skills through a fresh lens.
Digital fluency has become an especially sought-after attribute within today’s tech environment, in which companies increasingly rely on proprietary software and third-party tools.
In relatively short order, the concept has gained tremendous currency. In this year’s Workforce and Learning Trends survey, almost 70% of respondents indicated digital fluency continues to increase as an important capability within their organizations (with the remaining segment indicating the already high level of importance remains at its current level).
Given the complex patchwork of tech in use, most employers understand prospective employees won’t have hands-on experience with proprietary tools exclusive to their company. Instead, they prioritize job candidates who can quickly get up to speed on these new tools. A digitally fluent employee can do just that, whether the software is something they have yet to encounter or something that has yet to be invented.
Significant segments of the economy, especially many small- or medium-sized businesses, continue to modernize and digitally transform. The path for many of the workers within these organizations may begin with foundational digital literacy skills and then progress to more advanced digital fluency skills over time.
It is not an exaggeration to say the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT took the country by storm. In shockingly short order the niche discussions of artificial intelligence and machine learning turned to sweeping proclamations of a new AI era transforming every facet of the workplace and economy. Unfortunately, this was also accompanied by a propensity toward sensationalist hype, including claims that AI rivals the discovery of fire or electricity in terms of its profound potential impact.
In the not-too-distant past, the widespread adoption of the internet was also once considered a revolutionary technology. Its advent, adoption, and integration into every workplace created, transformed, and—yes, even—destroyed many bedrocks and conventions of work life. Smartphones, mobile apps, cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, 5G, cryptocurrency, and many other technologies have all been described in sweeping and, at times, apocalyptic terms. Some greatly exceeded expectations, while others fell well short.
CompTIA research explores these attitudes and finds many workplaces growing more open to and excited by the innovations promised by AI.
Please note this is an excerpt, and the full report contains more detail.
Methodology
The CompTIA Workforce and Learning Trends study incorporates subject matter expertise from CompTIA’s team of world-renowned learning, development, and research professionals. The quantitative component of the study consists of an online survey completed by 500 United States HR and L&D professionals with representation across industry sectors; and by 693 international HR and L&D professionals. The complete dataset totals 1,193 survey respondents.
Data was collected during mid-January to mid-February 2024.
As with any survey, sampling error is present and will be higher for subsegments of the dataset. While non-sampling error cannot be accurately calculated, precautionary steps were taken in all phases of the survey design, collection and processing of the data to minimize its influence.
Firm size classification by staffing count:
10–99 Small firms
100–499 Medium firms
500–999 Large firms
1,000+ Very large firms
CompTIA is a member of the market research industry’s Insights Association and adheres to its internationally respected Code of Standards. Please direct any questions about the content of this report to research@comptia.org.
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