SKILLS SHIFT AND ORGANISATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY: PERSPECTIVES FOR THE FUTURE OF WORK

The research highlights the need for insurance business to move towards investing in capabilities, knowledge improvement, enhancing critical thinking skill, problem-solving skill, and analytical skill which are valuable enablers of organisational sustainability. These findings suggest unique implications for chief executives, managers, regulators and policy makers. the following: Future research could take this investigation into only twenty (20) Insurance firms in Lagos State, further to determine effect of skills shiftonOrganisational Sustainability of Insurance Companies in other states such as, South-East, South-West, and Northern part of Nigeria where Insurance Companies were located. This paper explored the effect of skills shift, on Organisational Sustainability of selected Insurance Companies (in financial service sector), the findings of the study might have influenced the generalisability of the research findings in other industries. In future, researchers could adopt a Longitudinal study design or Time series/ Planned Data Analysis, Ex Post Facto Research Design. Future research should investigate the effect of Automation and Artificial Intelligence on Organisational Sustainability in the Insurance Industry as to whether adoption of AI applications and automation process solution and appropriateness to business judgment, decision-making and attainment of sustainability. Another direction for future research could address the role of Automation, Artificial Intelligence birthing transparency, or the lack thereof, in AI-based Insurance business and sustainability decisions.


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McKinsey Global Institute (2018) reported a 43% reduction in business process redesign potential of Insurance industry compared to 75% increase in banks of financial sector's processes. The research institute observed instability at operational level of Insurance industry due to less shift in skills; resistance to change and obsolete technical know-how which has cast shadow on organisational sustainability in that sector. The Global Institute projects that by 2025 about 25% of the workforce in the Insurance organisation would be merged or substituted (particularly, both in support administrative and operation levels). They report fragility in Insurance industry and makes a forecast that in the nearest future, there looms potential competition from companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook which are in possession of robust business process and huge customers' personal data to offer personalised Insurance products. In Europe, Global Data (2017) embarked on general Insurance industry survey; and reported that 18% of Insurance organisations are having issues with survivability due to weak business processes that run on huge repository of data that essentially contained in both less secured electronic documents and paper transactions. Capgemini (2018) stated that some Insurance companies were deemed to fail because their businesses were unsustainable owing to some factors. The Insurance organisations were unable to reduce handling processing time of the claim's cycle, decline in customer's satisfaction which was considered to be utmost priorities for Insurance organisation.
In Nigeria, Insurance industry adopts a traditional business process that is very conservative and obsolete. Adoption of traditional business process makes the Nigeria Insurance Industry non-competitive in Africa and locally, especially, in the financial sector. It is fraught with manual processes with unnecessary bureaucracy that impedes smooth decision-making and data accuracy. The business processes are found to be outdated, unable to eliminate unnecessary work, characterised with poor service quality, operational cost found to be expensive with low revenue and profitability (Okafor & Okeke-Ezeanyanwu, 2018). Therefore, Insurance operations and functions required redesigning of processes and aligned with modern Lean structure in order to tame emerging difficulties of contemporary Insurance processes. Eze, Adelekan, and Nwaba (2019) posited that, dynamic business process redesign calls for innovation which is regarded as crucial to the sustainment of Insurance Industry and in achieving competitive advantage. Nduna (2013) opined that Nigeria Insurance Industry has not developed sufficient organisational knowledge and problem-solving capabilities towards organisational sustainability, rather, traditionally they rely on the expertise from the advanced economies.
Specifically, this article addresses a key question: In what way do skills shift affect organisational sustainability of selected insurance companies? The researchers have no desire to duplicate the earlier studies but contributed to knowledge by filling the gaps arising from the extant literature by investigating the effect of skills shift (organisational knowledge, critical thinking skill, problem-solving skill, analytical skill), on organisational sustainability (Business process redesign, lean structure, organisational creativity and talent poaching) of selected insurance companies in Lagos State, Nigeria. Section 2 proceeds to the literature to define the concept of skills shift and discusses existing research on organisational sustainability. An account of the methodology, techniques and analysis is provided in Sections 3 and 4, which shows whether organisational sustainability is influenced by skills shift. Section 5 builds on this understanding by positing authors' evidence on the effect of independent variable on dependent variable. The analysis shows how skills shift have positive significant effect on organisational sustainability. The final section thus recommends that management of insurance industry should invest more in knowledge improvement, skills, competence of the employees and to initiate desirable organisational values for the attainment of organisational sustainability, incorporated workforce agility in the organisation.

