Out with the old, and in with the new. AI is here, and companies around the world are being forced to integrate the technology quickly, while rethinking what it means for the productivity of their workforces.  

Savvy companies are clamoring to upskill their workers and educate them on the new technology to boost their bottom line. But LinkedIn’s vice president workplace expert Aneesh Raman tells Fortune that a critically overlooked part of training workers in AI is focusing on their soft skills and emotional intelligence. 

“We’re using old math for a new equation when we say ‘AI skills,’ because we understand that to mean technical skills. That’s what the knowledge economy was, and people had to learn Python and get training through degrees or diplomas,” Raman says. “Your AI skill now is just to know what these AI tools are, and communicate with AI in the same way you communicate with humans.” 

Beyond AI, softer skills are what bosses are looking for in general. The number one in-demand skill of 2024 that companies want out of employees is good communication, according to a LinkedIn study conducted earlier this year. Customer service came in second, with leadership placing third, project management fourth, management fifth, analytics sixth, and teamwork in seventh place. 

Raman says that study confirms the conversations he’s been having with business leaders, and what kind of talent they need. “We’re starting to talk about empathy, communication, critical listening, these unique human skills that we have, in a way that it’s starting to get more and more central to how we’re going to judge candidate success and employee success,” he says.

But when it comes to upskilling, that desire needs to translate into action. Raman says companies should set aside time during working hours for staffers to upskill, and build training avenues for employees to better cultivate and leverage soft skills in the service of AI goals.

“We spent a century building really sophisticated systems of teaching, training, and credentialing around IQ. We now have to do that around EQ,” he says. “We’ve got to create empathy boot camps that are as credible as the coding boot camps were in the knowledge economy—that’s going to require new thinking, organizational design, and flatter orgs with more cross functional work.”

Emma Burleigh
emma.burleigh@fortune.com

Around the Table

A round-up of the most important HR headlines.

- Companies are ditching the idea of sharing desks because workers want their owns space. Bloomberg 

- Nearly half of full-time workers at Dell rejected the company’s RTO push. Business Insider

- California has modified a law that allows workers to sue their employers, heading off an effort to repeal it altogether. New York Times

Watercooler

Everything you need to know from Fortune.

Mystery man. The CEO of fast fashion company Shein is so camera shy that many of his own employees don’t recognize him. —Sunny Nagpaul

Up for grabs. The U.K. CEO of Microsoft says the company has more job vacancies than it did before the COVID pandemic—and before the AI boom. —Ryan Hogg

Airline testimony. The CEO of Boeing said “something went wrong” when he was confronted at a congressional hearing with information that a whistleblower who flagged issues at the company was called dozens of times by a manager within a span of two days. —Seamus Webster