Upskilling Your Workforce for GenAI

In the constellation of AI technology, generative AI (GenAI) is a natural option for state and local agencies looking to innovate and improve productivity. Especially for organizations with relatively small development teams, GenAI “is where the immediate, low-hanging fruit is,” said Tony Holmes, Practice Lead for Solutions Consultants, Public Sector in North America, at Pluralsight, which provides skills training through an online data-analytics platform.

Agencies can best prepare their workforces for GenAI by focusing on broad-based upskilling relevant to all employees, he said. “Some agencies … tend to think, ‘we’ve got these specialists, we’ve hired them, they’re super-smart people, and they know how to do all kinds of cool stuff,’” Holmes explained. “When in actual fact, being able to empower all of your employees to understand and effectively use generative AI is a much more powerful use case.”

Expert Generalists

That’s because, among other reasons, frontline workers know how AI tools could improve their daily tasks better than leadership or IT specialists probably do. Widescale GenAI literacy leads to more creativity and adaptability and better government services, said Holmes. “It’s very much a grassroots approach that encourages innovation from the ground up,” he said.

Unlike other fields, being a specialist isn’t helpful — or even practical, given how quickly AI evolves. Because GenAI is like using Google with context added in, non-IT talent is valuable, Holmes said. “People, for example, with a liberal arts education will be much more predisposed to making abstract connections when it comes to solving problems than perhaps [IT staff who] go deep down the rabbit hole,” he explained. Agencies ultimately can foster what Holmes called “expert generalists,” who adapt to new technologies as they come along.

Barriers

But there are challenges. Even when organizations recognize GenAI’s potential, they often lack a specific plan, and that leads to unfocused training. Sometimes leadership roles are unclear and limited resources make it hard to implement AI broadly. Organizational silos can prevent the inter-team data sharing needed to build a holistic strategy. And then there’s workforce culture. Fear of job displacement is real, said Holmes. “But forward-looking agencies will engage with their workforce and basically use concepts like, ‘hey, yes, the AI can do this part of your job, but what that does is free you up to do much more interesting stuff,’” he said.

The Pluralsight Platform

When it comes to GenAI training, coursework in a variety of technologies — data, cybersecurity, cloud, etc. — can be a “force multiplier,” Holmes said. The Pluralsight platform, for example, offers 7,000-plus courses that span different fields.

And while video training is important, Holmes said that people also need hands-on experience, so Pluralsight lets them play in a virtual sandbox and try GenAI prompts without releasing them on the worldwide web.

The platform’s AI-driven analytics help learners track their progress and leadership gauge their employees’ knowledge. That allows agencies, Holmes explained, “to avoid the pitfalls of adopting new technologies and then scrambling to hire people to execute [them].”

This article appears in our guide, “Going Places: Priorities for State and Local Tech.” To see more about how state and local agencies are making the most of technology, download it here: