Blue Sky Thinking

In this milestone episode of the Reimagined Workforce podcast, I speak with Professor Barney Glover, Commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia, about how data and emerging technologies are reshaping the future of work.

We explore insights from the latest Jobs and Skills Report 2025, including the dominance of service-sector growth and the reality that AI is augmenting rather than replacing jobs. This shift is increasing demand for distinctly human capabilities such as communication, judgement and problem solving.

Our conversation also highlights the growing value of vocational pathways, the importance of aligning career aspirations with labour market demand, and the need for large-scale capability uplift across the workforce.

What stands out is that workforce planning is no longer about headcount alone. It is about building adaptable, future-ready capability, using evidence to make better decisions and design a workforce that can respond to what comes next.

Dr Ulrik Juul Christensen is recognised worldwide as an expert in learning technology. He has pioneered adaptive learning, data-driven content development, simulation and debriefing technologies.
His approach to learning has been shown to enable hundreds and thousands of students to become twice as fast and twice as accurate at knowing what they don’t know.

He discusses how we must empower people to become lifelong learners to drive their own performance and
the importance of real world problem solving for learning.

The need for strategic workforce planning is increasing and learning and development professionals are perfectly positions to add value both in the planning process and the implementation.
This is because workforce planning is about ensuring the workforce has the capacity and capability to execute strategic priorities, now and in the future.
Who better than learning and development professionals to share their expertise to inform decisions around how capability will be developed and maintained?