IBM has announced IBM Talent & Transformation, a new business to help companies and their employees flourish in the era of AI and automation. IBM Talent & Transformation is targeted at providing not only AI skills training, but also helping companies drive the changes necessary to use AI to empower employees, transform workflows, eliminate bias, and build a modern workforce.
"As organizations grapple with the dual demands of undertaking digital transformation and reinventing their businesses and processes through the application of new technologies such as AI, automation and blockchain, the biggest barrier to progress will lie in accessing the right talent and skills," said Mark Foster, senior vice president of IBM Global Business Services. "IBM believes that building a workforce to compete in the era of AI is as much about culture and specialized expertise as it is about technology."
With the help of IBM Talent & Transformation, AI can be ushered into organizations with impact and responsibility and also become the catalyst for HR organizations to transform from service function to growth engine, helping companies to attract and retain a diverse and highly skilled workforce that drives and evolves with the future of their business.
IBM's new services, AI tools and related training initiatives take learnings from methods and technologies that IBM has applied to drive its own workforce transformation. These services harness the power of AI personalization to guide employees in developing skills and pursuing opportunities to grow within the company. They also allow HR teams to measure flight risk for proactive retention and use bias reduction capabilities to flag bias in recruitment efforts, such as language in job descriptions. When applied to IBM's own HR function, these services drove more than $300 million in benefits to the company, $107 million in benefits in 2017 alone, and resulted in significantly better candidate, employee and manager satisfaction.
IBM has already partnered with clients to complete more than 1,000 HR transformation projects globally. Through consulting engagements or by outsourcing talent acquisition, talent development or HR operations to IBM, organizations like Shire plc are reinventing their human capital strategies to drive business growth.
AI can complement employee skills, redefine tasks, and increase productivity, but that requires training, development and new ways of working. IBM AI Skills Academy, a new service offering and educational program, will help businesses plan, build and apply strategic AI initiatives across the enterprise like evaluating AI roles and skills, building the necessary skills, and creating an organizational structure in support of AI strategy, all while being supported by IBM's expert resources.
To facilitate this change, IBM is introducing IBM Garage, designed to develop agile capabilities and change the way work is done. Inside the Garage—which serves as a physical instantiation of digital and AI-enabled transformation across an enterprise—IBM experts sit shoulder-to-shoulder with client employees to develop new ideas, then rapidly test, discard or advance those ideas. In environments designed to be a break from the everyday, traditional silos and barriers are eliminated -- employees are encouraged to learn by doing, fail fast and iterate often, inspiring organizational change and buy-in. The IBM Garage is a tool for executing, scaling and managing an organization's multiple transformation initiatives with strategic purpose amid ongoing market disruption.
For more details, visit www.ibm.com.