Literature Review: -Skills Shift and Organisational Sustainability
Starting with Skills Shift construct clarifications, some authors asserted that the construct was associated with changes (technical or otherwise) that brought about increase indemands for higher-altitude skills. Although, the particulars of various Skill-oriented Technical Change issues varied, the general knowledge is that new technology is complementary to the skills necessary for performing complex cognitive roles and substitution for more repetitive skills (Autor, Levy, & Murnane, 2003). The weakness of previous scholars' position is an expression of general terms and inability to relate the construct to a specific industry. However, AllsopandCalveley (2009) considered Skills Shift as the changes to employees' skills that came about through the increased automation of the financial sector and the manufacturing sector which had always been associated with a skill shift to automation, with resultant 335 effect of employee experienced de-skilling, re-skilling, up-skilling or multi-skilling and alienation in was high productivity.
A robust explanation to Skills Shift came from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (2012, UNESCO) who regarded Skills Shift as essential Life Skills. The strength of this clarification over the previous unveils new interpretation of Skills Shift as involving cognitive and non-cognitive skills essential for productive tasks and livelihoods. Hence, a shift in rudimentarynumeracy and literacy skills are considered as important Life Skills for employees to get into virtuoustasks andcontributecomprehensivelywithin the organisation. The term Life Skills make reference to shift in basic skills, Problem-Solving, Technical and Vocational skills, Information Communication Technology skills, Communication, implying that those skills are considered critical for employees in the world of work. In broader sense, the idea of Life skills (Skills Shift) is regarded as concept of Twenty-first-century skills, competencies for employability and encompassing skills such as: agility (adaptability and flexibility), erudition and innovation skills such as critical thinking, creativity and self-direction, communication, productivity and accountability, cross-cultural and social skills, leadership and responsibility; collaboration and initiatives (Burnett & Jayaram, 2012). (Alberani, 2015;Grisi, 2014) seemed to be operating in a direction obviously distinct from the functional premises of the individual skills domain but considered shift in Skills as the strict in-demands competence requirement for the professionalism. Yet, they asserted that there was no consensus among social scientists about the meaning to the concept of skills shift. For instance, they posited that, the economists, sociologists and psychologists discussed Skills Shift with different connotations. In shedding more perspectives, Alberani (2015) reported that Skills Shift has been synonymous with soft skills that were often indicated as Generic Competences. The term soft skill is utilised to specify all the capabilities that are not directly linkedwith a specific task; especially, Insurance Industry. Those skills are necessary in any position as they mostlyapply to the associations with demands of the work and people involved in the organisation (Engelberg, 2015). Alberani (2015) differentiated hard skills, conversely, as it showed the specific capability to achieve a specific job. A hard skill could be the ability of an employee to operate and control a machine to constructanobject, whereas soft skills such as (Problem-Solving Skill, analytical thinking skills, Critical Thinking Skill, Organisational Knowledge skill, decision-making skill, cognitive skill, interpersonal skill and people skill, creativity and innovation skill) are capabilities of interfacing with the colleagues when working together in organisation's department. This submission is stronger than UNESCO's positions on Life Skills by lending a new concept of Soft Skills as a synonym of Skills Shift.
In agreement with Alberani, Soft Skills give support to Hard Skills with required pliability to develop and transformation in changing situation and organisation's environment. Hard Skills allow an individual to be a specialist or a professional: A human resources specialist, an engineer, an accountant, a medical doctor, a physicist, an educationist, and a philosopher. For instance, Skills Shift could differentiate technological skill and an entrepreneurship skills. Entrepreneurship skills could be connected to risk facing, innovation, leadership, and change management which correspond to Soft Skills. Technological skills permit an individual to perform specific roles. However, the distinction between software and hardware in relation to information technology system is obvious in how software influences and controls hardware. Hence, that explained the relationship between soft skills (skills shift) and hard skills (Ciappei, 2015).
Another insight as to what Skills Shift mean came from Henrik and Ede (2015) who explained that Skills Shift as adept and cognitive competence that enhanced attention for analytical capability and a core ingredient for Organisational Sustainability in the modern global high-technology era. Thus, Henrik and Ede (2015) stated that some European projects were designed so as to define and to study the Skills Shift issue. Essentially, the foremost project is a modification project in which generic capabilities are broken into three stages: Instrumental skill Interpersonal skill and Systemic skill. Instrumental skills relate to cognitive, technological, linguistic and methodological competences. However, Systemic skills are relevant in organisational skills, leadership skills and entrepreneurial skills. Interpersonal skill is grouped into two groups: individual and social. Henrik and Ede (2015) stressed that those skills always keep pace with evolution of ongoing technology.
In addition, Skills shift are considered as Soft skills changedto human skills, it reposes abilities that allow people to relatein teams, controlopinions and emotions, induced strategic thinking, and sail across ambiguity. These 336 characteristics are translated into concretetasksand are highly valuable to the employers. The growth of technologies through a wide range of organisations led to a broad range of livelihoodprogression for employees who are equipped with digital and skills technical. The furtherorganisationsintegrate technologies into their essential business the increase in shift skills. It helps employees work effectively across new businesses (Insurance Industry inclusive). In a recent literature reviewed from the Brookfield Institute on the effect of Innovation on Entrepreneurship.Itcompares height of digital capability as workforce digital skill. The Institute suggests that skills scope in various industries progresses to include workplace on-the-job skills such as executionrolesadoptingdata entry capability, spreadsheets aptitude, graphic design, and capability in usingclients-relationship-management software (Huhn& Do, 2017).
In a clearer and succinct perspective to Skills Shift, McKinsey Global Institute (2018) defined Skills Shift as evolution or changes that affects demand for skills in various organisations because the rate at which technology advances with changes, the more the skills of workers require to shift, adapt to the changes in organisations. However, McKinsey Global Institute (2018) observed that Automation and Artificial Intelligence brought about shift in demand for required employees' skills available in the past 15 years. The sharp rise in technology affects demand for basic digital skills with advanced technological skills. The McKinsey projected that there would be demand for social (leadership skill) and emotional skills (managing) others would rise by 24%, to 22% of work hours in the future of work.
McKinsey reports further that there is in-demand for higher cognitive skills (Organisational Knowledge, Critical Thinking Skill, Problem-Solving Skill, and Analytical Skill) rose moderately global, but would increase suddenly for some of these skills, especially creativity skill. Also, posits that a few skill levels would be fewer in demand. In addition, rudimentary cognitive skills (for instance elementary-data-inputs and data-processing) would reduce by 15%, dwindling to 14% of hours function from 18%. Also, the need for physical and manual skills (for instance, general equipment operation) would drop by 14%, but the would-be huge group of labour skills in 2030 of several nations, that could be responsible for 25% of the total man-hours.
The management of businesses has a hugeobligationtowards the Organisations' Sustainability. It is intended as organisation's ability to utilise all available resources to remain in business and to subsist in any situation. Organisational Sustainability is turning out to be a remarkable conception in the management parlance. It has become asignificant topic of debates in the management meetings, academic community, press, political arenas andamong environmentalist. Also, discussions revolve around what it is, how imperative it is, what ought to be done about it, and how quickly organisations should perform everywhere. The World Commission for Environment and Developmentintroduces concept of sustainability in organisation to light in 1987, and coins sustainability as the development that caters for the necessities of the present generation without jeopardising the ability of future generations in taking care of their needs. It is evident from this perspective that Insurance Companies need some developments that could influence their businesses in order to achieve set objectives (Thomsen, 2013).
A stronger perspective is given through Elkington (1997) who advanced the idea behind a triple-bottom-line (TBL) which pointed out that organisations would be sustainable when creating value with multiple dimensions. Therefore, the idea of Triple-Bottom-Line (TBL) concerns with sustainable context that attempted to find a balance among the need for social responsibility/equity, environmental integrity, and economic growth. Invariably, any Insurance company that aspires to attain sustainability would be required to satisfy the TBL and the business model so as to account for social equity, environmental soundness, and economic viability.Elkington's definition is narrowly deficient but echoed in Esterhuyse (2008) who defined Organisational Sustainability as a multifaceted concept that mirrored through indices: People's factor age (human resources as recognized as the assets of the organisation), Finance, Customers and products, integrating long-term economic, environmental and social aspects, governance and stakeholders. Thoseinsights are improvements on Triple Bottom Line concept earlier credited to Elkington.
This view receives another robust reflection of what Organisational Sustainability means from Colbert and Kurucz (2007) who specified that sustainability implies a coinciding attention on environmental performance,social, andeconomic. The notion aligned with the previous definition of so-called TBL concept. Therefore, the setting in which Insurance organisations survive has changed. Likewise, there were similarities from Elkington's definit ion and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD, 2012)'s view about Organisational Sustainability. The CIPD observed that the core of sustainability in an organisation's setting (including Insurance business) is the assumption of improving the economic systems environmental and societal within which a business operates. There 337 are trends like globalisation, Covid-19 pandemic, social inequality, climate change, and demographic revolution have fashioned a dynamic problem to the traditional corporate model with its focus on shareholder value.
In contrast, other scholars, (Porter & Kramer, 2011) pointed out that in recent years organisations have been blamed as a foremost cause of economic, environmental and social problems. The Insurance Industry has to understand that Organisational Sustainability enhanced the capability of business organisations to better know their customers, business environment, workforce, stakeholders and offer solutions to their special needs which would give better collaboration with the organisation obligation (Elliot, 2011; Epstein &Buhovac, 2011; Tinwala& Biswas, 2019).
A fresh idea to the meaning of Organisational Sustainability is put forward as an essential rating factor, value creation, driver of development, social relationship builder, a survival instrument for firms (including Insurance) everywhere in the world (Wales, 2013). The latest submission is different from earlier definitions. This definition, however, finds its applicable in the Organisational Sustainability of Nigeria Insurance Industry that has low rating, poor market penetration, and decline in value creation, faced with corporate scandals because of poor Organisational Values exhibition which is responsible for a loss of trust in business by the customers. Insurance sector is encountering trouble from governments, consumers, pressure from investors and employees to demonstrate that they were not adopting ethical values in order to achieve Organisational Sustainability (Asuquo, Dada, &Onyeogaziri, 2018).
Lastly, much improved and a novel definition came up to explain that Organisational Sustainability has to do with the organisation's ability to conduct its business activities for a long-term future (that is, perpetuity). This definition had it that Organisational Sustainability was concerned with how organisations acquired technological capabilities to future-proof their businesses. The definition went to say that Organisational Sustainability conveyed capability for value creation which might also be described as survivability (Horak, Arya, & Kiran,2018). This perspective aligns with the assertions of Asuquoet al. (2018) who posited that organisations were typically established as a going concern; hence, organisation was expected to remain in business infinity.

Anchor theory: Human Capital Theory
The theory of Human Capital (HC) is credited to the effort of the Chicago school of economics where renowned scholars, Schultz and Becker (1962) first developed the idea of human capital. Although, initially, there was stiff refusal to accept the concept at the early stage of development, much later, it gained popularity among other scholars. In addition, Schultz (1979) posited that human capital involved arise investing in training and education of the individuals. Moreover, the scholar, Becker (1964) in his seminar presentations on the economic effect of employers' provision of education, training, knowledge and skills on workers' productivity, incomes, and ultimately, Organisational Sustainability. Also, Dess and Pickens (1999) also outlined human capital as skills, experience, capabilities, and knowledge, encapsulated in the individual. In dissecting human capital further, Lengnick-Hall and Lengnick-Hall (2003) defined HC as the combinations ofcapabilities, skills, experience, and knowledge peculiar to each employee within the organisation.
The human capital theory has been relevant to this study through a report from Kaisen Consulting Limited, Deloitte's strategic associatelocated in Bristol, UK, sourcing data from more than 20,000 leadership, workforce valuations in Deloitte (2015). They investigated leadership-workforce capacity-building issues across industries (Insurance Industry inclusive). Finding of investigation justified that few organisations have strong leadership pipelines that produced substantial values compared to their rivals. They are constrained to improving the workforce capability, retain employees, effect changes, and developing talent. Besides, findings from most of executives throughorganisationsconveyedpointedly that reportinglacked the skills needed to realise objective, citing a lack of personal value, ambition and appropriate organisational value to motivate them as a perceived deterrent. Consequently, made the issue worse, executives lacked opportunityfor leadership training, that created obstacle inundertaking leadership tasks. Hence, outcomes reflected a requirementfor development of employee-leadership across all levels in organisations. Dankyi, Yusheng, Ankomah-Asare, Dankyi and Addo (2020) supported the application of Human Capital theory in the study that investigated acquiring Human Capital for organisational sustainability using dispersal model narrative and indicesbackground. The Organisations in competitive environment engagedin new and critical human resources with desired skills to bolster, to retain, and to achieve desired competitive advantage.

Methodology:-
This section reports details of methodology used in testing the research hypothesis {Hypothesis (H 01 ) -Skills shift have no significant effect on Organisational Sustainability of the picked Insurance Companies in Lagos State, Nigeria}. Data were analysed through Descriptive analysis and Inferential statistics. The Regression method of analysis was applied to ascertain the effect of skills shift on organisational sustainability. We adopt a cross-sectional survey research design. This research design offers a direction to the study, starting with the description of the problem, the design of research methods, sampling design, measurement, scaling design, and the design of questionnaire as a measuring instrument that was tested for its validity and reliability. The justification for using a cross-sectional survey research design is based on the fact that it was considered as one of the arms of descriptive research designs (Suehye, 2020). The population is three hundred and forty (340) employees of the selected Insurance companies in Lagos State, Nigeria. The population consists of the top and middle management staff in the selected Insurance Companies. The justifications for selecting twenty (20) Insurance Companies are owing to the fact that they are listed on Nigeria Stock Exchange and they are economically viable with strong equity assets base. The authors used total enumeration for the study sample size because the total population is not large. The nature of data collected was through primary source (using a validated and a reliable research instrument). Adapted questionnaire is used and 85% response rate achieved. Cronbach alpha's reliability coefficients fluctuated from 0.713 to 0.911 for constructs of the research. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used in analysing the data.  Table 3.1, we disclosed the result of the reliability tests where Cronbach's alphas were all above the 0.7 threshold as specified and ranged from 0.713 and 0.911 which indicated averages of good reliability and composite reliability of meditative and contemplative items were all above the acceptable 0.7 threshold which means all the variables in the study displayed construct reliability. In Table 3.2, we show the results of the analysis on construct validity of the research instrument. The results of KMO for all the study variables (Skills shift and Organisational sustainability) were found to be greater than 0.5 and not above 1, therefore the items were acceptable. On the other side, the Bartlett's Test of Sphericity had values above 40.00 and p-values= 0.000 for all the variables which were less than 0.05. From the results of Bartlett's Test 339 of Sphericity, it is concluded that the factors are valid and suitable as there are high significant correlation between the variables in the study. The results confirmed that the sample was adequate for the study.

Regression Model
The econometric models of the study are as stated in Equations.

Summary of Primary Data Collection
The respondents contain Top management staff and Middle level staff of the twenty selected Insurance Firms in Lagos State, Nigeria. A three hundred and forty copies of the questionnaire was distributed, meanwhile, the high response rate recorded by the researchers premised on the choice of data collection procedures. For instance, the researchersdispensed the questionnaire with the help of research assistants, supported with tenacious calls to seek for updates, to clarify queries as well as to get good time with the filling of the questionnaire.

Conclusion / Recommendation: -
The study concludes that Skills Shift affect Organisational Sustainability of chosen Insurance Companies in Lagos State, Nigeria. By implication, Skills Shift (Organisational Knowledge, Problem-Solving Skill, Critical Thinking Skill, Analytical Skill) are valuable predictors of Organisational Sustainability (Business Process Redesign, Lean Structure, Organisational Creativity and Talent Poaching). The findings of the Multiple Regression Analysis indicated that Skills Shift had significant effect on Organisational Sustainability this is verified through a multiple regression analysis carried out and the findings presented that at a significant (sig = 0.000, p< 0.05), Adj R 2 = 0.704, F (2, 337) = 404.206. Therefore, this study advocates that the human capital development should be given a face-lift in the Insurance Industry. It could afford the management to set standards, attract the right customers, right employees, employee retention, employee engagement, talent acquisition, customer satisfaction, enhanced company brand, fair business practices, growth and stability. This article harps that the future of work hinged on Organisational Sustainability. Inevitably, that without the shift in employees' capabilities (Skills Shift) organisations would be unable to continue its organisation's activities into long term future -perpetuity, that is to say; ability to create lasting development, having capability for future-proofing organisation, ability for value creation and survivability will be lacking.

Implications of the article for Management practice
The findings of this study present efforts that are directed towards achievement of the goals of Organisational sustainability. The management of the concerned Insurance organisations who are saddled with responsibility of Business Process Redesign, attaining Lean Structure through continuous quality standard, waste reduction, cut cost and time; Organisational Creativity through innovation and prevent Talent Poaching or they needed to device strategies to attract super stars employees of the rivals. The aforementioned efforts are not in isolation, the skills of the employees must change, then ability should be enhanced through training, development, capacity building programmes orientation and reorientation, counselling programmes to achieve Organisational knowledge, Problemsolving skills, Critical thinking skill and Analytical skill.

Suggestion for Further Studies: -
in order to make up for the identified limitations of the study, the researchers suggested the following: Future research could take this investigation into only twenty (20) Insurance firms in Lagos State, further to determine effect of skills shiftonOrganisational Sustainability of Insurance Companies in other states such as, South-East, South-West, and Northern part of Nigeria where Insurance Companies were located. This paper explored the effect of skills shift, on Organisational Sustainability of selected Insurance Companies (in financial service sector), the findings of the study might have influenced the generalisability of the research findings in other industries. In future, researchers could adopt a Longitudinal study design or Time series/ Planned Data Analysis, Ex Post Facto Research Design. Future research should investigate the effect of Automation and Artificial Intelligence on Organisational Sustainability in the Insurance Industry as to whether adoption of AI applications and automation process solution and appropriateness to business judgment, decision-making and attainment of sustainability. Another direction for future research could address the role of Automation, Artificial Intelligence birthing transparency, or the lack thereof, in AI-based Insurance business and sustainability decisions.