CEOs are responding to tight labor markets in three ways, according to a recent survey from consulting firm KPMG.
- Dropping the college degree requirement for some jobs;
- Upskilling employees;
- Using generative AI to fill talent gaps.
But rather than just replacing employees, KPMG CEO Paul Knopp said in a statement that he sees leaders “investing in GenAI training and capability building to upskill their people. They recognize workforce adoption will ultimately drive success with GenAI.”
Other studies even suggest some of that upskilling will be performed by AI. A January report from IDC has already highlighted the potential of “AI-enabled digital skills training,” calling it one of the top technology investments most relevant to business growth.
IDC’s report predicted a near future where enterprises “leverage personalized technology skills development to drive $1 trillion in productivity gains by 2026, enabled by GenAI and automation everywhere.”
In announcing the KPMG survey results, Knopp said he sees many CEOs “pairing long-term investments with a focus on GenAI and the agility it can create” to “take advantage of new opportunities and overcome challenges.” And when it comes to generative AI, Knopp sees CEOs “working to rapidly advance its deployment across their enterprises” to “deliver productivity gains, reshape business models and create new revenue streams”.
Or, as KPMG’s report puts it, the surveyed CEOs “see GenAI as central to gaining a competitive advantage…”
It’s just one of the interesting insights from KPMG’s “2024 US CEO Outlook”, which polled 100 CEOs at large American companies with over $500 million in annual revenue. (Over a third actually had more than $10 billion in annual revenue.) While its small sample size does create some margin for error, it still offers some data points from real executive suites across America, giving a glimpse into their thinking on the top tech trends of today.
And in 2024, that includes some insight into how they’re approaching the fast-growing potential of generative AI. (And whether it will increase the likelihood of a four-day workweek.)
Conducted from Feb. 21 through March 14, the results found a full 77% of the surveyed CEOs saying they were confident their leadership understood how to benefit from genAI today — and to use it to plan for the future…
‘Encouraging Employees’ on GenAI
Knopp’s statement acknowledged tight labor markets, and even predicted its impact “will increase exponentially in the years to come. So the survey focused on “key challenges and opportunities” facing CEOs — basically, their hopes and their fears — and found signs that 2024 will be different than other years, and that AI looms large in their thinking.
About 61% of the CEOs said they were already “Encouraging employees to use GenAI to automate mundane tasks to better manage their workload and relieve stress.”
Interestingly, only 33% of the polled CEOs said their top AI-related challenge would be integrating it with their existing processes and systems. More said their top challenge would be “ethical challenges” (38%), followed by another 36% who named “security and compliance” as their top challenge.
And of course, there’s an emphasis on security, as well as ethical issues including data privacy and disclosures of AI use.
Concern seems to be focused on our current threat environment, with many CEOs citing cybersecurity as one of the possible threats to growth. But later in the survey, 66% still said they felt “confident that their organization is adequately investing in the cybersecurity measures needed as they deploy GenAI across the enterprise.”
The report cited eight different kinds of responsible AI use initiatives already in place — with another eight planned for implementation in 2024.
Hybrid Is Here to Stay?
With labor tight, CEOs still prioritize mental well-being and avoiding burn-out — the report lists four different initiatives cited by more than half the surveyed CEOs.
But 30% also said they were exploring new work schedules, organization-wide, “such as a 4-day or 4.5-day workweek.”
Whereas last year 62% of the CEOs surveyed predicted their employees would end up working in the office five days a week, this year that’s dropped to just 34%. (Although only 3% see themselves as being fully remote this year — down slightly from the 4% in 2023.) Today, more CEOs now expect a “hybrid” office arrangement — a full 46% — versus just 34% who were expecting hybrid arrangements in 2023.
Meanwhile, as Knopp told CNN in an interview last month, “The views of employees haven’t changed. They want more flexibility. Now there is more recognition from CEOs that hybrid is here to stay.”
CNN also cited a Gallup poll from November where 77% of surveyed US workers said a four-day (40-hour) workweek would have a positive impact on their well-being (with 46% saying that impact would be “extremely positive.”)
Knopp hedged that “It’s way too early to declare the four-day work week part of the future. It’s still in the experimentation phase… My guess is a widespread four-day workweek could be years away — if ever. You’ll see companies quietly experimenting with it, but I don’t personally foresee widespread adoption in the next couple of years.”
But then he made a startling prediction. “It’s possible that generative AI might make the four-day workweek more realistic.”
Maybe it’s all proof that AI is already changing our world — or at least, changing the thinking of CEOs. But it’s clearly influencing their ambitions, along with their hopes and fears for the future. Whatever decisions ultimately get made, the environment affecting those decisions has clearly shifted, and on many fronts. When looking ahead, a new question is now crowding in for attention: how will our future be affected by generative AI.
Toward the end of his CNN interview, KPMG’s Knopp offered a succinct summary of the state of the return-to-office controversy — which also sums up the mindset of CEOs in 2024.
“We are all working to figure out what is optimal, and we will continue to experiment and pivot.”
The post KPMG’s CEO Poll: Labor Markets, 4-Day Workweeks, and GenAI appeared first on The New Stack.
CEOs are responding to tight labor markets in three ways: Dropping the college degree requirements, upskilling employees, and using generative AI to fill talent gaps.