It’s the beginning of September and that means getting back into the swing of a fall routine. While kids will be heading back to the classroom, excited to see their friends and start learning new subjects, many adults see the return from summer break as the end of their summertime freedom and work picking back up as more colleagues return from their holidays. The reality of the season change typically brings more stress into the workplace and leaves you wishing you had just one more day on the beach.

While one more day on the beach would definitely be nice, what if we took this opportunity of changing seasons to learn something new? Learning new skills doesn’t have to end when we stop going to school. In a world where the future of work is changing rapidly, gaining new skills has become a way for people to make their CVs more attractive or advance in their current company – and also learn some pretty cool things (hello, new video-editing, website-coding, analytics-collecting master!).

We got the scoop from a few industry experts at VivaTech this year to understand what the future of work might look like and discussed topics from upskilling and reskilling to hybrid work and the Great Resignation.

Check out the most popular sessions about The Future of Work to learn some of the key developments and trends and discover why you should master a new skill this back-to-school season too!

Staying Ahead: Skills for lifelong learning
TLDW: “Get a good education, then work.” This traditional model is under strain. Advances in technology, longer career spans and the increasingly fast transformation of the job market all play a role. Technical skills are in high demand, but need to be updated often and some industries undergoing digitalization are trying to access pools of talent they did not traditionally need in their workforce. Since employers can’t hire all the skills they need, it’s up to them to empower their employees to start upskilling or reskilling so they can have an optimized workforce.

Notable and quotable:

“Companies have realized since the pandemic that skills are becoming harder to find and they need to retrain their workers. But what is even more interesting is that the individual is taking it into their own hands to increase their employability. Learning platforms have changed from B2B to B2C because individuals are taking the initiative to start learning on their own.”

– Marie-Christine Levet, Partner at Educapital

“About 70% of our lifelong learning doesn’t come from formal training. It comes from our colleagues, our mentors. It doesn’t have to be something very formal. Learning is a fun journey. It’s important for people to have a fun experience with learning as well as useful.”