The Multiverse blog

Asha joins us with a proven track record of success in building and scaling high-growth companies, most recently as co-founder of Framework. Her expertise in operations, sales and product management will be invaluable as we continue to scale our impact and deliver exceptional learning experiences to our learners.

A champion for growth and opportunity:

Asha joins Multiverse with a wealth of experience in operations, sales, product management, and talent acquisition. She co-founded Framework, a revolutionary edtech company that provides high-growth tech companies with a digital learning experience for their employees. Asha successfully led Framework through a rebrand and pivot, demonstrating her adaptability and strategic thinking.

Prior to Framework, Asha held leadership roles at Education First and boasts a diverse background spanning sales, partnerships, and product development.

"I'm passionate about helping people from all backgrounds grow further in their careers," says Asha. "Multiverse's mission to deliver high-quality, applied learning at scale deeply resonates with me, and I'm excited to be a part of the team."

Asha's proven track record in leading transformative change and her commitment to diversity and inclusion make her a valuable asset to Multiverse. She is eager to leverage her experience to further enhance the quality of Multiverse's offerings and help the company reach new heights.

This new addition underscores our commitment to building a world-class organisation, filled with top talent. Want to join it? We're hiring.

Tell us about your recent career change at Multiverse.

I started at Multiverse over three years ago as a Learning Designer, hired to develop bespoke programs for our US Google partnership. The initial success of that partnership, due to the need to scale the project (developing six programs is a lotof work!), led me to move into a role as a Senior Learning Designer. Subsequently, I progressed to Senior Manager, where I was responsible for managing a team of Learning Designers working across a variety of bespoke programs.

When this new role opened up on the Enterprise team, I had established myself as an expert in creating bespoke programs for our global customers (Google, Verizon, Babcock, to name a few). The role fit well with the skill set I had been developing over the past few years, as well as giving me an opportunity to manage a larger team.

How are you enjoying your new team and remit?

I'm doing my best! This new role requires me to build strong relationships with leaders and teams across Multiverse, which has been a really awesome way to learn about the intricacies of our business and meet some really smart and passionate people.

It also requires me to be creative and challenge my assumptions about what's possible. My team’s aim is to unlock new revenue opportunities by building custom content for customers, but it's not always obvious how we should be doing this. The role requires my team and I to think critically about our product as a whole, and find ways to improve or modify it to meet customers needs.

Any career change comes with its challenges, what did you have to overcome and how did you approach this?

I mentioned this earlier, but I was independently developing six programs and the customer had high-expectations and often required us to create additional resources that took up a lot of time and energy. I needed a way to objectively demonstrate the workload to effectively manage client expectations and advocate for support within Multiverse. To address these challenges, I invested significant time in implementing project management tools and adopting Story Points as a framework for capacity planning. The data I was able to collect helped me visualize the scope of the project I was working on, and helped me identify trends in the workload over the year to determine when I needed the most support. These reporting mechanisms ultimately led to me building a case for a larger team, and pushed me into a management position.

If you could share one piece of advice for someone looking to develop their career or move internally, what would it be?

It's important to be open with your manager about your career goals and aspirations. Share what matters most to you in your role and how you envision your professional growth. These conversations can feel daunting! Especially if your ambitions seem challenging or different from current opportunities, but your manager should be supportive of your success, and work with you to get there. You might be surprised at how transparency can unlock new possibilities. Simply put, your manager and colleagues can't effectively support you if they don't know your goals and what you're striving for.

Want to join a company where career mobility is a priority? We’re hiring.

Sheffield City Council is investing in a strategic upskilling initiative for 150 of its team, allowing the organisation to leverage technology to improve operational performance and resident experience.

The Data Academy will contribute to the council’s Future Sheffield initiative, providing staff with enhanced digital skills to modernise processes and improve efficiencies. This will allow the council to focus more time on providing services to Sheffield residents while making the organisation more cost-effective.

Funded by the Apprenticeship Levy, training is being delivered by Multiverse, a tech company that identifies, closes and prevents skills gaps, through personalised, on-the-job learning. Multiverse has trained more than 16,000 apprentices in AI, data and digital skills since 2016.

