While automation is filling administrative and repetitive business roles, it is freeing up employees to focus on more meaningful work. But, as not everyone is ready to perform more complex functions, upskilling is a top concern for enterprises in this process.

To help business with this task, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP has developed a new software product, called ProEdge, which focus on identifying the skills needed for the future, teaching those talents, and helping to scale the usage of the skills across the organization, according to Kevin Kroen (pictured, left), partner, PwC Advisory, intelligent automation and digital upskilling leader at PwC.

“The number of jobs that are being displaced is growing by automation, but on the flip side, the number of jobs that are emerging is actually greater,” he said. “And there is a consistent challenge that gets cited through all of our research … around the need to fill that gap, and most leaders feel like they’re not doing a good job to fill that.”

Kroen and Bettina Koblick (pictured, right), chief people officer at UiPath Inc., spoke with Dave Vellante and Lisa Martin, hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during UiPath’s Forward IV conference. They discussed the skills gap challenge resulting from automation, how ProEdge can help companies address it, the role of the UiPath Inc.’s platform, and automation trends. (* Disclosure below.)

How ProEdge upskills entire organizations

The skill gap can be wide, ranging from hands-on technical skills to what Kroen calls the “softer side,” which includes, for example, how to work in a more agile way and have a product mindset.

“One of the key skills as we look at the digital space is UiPath, and we really think that teaching non-technologists around the use of tools like robotic process automation is going to be one of those critical kinds of must-have skills in the future,” he said.

In fact, UiPath is on both sides of the PwC’s offering. Although its artificial intelligence-powered robotic process automation is embedded into ProEdge, the company itself is a customer of the product. It started introducing the software to its finance department, which is also a big user of automation, and it is expanding.

“We have the same challenges that every other company has that introduces automation,” Koblick explained. “People’s time, their tasks that they have been doing are basically displaced, and we’re trying to figure out how do we upskill, reskill? How do we position people who now no longer are working on maybe 50% of what they’ve done in the past for their next role? So, it’s incredibly important for us.”

More important than giving employees the chance to learn a combination of new talents is giving them a perspective on the future, a hope that they have a career path.

“Probably more than the traditional cost-saving discussion that most automation threads with RPA begin with, this really became: We need to do this, and we need to send a message to our employees that we really care about you, and this is something that is really going to be us investing in you as a perk in the future,’” Kroen concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of UiPath’s Forward IV conference. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the UiPath’s Forward IV conference. Neither UiPath Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE