Analysis: There won't be a skills gap in jobs, "We're going to see a skills canyon"

Prudential Vice Chair Rob Falzon joined Yahoo Finance to discuss the latest findings from the Pulse of the American Worker Survey.

Video transcript

SEANA SMITH: As workers head back to the office, Prudential is out with a new survey on employee expectations and the priorities of workers as pandemic restrictions ease. So we want to talk about the findings with Rob Falzon. He is the vice chair of Prudential. And Rob, it's great to have you back here at Yahoo Finance. Now we've talked time and time again about how employees' demands have changed since the start of the pandemic. Talk to us about some of the trends that you're noticing or some of the trends that the survey found now, as more people are heading back to the office.

ROB FALZON: Yeah, Seana, so to your point, this is the 13th in a series that began back in 2017. And it's been interesting to watch how the data has changed over that period of time. And one of the things we dug into more deeply in this most recent survey was something that was beginning to appear in the last survey, which is we're calling it the great rethink. The more time people spend away from the office, the more time they've been thinking about their careers, how content they are with those careers, and the trajectory of those careers on a go forward basis.

And coming out of that, in the most recent survey, 53% of the individuals indicated that given the opportunity, they would not only change jobs, they'd change industries and/or careers. And it appears that one in four have got one foot out the door. They said that they actually have plans to change employers post the pandemic.

And so that's been an evolution of their thinking during the course of the pandemic and has been driven by a couple of things, one of which I think is the experience of the pandemic has taught them that there's a benefit to remote work. And having some element of that flexibility on a go forward basis is something they want to retain. It's also taught in the importance of skills and upskilling. I think they felt as if they've gone stale from a skilling standpoint and need to invest in that. And they may be struggling to do that, both remotely or at their current employer.

And then, obviously, you know, compensation always comes into play in these sort of things. But it's a broader definition of compensation. It includes the kind of benefits that they've found to be extraordinarily valuable during the pandemic that I think there might have been an underappreciation for before the pandemic.

JARED BLIKRE: Well, Rob, I want to follow up on something you said that's interesting. You said I think a quarter of workers may have their foot out the door-- at least one foot out the door. But then, in an answer to another question, what are workers looking for, number one response was job stability-- 68%. Now we've had an extremely unstable run here, but still a little bit surprising to me that that would have been the number one. What did you get out of these responses?

ROB FALZON: Well, it's interesting because compensation moves from number one to number three in that survey in terms of what they're looking for in their new positions, and so, Jared, to point. The way we define and interpret job stability is it really has to do with job security, meaning, do they have the skills, and are they getting the skills that continue to make them relevant to the workforce? So it's not in our traditional definition of job stability.

I mean, interestingly, another trend, to Seana's earlier question, that we've seen is the increasing level of insecurity that employees have around whether their skills are relevant to the workplace today. That number has gone from 30% of workers feeling as if they didn't necessarily have the skills needed to do their jobs in the upcoming year. It's climbed to 50% of the workers that we surveyed in the most recent survey saying that they fear they don't have skills relevant or needed for their jobs now, never mind sort of looking forward three to five years. I think that's what that statistic around job stability is really getting at, Jared.

SEANA SMITH: And Rob, I want to ask you this, because you're in a position-- you're an executive, obviously. You have many people in your organization that look up to you and look up to you for advice. With your approach, I guess, how has that changed with employees than, say, what we were doing 16 months ago? Because the needs and what employees are looking for has, obviously, changed, as we've been talking about.

ROB FALZON: Yeah, so getting that question all the time, to your point. And I think if I were to boil it down, it's around the velocity with which people need to reinvent themselves. You know, in my tenure, I'm on the older side of the demographic. And that was about every decade or so, you had to reinvent yourself to be relevant to the workforce.

And I think that's accelerated through a four-year period of time or so, where the rapid adoption of technology, the introduction of AI, automation means that you need to stay on the leading edge of the evolution of the necessary skills to be creating value in organizations. And that means you have to constantly be reinvesting in an education process. And a lot of that comes from on the job experience.

So associated with the reinventing yourself is actually mobility. Take many new jobs in many different areas in order to be able to expand your skill sets so that you do remain relevant, and you have that stability that you're looking for, plus the career opportunities to move-- to continue to progress your career.

JARED BLIKRE: Well, from the perspective of the employer then, what can companies do to cater to the new demands, or at least, the new needs, of workers and to help them achieve that balance?

ROB FALZON: Yeah, so Jared, you sort of look at what they've prioritized. You know, number one, that flex-- well, number one or two-- whichever way you look at it-- you know, flexibility both from a time and space dimension, so when they work and where they work. So I think introducing models. We're going to be rolling out a hybrid model, which will allow people to be in the works in their office some of the time and at home some of the time. You know, meeting their needs for flexibility is going to be important to that value proposition between the employee and the employer.

And then the relevance to the workplace and the ability to develop their careers is going to mean skilling. And I think it's employees are looking to their employers to provide the opportunity for upskilling and reskilling and training. And I think employers need to invest in that training of their workforce. Quite frankly, I think they need to do it for their own purposes because they're not going to find the skills out in the marketplace, quite frankly. There's a shortage. Before the pandemic, we were saying there was a skills gap. Post the pandemic, we may be saying there's a skills canyon.

And so you're not going be able to hire your way out of that problem from an employer standpoint. So you're well served to be investing in the skilling of your employees and I think it serves them well as well. Probably the last thing I'd throw in there is the need to invest in the workplace. It's going to be a very different dynamic when people come back into the workplace. And you need to be thinking very differently about the technology that's available for them, the floor layouts, and the collaboration and ideation and needs to accommodate when they come back in.

SEANA SMITH: Rob Falzon, always great to speak with you, Vice Chair of Prudential. We look forward to having you back again soon.