The Sheffield City Council cohort will embark on a range of Multiverse courses, including ‘Data & Insights for Business Decisions’, a level 3 apprenticeship, and ‘Data Fellowship’, a level 4 programme. Once completed, colleagues will be able to conduct data-led projects and encourage data driven decision making, to unlock cost saving opportunities.

The Multiverse Skills Intelligence Report, released in August 2024, highlighted a significant challenge faced by local governments and councils due to a lack of data skills. This shortfall leads to 26% of employees' time spent on data-related tasks being unproductive. The new academy demonstrates how Sheffield City Council is taking action to reduce the skills gap.

Cllr Fran Belbin, Deputy Leader at Sheffield City Council and Chair of the Future Sheffield Members Working Group, said: “The launch of this 150-strong Academy not only marks a commitment to our colleagues’ professional development, but also to our local community. As we seek to enhance operations and reduce time spent with data, we can focus on what matters – providing residents with the highest quality service.”

Multiverse combines work and learning to unlock economic opportunity for everyone. It works with more than 1,500 organisations to close critical skill gaps in the workforce in AI, data and tech, through a new kind of apprenticeship.

Gary Eimerman, Chief Learning Officer at Multiverse, said: “This is the start of a partnership that will provide Sheffield City Council with the tools for organisational transformation. Residents across the UK are reliant on their local authorities, and this is putting Sheffield on the front foot to deliver real value and efficiency.”

Prime Minster Keir Starmer wants to “unleash AI” - promising to drive adoption and deploy AI widely across the public sector, from reducing admin for teachers to assessment and diagnosis in the NHS.

What will this mean in practice for employers? In this article we’ll explore the AI Opportunities Action Plan and what this means for the skills agenda in the UK.

What’s included in the AI Opportunities Action plan?

The plan was commissioned by the Government and developed by tech entrepreneur Matt Clifford. It includes 50 recommendations, with the goal of boosting economic growth and improving people's everyday lives by supercharging AI adoption.

Improving living standards and transforming public services are called out as key ambitions of the plan – which is made up of three pillars:

1. Lay the foundations to enable AI: including the development of ‘AI Growth Zones’, the creation of a National Data Library (unlocking data sets to enable training of new models), as well as training, retaining and attracting talent.
2. Change lives by embracing AI: pushing public sector adoption by piloting and scaling AI products and services, while encouraging the same in the private sector.
3. Secure our future with homegrown AI: ensuring the UK has national champions through a new unit, UK Sovereign AI.

“In the coming years, there is barely an aspect of our society that will remain untouched by this force of change,” said Prime Minster Keir Starmer, in part of the government’s response to the recommendations, which sets out how the government will take forward the 50 recommendations included in the plan.

In practice, it’s hoped AI will enable public sector workers to spend less time on admin and more on delivering services. The opportunity for public benefit is huge: ranging from automated pothole inspection to faster cancer diagnosis.

The Prime Minister has now tasked his cabinet to make AI adoption a top priority for their Departments.

The Multiverse take: AI tools are only as powerful as the humans that wield them

The focus on skills and talent in the action plan is welcome – AI adoption must start with skills.

Here’s what Euan Blair, Founder and CEO of Multiverse, said following the announcement:

“Being first to mass adoption is just as important as being first to innovation. We may have missed the first-mover advantage on LLMs and data centres, but it’s encouraging to see the UK Government recognises its other unique opportunity: to be first to implement AI at scale.

“None of the AI action plan can happen without a substantial investment in skills, since AI tools are only as powerful as the humans who wield them.”

Multiverse engages regularly with policymakers and will offer advice as the recommendations are taken forward.

What will happen next?

