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Throughout 2022, I will be focusing my columns on looking at proven ways to advance female talent and build inclusive corporate cultures.

Initially, I will write about approaches that work in any environment, in-office, remote or hybrid. Since 2022 is likely to be rife with unknowns and uncertainties, the need for paradigms that reach across all modes of work is crucial. And fortunately, a number have been researched and field tested.

For example, in an upcoming column, I plan to share key findings from WOMEN Unlimited’s independent research from our soon-to-be released report, “IMPACT Report: Looking Back to Move Forward: Building Inclusive Corporate Cultures through Competencies and Collaboration.”

The research was conducted at the heart of the pandemic, and surveyed three key corporate constituencies: talented women, their managers and their mentors. The data and the insights of the more than 4,400 survey participants points to a flexibility and an adaptability that allow both women and their organizations to not just survive, but to thrive amidst continuing uncertainties.

The need for cohesiveness

Throughout the year, my columns will emphasize cohesive, corporatewide approaches because research shows segmented strategies are insufficient for attracting and retaining female talent.

For example, there is a tendency to see diversity, equity and inclusion — the three major components involved in advancing under-represented populations — as independent entities. This approach often works to the detriment of women and minorities in the workplace because these components all  are most effective when employed in tandem, not as free-standing initiatives. 

I like to look at it this way: 

• Diversity is the invitation to the table.
• Equity is giving everyone equal space at that table.
• Inclusion is valuing each participant’s voice as they speak up at the table.

When viewed in this light, it becomes singularly clear that these three pillars of parity need to be simultaneously addressed and embraced.

Equally important is a cohesive, organizationwide commitment to the advancement of women and minorities. We have seen over and over that without whole-hearted involvement and endorsement at all organizational levels, under-represented populations progress at a snail’s pace and corporate cultures change even more slowly.

Underpinning the need for a cohesive approach, in the months ahead I will focus my columns on:

• The interconnected roles of women, their managers and their mentors in achieving both individual and corporate goals.
• Key strategies for sustainable changes to corporate culture.
• How managerial flexibility promotes individual, departmental and corporate success.
• Specific data on how women see themselves changing amidst uncertain times vis a vis how their managers and mentors see them changing.
• The unquestionable importance of combining competencies and collaboration for the  advancement of female talent.

Cause for optimism

Both empirical and anecdotal evidence show that women often pay a higher price during uncertain times. They tend to be the ones juggling personal and professional needs. Nonetheless, pandemic-based research indicates that when supported by organizations that value them, women often push past the problems and create new, individualized pathways to success.

As I review the research and interact with leading corporations, I see that women, their managers, their mentors and their organizations are not allowing uncharted territory to sideline them. The ability to combat uncertainty with talent and flexibility has allowed them to adapt not to a mere “new normal” but to a “now normal” where the “now” is in constant flux.

I look forward to sharing the competencies and the collaborations proven most effective in dealing with this “now normal” world.

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As a chief people officer for global organizations, I have managed through the ups and downs of economic cycles and had my first experience leading through a health crisis while living in Asia during SARS. Although much has changed since I started my career, the global COVID-19 pandemic has created a seismic shift in the world of work. Across every country and demographic, people are questioning what they want from careers, debating the challenges and benefits of working from home, and trying to find the best way to lead and engage virtual teams.

It’s been more than 20 years since Charan, Drotter and Noel published “The Leadership Pipeline,” which highlighted the need to develop leadership at every level of the organization. Their model described the seven levels of leadership and the importance of managing the transitions as you progress through each level on the leadership journey.

This article will focus on three levels of leadership: Leading Self, Leading Others and Senior Leadership (the remaining four levels of the leadership pipeline have been combined and classified as Senior Leadership).

As we have witnessed first-hand, COVID-19 has tested leaders’ and employees’ ability to manage through a crisis with unprecedented challenges on both personal and professional levels.

Those who have been able to adapt to the new requirements as leaders during the pandemic have come out stronger, but, from my experience, those who have been most successful have focused on the skills required to lead themselves. Before we delve into what has changed for leaders at different levels, it is worth sharing some of the focus areas required for self-leadership.

We all know the advice: “Put on your oxygen mask first before helping others.” With the ongoing uncertainty and increased stress and workloads, it is more important than ever to prioritize personal health and well-being. What worked prior to COVID-19 may not work now, so ensure you find ways to continue to have a healthy mind and body. HR teams can take the lead to ensure they have a wide offering available for employees, many of which are free and accessible online.

So how has the pandemic changed the requirements of leadership?

Senior leaders: Lighting the way

Real estate agents talk about the importance of location, location, location. For senior leaders, the mantra during a crisis is communication, communication, communication. Frequent and clear communication is critical. In my last role, we started every employee townhall with the same message: where we were going and why.

We talked about the importance of focusing on our business vision and our values while we navigate uncharted waters during a storm. With so much change and uncertainty, it is important to keep the communication simple and consistent. Identify the key messages employees need to follow for your company’s North Star and repeat them in all communications.

How you communicate is just as important as what you communicate. Trust and respect have always been important, but now employees want leaders who are authentic, real people, who share stories about what they do outside of work and how they have overcome mistakes and challenges.

As a senior leader you need to light the way through the storm. If this is not your strength, find ways to communicate and engage with the organization that work for you, but communicate clearly and often. HR leaders should work with senior leaders to develop their storytelling skills so they can communicate in a more authentic, engaging way.

Leading others: Staying close and on track

The role of the front-line manager has always been hard, and it has become even more difficult during the pandemic. With the constant changes at work and home, it’s been a rollercoaster your team can’t get off.

Therefore, it is more important than ever to stay close to your team. Talk to them often, individually and as a team, to see what is happening in their life at work and at home. For those less comfortable with sharing, use simple ways to talk about this, such as emojis (smiley versus sad) or a simple one to five scale.

HR can do short pulse surveys and act quickly to address issues. However, surveys do not replace the direct conversations between a manager and their team, as numerous studies have shown that having a trusted, supportive leader is key to sustaining high performance.

Once employees feel safe and supported, managers need to make sure their teams achieve their goals. I have always liked the concept of the 20 Mile March that Jim Collins describes in his book “Great by Choice.” Once the senior leaders have established the organizational goals, or North Star, front-line managers should set daily, weekly and monthly goals to ensure their team is staying on track.

In the words of Collins, “The march imposes order amidst disorder, discipline amidst chaos, and consistency amidst uncertainty … . Most everything is ultimately out of your control. But when you 20 Mile March, you have a tangible point of focus that keeps you and your team moving forward, despite confusion, uncertainty, and even chaos.”

Be clear when setting goals; clarify due dates and describe what a good job looks like. Scheduling regular one-on-ones with each of your team members is even more important in virtual teams. Have a standard agenda and make sure it includes time for a personal check-in as well as business deliverables. HR leaders should provide training on effective goal setting and ensure there are user-friendly tools, templates or systems for the employee and manager to use during their 1:1 meetings.

Leading self: Awareness, action, engagement

Since the pandemic began, many have had to take on additional roles of home-schooling children and managing through toilet paper shortages whilst spending hours in virtual meetings. Lockdowns and remote work provided people across the globe with the power to redefine when and where they work, but, in the words of Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” The new world of work requires individual contributors to step up and take accountability for managing themselves and their deliverables, as well as their own engagement.

The first step to managing yourself is being honest about your strengths and areas for development. Employees should think about what they will stop, start and continue doing to be successful in their position. Some people are naturally self-disciplined, but, for the rest of us, a plan is required.

Coming back to the ideas from the 20 Mile March, employees should create a detailed, step-by-step plan on how to accomplish goals. The final area of focus can often be the most challenging. Generally, employees look to their manager or HR to provide an engaging workplace. In the new world of work they have a role to play, but now more of this responsibility lies with the employee.

The new ways of working will require individual contributors to take more accountability for their performance and engagement. HR leaders should communicate that the employee-employer relationship is changing, clarify the new role employees have in managing their work and engagement in a virtual work environment, and provide training to help them achieve personal excellence.

This article was originally published by Talent Management, Chief Learning Officer’s sister publication.

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When you think about investing, you may automatically think about spending money, but do you think about the allocation of your time, your mindset or your energy?  These are also important when you invest in your career. Many learning and development leaders find that their focus almost solely lands on the career journeys of their learners. But think about how much has changed in your professional journey in the last three to five years. The company may have changed and your positions or title may have changed, but your knowledge and skills have likely stayed with you —and hopefully they have improved. This article discusses investing in your own career.

Professional development is not only the responsibility of your company, although they have a very important role to play in providing opportunities for you to learn and grow. It is your responsibility to your growth, development and advancement of your career. Having a career goal, what you aspired to be professionally, is vital to your professional development journey. Without a goal it is difficult to build a plan that drives intentional actions and leads you to your career success. And, as an L&D leader, your learners will also be looking at your professional development journey to inspire their own.

As a new year begins, create a plan so you can be intentional on how you will spend your time and energy toward your career over the next year. Set your own career goal if you do not have one already, and establish a development plan that includes a list of actions you will take this year to expand and improve your knowledge and skills.  As you plan for your career growth, consider the following: 

GOAL: Your career goal can span 10 years, but because our world is changing ever so quickly and we continue to evolve in every stage of our lives, it is best to work on a three- to five-year career goal. This allows you to conduct a regular review of the goal and avoid tunnel vision or a one-track career mind, leverage your expertise for greater opportunities or pivot into a new industry.  

PLAN: Your plan should outline what is required to reach your goal. For this exercise think about what knowledge, skill, ability, characteristics, exposure and network you will need to support your development. For some career goals, you may need to consider what proficiency level is needed to be successful in this area.

ACTION: Once the plan is in place, consider what actions you must take to complete each plan. Take the time to order your list of actions by priority. This exercise will help you identify which actions must be completed first, as some actions depend on other actions being completed.

