Skill Needs Are Changing – Learning Must Be Strengthened at All Levels of the Organization

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:15:00 +0200
Aalto Leaders' Insight, Digitalization, Leadership, Design Thinking

As the transformation of working life accelerates, the skill needs of organizations are changing structurally. Successful organizations do not focus solely on the skills of individuals, but on how new understanding and capabilities can quickly become part of the thinking and decision-making of the entire organization.

The skill needs of organizations and individuals do not evolve linearly. In recent years, developments such as generative AI and energy transition have shown that change does not only create demand for new technical skills. It also forces organizations to ask new kinds of questions: What do we need to understand about the change? Whose responsibility is it? And, above all, how can understanding be translated into action and embedded quickly and widely across the organization?

Changes in working life and in the business environment do not affect only individual experts or teams. For example, new technologies are simultaneously reshaping strategy, processes, and everyday work. The ability to keep up with change and thrive in it is therefore measured not only by the skills of individuals, but by how the organization learns together.

What matters is how skills are developed broadly so that they do not remain isolated, but become integrated into a shared language across the organization. For example, this can be seen in how organizations approach the use of artificial intelligence. It is not only about the skills of specific teams, but about how technologies are understood across product development, business operations, and leadership.

"It is not only about the skills of specific teams, but about how technologies are understood in product development, business operations, and leadership."

When the need for new skills affects a broad group of people, traditional training models may not offer the best solution. However, developing skills at scale does not mean generic or one-size-fits-all content. Impactful learning is built on real workplace challenges, the context in which individuals operate, and the opportunity to immediately apply what they learn in their work. Digital learning itself is not the solution, but an enabler. Scalable learning is not a compromise on quality – it is essential for change.

A good example of this is the collaboration between Aalto EE and Nokia in adopting large language models in software development. The initiative did not focus only on technology, but on how new skills could be broadly and effectively integrated into the everyday work of teams. This is why the pilot phase involved 90 experts from across the company.

The same phenomenon can be seen in the energy transition. The hydrogen economy is a complex ecosystem from technological, economic, and regulatory perspectives, affecting a wide range of teams and roles within companies. For this reason, the Hydrogen Business Basics program, developed together with companies in the industry, focused not on a single technical solution but on understanding how the hydrogen economy creates business value.

New skill needs often emerge in companies during periods of transition, before new roles, responsibilities, and processes have fully developed. When experts, developers, business leaders, and decision-makers share the same foundational understanding, organizations are better able to make strategic choices and strengthen their competitiveness. Skills development is therefore reflected not only in how teams work, but also in the quality of decision-making.

Ultimately, skills development is both an organizational capability and a strategic investment in the future. Future competitiveness will not be determined by who knows the most, but by who learns the fastest together.

Ella Puoliväli is a Business Unit Director at Aalto EE and is responsible for scalable digital learning solutions for organizations as well as the portfolio of learning solutions for developing expert skills and capabilities.