The plan sets out how the country can train, attract and retain the next generation of AI scientists and founders in a set of recommendations. These include:

• Accurately assessing the size of the national skills gap, including AI and digital skills, by Spring 2025
• Setting out how the UK will attract highly skilled AI workers from abroad in the Industrial Strategy, by Summer 2025
• Ensuring the lifelong skills programme is ready for AI by assessing the importance of digital and AI skills in the curriculum, by Autumn 2025
• Establishing headhunting capability to bring top AI talent to the UK, by Autumn 2025
• Increasing the diversity of the talent pool with a focus on improving gender balance, starting at school level, by Autumn 2026
• Expanding education pathways into AI, by Autumn 2026
• Launching an undergraduate and master’s AI scholarship programme, by Autumn 2026
• Expanding the Turing AI Fellowships offer, by Autumn 2026
• Increasing the number of AI graduates and teach industry-relevant skills, such as AI-related degrees in Higher Education, by Autumn 2027

What should employers do on AI skills?

Considering 51% of workers have received less than five hours of AI training – according to our ROI of AI report, there is a clear opportunity for employers to upskill their workforce on AI.

Equipping people with the skills and confidence to use AI will spur further growth - as workers start to see how the technology can reshape their day-to-day.

For leaders wanting to bring AI into their company, understanding skills gaps is the first port of call.

Prime Minster Keir Starmer wants to “unleash AI” - promising to drive adoption and deploy AI widely across the public sector, from reducing admin for teachers to assessment and diagnosis in the NHS.

What will this mean in practice for employers? In this article we’ll explore the AI Opportunities Action Plan and what this means for the skills agenda in the UK.

What’s included in the AI Opportunities Action plan?

The plan was commissioned by the Government and developed by tech entrepreneur Matt Clifford. It includes 50 recommendations, with the goal of boosting economic growth and improving people's everyday lives by supercharging AI adoption.

Improving living standards and transforming public services are called out as key ambitions of the plan – which is made up of three pillars:

1. Lay the foundations to enable AI: including the development of ‘AI Growth Zones’, the creation of a National Data Library (unlocking data sets to enable training of new models), as well as training, retaining and attracting talent.
2. Change lives by embracing AI: pushing public sector adoption by piloting and scaling AI products and services, while encouraging the same in the private sector.
3. Secure our future with homegrown AI: ensuring the UK has national champions through a new unit, UK Sovereign AI.

“In the coming years, there is barely an aspect of our society that will remain untouched by this force of change,” said Prime Minster Keir Starmer, in part of the government’s response to the recommendations, which sets out how the government will take forward the 50 recommendations included in the plan.

In practice, it’s hoped AI will enable public sector workers to spend less time on admin and more on delivering services. The opportunity for public benefit is huge: ranging from automated pothole inspection to faster cancer diagnosis.

The Prime Minister has now tasked his cabinet to make AI adoption a top priority for their Departments.

The Multiverse take: AI tools are only as powerful as the humans that wield them

The focus on skills and talent in the action plan is welcome – AI adoption must start with skills.

Here’s what Euan Blair, Founder and CEO of Multiverse, said following the announcement:

“Being first to mass adoption is just as important as being first to innovation. We may have missed the first-mover advantage on LLMs and data centres, but it’s encouraging to see the UK Government recognises its other unique opportunity: to be first to implement AI at scale.

“None of the AI action plan can happen without a substantial investment in skills, since AI tools are only as powerful as the humans who wield them.”

Multiverse engages regularly with policymakers and will offer advice as the recommendations are taken forward.

What will happen next?

The plan sets out how the country can train, attract and retain the next generation of AI scientists and founders in a set of recommendations. These include:

• Accurately assessing the size of the national skills gap, including AI and digital skills, by Spring 2025
• Setting out how the UK will attract highly skilled AI workers from abroad in the Industrial Strategy, by Summer 2025
• Ensuring the lifelong skills programme is ready for AI by assessing the importance of digital and AI skills in the curriculum, by Autumn 2025
• Establishing headhunting capability to bring top AI talent to the UK, by Autumn 2025
• Increasing the diversity of the talent pool with a focus on improving gender balance, starting at school level, by Autumn 2026
• Expanding education pathways into AI, by Autumn 2026
• Launching an undergraduate and master’s AI scholarship programme, by Autumn 2026
• Expanding the Turing AI Fellowships offer, by Autumn 2026
• Increasing the number of AI graduates and teach industry-relevant skills, such as AI-related degrees in Higher Education, by Autumn 2027

What should employers do on AI skills?