Here are some actions you should consider to support your development plan:

1. Courses and certifications. Take advantage of the countless courses, seminars, instructional videos and training programs that are available across organizations and networks to help expose you to different levels of a topic. Obtaining a certificate for a specific topic provides evidence that you have the education in that topic. Gaining a certification, however, provides evidence of experience, education and meeting a national or industry standard of measurement for that topic.
2. Social networks and media platforms. Social networking communities such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram allow you to connect with and follow thought leaders and organizations for a specific topic or industry. This provides an opportunity for you to be introduced to a topic, explore relevant information over time, gain deeper knowledge, stay abreast of changes, build proficiency and improve your understanding. Be sure to follow multiple contributors in a particular topic so that you can gain different perspectives. Subscriptions to podcasts or YouTube channels also provide helpful context around topics. 
3. You must read. Research shows that highly effective people read at least 30 minutes per day. There is no need to reinvent the wheel – someone has lived the experience or has been there and done that, so why not read and learn from their experience. It is important to stay abreast with your industry, but also equally important to read publications outside of your industry as this exposes you to ideas, situations and solutions that are influencing other industries. Be sure to tap into research papers, reports, white papers, company websites as well as studies conducted by associations and industry leaders as these give valuable insights, facts and trends.
4. Connect with others. Taking the time to network with other professionals that are at your company, in your industry and outside of your industry is one of the best ways to learn, grow and advance in your career. Stayin touch with fellow L&D professionals you meet at conferences, training programs or meetings and other gatherings. Having a strong network will provide you the opportunity to gain personal insights, learn from mistakes, gain tools for success, receive meaningful feedback, be exposed to relevant experiences and expand your network. Individuals in your network are sometimes willing to mentor or provide coaching support in their areas of expertise. It is important to point out that connecting with others is more than just following them or sending a connection request.  It does require time, communication, and effort from both individuals.
5. At work: Your company may offer a series of training workshops, development opportunities or tuition reimbursement. Take advantage of those! If you are unaware of what development benefits are available to you, check with your HR department. Finally, be sure to tap into the wealth of knowledge that is within your company’s talent pool.

No matter what you do, what title you hold or what industry you are in, you owe it to yourself to be intentional about your own professional development.

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“They’re broken.”

This was how a senior executive responded when asked about the current status of their management team. For the past 18 months, managers had guided their teams through nonstop, pandemic-induced disruption. On the corporate side, managers led the shift to remote work while relearning how to do their own jobs digitally. On the front line, managers worked to keep employees and customers safe while implementing new business models like curbside pickup and home delivery.

“If you have any questions, speak with your manager” has taken on a new meaning since 2020. Employees have always expected their managers to have all the answers, but the breakneck pace of change has pushed people to seek more clarity.

• What are we doing to improve health and safety?
• Are there going to be furloughs?
• Will we have to go back to the office?
• Can I change my schedule to help my kids with their virtual schoolwork?

Managers have been asked to be everything to everyone — to drive operational excellence while taking care of people in their times of need. It’s no wonder that people managers report higher burnout rates than individual contributors, according to Gallup.

The past year reinforced the impact great managers have on organizations and their people. According to a study by Arlington Research and Axonify, employees who decide to leave their jobs are considerably less happy with their managers than those who opt to stay (66 percent vs 81 percent). This observation is especially important as companies navigate the Great Resignation. As millions of people reassess their professional lives, organizations need great managers to enable employee experiences that attract and retain talent. But first, CLOs must acknowledge the critical role managers play and make sure they have the support needed to close talent gaps.

Acknowledging skill gaps

Only 18 percent of managers have the talent required for their roles, according to Gallup’s 2015 State of the American Manager report. Most managers are hired or promoted based on their tenure with the organization or past experience in non-managerial roles. They’re chosen based on legacy rather than skills. They may have what it takes to run the business, but they often lack the ability to support, motivate and empower a team.

Unfortunately, management training has failed to close this gap. But it’s not for lack of trying. Leadership development is a $366 billion industry. According to a 2021 Randstad survey, 65 percent of organizations were more likely to provide skills training to managers compared with individual contributors. Furthermore, 95 percent of learning organizations planned to increase or at least maintain these investments as of 2018. Nevertheless, 57 percent of U.S. workers believe managers could benefit from training on how to do their jobs better.

Managers are already overwhelmed with their everyday responsibilities. They simply don’t have time for training programs that require time away from their roles or extra hours. Today’s talent crunch is making this situation worse. As resignations continue to reduce bench strength, companies are forced to take a “next person up” mentality and elevate managers based on operational need rather than proven capability. Given that managers account for at least 70 percent of variance in employee engagement results, this cycle will further widen organizations’ talent and performance gaps.

Redefining the role

Organizations need managers who can run an effective operation to achieve their KPIs. They also need leaders who can help their teams navigate disruption and adapt to changing workplace conditions. Managers must develop a right-fit blend of technical and human skills to achieve this balance. But first, they must be given permission to lead.

If a manager spends most of their time handling administrative duties, they can’t properly focus on the human side of their job. L&D must partner with operational stakeholders to assess the manager workflow and make sure they have the time and capacity needed to support their teams. This includes exploring ways to reduce administrative burdens through automation and delegation.

Before addressing skill development, L&D must also evaluate measurement practices to ensure managers are being held accountable for the right things. For example, a store manager’s performance should be evaluated based on a combination of metrics, including:

• Employee results (engagement, retention, talent mobility).
• Operational results (sales revenue, loss prevention, compliance).
• Customer feedback (net promoter score).

If managers are only held accountable for operational results, they will inevitably focus on managing the business instead of leading people.

After the workflow is rebalanced and measurement practices are improved, L&D can determine the skills required of a great manager. The technical skills required to run the operation are typically well-documented. They’re also easier to teach when compared with the human skills required to effectively lead a team. L&D must identify skills that make a difference in the everyday employee experience, including:

• Building trust.
• Demonstrating empathy.
• Holding people accountable.
• Delivering feedback.
• Motivating people to action.
• Making people-first decisions.

Clearly defining these concepts will help the organization build bench strength by finding right-fit candidates and developing managers who possess strong human skills rather than mere operational capability.

Shifting from programs to systems

Human skills can take a long time to develop, especially for new managers with limited experience. Organizations can’t wait for the labor market to cool off so they can hire people who already possess desired skills. Therefore, they must adopt a right-fit approach to management development and rapidly build internal talent bases.

New managers are often promoted to fill immediate operational gaps. As a result, they’re thrown into their roles before they have a chance to complete the requisite training. Many then have a hard time finding free days/weeks to attend classroom sessions or complete job shadows. L&D can set managers up for success while meeting operational demands by shifting from programmatic training to always-on enablement systems. For example, L&D can apply personalized learning technology to recommend skill training to employees who demonstrate management potential. This can also help senior managers identify candidates who are interested in and ready to step into new roles.

L&D must also provide continuous support to managers who are already in-role, regardless of tenure. The onslaught of day-to-day work makes it near impossible for managers to attend lengthy training programs, especially if they’re short-handed or dealing with big changes. Instead of leaving managers to figure things out on their own, L&D must apply tactics that seamlessly fit into the everyday workflow, such as:

• Curated knowledge bases with popular reference materials for technical processes, such as how to make informed decisions based on operational data.
• Crowdsourced stories from respected, experienced managers on how to overcome common challenges, such as how to motivate team members during difficult times.
• Open communication channels to help managers reach across teams and locations through tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams.
• On-demand opportunities to practice critical management skills, such as how to conduct a challenging conversation.
• Searchable skill profiles to help managers identify potential mentorship opportunities.

Most importantly, L&D must demonstrate that it’s OK for managers to ask for help. As senior employees, managers may derive personal and professional value from being the go-to person. Admitting they don’t know something may feel like saying they don’t know how to do their job. Even worse, they may fear political ramifications if they’re seen as always needing extra help. L&D can overcome this legacy mindset by establishing reliable channels for learning and communication. Instead of trying to go it alone or waiting for the next training program, managers can collaborate, share expertise and support one another within an always-on community.

Extinguishing turnover

4.2 million Americans quit their jobs in October 2021. Of course, many left in search of bigger paychecks. However, that’s not the most common reason front-line workers are quitting. It’s burnout. Employees feel like they’re being treated unfairly, that their workloads are unmanageable, that information isn’t timely or reliable and that performance goals are unreasonable. This results in prolonged stress, decreased engagement, reduced performance and, ultimately, employee turnover.

Managers are the best tool companies have to combat burnout, improve performance and increase retention. They have direct influence over every aspect of the burnout story. However, many lack the skills and awareness to change the outcome. Instead of piling onto managers’ already overflowing plates, CLOs must challenge stakeholders to take a long, hard look at what it takes to be a manager in today’s workplace. They must urge partners to shift management expectations to focus on the human side of the job. And they must provide a framework to empower managers with the skills needed to overcome human problems like burnout.

There’s a popular meme on LinkedIn that says “People don’t leave jobs. They leave managers.” For many employees, the manager is the company. They’re the person they see every day – the person whose decisions most impact their lives. If organizations hope to attract and retain talent in a hyper-competitive marketplace, they need to present themselves in the best light possible from day one. They must take care of their managers so they can, in turn, take care of their teams.

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The temptation is strong. Over the past year, many articles, webinars and conference sessions have highlighted the need to focus on the skills your workforce will need for the future. Moreover, your CEO may be pushing you to provide learning and development to meet these future needs. After all, who wants a workforce with outdated skills? Most would say it just makes sense to start this important training now. But does it?

My answer is no, and I believe many who proceed down this path are guilty of learning malpractice.

First, it is very difficult to identify true future needs. Second, even if future needs are correctly identified, the participant cannot immediately apply their learning since the need does not exist today. This second objection cannot be overcome, and I assert any training which cannot be immediately applied is a clear case of learning malpractice. Let’s examine each issue in more detail.

