Revolutionizing the way we upskill

A recap of PwC’s ‘Tech While You Trek’ podcast featuring the ProEdge product team leader and manager, Suneet Dua and Kristy Lizarraga

Nearly three years ago, PwC’s leaders took a good look in the mirror and decided to disrupt the firm. By cultivating new digital skills, we developed a culture of continuous learners who streamlined processes and delivered services to clients more efficiently. Recognizing that upskilling is a trend that’s here to stay, we applied what we learned and created a new platform to help other organizations reimagine their employee learning programs.

Recent World Economic Report findings estimate that by 2025, there will be 97 million new roles that require a division of labor between humans, machines and algorithms. To successfully navigate these roles, people will need new digital skills. Consequently, the push for upskilling and reskilling will continue to increase and become more urgent as new technologies drive the demand for digital acumen in the workplace. 

Companies are feeling the pressure to keep up with the pace of technology and to develop learning programs to help employees adapt and evolve. It can feel overwhelming. 

PwC is helping its clients meet this challenge with ProEdge, a holistic upskilling platform that identifies a company’s existing skills and gaps, and deploys customized learning pathways to help close those gaps. The platform’s options include hands-on learning with digital tools that help employees develop the skills they need to build their own digital solutions. There’s even a digital marketplace where employees can share those solutions across teams to scale the upskilling benefits company-wide. 

“The people are the ones who are going to drive the organization to the next level, whether it's productivity gains or revenue gains, but you've got to equip them with the right skills for the future,” says Suneet Dua, Chief Product Officer for PwC and leader of the ProEdge team. 

If you have the right tools, you can face change with confidence. “As technology continues to evolve and change, people can change with it, and that fear of being left behind—or that fear of not being able to keep up—is gone. I think that is one of the most important things we can give people with ProEdge,” Kristy Lizarraga, Product Manager at PwC, explained in the podcast.  

Giving employees the opportunity to develop the right skills for the right roles—and arming them with the tools to make it all come together—is critical to bringing everyone along for the ride toward success.