Considering 51% of workers have received less than five hours of AI training – according to our ROI of AI report, there is a clear opportunity for employers to upskill their workforce on AI.

Equipping people with the skills and confidence to use AI will spur further growth - as workers start to see how the technology can reshape their day-to-day.

For leaders wanting to bring AI into their company, understanding skills gaps is the first port of call.

Following on from the recent appointment of Jillian Gillespie as CFO and Martha Lane Fox to the board, the tech credentials of the new VP appointees underline Multiverse’s ambitions to be a generational technology company.

Helen Greul joins Multiverse from a varied career at Spotify, having most recently headed up its open source Backstage product, which streamlines workflows for developers. Prior to this she worked on the infrastructure of Spotify’s content platform, contributing to the successful launch of Podcasts in 2018. With more than 15 years in the tech industry Helen will help supercharge Multiverse’s high-performing engineering team, enabling Multiverse to deliver its AI-driven education platform to learners across the world.

She said, “Growing up in a family of educators, I understand the transformative power of education. In the current macro economic environment where upskilling is a necessity for every field, I’m looking forward to creating a learning experience in which the next generation of talent can learn the skills they need to thrive.”

Asha Haji, meanwhile, joins Multiverse having successfully built and exited her own edtech company, Framework, prior to which she spent almost seven years at Education First. In her time as an entrepreneur she secured investment from Google’s Black Founders Fund and earned a finalist slot in Harvard Business School’s New Venture Competition. Haji also secured funding from VCs, founders and CxOs behind the likes of Netflix, Calm and YouTube. Having reskilled many times, working in everything from sales and partnerships, to talent acquisition and product management, she is well-placed to steer Multiverse to success in its operations.

She said, “I'm passionate about helping people from all backgrounds grow further in their careers and develop technical aptitude, so I’m hugely excited by Multiverse’s mission. I’m looking forward to helping it tackle the problem of delivering high quality, applied learning at scale.”

Euan Blair, Founder and CEO of Multiverse, said: “Continuing to build a world-beating senior team is essential for Multiverse to achieve its ambitions. I’m beyond excited to be welcoming two more brilliant individuals to the organisation, who will help continue our rapid growth in the right way and enable us to realise our far-reaching ambitions.”

By definition: workforce planning aligns people with current and future business needs, through analysing, forecasting, and mapping workforce supply and demand.

The purpose of workforce planning is to identify current or emerging skills gaps, prepare for future talent needs, and help manage under or over-resourcing.

In this article, we’ll explore everything you need to know about workforce planning, and how to use it to build a future-proof business.

Benefits of workforce planning

There are many benefits to strategic workforce planning, including:

• Aligning your people strategy with your business goals: Ensuring the right people – with the right skills – are in place to support the company’s goals and strategy.
• Preparing for the future: By anticipating workforce challenges and trends, adapting to changes in the market, and developing succession planning.
• Maintaining cost and resource efficiencies: By investing strategically in hiring and training to ensure each team and department has the right level of resource.
• Making data-driven decisions: Using data to make informed choices on talent and training programmes.

The importance of workforce planning today

Businesses will fall behind if they don’t have the right skills in place. Workforce planning is a means to address this challenge – let’s explore the trends reinforcing its importance.

Many leaders are looking at how to future-proof their workforce – with workforce planning one way to identify and tackle AI skills gaps. More than two thirds of leaders (69%) feel their organisation will need different skills to stay competitive by 2030, according to Multiverse. Taking this a step further, a study from IBM found that 40% of workers will have to reskill in the next three years due to AI.

Workforce planning can also be used to address productivity blockers, by mapping out skills gaps and creating a plan to close them. In a Multiverse study, we found an estimated 25 days of productivity are lost from each employee due to data skills gaps, every year.

High employee churn and lower engagement are additional challenges: one study found 90% of UK employees are disengaged from their job. Skill mismatches are one cause – meaning some employees feel their abilities are underutilised or don't align with their current roles.

In response, workforce planning can improve happiness and engagement. It places employees on tasks and projects that are a better fit for their skillset and desired development pathway – and are therefore more fulfilling.