Identifying future skills, knowledge and behavior is hard. Very hard. First, you have to define the “future.” Most writers seem to talk in terms of two to five years so let’s go with that. Second, how would you go about identifying the skills needed in two to five years? Many of us struggle today to have productive performance consulting discussions with our stakeholders about their current performance needs. Can you imagine having this discussion about their performance needs two to five years out? Remember, we are not talking about what their employees need to be able to do today.We are talking about what new skills and knowledge they will need to meet future requirements. Most will not be able to identify new organization-specific skills needed in two to five years.

Consequently, many L&D practitioners instead rely on survey results about future skills and recommendations by consultants and vendors. You have seen these lists. They are not organization-specific and they primarily highlight soft skills like leadership, creativity, critical thinking, teaming and presentation skills; although the lists generally include a few “hard” skills like data literacy. But are these truly new skills needed for the future workforce? Aren’t these very same skills needed right now? In fact, I have not seen a generic list of “future skills” which is different from much needed “current skills”, although it is certainly possible that some organizations could identify a few specific new, hard skills.

For the sake of argument, let’s suppose we could identify skills and knowledge not needed today but very much needed in two to five years. Now we run into an insurmountable problem and that is application. As a profession we already struggle with low application rates or conversely high scrap rates. Recent research by Jack and Patti Phillips from the ROI Institute shows a scrap rate of 80 percent for learning during the pandemic. That is 80 percent — not 8 percent. Even prior to COVID, researchers were reporting scrap rates of 40 percent to 80 percent. So, even with learning, which can be applied immediately to meet an existing need, most learning today is not applied on the job.

What application rate could we expect for learning designed to meet a future need which by definition cannot be applied until some future date? The answer is simple — about 0 percent. Participants will have forgotten what they learned before they have a chance to apply it. In other words, the scrap rate will be 100 percent, and the learning will be a complete waste of time and effort. This is the very essence of learning malpractice.

In summary, identifying truly new skills and knowledge needed two to five years in the future is nearly impossible, and even if it were possible, the application rate will be 0 percent. Therefore, it is learning malpractice to provide training today to meet a need two to five years in the future. Instead, your first priority should always be to meet today’s needs, and here we must focus on raising the application rate. Your second priority should be to emphasize training that will become increasingly important in the near future which can be applied today. If you agree, let’s try to reset the conversation so we have greater clarity and transparency about what we can and cannot realistically accomplish.

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“Without reflection, people would not learn from their experience.” — Ho Law

According to David Kolb’s learning cycle, reflection is an important factor in the transformation of the experience, as part of the dual dialectics of action and reflection. Ho Law, a founding member and former chair of the BPS special group in coaching psychology, defines reflection as, “a cognitive process that involves both thinking and feeling about an experience (past or present): From this thinking and feeling, a new consciousness emerges with a new appreciation, understanding and insight about that experience.”

“Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.” — Timothy Gallwey

A coach partners with a coachee in a process of inquiry that prompts the latter to reflect and think critically about their own thoughts, assumptions and perceptions. The resulting newfound awareness and the link to their own motivation acts as a launchpad to design goals, actions and accountability measures that integrate and expand new learning. Old assumptions often hide misconceptions, and addressing these in the learning process ensures that the learning and development sits on solid ground. This is nicely depicted in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’s 1987 documentary, “A Private Universe.”

In 1910, American philosopher, psychologist and educator John Dewey was already arguing against simply asking students questions and testing their memory recall skills. He wanted students to challenge their assumptions and doubt what they thought they knew. Dewey nicely describes the value of questioning and doubting what we know: “Men thought the world was flat until Columbus thought it to be round. The earlier thought was a belief held because men had not the energy or the courage to question what those about them accepted and taught.”

“Action closes the learning circle and reconnects the processing inside the brain with the world.” — David Kolb

One core competency from the International Coaching Federation is about how a coach should facilitate a client’s growth which is all about integrating new awareness, insights, or learning. In “Becoming a Coach,” the authors explain that the key elements of this competency are that the coach should:

• Facilitate learning into action.
• Respect the client’s autonomy.
• Celebrates progress.
• Partners to close the session.

In Kolb’s learning cycle, this would be the active experimentation stage. The coach, through reflective inquiry, supports the coachee exploring what actions need to follow. Some questions could be:

• What is changing now that you have explored this further?
• What will you do differently now?
• Where else might this insight be of use to you?

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” — Aristotle

In as early as 350 B.C. Aristotle had already described the notion of “learning from doing” — later defined as experiential or active learning. Kolb, in his seminal work, defined experiential learning as, “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experiences,” adding that, “learning from experience results in modification, growth and pruning of neurons, synapses and neuronal networks; thus learning physically changes the brain, and educating is the art of changing the brain.”

“Emotion creates attention.” — David Kolb

Daniela Kaufer, associate dean of biological sciences at Berkeley University says, “You are learning and remembering completely differently when the amygdala is firing or not.” In a published study titled “Hippocampal Brain-Network Coordination During Volitional Exploratory Behaviour Enhances Learning,” the authors suggest that active learning activates executive functions that are advantageous to learning as these communicate with the hippocampus to enhance its performance. The benefit of activating these executive functions also lends itself nicely to a mapping to Bloom’s taxonomy.

Coaching focuses on what is important to the coachee and in that way supports the creation of enduring memories by linking to the brain’s emotion structures. A core coaching competency from ICF is to “evoke awareness” for coachees by challenging the learner, and ask questions that invite the person to explore beyond their current thinking. Rich experiences like these are more memorable.

Two important biological aspects of learning and development are plasticity and neurogenesis — plasticity, because to learn, we need to rewire our neurons (or as Kaufer mentions “synaptic and dendritic remodelling”), and neurogenesis because when we create new neuron, they are “recruited” much more easily when learning happens. Factors that play a positive role in plasticity and neurogenesis are sleep, nutrition, exercise and happiness (through the release of dopamine). Coaching is oriented around positive behavioural change and around taking action (we already talked about celebration being a key element of the last ICF competency), and we know from studies that this acts as a self-reward which produces dopamine, an important chemical that is implicated in the “stamping-in” or “consolidation of memory.”

Coaching, having a positive orientation, contributes to euphoric or happy emotions and feelings of less stress, thus increasing the dopamine levels in the brain, which increases the brain’s effectiveness to learn.

Scientific fields such as neuroscience, adult learning, change management and psychology, are all helping us understand both how people learn, and why coaching works in that context. Reflection, attention, experimentation and emotions are critical factors in the learning process. Coaches become important facilitators of that process by practicing reflective inquiry in their sessions, thus supporting a deeper awareness and turning the learning into action.

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Who wouldn’t want to be labeled as someone with “high potential?” Who wouldn’t feel disappointed being left off a list of people considered high-potential and slated for success? Given that a person’s performance often falls short of one’s full potential, how might labeling potentiality have an impact on subsequent performance and organizational engagement? And what impact might labeling have on organizational performance?

Reevaluating your approach to evaluating potential has never been more important, as talent shortages loom and organizations prepare for a changing future of work.

We posit that reducing the potentiality gap of an entire population, rather than focusing time, money and energy on only a small subset of employees deemed high-potential, can lift organizational cultures, better realize the full potential of your entire workforce and make talent your competitive advantage.

Potentiality: A snapshot in time

The designation of “HiPo” must be earned every day. Once a HiPo, not always a HiPo. We both have worked in organizations that use ratings of potentiality as part of the performance review methodology (e.g., nine-box ratings) and have experienced the benefits and disadvantages of rating potentiality at a given point in time. Ratings of potentiality can be interpreted by management as reflective of traits versus an assessment at a point in time that is subject to change across rating periods.

As an illustration, consider this story. There was once a promising future leader, perhaps even a candidate for the senior leadership team. For many years, their annual performance reviews and nine-box ratings were consistently stellar. And then they weren’t. Over a period of 18 months, this person’s performance and engagement dropped. Others observed the change in this employee once considered HiPo. But the employee did not recognize the change in their own behavior until feedback was provided and the HiPo rating was removed. When that happened, the employee experienced disbelief, disappointment, anger and defiance and considered different courses of action:

• Make the case that the ratings were wrong and that they were treated unfairly.
• Look for a job in another organization.
• Use the feedback as fuel to improve and to earn back previously high-performance and potentiality ratings.

After seriously contemplating all three paths, they chose the third option. Within two years, the employee significantly improved their attitude, engagement and performance, and they continue to adopt a growth mindset as they advance in their career.

This story has a good ending. It reflects how performance and potentiality ratings along with concrete development opportunities can motivate people to perform at higher levels. But not all stories have positive endings, especially for leaders early in their careers.

A perspective on potentiality

The essence of “potential” is unrealized ability. Potentiality is a measure of the gap between capability and application. Inherent to closing a potentiality gap is the belief in and enactment of a growth mindset (i.e., with effort, new knowledge and skills can be developed). It also involves a belief that over time, people have the capability to transform themselves.

Imagine if every employee in an organization were to wake up in the morning with the mindset, “I am a HiPo because with effort and focus today, I can improve.” Imagine if every employee at the end of the day evaluated how well they put their potentiality into practice. The next morning, they wake up again with the mindset, “I am a HiPo,” and the process starts anew. Even with small, often undetectable daily improvements, months and years later, compounded, incremental gains produce transformative effects.

Extending this further, imagine if an organization had a culture that reinforced and modeled the relentless pursuit of growth and improvement among all employees versus focusing special attention on the typical 5 percent or less slotted into the HiPo rating category. When this approach is implemented in public health and safety campaigns, research has shown that significant improvements in health are achieved due to small changes occurring among large numbers of people.

