Reskilling in the Age of AI

Introduction

Picture a ladder with steps numbered from zero to ten, first rung up to the top. Imagine that the top rung is the best possible work life for you and the bottom of the ladder is the worst.

What step of the ladder would you say you're currently standing on? What step do you think you'll be standing on five years from now?

This 'ladder' measurement was developed by Hadley Cantril back in the 60s, and continues to be used by a wide variety of researchers as a well-being assessment. Sometimes it's used to generally reflect on overall well-being, and sometimes it's used to measure an aspect.

So, which rung of the ladder do you see yourself standing on in your current work life? What factors have you considered to inform that number? Perhaps you've thought about traditional measures of objective career success (e.g., income, promotion, title, etc.), aspects that are visible, measurable, and so fit into a ranking order. Perhaps you’ve considered how much time you devote to work, whether you have positive relationships with colleagues, how often you're able to demonstrate competence, or how much job security you have. These are more subjective measures and can be harder to categorize neatly. Nevertheless, they remain relevant. 

Switching focus to the future, where did you place yourself and what factors informed that conclusion? While we're on the topic, what shifts do you see happening in your industry now and how have you responded to them? Are you concerned about the impact that increasing automation and ‘digitization’ will have on your future? What are those concerns? 

In this piece, I'll discuss some recent research coming out of an interdisciplinary space where economics, worker wellbeing, and organizational culture overlap. I'll first talk about the scarring effect of unemployment and why that matters. Then, I'll highlight the non-negotiable requirement for reskilling and upskilling at this point in contemporary Work history. Finally, I'll conclude with an encouragement to be pro-active when climbing the rungs of your career ladder or leading others to do the same. 

Unemployment Scarring

Broadly speaking, most of us need to work to have any semblance of a decent life. It's difficult not to unless you own wealth-generating land, or maybe have royalty checks showing up in the mail each month. In general, we can say waged-work is necessary to make the rest of life tick along. Beyond your paycheck however, it can be eye-opening to think about how work shapes other parts of your life in addition to paying the bills. For many of us, it's a big part of how we understand our societal contribution, our worth, our relationships, even where we're headed. In that sense, it functions as a link to how we understand our place on a timeline. 

The out-sized role work plays in our lives may explain why research shows that unemployment can cause something called 'scarring'. In this context, it means that even when a person has successfully returned to employment, the past unemployment experience can reduce their current wellbeing (Clark, Georgellis, & Sanfey, 2001). What does this tell us? First of all, in a society where most people have to work, experiencing the volatility of layoffs or downsizing has the capacity to have lasting psychological effects from the shock and the fear. If you were in a job for x number of years and suddenly found yourself without a job because there was a merger for example, it can turn your life upside down. Job security is nothing to be sniffed at and it matters enormously when it comes to wellbeing. In a recent study on injured workers accessing higher education in order to return to employment, researchers found that reskilling prevented one case of depression for every three injured workers. Even more surprising, the spillover effects on their partners was just as large (Hunlum & Plato, 2025). The incorporation of a consistent skills-development component into your individual or managerial approach will boost employee wellbeing as the need to learn new things is satisfied and job security fears are assuaged (De Neve & Ward, 2017).  

Reskill/Upskill

Like many historical shifts, industrial movements experience times of relative tranquility and other times great upheaval. Perhaps the most obvious lasting ruptures in industrial changes include the shift from agriculture to factory in the late 18th century, the shift to mass production techniques in the late 19th century, and the impact of the information age of the late 20th century. Reading about these industrial (and societal) changes in a historical text sometimes gives us the feeling that it was rather neat. This has never been the case. Great shifts ease in, hit highs, come crashing down, swing back, and eventually settle into something that stops being remarkable. 

In among these changes, employees and employers attempt to manage the impact of the shifting industrial ground by identifying and learning necessary new skills. This process will have similar false-starts, trend-chasing, and an eventual settling into what is actually useful as far as skill development is concerned. Depending on your role, the best response (with regards to re/upskilling) will be guided by whether you manage others, and what tasks you/they do. For example, if you have no direct management responsibilities and you work in the care industry, your response will be very different when compared with someone managing a team of 8 people who primarily do data entry tasks. 