How workforce planning can close skills gaps

The AI era is fuelling a surge in new roles – AI job postings are growing 3.6 times faster than all jobs in the UK, according to PWC’s 2024 AI Jobs Barometer. It puts AI skills high in demand, creating a tight labour market.

For leaders looking to build the right AI skills within their workforce, upskilling existing employees talent may provide a faster, more cost-efficient method than external hiring.

And the appetite from employees is there: 83% of workers think developing their AI skills will help them to drive more value for their employer in the next 12 months.

Workforce planning process – how to do it

The workforce planning process generally follows these steps in a continuous feedback loop:

Workforce planning in a 7-step cycle:

Workforce planning tools and techniques

Now let’s explore how to approach tools and techniques for workforce planning.

The ‘five Rs’ framework is commonly used to align a businesses’ workforce to its goals: ensuring the organisation has the Right People, Right Skills, and Right Roles, at the Right Time, and the Right Cost.

Building on that foundation, real-time monitoring tools can be used to assess productivity, attendance, and engagement levels of employees. Companies can use skills intelligence tools to quickly assess workforce skills and capabilities (like AI), and use this data to inform Learning and Development strategies.

For example, HR teams may decide to build in-demand skills within its existing workforce while flexibly using contract workers for short-term needs – using a model that balances cost, quality, and agility.

Get started with strategic workforce planning

As the era of AI continues to heat up, so will the pressure to find and plan to have the right talent in place. Strategic workforce planning can help you spot what’s needed for success today, while being ready for the challenges of tomorrow.

HR and L&D teams can use a skills inventory as a tool to identify skill gaps, simplify talent management, and support strategic workforce planning.

Crucially, a skills inventory reveals to leaders the specific capabilities that need to be developed to hit company goals.

In this article, we’ll explore everything you need to know about a skills inventory, how to build one, and an example of how one company used a skills analysis to improve efficiency on data tasks.

What is the purpose of a skills inventory?

There are three main reasons for developing a skills inventory:

1. Identifying skills gaps which could be holding you back from growth. A skills inventory helps to quantify the scale of the challenge and the action you need to take.
2. Informing your learning and development strategy by pinpointing the areas that need the most focus. It also supports the creation of tailored employee development plans that support the overall business goals.
3. Creating new opportunities for employees: As well as identifying the skills that employees need to build, a skills inventory can also uncover hidden or underused talent in your workforce – allowing you to open up new upwards or sideways progression pathways for individuals.

What is the difference between a skills inventory and a skills matrix?

Both of these tools can be used to address skills gaps and support your workforce transformation strategy. However, they have key differences:

• A skills inventory is a dataset of all employee skills across a whole organisation.
• A skills matrix focuses on specific skills relevant to individual roles or departments, and includes the scoring captured in the evaluation process.

How to create a skills inventory in 5 steps

Now we understand what a skills inventory is for, let’s look at how to build one.

1) Establish the business goals you want to achieve

Start by setting out the overarching goals and how you hope skills can help you achieve them. One way to do this is by writing a problem statement that explains the challenge you want to overcome. The statement should factor in:

• What is the problem blocking you from?
• What value would solving the problem unlock?
• How will that challenge change if unresolved in the next 12 to 18 months
• How can skills help you reach the goal, or goals, that you want to achieve?

2) Identify the skills needed to hit your goals

To answer your problem statement, next consider what capabilities your workforce will need to achieve your goal outcome.

Group these into skill sets and organise into broader categories, such as soft skills, technical skills, and leadership skills. Qualifications and certifications can also be factored into a skills inventory.

Find out more on the differences between soft skills gaps and technical skills gaps in our guide: ‘What is a skills gap?

3) Conduct an employee skills assessment

Decide on the best way to test or assess the skills of your workforce. Different methods include employee self-assessment (either manually, or using a dedicated skills intelligence tool), skills tests, and performance reviews.

Next, rate proficiency for each skill using a uniform scale (such as 1 to 5) to establish a consistent benchmark.