When people show up at work feeling underdeveloped, unappreciated and overworked, negative emotions can impact others. In contrast, when employees are consistently given opportunities to develop, they are likely to be more engaged and inspired, and the ensuing positive emotions will spread to others and nurture a workforce of healthier, happier and more productive individuals.

When equity is prioritized and fully realized, it provides all people with fair opportunities to attain their full potential.

Advantages and disadvantages of ‘potentiality labeling’

A key issue to consider when assessing the impact of “potentiality labeling” is whether organizational performance can be improved by small increases in potentiality actualization across an entire employee population versus large increases in potentiality actualization in the small proportion of employees deemed HiPo. An individual’s full potential is not really known unless they are given the opportunity to show broader capability or aptitude beyond their current role. Providing an entire employee population with opportunities to develop creates an equitable opportunity for everyone to learn, grow and hopefully advance. When everyone is given an equal opportunity for development, subsequent actions and work will be more likely to reveal where and with whom the highest potential lies.

While there are advantages to potentiality labeling (see below), leaders must carefully manage the unintended disadvantages that may hold organizations back from excelling in the new world of work.

Advantages of potentiality labeling include:

• Increasing motivation, retention and performance of employees with the HiPo designation.
• Sharing labels can signal where people fall in the organization and motivate them to work toward improving their position in the talent pipeline.

Disadvantages of potentiality labeling include:

• Viewing the HiPo designation as static versus dynamic and changeable.
• Labeling a small subset of employees as HiPos and the majority as not can have deleterious effects on those not considered HiPos.
• It can be difficult to select HiPos: Subjective characteristics such as cultural fit, technical skill and manager preference can unfairly elevate some candidates, and stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination, and systemic biases can thwart efforts to promote equitable labeling.
• Potentiality ratings are subject to cognitive biases, including, but not limited to, in-group bias, confirmation bias and similarity bias.

Supplement HiPo with high performance

An equitable investment in all employees, an inclusive approach to development and an embracement of diversity of all kinds will help organizations leverage their talent. And by democratizing leadership development rather than rewarding a small segment of employees, organizations can make significant strides not only toward improving performance, but also retention and engagement.

Imagine how valued and committed all employees would feel knowing their organization provided them with tailored, strategic developmental plans regardless of their potentiality labeling. Imagine how an inclusive culture of potentiality could connect employees who previously saw few options within the organization.

Everyone in an organization is capable of developing and contributing in increasingly effective ways. By supplementing HiPo investments at the individual level with high-performance investments at the organizational level, companies can communicate the value they place on their people and unlock previously unknown or unlabeled collective potential.

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Businesses have faced many drastic changes during the times of the pandemic. On one hand, it slowed down businesses in certain areas, but on the other, it caused an over-acceleration of the adoption of unimaginable levels of changes and technologies. Some strategies failed miserably during these sudden transformations and adjustments, while others worked miraculously. More than anything else, there was a significant shift in the strategic thinking of learning and development leaders.

Leveraging the lessons

While we are all eagerly looking forward to the end of the pandemic era, we can take this moment to look back and reflect upon some important lessons. L&D executives, business professionals and training thought leaders learned the importance of formulating effective strategies for the future to be at par with their competitors. This article bridges reflection of the past and the strategic planning for the future.

5 major lessons learned in 2021

There are five major lessons learned from trends in 2021 that L&D executives should keep in mind for years to come. 

Speed continues to be an unmatchable competitive weapon. During the pandemic, traditional L&D strategies proved inefficient in delivering the same value to the customers. Most organizations adopted new technologies, processes and new ways of doing things. Moving fast became critical.

The pandemic also brought “time to market” of new products and services in some industries, such as technology, down to three months. Correspondingly, the shelf-life of most skills was shortened too. However, the time required to master new skills or solutions continues to be as long as it used to be. These dynamics made many organizations press their employees to learn faster. As a result, some new training and learning solutions came into play.

During this time, learning leaders understood how the speed of employee development was an unmatchable competitive weapon. They understood that they needed to equip their employees with new skills faster.

As we step into 2022, the competition and the need for innovative solutions will increase drastically. Leaders will need to prioritize speed in employee development as a key strategy to stay ahead in the market. Employees will need to be enabled and equipped to master skills to match the speed of their business and stay ahead. The focus will need to be shifted toward developing the proficiency of employees on new skills, technologies, solutions and situations at a much faster rate, which will offer long-term advantages.

As a futuristic learning leader, you must be strategic about speed and consider  how to prepare your learners at the speed of business.

The role of formal L&D is de-emphasized. In my research, I discovered that ill-designed training was the number one bottleneck to speed for many organizations. As opposed to speeding up performance, formal training slowed down the speed. Those who benefitted from formal training indicated that it has minimal contribution to speeding up employee proficiency.

Businesses that used to rely heavily on travel-intensive formal, instructor-led, classroom-type training programs almost came to a standstill during the pandemic. Those programs quickly transformed into self-paced, e-learning or remote learning programs as the “new normal” to support ramp-ups and employee development.

Many of them have seen the incorporation of next-generation technologies in learning like augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality to allow employees to better understand the job. This kind of efficient, on-demand learning during the workflow, in fact, could cut significant time out from their learning journey. Remarkable results were attained when this approach was coupled with suitable performance technologies and social learning or on-the-job learning.

As we move into 2022, organizations should continue to emphasize field learning as it proved to be more effective. However, this move will require more technology-based learning, performance support systems, goal-directed social and informal learning avenues and on-demand learning in the flow of work.

An integrated ecosystem supersedes separate efforts. When formal training was not feasible, most organizations had to resort to field learning using peer support and more leverage of workflow coaching by senior employees. When there is a problem, employees tend to seek help from their immediate peers. They need simple coaching for certain issues, and targeted training for others. Some issues can be resolved by leveraging what already exists in the company, while other tasks might need automation by technology.

During the pandemic, the ecosystem was the unsung hero. Executives realized they could develop employees by leveraging the proper dynamics in the ecosystem around them.

Now, we recognize that employees need to be supported by integrating six essential elements of their ecosystem: peers, coaches, managers, technologies, subject matter experts and the work environment itself. All these elements should work in unison to produce a speed-enabling ecosystem.

Your front-line managers are the core to making this harmony happen. Managers should prioritize giving them the assignments and projects that matter the most to produce the desired outcomes. After that, managers need to design a system of timely support from six ecosystem elements to ensure employee preparedness in a shorter time.

This thinking process is all about designing a supportive, speed-enabling ecosystem as a leadership strategy focussed on the entire journey to reach consistent outcomes at a faster rate.

Strategize technologies to play a center stage role. There is no doubt that the pandemic accelerated the adoption of promising new technologies. The central focus has been on the large-scale implementation of technologies that could improve efficiency and delivery of services, projects and solutions while quickly supporting remote, hybrid, augmented and flexible work.

However, leaders began to understand that most of these technologies were about better efficiency, more effectiveness, enhancing user experience, saving costs or sometimes, just looking cool. Many leaders realized that the sole purpose of technology couldn’t be efficiency alone. They realized they must rethink how to use technologies for the specific purpose of employee development beyond efficiency goals. Many organizations also began to understand that digital transformation for competitiveness in the market must go beyond the divides of HR, learning, performance, and social technologies.

We are now seeing organizations emphasize strategic use of performance support technologies, such as decision support software, AI-based search engines, AR or VR gadgets, knowledge repositories, etc. These technologies could provide on-demand support to employees in the context of the workflow, at the point of need, whenever they need it. Performance support systems have lately been shown to speed up skill acquisition tremendously. Several organizations are also implementing more social technologies that allow employees to learn from their peers and social interactions. Such technologies that could support instant access to star performers, networking with peers and the community of practices are indispensable in speeding up learning new skills.

Leaders need to keep technology at the center stage of their operations moving forward. The business world needs metrics beyond efficiency and productivity. In the learning space, organizations should use traditional metrics in learning and training such as learning effectiveness, business KPIs and ROI. The HR space uses a range of metrics and employee data, which has operational values and describes the human capital of the organizations. Historically, both categories of metrics have been used to determine the composition and capabilities of the workforce.

However, new modes of operations during pandemics also forced organizations to measure additional productivity metrics to ensure that business continues on the same, positive trajectory.

While many organizations continue to assess their current composition and capabilities, the critical need now is to track whether the workforce is being developed fast enough to match the speed of business.

In a large-scale study I conducted with 70 best-in-class organizations, it turned out that the speed-savvy organizations that managed to stay ahead in the market adopted time-to-proficiency metrics as a part of their business dashboards. Time to proficiency metrics is the yardstick to measure the speed of employee development.

Measuring time to proficiency requires understanding the workforce’s past and current performance to produce business-specific outcomes, an idea about the average time taken to achieve that performance, and a business-driven target to shorten that time.

As we step into 2022, the learning function should track how long employees and teams take to become fully productive in various roles across the organization. A vital part of this approach is implementing a comprehensive process organizationwide or across selected departments to measure and baseline time to proficiency of the workforce in key roles. Then, one needs to put systems and strategies in place to shorten that time. Driving that time down leads to a massive speed advantage in the marketplace.

Takeaways

Many of the lessons learned in 2021 are here to stay, given the amount of transformation those lessons have created. To accelerate post-pandemic recoveries, organizations need to recognize that the speed of employee development continues to be an unmatchable competitive weapon. However, they should be thinking far beyond formal L&D interventions in order to achieve that speed. It is time to leverage all elements of the ecosystem that surround a given job role. A crucial part of those is understanding the importance of technologies and giving them the center stage. Lastly, learning leaders need to institute time to proficiency metrics to measure, baseline and speed up the employee development process.

