Is there a way to measure Human Progress?
Economists have measured progress in economic terms.
The Human Development Index (HDI): The HDI focuses on people's well-being by considering three dimensions:
Long and healthy life: Measured by life expectancy at birth
Knowledge: Measured by expected years of schooling (for children of school-entering age) and average years of schooling (for adults aged 25 and older).
Standard of living: Measured by gross national income (GNI) per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP).
Bhutan measures Gross National Happiness by these four factors.
Progress measures for the Skills Economy
There is a real crisis in higher education. Generative AI has presented challenges for which higher education is largely unprepared. From teaching methodologies and administrative processes, to redefining the learning experience the traditional model of university education is seeing tectonic shifts. Confidence in higher education has dropped from 57% in 2015 to 36% in 2023. The value of education gets further questioned when we see 52% graduates are underemployed a year after their graduation.
Read more: 2024 Higher Education Trends
There was a time when a graduates degree guaranteed people a job and jobs lasted a lifetime. A degree from a “well-known” institution would ensure that employers would line up to seek out the freshly minted talent. Colleges are guilty of grade inflation. Schools must decide the trade off between academic rigor and the professional success of students. A student with a lower grade will find it harder to get a job. That in turn also reflects poorly on the college. Plus the professors who set higher standards for higher grades are sandpapered by students when they rate professors. But that is changing. The change is being driven by employers
Read more: <What drives grade inflation at Ivy League colleges>
Employers are looking for skills - not degrees or pedigree
Grade inflation is matched by degree inflation by the employer. In 2015, 67% of production supervisor job postings asked for a college degree. Only 16% of employed production supervisors had this qualification. That raises the cost of hire and the time to hire increases. Degree Inflation is a killer when it comes to the bottom line. <Read about Degree Inflation and Its Impact on Employee Engagement>
Employers assume (sometimes) that getting someone with a higher education degree will get them an employee who has better soft skills. That is not necessarily true, employers find out.
What employers are now looking for are skills and not degrees. But there is still one missing component - ongoing assessment of skills. Human skills like creativity, collaboration etc improve only when they are assessed and there is an experienced coach who turns assessment scores into an actionable plan.
Three factors that measure human progress
If you have written the GRE exam or TOEFL, you are familiar with ETS. If you are a teacher and have taken the PRAXIS exam, you recognize ETS. They offer 50 MILLION tests every year across almost 200 countries worldwide. They have done it for 75 years. I found their Human Progress Report 2024 very relevant for the skills economy. They found 3 measures of human progress
Access to education (The cost of higher education makes it unaffordable for most people)
Pursuit of higher mobility (Without higher education, it is harder to move to high paying jobs)
Engagement in skilling and reskilling (Micro-credentials plus assessment of skills including human skills will be needed)
These factors intertwine, forming the bedrock of societal advancement. As the report highlights, the people in many middle income countries struggle to get access to education. When they do not have the opportunity, they find themselves trapped. 88% percent people feel learning is essential to succeed.
A job description shows you the work that will be expected. The job is made up tasks. Education is reflecting this shift.
Three body problem
The work we do is basically made up of different tasks. This is what I am describing as the ‘three body problem’ happening at work.
A body of tasks is going to be done by humans.
Some will be done by Artificial Intelligence.
And the rest will be done by humans working with AI.
All over the world every role from teaching to movie making is now grappling with the 3 body problem
Work is getting broken up into tasks. It is not surprising that the current model of education is also undergoing a similar change. Employers value skills and degrees will compete with micro credentials. Think of micro-credentials as the badges you earn in a video game. You keep getting them as long as you are playing. There is also an emerging but significant interest in micro-credentialing, with 78% of global respondents believing that evidence of new skill acquisition will be as valued as a university degree by 2035.
Read the Human Progress Report 2024
What is needed?
Acquiring skills and measuring them are two sides of a coin. If you want to run a race, you need to know how your timing is improving. Having a coach who can then tell you how to improve your speed is what every successful athlete has - continuous assessment and coaching.
According to LinkedIn, in 2024, “we see human-centric “soft skills” (aka “human” or “durable” skills) as evergreen places to invest your learning energy. The familiar skills at the top of the list — communication, customer service, leadership — are still business-critical in the age of AI.”
Quick tip: Adaptability is the skill of the year for 2024. <What are the skills needed now and how to build them>
Let’s face it - most people managers are terrible at giving feedback. They either squirm and sugar coat the feedback until it loses the inch. Or they throw it like a ton of bricks at the receiver and hope they survive and improve.
The nature of work is changing. Sectors like healthcare, finance, education, hospitality and professional services will all explode with need for people who are good at human skills. These jobs will need judgement, communication, teamwork and will be high paying because such talent is scarce. Opportunities will be abundant for anyone with the right skills. Not surprising that upskilling and reskilling makes up one of the three markers of human progress in the skills economy.
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