If you choose to interview one-to-one or if employees are self-evaluating, here are some questions to include:

• What skills do you have that the company could use more effectively?
• How do you rate your proficiency on [skill] out of five?
• Where do you want to focus your personal development in the next six months?

4) Map the results in a skills matrix

The evaluation results can be captured in a skills matrix at an employee, team, or department level.

The tool gives managers and leaders a view of proficiency levels of the desired skills, clearly showing strengths and skills gaps.

Discover our guide: What is a skills matrix?

5) Regularly update your inventory

With skills gaps identified, update your inventory data and treat it like a live document – for example, making updates when an employee training programme has finished and there’s new self-assessment data from employees to input. This is an opportunity to measure the programme’s impact, calculate ROI on employee training and inform your next steps.

Another check-in point is when there are changes and updates to the business strategy. Always think: how will this impact the roadmap of skills you need? Make sure any new requirements are captured in your skills inventory.

Skills inventory example: EDF Energy

Let’s look at how EDF Energy was able to identify their workforce skills gaps and create a skills inventory, with support from Multiverse.

A Multiverse skills analysis assessed EDF employees who use data daily – and it found they were spending 19.9 hours a week on data tasks.

The analysis mapped employee skill levels in areas like predictive modelling, engineering data, producing visualisations, managing spreadsheets and analysing data.

The exercise revealed 50% in potential time savings which could be achieved through data upskilling.

To capitalise on these efficiency gains, EDF launched a Multiverse Data Academy programme, enrolling staff on apprenticeships to build data skills.

Use a skills inventory to close skills gaps

A regularly updated skills inventory supports strategic workforce planning.

By following these steps, leaders can get the right people working on the right projects, faster.

Specific skill gaps can be targeted through learning and development programmes. And leaders can identify the skills needed to stay competitive and ahead of the curve.

Unblocking digital transformation can improve operations in public services – and ultimately better serve the taxpayer. So what can leaders do to drive their digital transformation approach forward?

We recently held a virtual roundtable with representatives from local authorities and the NHS to discuss methods for unlocking success in digital transformation.

We heard from Sarah Wilkins, CDIO for North London NHS Foundation Trust, Tony Clements, CEO at Ealing Council, and Euan Blair, Founder & CEO at Multiverse, on how data and AI strategies can help overcome digital challenges and deliver a seamless service to local communities.

If you’re short on time, these are our five takeaways from the session:

1. Collaboration creates better citizen outcomes

Collaboration is critical for NHS Trusts and local government. It helps continue service between health and social care, resulting in the best patient outcomes.

Tony already has ideas about how to bridge the data divide using AI. He said: “We're in a trial cohort at the moment of designing a generative AI tool that takes social workers’ notes and relational data, turning them into formats that work for clinicians.”

He hopes to remove technology boundaries between the NHS and councils, creating a robust and personalised approach to care.

Sarah told us how the Trust supports collaboration by participating in schemes like the London Care Record. The system shares patient data across organisations to support integrated care.

Gradually, greater collaboration helps to bridge professional, cultural and informational gaps between public services – all to provide better outcomes for local communities.

2. Data is most effective when strategically integrated

Public sector bodies have the opportunity to better integrate data into workflows – helping drive greater productivity and improve decision-making.

Sarah explained: “We’re drowning in data, but we weren’t always using it intelligently, to generate the insights that we need.” To develop the skills to use data more strategically, the Trust partnered with Multiverse to start a Digital Academy, funded by the Apprenticeship Levy.

Today, clinical teams can use their caseload management tool, MaST, to identify patients at risk of going into crisis. It helps them allocate resources accordingly and reduce hospital admissions.

Ealing Council is also taking action to improve its digital transformation approach by enrolling 45 employees in a data academy, with the hope of expanding the partnership further.

Tony says the area is ripe for collaboration: “There's a real opportunity to combine NHS and wider local authority data so that we can move away from some of those lag indicators and move towards earlier predictions.” For example, the team has started using predictive analytics to predict which residents might enter into adult social care soon.

3. AI can accelerate productivity and performance

Teams are also integrating AI into workflows to boost productivity in the public sector.

