Future-Proofing People Development: 3 Skills You Need Now

AlignmentMeasurementStrategic Business PartnerStrategy
Written By Jess Almlie

What skills are critical for people development professionals in the age of disruption?

Let’s be honest, people development isn’t just changing. It’s being shaken to its core. We may be living through one of the most disruptive periods in workplace history and it’s all moving so fast!

AI is transforming how work gets done across industries, touching every role and function. Organizations are under financial pressure to “do more with less,” leading to layoffs, mergers, and constant restructuring. The result? Chaos, uncertainty, and a desperate need for clarity, both for people development professionals (L&D, TD, OD) and everyone else in the organizations where we work.

As I talk with so many of you, I hear the same questions echoing in every call and they’re big questions. Have any of these crossed your mind lately?

  • How do I structure my team for the future?

  • What skills will I need to stay relevant?

  • Will AI replace my role, or can I harness it? If I can harness it, how? Where do I start and how do I keep up?

  • How do I keep developing people in the middle of so much rapid change?

Given my conversations, the articles and thought leaders I follow on the future of work, and my perspective on our profession, I believe there are three critical skill areas that those of us in people development would be wise to develop in ourselves. Skill areas that will keep us grounded and ready for the next evolution of our professional lives. They are: Change Management, AI Capacity, and Strategic Business Partnership.

Change Management

Change is no longer an occasional disruption, it’s a constant. Yet, as humans, we are wired to resist it, both physically and emotionally. This gap between the speed of change and our ability to adapt is one of the biggest challenges facing organizations today.

Right now, most companies aren’t handling it well. I recently attended a local SHRM chapter meeting recently where the topic was M&A. Over 50 HR professionals were in attendance, all sharing their own versions of poor M&A experiences. I stood up and asked for examples of good change management. I was hoping to learn a few nuggets and best practices. But instead, I got silence. That tells you everything.

At the same time, I see very few companies hiring change management professionals. The ideas to do so are there, but businesses aren't pulling the financial trigger to make it happen. That often means the responsibility of managing change is landing on the shoulders of people development professionals, without the additional budget, resources or time to do it right. The result is often fragmented and reactive.

If you want to increase your value as a people development professional, the first skill that I recommend developing is change management. This will allow you to lead with strategy instead of scrambling. Even if you’re working piecemeal, you’ll help people transition more smoothly and have a better chance at keeping productivity and morale from crashing.

Go-to Change Management Resources

AI Capacity

Yes, AI is everywhere. It’s the shiny, new buzzword for every article, conference session, and vendor sales pitch. But it’s also more than just hype. It’s fundamentally reshaping how we live and work. No one will be untouched.

As organizations scramble to stay on top of the AI game, people development pros will need to change and adapt in multiple ways. We need to stay informed about the organization’s AI strategy, identify how AI can improve our own functions, and help employees adapt to and leverage AI effectively.

We don’t need to be the AI experts. We can leave that to… well… the AI experts. But we do need to develop a general understanding of this new technology. We need to understand it enough to spot opportunities, ask the right questions, and integrate it into our work where it makes sense.

Resources in this area are tougher to nail down because there are so many and they are continuously emerging, but here are a few of my current favorites.

Current Favorite AI Resources

Strategic Business Partnership

AI will automate a lot of transactional work, for people development functions and others. But talent challenges in our organizations aren’t going away. There will still be a need to drive and improve human performance, retain high talent and minimize turnover, strengthen leadership capacity, and more. That’s where you come in.

In people development, we are the profession perfectly poised to tackle those very human challenges. But, to do this well, we need to leave our transactional work behind and get better at working as strategic business partners.

To future-proof your role and continue to add much-needed value to our organizations, we need to shift our approach from transactional to transformative. We need to partner with business leaders to diagnose challenges, identify solutions (learning or otherwise), and measure results. That means building skills like strategic thinking & prioritization, cross-functional collaboration, business acumen, and influence.

At the same time, this shift is more than a process change for people development, it’s about changing perceptions of what our profession can do across the organization. Our stakeholders need to learn that we can transcend our transactional box. But we can do both at once, a little at a time. The more we strengthen our skills as strategic business partners, the more indispensable we will become.

Resources for Becoming a Strategic Business Partner

The Bottom Line

The pace of change isn’t slowing down. We don’t have time to wait for the disruption to settle, because it won’t. We need to take action to move into the future alongside our organizations. Get started by accepting the challenge to master change management, build AI capacity, and step fully into strategic partnership.

Jess Almlie
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