• The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has shared the local insights from its 2024 Decoding Global Talent series.
• It specifically looks at generative AI (genAI) in the workplace and how South African employees are reacting to it.
• BCG’s responses show an overwhelming desire to leverage genAI as a tool to reskill.

Much has been made of automation in recent years in terms of reskilling workers across a myriad industries. With the pervasiveness of generative AI (genAI) over the past 18 months, it too is being heralded as a vehicle to help reskill workers in much the same way.

Looking specifically at the potential impact of genAI within the local context, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has shared some key insights as part of its 2024 Decoding Global Talent series.

The report, which was published today in collaboration with The Network, The Stepstone Group, and CareerJunction is titled How Work Preferences Are Shifting in the Age of GenAI.

The study is based on survey data from more than 150 000 workers in 188 countries, including South Africa, with one of the key findings being the fact that 90 percent of respondents indicated a desire to reskill themselves.

This makes sense, given the dearth of available jobs at the moment, coupled with the desire to acquire new skills locally.

“We are seeing an evolution of employee views toward AI, and a crucial recognition that a commitment to continuous reskilling will ensure long-term employability,” noted Jacqueline Foster-Mutungu, MD and partner at BCG in a release shared with Hypertext.

Looking a bit closer at the local numbers, digital, media, and IT professionals are seen to lead the way in terms of genAI adoptions, both across the world and in South Africa.

However, locally the genAI adoption rates across job roles in education and training, and research and laboratory lag the global average for these professions at 39 percent and 30 percent respectively. The one local sector that bucks the global trend slightly is public service and administration at 37 percent locally compared to 33 percent globally.

“South Africans use GenAI at work for studies, learning and research (47%), writing tasks (44%), and administrative tasks (40%) and in their personal life for skills development and learning (60%), facts and general knowledge (50%), and support for career advancement (49%),” BCG unpacked in terms of the local uses of genAI currently.

As for some of the hurdles where it comes to adopting genAI in South Africa, the usual suspects – unavailability of data or slow speed – are cited as major pain points while using AI in a workplace context. Added to these issues are technical faults and difficulties in writing prompts, according to BCG.

When it comes to making the most out of genAI and its capabilities, South Africans still have some work to do, the consulting firm highlighted.

“Of concern is that on average more South Africans use the final output generated by GenAI directly without any further improvement and fewer review the output and make a couple of changes before using it than their global counterparts,” said BCG.

“This utilisation trend is most notable among GenAI newcomers, while expert users tend to review the final output and make changes and improvements before using it,” it continued.

With the current employment sector hankering for new skills in order to remain marketable, indications point to the role genAI could play for those wanting to reskill, especially here in South Africa.

“In a tight labour market where talent remains a critical and scarce resource, it is important that employers attract talent from various sources and channel. There is a major appetite for reskilling in South Africa and as such, reskilling existing employees or looking at talent with unusual backgrounds are solutions they should increasingly consider,” concluded Foster-Mutungu.

To download and read the report for yourself, head here.

You can also listen to what our readers had to say in our recent AI in Business Survey in the video embedded below.

[Header Image – Photo by Jacques Nel on Unsplash]
[Inline Images – Provided]