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BetterWork Media Group, the owner of Chief Learning Officer and Talent Management, is celebrating its one-year business anniversary following the internal purchase of Human Capital Media and rebrand launch in January 2021 by founders Ana Dirksen, Kevin Fields, Ashley St. John and Lauren Wilbur. BMG is dedicated to connecting, supporting and empowering workforce communities of C-suite and senior-level practitioners, executives, scholars, consultants and solutions providers in corporate learning and talent management.

In year one, BMG has delivered on a number of promises outlined by leadership, including the return of Chief Learning Officer’s Breakfast Club event series following its 2020 hiatus, improved internal company culture and morale, and the relaunch of Talent Management.

Originally retired in 2016, Talent Management is a brand dedicated to providing in-depth information and programming for senior-level talent and HR professionals who champion organizational culture and drive the design, development and execution of talent management programs. Talent Management has returned as the sister brand to Chief Learning Officer.

“My co-founders and I are overwhelmed by the support we’ve received from the people-management industry as we’ve worked to chart our business. The community has proven once again this past year that despite changes and unforeseen challenges, especially in a time of great uncertainty, agility and perseverance are at the cornerstone of what we do. We cannot thank them enough.”

BMG continues to serve the learning and talent communities via its award-winning content, research, events, webinars and digital media and is powered by a team of 100 percent remote employees with its headquarters based in Chicago.

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Six years ago, we first identified the rise of a new category of jobs which we called “hybrid jobs.” Back then, hybrid wasn’t about mixing time spent in the office with working remotely. Instead, as we describe in our report, Blurring Lines, hybrid is a set of jobs that “combine programming skills and ‘offline skills’ such as analysis, design, or marketing.” We predicted that such jobs would become increasingly important in a labor market that, back then, already felt like it was changing faster than ever.

Looking back is a reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In 2015, we predicted that the rise of hybrid jobs would result in a “talent shortage” and heightened competition among employers. We anticipated the geographical expansion of hybrid jobs as digital skills became increasingly prevalent in new industries. We noted that the traditional higher education system was ill-equipped to meet the needs of employers as the pace of change continued to accelerate.

Since then, the world has changed in fundamental and unpredictable ways. But the digital transformation of the economy has not slowed down — if anything, it’s done the opposite.

Last summer, we released a new report examining the evolution of digital skills across a range of industries and occupations. We found that the vast majority of job postings in industries like retail (83 percent) or occupations like marketing (a staggering 100 percent) mention at least one digital skill. Data analysis is now king in operations roles, appearing in 18 percent of all postings; other data-related skills appear in 46 percent of all operations-related job postings. Almost all (95 percent) of postings in professional, scientific and technical services mention a digital skill.

While this shows digital skills are increasingly important, one of the most striking conclusions is that jobs aren’t becoming hyper-technical, they’re becoming more human as human and technical skills blend together in ways that are increasingly inseparable — and we’re still struggling to keep up.

In fact, the need for specific digital skills shouldn’t overshadow a broader need for non-digital skills (including both so-called “soft” skills like collaboration and business skills like project management). Half of all computer occupations, for example, also request at least some level of business skill. Too often, companies tend to pursue candidates with those specific tech skills at the expense of talented candidates who could succeed in the role with a small amount of training.

Since 2015, we’ve learned far more about the ways technology can amplify the biases and inequities that are so prevalent throughout American society. We’re paying renewed attention to the systemic injustices that have kept so many workers from pursuing and achieving economic mobility. We’re acknowledging the fact that what feels like progress often comes at a cost. An exclusive focus on hiring those with specific technical skills could make those gaps worse instead of better.

How can the findings of this report help to address those challenges? Here are three lessons we learned in the course of our research.

Core skills versus amplifiers. As the rise of hybrid jobs continues to blur the lines between technical and non-technical roles, it will become harder to distinguish when tech skills are “core” to a certain function (e.g., mandatory Salesforce expertise for a marketing leader) or simply amplify that function (e.g., data analysis that can make a salesperson more effective). Employers should pay close attention to which skills are “needed” versus “wanted” for each role, and consider creating such a breakdown in job postings to differentiate between these two types of digital skill.

Unlikely partners. Our research uncovered some similarities that may surprise readers, such as the significant overlaps — and similar digital skill profiles — of marketing and operations roles. That’s another reminder that hiring based on a “kitchen sink” job posting can often cut out qualified candidates. Instead, consider how existing employees, with a fairly limited investment in re- and upskilling, could fill critical roles that require similar skill sets to those they already possess?

Training. Too often, companies tend to zero in on candidates with specific tech skills at the expense of talented candidates who could succeed in the role with a small amount of training. As hybrid jobs become ever more ubiquitous in a range of industries, employers will need to shift their hiring paradigms — to focus on hiring effective communicators and collaborators and training them in digital skills, rather than the other way around.

Like a weather forecast, the digital talent forecast is not a prediction of the future. The pace of technological change is getting faster, and the pandemic is continuing to test the limits of our powers of prediction. Just as COVID-19 caused unexpected disruptions in our ability to forecast the weather, so too have prognostications about the future of the labor market become harder and harder to make with confidence.

One thing that’s certain is that it’s easier to plan for the future, and pivot as needed, than it is to make decisions from scratch. Understanding the changes in the labor market — both their nature and their trajectory — gives us a basis for planning ahead. To prepare for a future where hybrid jobs are likely to be an increasingly important feature, business leaders and talent decision-makers need to start building a more flexible and resilient workforce. That workforce will need both the human skills to apply judgment, to collaborate, and to make pivots — and the technical skills to leverage increasingly advanced technology in a way that delivers success for employers and workers alike.

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This time of the year, we are wishing people a happy holiday.

Unfortunately, not everyone experiences the same merriment and celebration during the holidays. For many people, possibly including some of your colleagues and employees, the holiday season can bring up a lot of sadness. This article provides tips for how leaders can lead by example in good mental health and wellness practices in the workplace during the holidays. 

Before going any further, allow me to explain what the root cause of this feeling of melancholy may be. The holiday blues are real! It is a temporary feeling of anxiety or depression during the holiday season that usually occurs during the months of November and December.  It is sometimes associated with seasonal affective disorder — a diagnosable depressive disorder linked to experiencing fewer hours of sunlight during the fall and winter

What may trigger the holiday blues?

 The reasons vary: 

• Stress caused by not feeling able to meet over-commercialized expectations of a “good” holidays
• missing loved ones who have died or cannot be with us due to concerns related to the spread of COVID-19.
• Negative feelings from memories of previous holidays.
• Feeling obligated to be around people like an uncle who drinks too much and says inappropriate and hurtful things. In other words, forcing yourself to be around people who, frankly, you don’t feel connected to and would prefer to avoid.

Tips for helping yourself and others

Monitor your moods. Before we can help others — our employees, our colleagues or our team members— we must take care of ourselves. Let’s face it, you may be experiencing some of the above-mentioned symptoms. If that is the case, reach out to someone you trust and share how you feel. This will make you feel less alone and help alleviate the stress of facing the challenges of the holiday on your own.  The following are some questions you may ask yourself before reaching out. 

• Who do I want to talk to?
• What kind of help do I want from them?
• How do I want to communicate?

If you have no one with whom you feel comfortable sharing your feelings, all is not lost. There are free resources that are available locally and nationally, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and SAMHSA’s National Helpline. Reach out to any of your employees, colleagues or team members who isn’t acting like their usual self. Let them know that you are available if they need someone to talk to.

Practice self-care in your personal life and at work by doing things like taking breaks throughout the day and drinking water. Urge your employees, colleagues and team members to do the same. Better yet, encourage some friendly competition. For example, engage your team members to walk at least 5,000 steps during the workday. The person who walks the most steps by a predetermined date gets a prize.  

Use your vacation and mental health days. Not only should you use them, but encourage others to use them too. A break can make a world of a difference.  This is not only important for our well-being, but also research shows that it increases productivity at work.

During your team meetings, on-site visits or one-on-one coaching or mentoring sessions, ask your people how they are coping with the holiday stress. Even if someone does not feel safe in the moment to share that they are experiencing holiday blues, they may benefit from hearing from others. Just hearing that others are having similar feelings can be helpful.  Besides, they could learn something they could adapt to feel better.

Managing one’s personal mental health and wellness is important. Of equal importance is helping others we lead do the same. Make this holiday season a safe one that reflects your values and brings you peace.

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Chief Learning Officer’s most-watched webinars focused on topics such as growth and resiliency, reskilling, automation, measurement and preparedness for the evolving landscape of work and learning. Here are the top 10 webinars of 2021.

10. Building Blocks of Workforce Preparedness and Employability
Speakers: Jim Daniels, sr. manager, global digital credential strategy and operations, IBM Training and Skills | Pete Janzow, vice president of business development, Credly | Lee Rubenstein, vice president of business development, edX
Sponsored by edX

9. Measurement Demystified: How to Create a Measurement and Reporting Strategy
Speakers: David Vance, executive director, Center for Talent Reporting | Peggy Parskey, assistant director, Center for Talent Reporting
No sponsor

8. Turn Your Learning Content into a Competitive Advantage
Speakers: Leslie Farinella, chief strategy officer, Xyleme
Sponsored by Xyleme

7. Decision Support by Design: How Enterprise Training Operations Can Maximize Talent Through Automation and Learning Analytics
Speakers: Bill Magagna, global head of digital infrastructure at Siemens Healthineers | John Peebles, CEO of Administrate
Sponsored by Administrate

6. 4 Skills to Build a Stronger, More Resilient Workforce
Speakers: Mark McDonald, director of learning and development, Udemy | Christine Royston, vice president of marketing, Udemy
Sponsored by Udemy

5. Understanding the New SEC Human Capital Disclosures – and what it means for HR, Learning and Talent Teams
Speakers: Josh Painter, VP strategy and corporate development, Degreed | Michael (Mike) Hruska, technologist and design thinking practitioner
Sponsored by Degreed

4. Learning Driven Growth at Schneider Electric
Speakers: Morgan Ballevre, regional presales manager, CrossKnowledge | Alban Jacquin, learning experience and innovation director, Schneider Electric | Aurelie Braun, director, Finance Academy, Schneider Electric
Sponsored by CrossKnowledge

3. How Talent Development Ties to Organizational Success
Speakers: Rachel Grzeskowiak, client marketing specialist, BizLibrary
Sponsored by BizLibrary

2. Reskilling for Growth With VR: The Future of Learning Is Immersive
Speakers: John Jordan, managing director, head of The Academy, Bank of America | Tamar Elkeles, chief human resources officer, XCOM Labs | Derek Belch, founder and CEO, Strivr
Sponsored by Strivr

1. Using a Marketing Strategy to Build Excitement and Drive Utilization of Your Program
Speakers: Rachel Grzeskowiak, client marketing specialist, BizLibrary
Sponsored by BizLibrary

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In 2021, topics such as empathy, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, change management and leadership were most sought-after by Chief Learning Officer’s readership. As we close this chapter and head into 2022, many of us are taking a moment to give consideration to the lessons we learned this year. Here are the 10 most-read stories of 2021.

