Human Skills Just Became a $100 Million Investment

EY is betting big on the skills AI can’t replace. Now companies need to know if their training actually develops them.

EY just put a $100 million price tag on human skills.

The professional services giant announced a new program to reward employees who develop “future-focused” skills, including business acumen, judgment and adaptability. Employees who create significant impact can receive awards as high as $25,000.

The message is clear.

As AI gets better, human capabilities become more valuable.

EY isn’t alone. Companies are investing billions in AI while simultaneously trying to develop employees who can lead, collaborate, exercise judgment and adapt when the technology doesn’t have the answer.

That creates a new problem.

How do you know if human-skills training actually works?

Effective Training Requires Measurement

Companies spend billions every year developing employees.

Leadership programs. Sales training. Workshops. Offsites. Simulations. Onboarding. Executive education.

Most are measured the same way they have been for decades.

• Did employees attend?

• Did they complete the training?

• Did they like it?

• Did they think it was useful?

These questions measure participation and opinions. They don’t measure whether the experience actually shook up the brain enough to create a memory.

That’s an important distinction.

A room full of employees can sit through the same two-hour leadership program and have completely different neurologic responses.

Some moments are ignored. Some capture attention. A handful create value.

Valuable moments are those that matter.

The Three Dimensions of Effective Training

My work has shown there are three dimensions learning and development professionals control that determine whether training is extraordinary or wanting: readiness, structure and delivery.

1. Readiness: Learners need the neural bandwidth to invest the metabolic resources required to acquire, understand and store new information. ImmersionLive provides a real-time physiologic measure of attendees’ psychological safety. When safety is low, people are exhausted and need a break. Coffee, a bathroom break and a short walk are typically all that are needed to boost psychological safety and ensure that information can be processed and stored so it can later be used to create value for the organization.

2. Structure: Using Immersion technology, Accenture has shown that people cannot remain neurologically invested in training for more than 20 minutes without a change in task. Accenture structured its training so there is a change every 20 minute interval. For example, a facilitator will speak for 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of table work and then a 20-minute debrief. Short and intense is what the brain needs to create long-term memories. Research also shows that Immersion is higher for in-person training than for online programs. Shoulder-to-shoulder nearly always beats synchronous or asynchronous online learning. The cost is higher for in-person training, but so is the return—especially when the objective is improving human skills.

3. Delivery: Peer-reviewed research has shown that Immersion is neurologically contagious. If a facilitator speaks in a slow monotone, even the most interested learner checks out. But when a trainer is enthusiastic, engaging, funny and empathetic, learners’ brains invest, creating peak Immersion to fully process the information.  Learning goes from being a requirement to an enjoyable professional development opportunity. Employees increasingly value and remain loyal to employers who invest in their development.

The Brain Reveals When Training Works

Measurement matters because Immersion is correlated with information recall two weeks later at 0.60.

Higher Immersion means more learning. More learning means a higher ROI from training.

Driving up ROI from live experiences is exactly why we built ImmersionLive. 

ImmersionLive is a portable, self-contained kit with arm-worn sensors for attendees. Wave the band over an iPad and voilà—you are measuring Immersion. ImmersionLive's software measures their neurologic responses passively and continuously.

ImmersionLive measurement ensures that training, workshops, meetings and other live experiences produce the highest possible ROI.

The output is an easy-to-understand graph showing exactly when training creates value—and when it doesn’t.

Training architects can stop guessing. With ImmersionLive, they can directly compare facilitators, rooms, audience sizes and content delivery styles to maximize the ROI from developing human skills.

ImmersionLive provides objective data showing how to build more effective training.

AI Makes Human Development More Important

AI is rapidly taking over routine cognitive work. EY’s investment recognizes what comes next.

People create value through the capabilities technology does not replace: judgment, leadership, adaptability, collaboration and the ability to make decisions when the answer isn’t obvious.

Companies therefore need to get much better at developing these capabilities.

And they need evidence that their investments in training have a payoff.

Completion rates don’t provide it. Post-training surveys don’t provide it.

The brain does.

EY is spending $100 million to reward human skills.

The next question for every company investing in its people is simple: Are your training programs effectively delivered?

Want to know which moments in your training actually matter?

See ImmersionLive in action and learn how easy it is to objectively measure and improve employee experiences.

Schedule an ImmersionLive demo at getimmersion.com/live.

FAQs

1. Why are human skills becoming more important as AI advances?

As AI takes on more routine cognitive work, capabilities such as judgment, leadership, adaptability and collaboration become increasingly important ways people create value within organizations.

2. What makes employee training more effective?

Effective training depends on factors including learner readiness, how the experience is structured and how the content is delivered. The article highlights the importance of psychological safety, changes in activity and engaging facilitation in creating experiences that learners process and remember.

3. How can companies measure whether training is actually working?

Attendance, completion rates and post-training surveys measure participation and perception, but not necessarily whether an experience created lasting value. ImmersionLive continuously measures participants’ neurologic responses, allowing organizations to identify which parts of a training experience are most valuable and compare different approaches.