At Ealing Council, teams use a tool called Magic Notes to minimise the administrative workload associated with adult social work. AI also helps to identify the need for practical interventions - if a final assessment doesn’t match the evidence, the system flags discrepancies for Ealing’s social workers to review.

Tony told us: “The more we can get our social workers doing what they do best, which is working in people’s homes on the things that matter to them, the better.”

Despite some initial scepticism, teams now understand that AI can have significant benefits for their own workloads. Sarah told us: “It's about removing that admin burden from clinicians and freeing them up to work to the top of their licence – and do the things that only they can do as clinicians.

“It helps them focus their attention on the caseload that’s most in need, and give those patients better outcomes.”

4. Upskilling is a critical tool for building data literacy

Sarah and Tony both highlighted the critical role of upskilling to build data literacy. Training enables learners to better interpret data and apply it to decision-making around service design.

Alongside formalised learning, Tony stressed the importance of a distributed model for the training and adoption of new data and AI tools. He explained: “I'm not a chief exec that's going to come in with a centralised transformation programme designed in the back room by a bunch of consultants. Our approach is to put tools directly into people's hands and to establish those use cases through practice.”

He explained: “We’ve been experimenting with Microsoft Copilot, with 300 of our staff initially given licences, to use in the ways that they feel best work for their area of business. We’re bringing that together in what we've called our centre of excellence – where staff learn from each other how they’re using the new tool, and then spread that knowledge and skills laterally, as much as top down.”

Euan agreed with the two-pronged approach, accounting for both tech and skills: “If we want to benefit from the huge potential technology offers, we have to train and skill the incumbent workforce. Tech tooling can create huge amounts of value, but only if it's implemented and people understand it.”

5. Buy-in is needed from top to bottom of the org chart

The panel spoke about the importance of building a future-ready workforce and a culture of continuous learning. But to build that foundation, you need buy-in at all seniority levels.

Sarah stressed the importance of bringing end-users along for the journey, demonstrating the value of digital skills and systems. She said: “It really is about empowering all levels of the organisation. It can't just be top down, or you meet resistance.”

Executive sponsorship for change initiatives is essential. As Euan put it: “You need clear sponsorship from the business at the leadership level across technology and data. If it ends up being an HR and L&D effort only, then it often ends up not fully delivering everything it can.”

For Tony, it’s about change leadership and managing a gradual process: “You can't always get enough buy-in. So sometimes, you've just got to take a moment, be conscious that you are probably pushing the organisation a bit further than it's ready for, and then be prepared to pick up the pieces.”

Digital transformation in public services isn’t just about investing in new technology – people and skills are critical to success. To learn how to boost productivity, deliver better outcomes for communities, and create new opportunities through data and AI skills, speak to our specialist team.

Appetite for AI in business is high, and 98% of leaders believe the benefits have met or exceeded their expectations. But understanding of AI – and the skills to use it – remains inconsistent in the workforce.

Generative AI throws another curveball into the mix. Employees are already actively experimenting with ChatGPT, without necessarily understanding best practice.

In this complex picture, what’s the best way to equip employees with AI knowledge that will deliver value for the business – and manage the risks?

At our recent panel, Bridging the AI gap: From classic challenges to generative opportunities, leaders looked to answer just that.

David Reed, Chief Knowledge Officer at DataIQ, chaired the session featuring PA Consulting’s Global Head of AI, Alwin Magimay, Capita’s Director of Operational Excellence, Edward Boyns and Multiverse’s Head of AI, Anna Wang.

Build AI skills in the business with formal learning pathways

AI tools are becoming more commonplace in every organisation. 81% of tech leaders plan to increase AI investment in the next three years and beyond.

But people will be crucial for AI to deliver on its promise – and to date, the majority of workers (51%) have received fewer than five hours’ training on AI.

For both Capita and PA Consulting, building capabilities in the workforce by training existing employees is crucial. As Ed explained, AI is a central part of the business transformation strategy underway at Capita.

“We need to educate our own people on how to use AI and extract value from it, because we need to practise what we preach to sell it to our clients in a compelling way,” Ed explained.