1. After EI, DI
   By Ian Stewart and Myles Runham
2. Old habits die hard, but good leaders can change
   By Dede Henley
3. Case study: PepsiCo leverages minecraft for lean six sigma training
   By Sarah Fister Gale
4. 6 steps to lead a successful change management initiative
   By Jim Kirkpatrick and Wendy Kayser Kirkpatrick
5. Chief Learning Officer announces its 2021 LearningElite finalists
   By Elizabeth Loutfi
6. Chief Learning Officer reveals 2021 LearningElite awards recipients
   By Elizabeth Loutfi
7. The inclusive human-centered leader
   By Adam Pacifico and Cheryl Stokes
8. Prominent soft skills for the future of learning and work
   By Lawrese Brown
9. To lead from the edge leaders should focus on building trust
   By Noah G. Rabinowitz and Joe Plenzler
10. Four mindsets for adapting to change
    By Ken Blanchard

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I waited for things to come crashing down.

With all of the challenges that have come during the past few years, from the pandemic to the Great Resignation, I thought it was just a matter of time before my team would be unable to carry out our commitments for the year. Rightfully so, with so many challenges in front of us, it would have been unfair to expect performance to remain the same during such a difficult period.

But over time, even with the world holding its breath, waiting for a sign of what was to come, our team kept pushing forward — onboarding new employees, creating content, kicking off new initiatives — and seemingly without missing a beat.

Reflecting back now, I realize that we were able to press on in this way because of the steps we had taken to ensure our team could work well in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment. We had become resilient.

Learning leaders agree that building skills related to resilience and adaptability is key for the organizations we support — but how do we build that within our teams? How had my team managed to keep moving forward even during such a challenging period?

Over time, we had taken five key steps:

• Reduced our operational risks.
• Fostered bidirectional transparency.
• Created a sense of community.
• Encouraged innovation.
• Created a way to detect early warning signs.

With these things in place, our superpower became not how well we were reacting to the changes and unknowns of the past two years, but how well we had prepared in the years prior.

Reducing operational risks

If a key player on your team went on an extended leave or left the organization, would someone else be able to easily take over running their programs? If your office lost power or internet for an extended period, would you still be able to onboard new employees?

The answers may seem obvious, but these are just a few of the questions we can ask ourselves to assess the operational risks we face as learning leaders.

The process of business continuity planning — analyzing possible organizational risks and determining recovery plans — is typically conducted among teams such as IT and technical support. However, I encourage learning leaders to go through this exercise as well.

While our team had not conducted formal continuity discussions, we had experienced smaller challenges that forced us to think about how we could reduce these risks. Over the years we had team members on extended leaves, technology outages, major storms and large organizational changes. Through those things we learned the value of having backup plans and slowly reduced some of our operational risks by doing things such as assigning multiple technical trainers to the same products, documenting our key processes, hosting mostly virtual instructor-led training and standardizing how we store files.

Learning leaders looking to reduce their operational risks can ask their teams:

• What programs, such as new-hire onboarding, are critical to the organization?
• What are the things that may impact our ability to host these programs?
• How can we delegate work in a way that will encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing, making it easier to transition projects during absences?
• What tools or technology are we reliant upon to facilitate our learning programs?
• What are alternative ways we can host these in the event of an outage or another major event?

While there will always be some risks that could prevent us from carrying out key programs, thinking through these areas can help mitigate the impact when issues do occur.

Fostering bidirectional transparency

When we think about transparency in the workplace, we often think of company leaders being open about the health of the organization and upcoming changes. To overcome the potential challenges of the future, I encourage learning leaders to think of ways to foster bidirectional transparency, both from leaders to their team and from employees to their leaders.

For my team, that included me sharing departmental and company updates regularly in our team meetings and providing opportunities for open dialogue on upcoming changes. For those on my team, it was demonstrated by their openness in 1-on-1s, sharing how the pandemic was impacting them and their families personally.

With that open communication, we were able to adjust plans as needed to ensure that we were considering both the personal and business needs of our team members. It also gave us the opportunity to reassure the team that their well-being was our top priority during that time and to connect them with resources that could assist them with any personal challenges they faced.

Creating a sense of community

While bidirectional transparency focuses on the trust and openness between leaders and employees, creating a community focuses on creating a sense of partnership and understanding among the overall team.

As leaders, we can ask ourselves:

• How well do members of the team understand each person’s role, their strengths and their goals?
• How comfortable are they reaching out for help or sharing honest feedback with each other?

In our team we fostered that sense of community through a variety of methods, including global team meetings, project show-and-tells and virtual team-building events. With employees distributed across several countries, these activities provided an opportunity to learn about each other, celebrate personal wins and highlight professional achievements. It was a proactive strategy to increase our team engagement, and having that cadence already in place made it much easier to keep relationships close as we all transitioned to working from home.

Encouraging innovation

Because we are unable to predict the future challenges we may face, having a team that is capable of creative problem-solving is also key. The ability to find solutions during challenging situations, or resourcefulness, was identified as a key attribute for resilient teams by the initiative Go Forward to Work.

In our team, innovation was encouraged by consistently considering how we could improve our programs and actioning feedback from participants. We also had quarterly Impact Awards that were used as a way to highlight the steps that members of the team had taken to improve one of our learning programs, our team operations or the larger department.

This article from Harvard Business School shares some great strategies for fostering innovation in teams, including focusing on problem-solving solutions, creating methods for testing and refining innovations, and creating a culture where mistakes are seen as a learning opportunity.

Detecting warning signs

Even with all of these things in place, there is still always the possibility that a company change or a world event may shake up your learning team. Because of this, it’s important to have ways to detect a rising issue before it is too late. After all, the timing of most crises doesn’t align well with our annual engagement surveys.

Going into the pandemic we were fortunate to already have a pulse survey cadence in place and time during our team meetings to ask questions and provide feedback. Through this feedback, both direct and anonymous, we were able to identify when members of the team were uncomfortable with a change or concerned about their work. It gave me the insight I needed as a leader to know when to pivot plans, provide reassurance and further acknowledge the progress of the team.

For your team, methods of detecting burgeoning issues could be through check-in questions during your 1-on-1s, virtual comment boxes or the monitoring of performance data. The goal in the early detection is to identify if there is a shift in individual engagement or performance before it starts to impact overall team morale, retention or the ability to achieve business goals.

As we move into the new year I encourage learning leaders to reflect with their teams on the challenges faced and lessons learned in 2020-2021. I also encourage them to think through how we can continue to make our teams more resilient so we can better weather the storms we may face in the future.

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Creating a culture of excellence requires investing in growing all employees’ skills. This should especially be the case for learning and development team members whose primary task is growing and developing others in the organization. But so often our own team members are left behind for development opportunities as our focus naturally pitches outward toward developing the broader organization. It’s the age-old story of the cobbler’s kids not having shoes to wear. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune or take a lot of time to focus on developing your L&D team members.

The well-known 70-20-10 approach to development is a solid foundation — where 70 percent of development occurs through on-the-job stretch opportunities, 20 percent through mentoring and 10 percent through outside activities. Many leaders believe development requires going somewhere, taking training courses or paying for outside learning experiences to develop and grow — essentially the reverse of the 70-20-10 model. However, focusing on the 70 percent portion that is on-the-job development can yield much stronger results and for the entire team.

Choice University views developing our L&D team members as a business imperative. We know that learning professionals are professional learners, so we have built professional development into our everyday processes. We do this so development isn’t an add-on to their already rigorous project schedule, or even an after-thought. The three things we put into practice to bring this philosophy to life are: assign projects with a focus on development, establish collaboration methods and reinforce freedom to partner across the team.

Assigning projects

It starts at the top with the ChoiceU leadership team. When a new learning need is brought to the team to work on, we decide as a leadership team which of our team members will take the lead. Before anything else, we consider when the deliverable is needed and the bandwidth available. But we quickly shift to discussing who is passionate about the topic, who has expertise in the development medium to be used and who has expressed an interest in either of those areas.

Previously, we tended to select the same handful of team members, often those who frequently asked to lead projects. This approach restricted others on the team to work on the same types of project tasks again and again, which denied them the opportunity to take on new and different projects. Because the handful of go-to team members were consistently being selected for the same types of projects, they also weren’t developing new skills either. The unfortunate result of this approach is that, in the end, no one gets to discover new areas of interest or develop new skills and expertise. It may feel comfortable to assign projects to those who have worked on something similar in the past, but eventually they will become bored, which is demotivating for a creative L&D mind.

