In the coming decades, as the pace of technological change continues to increase, millions of workers may need to be not just upskilled but reskilled—a profoundly complex societal challenge that will sometimes require workers to both acquire new skills and change occupations entirely. Companies have a critical role to play in addressing this challenge, but to date few have taken it seriously.

To learn more about what their role will entail, the authors—members of a collaboration between Harvard Business School’s Digital Reskilling Lab and the Boston Consulting Group’s Henderson Institute—interviewed leaders at some 40 organizations around the world that are investing in large-scale reskilling programs. In synthesizing what they learned, they became aware of five paradigm shifts that are emerging in reskilling:

1. Reskilling is a strategic imperative.
2. It is the responsibility of every leader and manager.
3. It is a change-management initiative.
4. Employees want to reskill—when it makes sense.
5. It takes a village.

The authors argue that companies will need to understand and embrace these shifts if they hope to succeed in adapting dynamically to the rapidly evolving new era of automation and AI.