Michael S. Bernick

The ominous “future of work” continues to dominate headlines this year. We are told to prepare for the technological change that is rendering many current skills and job duties obsolete. To help us prepare, an industry of workforce degrees, certifications, badges and other training is rapidly expanding.

How to sort through this training? Individually what upskilling or retraining should we be engaged in, or encourage our families, neighbors or friends to engage in? Collectively, what upskilling makes sense across society?

Our public education institutions—universities, community colleges, adult education schools—are developing workforce certificates, and “stackable” workforce certificates, to add to their degree programs. Over the past year, they have been joined in upskilling products by the online training giants, the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), including Udacity, Udemy, and most of all Coursera.

These online companies are putting their money beyond their ideas. They are investing funds in training, betting that employers and individuals will find this upskilling valuable and pay for it.

What are they placing their bets on? Recently we sat down with Jeff Maggioncalda, the CEO of Coursera. Maggioncalda served for 18 years as CEO of Financial Engines, before taking the helm of Coursera in June 2017.

In his reflections on upskilling, Maggioncalda discusses the choice of certifications, how the workforce certification market is evolving, and how companies are assuming a greater role in designing as well as operating training (vis-à-vis traditional education institutions), utilizing online platforms. …

To read the full article, visit the Forbes website.