“We now have a cohort of 95 apprentices, working on a Multiverse programme. It’s about teaching our organisation how to get the most value from AI, for us and our clients.”

Find out how Capita launched a new AI training Academy in partnership with Multiverse, delivering AI apprenticeships for more than 100 colleagues

Upskilling is part of an equitable value exchange with employees for PA Consulting, according to Alwin. “We aim to give as much as we receive to our staff. We keep things interesting with a 70:20:10 ratio of time spent on consulting, research and personal development respectively, including learning AI skills.”

With an AI-enabled workforce, businesses can realise the value of their investments – and support employee satisfaction and retention.

Nine in 10 employees are keen to improve their data skills, and 83% say AI skills will help them to drive more value for their employer in the next 12 months.

Teach employees when to use AI for the best ROI

Generative AI has introduced a new dynamic for businesses – by significantly lowering the AI barrier to entry.

“The biggest innovation of ChatGPT is that it put this technology into the hands of everyone,” Anna explained. “Any person can now tell a computer what to do and what not to do. That breakthrough really levels the playing field.”

There are parallels with past technologies. In the 1900s, you had to be a mechanic to drive a car, Alwin highlighted. Now, you can just focus on the driving – you don’t need to understand what’s under the bonnet.

In the same way, employees at all AI skill levels have direct access to the tools and are keen to use them. Most workers have gained their AI skills by playing with ChatGPT (61%) or learning on the job (59%).

But context is everything. According to David, “It’s not just understanding how to use the tools and technology. It’s also when it’s appropriate and when it isn’t.”

Alwin explained, “The tasks we do at work tend to fit into four quadrants: bespoke, curator, repeatable, predictable. AI is best applied to tasks that are repeatable and predictable – the low-hanging fruit.”

To leverage AI to its full potential, workers need to understand this cost/benefit analysis – to see where the technology will add value, and where it won’t.

As Ed noted, “Be really clear on what your costs are from an AI perspective. Don't start with AI being a solution that you really like, and you're going to try and find a problem to fix with it.”

Managing AI risks: key questions to ask

Many businesses lack clear guardrails over how AI is used. Only 28% of leaders are confident they have established best practice in providing governance structures to limit AI risk.

“The main challenge of using generative AI is data custody,” explained Anna. “The data input shouldn’t be confidential. Consider the malicious applications of the data, the potential for impersonation and vulnerability to cyber-attacks. There are a lot of risks.”

Ensuring a system is fair, transparent, responsible and accurate depends on knowing the questions to consider.

“For each application, you have to explain what AI tools are involved and how you’re going to use it,” explained Ed. “Are you going to store the data? Are you going to let the data be used to teach the model?”

Employees need to understand the impact of how AI is used, but many lack foundational data skills. 57% have no or basic Excel skills – and as David noted, this means businesses may be “trying to run with AI before they can walk.”

Nine in 10 employees want to improve their data skills – and this could unlock greater productivity, as well as increasing their understanding of the implications of different AI uses.

Ensure AI upskilling is consequential, with a clear business ROI

AI projects must deliver meaningful and measurable results for businesses. Likewise, upskilling programmes have to be tailored to benefit the organisation, and not only the individual.

As Anna explained, “The vision of Multiverse is to make learning more scalable, personal and consequential for every business.”

Ed has worked closely with the AI apprentices at Capita, helping to shape the project proposals they are developing in the programme. “We can make sure that they will drive value, and they are looking at problems that are significant to the organisation, that are scalable, and can drive value for Capita.”

AI is in turn helping to reimagine the learning process at Multiverse. Atlas, an always-on copilot, has also been supporting learners on Multiverse apprenticeships since early 2024.

With personalised learning pathways, upskilling can deliver for both individual students and the business as a whole.

Read more examples of AI upskilling in practice

Our panel was clear that AI holds great promise for businesses. But people need the skills and understanding to use the technology to its full potential, and proactively mitigate risk.

Training programmes that are directly tied to business benefits will not only support individuals, but deliver better outcomes for the whole business– as Capita and PA Consulting show.

To learn how upskilling can deliver meaningful business results for you, watch the full panel and explore our AI courses for business.