Now, we are more inclined to select a team member who is passionate about a topic and wants to grow their skills, rather than one who has successfully done similar work in the past. We identify any upskilling the person might need and identify other team members who can come alongside the project as consultants or mentors. Before officially assigning the work, we allow the person to decide whether to accept the opportunity, knowing that it will be a stretch and that they will need to rely on others. We emphasize the unique competencies and passion they bring to the project, while acknowledging the skills they will need to develop. It is important that they understand they must not work in a vacuum, but that they are expected to bring in others from across the team with any expertise they lack.

Our intent is to provide the stretch opportunity, a way to upskill and the confidence to take on the challenge.

Collaboration methods

Another key ingredient to on-the-job development is establishing a collaboration methodology. We have found that our best learning work product is produced when we draw from across the L&D functions to leverage diversity of thought and skill. This will not come naturally at first because people can be skeptical they might lose something — usually credit or recognition — when sharing work with others. Leadership must model this approach so team members see that recognition is not finite; there can be plenty of credit for each person who collaborates productively on a project.

To kick-start the approach, we hand-picked a few projects and worked with project leads to assemble a group of team members who brought different skills, expertise and perspectives to each assignment. The goal is to identify people across the team they are comfortable working with, and who could bring different ideas to the table and would have the confidence to do so. We ask ourselves, “who are the experts for this type of assignment?” and, “who on the team wants to learn about this?” when considering who to include. The “learners” in a collaborative setting bring unique perspectives and ideas that the “experts” frequently overlook, because they think more like our end-user. In our experience, including these learners always leads to a better work product.

Striking the right balance between those with expertise and those who are in learner mode is critical to maintaining momentum in a collaborative project, though. We want to foster creativity and diversity of thought for the benefit of the project, and to provide rich learning opportunities for our team. We do not want so many learners that it slows down progress, nor so many experts that the team becomes stuck in analysis paralysis with so many ideas on how to move forward. Assembling a productive collaborative team is an art, not a science. There isn’t a singular ratio of experts to learners that works for every assignment. And for smaller or shorter-term assignments which require only one or two people, building a collaborative group may not be efficient.

Autonomy of partnership

The last, but arguably most important, step to establishing on-the-job development is the autonomy of team members to freely partner with others across the team at any time. Each of our team members has expertise in some areas, and areas they want to develop. Everyone knows they have the freedom to reach out to anyone on the team to bounce ideas off of, to consult on delivery, to brainstorm content, to be a second set of eyes, or for any other reason. They also have the freedom to accept or decline participation, since they manage their own work schedule and know how much bandwidth they have. This works because our team members know and respect each others’ talents.

At first, we had to eliminate the stigma that asking for help implies weakness as a team member. We needed to establish that reaching out to others is seen as a strength, not a weakness — a self-awareness that everyone has areas of expertise as well as areas to develop. We reinforce this by publicly celebrating when people bring in others to help with assignments. Often, our team members will share stories not just of learners developing from experts, but experts and learners equally developing from pairing each other’s unique skills and perspectives together. We continuously learn new things about our team and the varied experiences and skills they bring.

Putting it all together

Putting these few simple things into practice will help build a culture of self-perpetuating continuous development within any team. What gives me the most pride is when collaboration happens organically, without prompting from leadership. It has become an expectation that no one person is expert at everything, but that we must leverage the expertise resident within the team and continue to learn from each other. By intentionally integrating development into our normal processes, we are fostering a culture not only of excellence today, but one of continuous improvement, growth, and opportunity. This is how the cobbler’s kids are also allowed to have shoes.

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Diversity, equity and inclusion are words we are hearing much more often these days, and cultivating a culture of DEI to recruit and retain talent is a challenge many organizations are facing, especially during The Great Resignation. Let’s break this down to think about what DEI means in a simple way:

• Diversity is being invited to the party. This is a fact.
• Equity is being on the planning committee. This is a choice.
• Inclusion is being asked to dance. This is an action.

Belonging is also a piece of the puzzle, which I think of as feeling free to dance however you want. This is the outcome.

It is important to acknowledge all of these components, as we often forget about the outcome, which ultimately empowers people to be who they are. You can’t have one of these without the others for it to be impactful.

In many organizations, DEI and learning and development may exist in silos; it is key to ensure L&D is a strategic driver to reshape and rebuild the organization to become more efficient when aligning DEI and L&D with your business goals. Here are five ways to integrate DEI into your L&D strategy to set yourself up for success in the long term for talent development.

1. Provide mentorship programs.

The value of mentorship programs can extend far beyond the duration of the program itself when you create lasting relationships that support the growth of your talent. You can tap into industry mentorship programs that already exist externally or create your own internal programs for employees to benefit from as a way to access leadership and have a sounding board to guide them throughout their career journey. Depending on your company priorities, you could create mentorship programs for a specific audience. For example, the Asian American Advertising Federation created a NextGen Leadership Program specifically for AAPI marketing professionals.

2. Offer succession planning and leadership programs.

Consider investing in inclusive leadership training where you require employees to understand how to be an inclusive leader in order to get promoted to the next level. Some organizations also require employees to take unconscious bias training and learn how to interview candidates to remove barriers when recruiting people to their teams. It is essential that organizations integrate DEI across the company for all employees to see the importance of it and tie it back into your succession planning and leadership programs when crafting your performance reviews. It will speak volumes and create a bigger impact when you tie it into employee goals that impact their mindset and behavior within your organization rather than a check-the-box compliance training.

You can also consider creating a leadership program for your organization or tap into external resources. The Advertising Club of New York created an annual i’mPART Fellowship program to elevate women in mid-level positions, for example. And Women inPower’s fellowship program provides senior-level women across all professional sectors the peer support, mentorship, training and coaching needed to advance to the highest levels of leadership.

3. Create opportunities for marginalized communities.

Are you intentionally creating opportunities for marginalized communities? Consider how you could invest in professional growth across your employee population with internal and external resources to ensure each employee continues to thrive in their career journey.

For example, you could hire coaches for your marginalized communities, share external resources like ADCOLOR Futures or this BIPOC Scholarship that provides free access to a Manager Essentials Course, or partner with organizations that will sponsor opportunities for marginalized communities. Earlier in my career, I was fortunate to be selected to participate in a sponsored Hyper Island 3-day Digital Acceleration workshop (pictured above) that provided a scholarship for 30 young marketing professionals of color organized by The Advertising Club of New York. These opportunities are truly life-changing beyond words.

4. Leverage your ERGs.

Many organizations are starting to tap into their employee resources groups, as they are valuable drivers of company culture that impact engagement and retention. As stated in The Rise Journey’s State of the ERG 2021 report, they create a sense of belonging for groups of employees who may have been marginalized and provide a safe space for employees to acclimate to organizational culture while finding community. This is where you can leverage them as leadership opportunities and create L&D opportunities for the leads of ERGs who actively participate in making a difference. This could be as easy as sending ERG leads to industry conferences and leadership programs or pairing them with executive mentors.

5. Diversify your attendees and candidates.

Who are the first people nominated in your company to attend your development programs or selected as final candidates when recruiting talent? Diversify your short list of nominations or selections to include BIPOC, LGBTQIA, working parents, veterans, people with disabilities, etc. You want to make sure you are intentional with who you are sending to learning experiences.

When it comes to recruiting talent, look for new ways to hire people into your company beyond your regular strategies. For example, the Interactive Advertising Bureau launched a digital media apprenticeship program that addresses diversity in the workforce across the industry and secures diverse talent into jobs to change the representation of future leadership.

These are only a few examples of initiatives that you can adopt into your company L&D and DEI strategy. As you integrate similar initiatives into your organization, evaluate where you are and where you want to go in the future by measuring specific KPIs to set yourself up for success.

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Investing in our associates through career development opportunities is a point of pride at Sam’s Club, and it’s something we’ve continued to focus on over the years. Part of this focus has been taking a critical look at what the data tells us about where our associates are and where they’ll likely be heading.

We know that approximately 75 percent of our salaried managers started as hourly associates. Knowing so many of our hourly associates will eventually become managers, our field learning and development team went to work, and in 2020, we set a goal to develop and grow current and future managers.

Focus group research revealed front-line associates wanted customized learning and career development opportunities that prepare them for future roles without spending hours in a training room.

With that in mind, we designed a Manager Quality — or MQ — training program that provides opportunities for continued growth and development for all front-line associates, whether they are currently a manager or hope to become one. And our aim was to create immersive training experiences that seamlessly tie to their flow of work.

But we didn’t stop at designing a new MQ program. We also considered how associates would access it. So, we simultaneously launched Sam’s Field U, a single entry point for all professional development programs and resources at Sam’s, including MQ.

The online platform also includes two of our other key programs: Manager in Training, or MIT, and Career Futuring.

MIT prepares team leads for a future in management through training in membership, merchandising, “fresh” and “specialty.” By the end of the program, team leads can receive up to a semester’s worth of college credit from various universities partnered with Live Better U, our tuition-free college program. Meanwhile, Career Futuring provides associates with essential knowledge and tools to pave their future at Sam’s Club by focusing on career exploration, future ways of working and lifelong learning.

The timely launch of Sam’s Field U makes it easy to keep associates engaged and reward their curiosity as we introduce MQ to the mix. The web-based platform limits the time they take to locate learning, increasing the use of available resources and ultimately giving back valuable time for on-the-floor learning experiences.

Overview of the MQ program

Again, the MQ program was crafted for all associates within our clubs, from hourly to management. It was created around a simple framework of training associates in four pillars: how to identify, develop, manage and foster intrinsic reward.

Each pillar (Identify, Develop, Manage and Reward) has foundational concepts that are applicable to all club roles. However, MQ is not one-size-fits-all. Beyond the foundational concepts that everyone receives, the content is targeted to role, and associates have the flexibility to create a customized learning journey within each pillar based on the needs of their role. Additionally, the five-week program strategically incorporates different learning styles with a blended learning approach of instructor-led training to gain depth, flow-of-work for practice, and simple videos and audio for real-time reminders.

