Abstarct: The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), as a transition to digital and smart manufacturing, has provided organizations with many opportunities, but it has also created significant challenges in workforce development. These challenges include resistance to change, skills shortages, changes in competencies, and disruption in job structure that can affect organizational performance and competitiveness. Despite numerous studies on the general barriers to Industry 4.0, there is a literature gap in specifically focusing on workforce development challenges. Aiming to fill this gap, this thesis identifies workforce development challenges in the digital age and then prioritizes them using a novel technique called Opportunity Lost baxsed on Distance in Polar Coordinate Space (OPLO-POCOD). As a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach, this technique calculates missed opportunities baxsed on geometric distance in polar space and allows for a quantitative assessment of the challenges. The case study of this research is industrial organizations in Iraq, which were selected baxsed on real-world issues. The methodology includes literature review, data collection through interviews and questionnaires, implementation of OPLO-POCOD method, and analysis of the results. The expected findings not only highlight key challenges such as lack of education, demographic changes, and the need for new skills, but also provide strategies for sustainable human resource management. From a theoretical perspective, this study enriches the knowledge of MCDM and from a practical perspective, helps managers optimize workforce development strategies in Industry 4.0. Keywords: Industry 4.0, workforce development, challenges, OPLO-POCOD, multi-criteria decision making.