How CHROs Are Upskilling for 2025 and Beyond
As part of the Spring 2025 edition, People + Strategy journal asked three HR executives how they're upskilling their workforce to ensure long-term competitiveness.
As your organization evolves, the skills you cultivate in employees today will go a long way toward determining your success in the upcoming decade of disruption. As part of this issue’s look into future-proofing your workforce, we asked three accomplished HR executives this question: What skills is your organization prioritizing in 2025, and how are you upskilling your workforce to ensure long-term competitiveness?
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Coke’s Formula: Digital Literacy, Critical Thinking, and Leadership Skills
CHRISTINE MOTHERWELL, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF HR AT COCA-COLA CONSOLIDATED
Our organization is prioritizing digital literacy, critical thinking, and leadership skills to maintain a competitive edge. We are investing in comprehensive training programs that include online courses, workshops, learning experiences, and mentorship opportunities. By fostering a culture of continuous learning, we aim to empower our workforce to adapt to new technologies and methodologies, ensuring sustained growth and innovation.
We have implemented leadership programs at all levels within our organization, focusing on developing servant and authentic leaders who can effectively engage their teams. Key focus areas for our leaders include becoming agile coaches who inspire trust, maximize team performance, create visions, and execute plans to achieve results.
For our front-line workforce, we are focusing on initiatives to improve recruitment and training for specialized technical positions, including equipment technicians, warehouse automation experts, and production mechanics.
Our sales organization is building career pathways to develop a talent pipeline from entry-level to senior-level sales positions.
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An ‘Always On’ Mindset to Building Tech Skills
AIMEE GEORGE LEARY, CHIEF PEOPLE OFFICER AT BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON
At Booz Allen, 2025 is the year of tech at full speed. Our upskilling and development programs have long focused on cultivating advanced technology skill sets in AI, cyber, and software engineering. We are continuing to invest in those skills, as well as emerging fields like quantum computing. As the pace of change continues to accelerate, we need to think creatively about how we harness the full capacity of our workforce to deliver outcomes at speed and scale.
We prioritize an “always on” mindset for building tech skills. This means our entire workforce is tech-minded and tech-engaged.
We continue to expand tech upskilling through our formal badging and certification programs. And we amplify opportunities for hands-on learning, apprenticeship, co-creation, and network-based sharing of best practices. We embed advanced technology development into leadership residential programs and cultivate community and collaboration through our Technical Experience Groups (TXGs). We are also launching new upskilling partnerships with commercial tech partners and using our internal talent analytics to help employees identify new career paths inside the organization to apply their technical skills.
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Skilling Up: Foster a Growth Mindset that Embeds Innovation, AI, and Ethics
TARUN VARMA, GLOBAL CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES AND SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER AT TATA CONSUMER PRODUCTS
Among our six strategic pillars is, “Shaping a future-ready organization.” This means that while we keep growing, we will keep transforming by investing in functional and leadership capabilities that help us constantly deliver value without compromising our values.
Specifically, we focus on mission-critical skills through our SkillUp program. For example, we offer curriculum on skills such as AI-powered sales and data analytics, upskilling teams in predictive analytics, ROI optimization, and AI-driven decision-making to enhance sales execution and field productivity.
Being part of the 155-year-old Tata Group also means we are entrusted with the responsibility of leading with ethical choices and conduct. Our Brilliant Basics program covers a mandatory curriculum on ethics, sustainability, safety, and innovation, ensuring all employees are aligned with the core values and comply with expected leadership norms.
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