On an individual level, it can help you to feel less powerless in the face of industrial change if you are proactive in developing your skill sets. Granted, there is currently a lot of noise and hype around AI tools, and arguments that the bubble will soon pop (see the 'dot-com' boom and bust of 20+ years ago). However, that isn't to suggest that expanding your digital skills to include an understanding of AI tool application is a waste of time. At the very least, changing the narrative from new technologies 'replacing' human workers will lower stress levels about the potential negative impacts and generalized job security fears. Rather, consider that new technologies are potentially constructive tools with an ability to enhance individual performance, self-development, and an organization when adapted well (Chowdhury et al., 2022). 

On an organizational level, how management engages with skill development has a big impact on organizational culture. In a recent study, organizational culture enjoyed a boost as employees perceived transparency and active involvement from their employer's approach to upskilling for AI tool use. Employees reported on the importance of clear communication and company guidelines, particularly in relation to potential biases or unintended consequences of its application (Callari & Puppione, 2025). A well-adapted and well-communicated development plan is crucial for an organization, its employees, and its outcomes to reap positive rewards. 

Deskilling

A final consideration when deciding how to approach skill-development is to avoid deskilling. New technologies are capable of performing language-based tasks such as summarizing large amounts of text, generating a variety of texts, creating a slide deck to match a given text, etc. In this instance, I would urge an approach to quality over quantity because there remains an unfortunate amount of low quality output from Gen AI, specifically when it comes to language. (As a former English language teacher, I am frequently appalled by the same corporate mush offered by Gen AI tools rather than human-produced text trying to inform, convince, entertain, inquire, etc.) Indeed, there is well-documented research from the last digital revolution indicating the association between automation and the loss of human expertise. This can design-in effects which may result in a reinforcing cycle that makes it increasingly difficult for organizations to deviate from the automation (Raisch & Krakowski, 2021). Blindly handing sub-skills over to automation is unlikely to result in long term positive outcomes. It is also worth considering the impact of having removed an entire set of reading skills from our societies, but that is probably better suited for a different piece. 

Final thoughts 

Engaging with skill-development is an important piece of neverending work for an organization and its employees. It's brimming with the potential to facilitate improved wellbeing by supporting the learning process, adding to a positive organizational culture, and reducing fears of job insecurity. In order to reap these rewards, the Learning function of an organization must have the resources required to identify, develop, and deploy an appropriate response to development needs. Likewise, a mycorrhizal network of supervisory and social support will help to make-or-break the opportunity to navigate this current industrial revolution with slightly more ease.

Go back to the top of this piece and consider those future related questions again. Where are you on the ladder?   

Works Cited

Callari, T.C. & Puppione, L. (2025). Can Generative Artificial Intelligence Productivity Tools Support Workplace Learning? A Qualitative Study on Employee Perceptions in a Multinational Corporation, Journal of Workplace Learning. https://doi.org/10.1108/jwl-11-2024-0258 

Chowdhury, S., Budhwar, P., Dey, P. K., Joel-Edgar, S., & Abadie, A. (2022). AI-employee collaboration and business performance: Integrating knowledge-based view, socio-technical systems and organisational socialisation framework. Journal of Business Research, 144, 31-49. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.01.069

Clark, A.E., Georgellis, Y., Sanfey, P. (2001). Scarring: The Psychological Impact of Past Unemployment. Economica, 68 (270). pp. 221-241. ISSN 0013-0427. (doi:10.1111/1468-0335.00243) 

De Neve, J.E. & Ward, G. (2017). Happiness at work. CEP Discussion Papers (CEPDP1474). London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, London, UK.

Humlum, A. & Plato, P., (2025) "Reskilling and Resilience," NBER Working Paper 34095, https://doi.org/10.3386/w34095.

Raisch, S., & Krakowski, S. (2021). Artificial Intelligence and Management: The Automation Augmentation Paradox. The Academy of Management Review, vol. 46, no 1, p. 192–210. doi: 10.5465/amr.2018.0072