Analysing workforce development challenges in the Industry 4.0

Purpose The aim of this paper is to identify and analyse workforce development challenges in the digital age by first, presenting these challenges and relationship between them, and then proposing a structural model that categorizes these challenges and proposes suggestions for managers to improve human resources practices and firm performance. Design/methodology/approach Fuzzy total interpretive structural modelling (TISM) is used as the methodology, which gives an interpretive structural model by presenting direct and transitive relationship between workforce development challenges and categorizes them under autonomous, dependent, independent and linkage groups. Findings In total, 13 different workforce development challenges are presented in this study. Results showed that lack of IT/digital skills has a critical role in workforce development in terms of affecting other challenges. Dependent group includes requirements for longer learning time and specialized training, lack of analytical thinking and dealing with complexity, and lack of interdisciplinary thinking and acting. On the other hand, lack of ability in decentralized decision-making and shortage of workforce with adequate skillset within the labour market have more macro-impacts on others. Most of the challenges located in the linkage group, which means that most of the challenges are interrelated with each other. Originality/value Originality of this paper is presenting a systematic structure for workforce development in Industry 4.0 that considers challenges systematically.