AI Pacesetters: Six Secrets of The Superworker Company
This week we launched the culmination of three years of research into the leadership and HR strategies of the world’s leading “Superworker Companies,” the highest performers in their industries.
More than three years ago we started the GWI (Global Workforce Intelligence) project. Using data intelligence from Eightfold, we examined the skills, job roles, and HR strategies of hundreds of companies in six industries (healthcare, consumer banking, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, automotive, and insurance). For each industry group (you can dive into details on each industry in Galileo), we analyzed the skills and skills histories of millions of employees against their peers.
We then segmented the highest performers (Pacesetters) in each industry to understand how they’re different.
While we expected Pacesetters to have deep industry and technology skills, our research discovered something different. When tracked over time the companies who rank as top 10% performers in each industry had were not just “expertise seekers.” They were “fast-learners.”
In other words, it’s not “what you know” that matters in business today – it’s “how fast you learn.” The most important skills we need are skills to learn, adapt, innovate, and change.
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Long ago we were taught to innovate at the edge: create standalone innovation or R&D teams to experiment with new ideas and technologies and then test opportunities for change. Don’t mess with the core, as the saying goes.
Our data shows otherwise.
Top performing companies (Toyota, JPM Chase, DBS, Tesla, Microsoft, Mastercard, Travelers, Zurich, NY Presbyterian, L’Oreal) are experts in their markets, but are also willing to change at the core. They invest heavily in tech, job redesign, and business model reinvention.
DBS, for example, has shifted its IT and operations skills from digital to AI, building an internal talent marketplace for skills. Mercy Health built a high-flexibility contingent work model, enabling people to flexibly handle new clinical roles and advance personal skills. Mastercard redesigned its recruiting to find high-innovation skills.
From Skills To Growth
If you examine the actual data, several findings came out – and these are important lessons in this new world of AI.
Pacesetter companies invest in change teams, workshop facilitation, and dynamic programs for talent mobility. They promote and celebrate job mobility and career reinvention, and they invest the time and money in “retraining” and “continuous skills development.”
As they say in the military, the military only does two things: they fight and they train. And when they’re not fighting they’re training. High powered companies are the same: nobody is ever “fully skilled” and all projects, leaders, and internal teams are expected to continuously learn.
When technologies like AI come along, Pacesetters quickly learn, experiment, and reinvent. They don’t only “train people” in AI, they question how they do business and apply AI as a transformation tool.
Six Secrets As Key to AI Transformation
It turns out AI transformation isn’t about tech, it’s all about people. And the Pacesetters have strong muscles for change.
1. AI Transformation for Growth, Not Cost Control
2. Continuous Innovation at the Core
3. Productivity-Based Work Redesign
4. Talent Density: Skills Quality over Quantity
5. From Change Management to Change Agility
6. Systemic HR®, Powered by AI
Join us on the journey to the Superworker company, and contact us if you’d like to assess your team against the Pacesetters.
Additional Information
The Rise of The Superworker: How AI Transforms Business and HR
Reinventing L&D: Join the Revolution