Furthermore, within the pillars, the content focuses on business-critical topics such as difficult conversations, managing conflict, effective interviews, meaningful individual development plans, time management and financial acumen.

The pilots

Before rolling an MQ program to full chain, we needed to test, learn and iterate. So, in July 2021 we piloted MQ in 91 Sam’s Club locations with more than 1,000 associates, from hourly to management. The pilots covered all the modules of the program, from effective communication and meaningful individual development plans to effective interview skills, time management and financial acumen.

During the pilots, our field learning and development team conducted simple pre- and post-surveys to gain insight into the depth and applicability of the content by role. Here are some of the findings:

• Pilot participants expressed excitement about participating in training specifically targeted to their development.
• They rated themselves high on skills they had little to no training on. For example, in a three-question pre-survey for our pilot module on effective communication, this would be a typical survey result:
  These pre-survey results reinforced the need for the MQ program. We realized that an assumption was made pre-pilot about baseline education on how to communicate effectively. But from the pilots, we discovered we needed to start with very basic training before going in-depth. At the end of this pilot experience, associates expressed that they craved even more content, and 100 percent of participants reported the training made them feel better equipped to communicate effectively.
• Associates reported that the most valuable part of the training was the format being interactive and mirroring what they need to do day to day, as well as getting to put what they learned into action as they work with their teams.
• They consistently mentioned and looked forward to short, bite-sized learning.
• They expressed that the addition of training on the topics we identified could improve the experience of new associates and the longevity of their careers at Sam’s Club.

The pilots revealed that we were on the right track with our strategy and content. But we realized a key area we needed to iterate on: instilling our company values within the content.

Incorporating values-based decision-making training

At Sam’s Club, we have what we call Leadership Expectations, which are attributes we want every leader to possess. They outline how we turn our values into actions so we can better deliver results for our members, including delivering on culture, diversity, equity and inclusion.

Iterating from the pilot experience, we decided that every associate journey in MQ would begin with a week-long training on values-based decision-making, or VBDM. Once enrolled, associates are able to access these microlearning modules through a mobile device, and they learn how to immediately apply our Leadership Expectations to decisions they make in clubs every day. The microlearnings cover why VBDM matters, what VBDM is and how to model VBDM. Once associates complete the VBDM content, the values training doesn’t end there. For the remaining four weeks, we decided to embed it into all four pillars of MQ.

The launch

After the success of the pilots, our MQ program launched in October 2021, targeted at approximately 95,000 front-line associates. The completion of MQ is a recognized accomplishment for them as digital badges are issued after completing each pillar and the entire program. The digital badging enables associates to showcase their achievements on social channels and on a digital wallet, allowing them to promote and amplify their personal brands.

In November, the first cohort of 32 assistant managers earned digital badges in the Manage pillar, and we expect to issue up to 60,000 digital badges to MQ graduates in 2022.

Learning culture and strategy outlook

Investing in our associates through career development and great learning programs to help them reach their career goals is something we are proud of at Sam’s Club.

As we continue to evolve, the outlook for our learning culture and strategy is more centered around a clearly defined user journey starting with a single entry point to Sam’s Club’s learning ecosystem — Sam’s Field U. From there, associates conveniently access all our training programs and resources, including our new MQ program, which was designed based on the data we have on our associates. With 75 percent of our salaried managers starting as hourly associates, we are excited to continue rolling out MQ to as many associates as we can. That way, at any point in their career, they’re not only able to prepare for their next role in management, but they can thrive in the management role they’re already in.

Armed with strong learning programs, including MQ, as well as a great platform for associates to easily access and navigate through them, the sky is the limit.

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Every learner learns differently. And in today’s classroom — both virtual and real-time — we are seeing the many ways we facilitate those differences through interactive modules, gamification, 3D training, micro-lessons and more. Technology continues to create new opportunities for content diversity and sophistication, as well as how curricula and lessons are delivered. However, it’s important to remember that a student is a human being, and that person-to-person learning and development offers benefits for comprehension and retention not necessarily achievable through a computer monitor or phone screen.

While we are grateful for the options in e-learning that have erupted over the past two years in response to COVID-19, both e-learning and in-person classrooms have a time and place. Traditional classroom learning provides a more readily accessible platform for interpersonal, social and organizational skills development in collaborative learning toward career building.

A study on active learning in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” shows that, though students felt as if they learned more through traditional lectures, they actually learned more when taking part in classrooms that employed active-learning strategies. We can define active learning strategies as those that directly involve the student in the learning process through small groups, discussions or hands-on training. Essentially, getting together helps us to learn.

Hands-on and hands-up for immediate learning

Motivation is a crucial component for learners to understand and complete their training. When we gather as a group in the classroom, engagement is automatically built in. Students can absorb lessons on a longer-term basis and with greater comprehension because they are focused on one thing — the instructor.

A major benefit of in-person learning is that we are mostly prohibited from multitasking. Learners are positioned to give their full attention to the lesson at hand. The results are increased engagement and even curiosity, which contributes to the motivation to learn. Now more than ever, students need the type of motivation that being back in the classroom with other learners can provide. According to EAB’s 2020 report on adult learners, many candidates delayed their enrollment plans due to doubts about the quality of remote and online instruction during the pandemic.

The pandemic disrupted plans for all types of learners, from school-age kids to adults seeking continuing education and certifications. A study fromStrada found that “many Americans whose work and education changed because of the pandemic are turning to education to get back on their feet.” Part of the fallout of COVID-19 has been shifts in job availability, which has caused more than one-third of adults to change or cancel their education plans.

Though disrupted, these are resilient learners. Among U.S. adults who experienced a work-related change, 7 percent have enrolled in an education program, and 37 percent said they intend to enroll in an education program within the next six months. The study also reports that “among disrupted learners who said they planned to enroll in an education or training program in the next six months, one in four said they were planning to pursue an employer-based learning option.”

An in-person setting offers a more immediate response to disrupted learners to motivate them in their educational pursuits. An in-person presence also helps to foster the type of curiosity that contributes to student motivation. Before COVID-19 arose, a Brookings Institution study found that learners who participated in in-person classes performed slightly better than those who took a course online. 

For adult learners, the classroom experience enables practical, hands-on experience and the opportunity to focus without interruption.

Incorporating interactive technology in classroom learning 

Classroom learning doesn’t mean a decreased requirement for technology. In fact, interactive technology offers a hands-on and safe way to learn. And with the emphasis on social distancing expected to continue, organizations can safely return to the classroom and still maintain any requirements for social distancing.

The application of technology is a critical part of the foundation for a hands-on, in-person learning experience supported by teacher-led instruction. Reference materials may be the same between online and in-person course offerings, but what is different is the time to market, in terms of certification and qualification. In-person learning promotes the acquisition of knowledge in a shorter time frame. In addition, adult learners who can access technology fare better — a study by Pennsylvania’s largest community college found that a lack of technology was a major deterrent for retention of adult learners.

At SCTE, we recognize access to technology is crucial for training our industry professionals. For example, our DOCSIS® 3.1 boot camp classroom covers deployment, modem provisioning, cable modem termination system configuration, show commands of CMTS vendor platforms, network maintenance and Proactive Network Maintenance in DOCSIS 3.1, troubleshooting network and plant issues using new DOCSIS 3.1 tools, monitoring and testing approaches. The classroom portion of the class is followed by a third section that includes follow-up activities and digital games emphasizing key points to remember, data input/command examples, implementation and troubleshooting tips, and opportunities to follow-up with the course presenters in threaded discussions and webinars.

SCTE’s L&D experience shows that in 2021, it took an average of a little over four months —129 days — to complete an online class. Many of our students are completing this coursework on their own time and may only have one to two hours a week to devote to the class. For companies interested in accelerating their learning qualifications, an intensive three- to five-day boot camp accomplishes that much more efficiently than self-paced study.

Lessons in ROI with in-person L&D

It’s time for all of us to get back out and speak to people in real life. There will continue to be a time and place for online learning and for in-person learning, and as the learning professionals in our industries, it is our responsibility to facilitate those distinctions.

In-classroom learning can accelerate the deployment of technologies, which is what we’re finding with our Boot Camps since we have reintroduced them as in-person offerings. In our Digital Basics and DOCSIS® Fundamentals course, students get an up-close and personal perspective on the models at work in deploying data over telecommunications networks. They learn the principles of digital signals and data transmission, for a better understanding of data transport protocols over local and Wide Area Networks. in the group setting, learners are able to discuss in real-time the benefits of digital, calculate analog-to-digital-conversion, and examine digital modulation techniques as well as high-speed data over cable networks using various specifications of DOCSIS.

While the investment in an in-person boot camp is admittedly higher in terms of dollars, the ROI on technical acquisition is huge. On average, the lessons of a 40-day online class are condensed into a three-day boot camp, with all of the benefits of comprehension and retention already mentioned.

At a time when companies are pressured to upskill their workforce at a faster pace in order to compete in their markets, more immediate results offer a high-value return. And the numbers back that up. At SCTE, there was an average increase of 14 percent in test scores for understanding, knowledge and comprehension from the start of the boot camp to the final test after the boot camp completes. 

What this demonstrates is that being back in the classroom works well for the tactile or kinetic learners who want to advance their careers by working with their hands. The classroom also provides the human touch, which often lacks in technology-based training. The classroom for SCTE is often brought to the customer, within their organization, for a more convenient and immediate experience.

A return to the classroom offers an opportunity to return to our professional communities. That, in itself, is also a benefit in helping the lessons of any course to be retained and understood. Developing the expertise and skills of our members is a daily pursuit at SCTE. But we are also cognizant of our community of members and building the self-confidence and knowledge they need to excel in their professions. And we can do that efficiently and immediately in the classroom. As this international research study noted, “Social belonging involves a sense of interpersonal connectedness.” We can find that sense of belonging more readily in the classroom.

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