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Future of Work: How we help clients

Work is changing—driven by innovative technologies, generational shifts, and new ways of working. We are committed to working with employers, governments, educators, and others to create a future of work that is economically thriving and inclusive.

How we help clients

Companies and organizations

We help employers compete and fulfill their missions in a changing world. Our work includes pressure-testing digital and automation potential, diagnosing skills and talent infrastructure gaps, redesigning how work gets done, and structuring lasting, at-scale programs for upskilling, reskilling, and redeployment.

Ecosystems

We work with governments, educators, nonprofits, industry associations, and others to build geographic competitiveness, healthy workforce systems, skilling programs, and social protections for vulnerable groups during transition. We also convene these groups, together with employers, to improve outcomes for individuals in a geographic area.

Investors and geography-based portfolios

Our proprietary database of Future of Work trends across global geographies allows clients in real estate, retail, staffing, and other areas to make strategic investments based on expected labor, job, and skill shifts.

Examples of our work

Re- and upskilling >25k individuals for a digital strategy

Advised a digital-services company on transforming its product portfolio and cost structure and translated that into a strategic workforce plan. The plan included analyzing skill gaps in hard skills (for example, machine learning, Internet of Things, cloud computing) and soft skills (such as customer centricity and interpersonal and negotiation skills). We worked together with HR and business teams to design learning journeys based on adult-learning science to meet 80 percent of skills gaps with current employees, while improving employee engagement.

Launching a lifelong occupational portal and counseling service

Helped a national labor agency design a system and culture of information transparency based on in-demand skills and careers using an intuitive digital portal as well as in-person counseling. The portal explored individual strengths and interests and matched citizens with professional-development or work opportunities. It was piloted with hundreds of thousands of users in the first several months and has been rolled out to millions of users.

Building talent and redeployment in financial services

Helped a leading financial-services firm undergoing a bold operating-model shift to enable its new strategy through analytics-based talent systems. We co-created a central talent training and redeployment hub to identify and address changes to roles and skills in each business and function. The user-friendly platform used analytics to help HR leaders and employees identify matches to future skills and roles within the organization and provided learning journeys required to make the switch. It also provided general upskilling and role-specific support. 

Featured Insights

Report - McKinsey Global Institute

The future of work in America: People and places, today and tomorrow

– The health of local economies today will affect their ability to adapt and thrive in the automation age.
Report - McKinsey Global Institute

The future of women at work: Transitions in the age of automation

– Concerted and creative new solutions are needed to enable women to seize new opportunities in the automation age; without them, women may fall further behind in the world of work.

Featured Capabilities

McKinsey Academy

McKinsey Academy accelerates transformations by unlocking the power of people
Practice page

People Analytics

Use advanced analytics to make better talent decisions

Connect with our Future of Work experts