The transfer of learning from the classroom to on-the-job performance is a common challenge for learning and development professionals. Skills training that is technical or procedural can be directly observed and refined until an acceptable level of performance is attained. However, communication and interpersonal skills, for example, are more nuanced and developed over time.

Providing ongoing opportunities to practice and apply these skills is necessary for proficiency beyond the classroom. While various methods can be utilized to reinforce what is taught in the classroom, peer coaching is an effective strategy to transfer and accelerate application of skills and concepts. Peer coaching can be simply described as two or more colleagues working together to practice skills, give and receive feedback and address challenges in a safe, supportive and judgment-free zone. The use of peer coaching described in this article was developed to provide post-education reinforcement of coaching skills for people leaders in a health care organization.

Peer power in health care

Health care is highly regulated, and as such, can be hierarchical across patient care work units and administrative departments. This often results in a “direct and tell” work culture, thereby suppressing individual capabilities of generating ideas, solving problems and learning from failure. 

Coaching skills can foster these capabilities. Our organization wanted to create a culture where staff at all levels felt empowered and subsequently could achieve higher levels of individual, team and organizational performance. To achieve this, we felt it was imperative to grow coaching capabilities within leaders throughout the organization. One approach was to develop a coaching skills course to teach them the coaching essentials of cultivating a growth mindset, developing trusting relationships, and three core skills: powerful questions, deep listening and acknowledging strengths to elevate an individual’s awareness of and capacity to utilize those strengths. 

The most common barrier to incorporating a coaching approach cited by graduates of the coaching course has been their natural tendency to be problem-solvers and provide direction and advice when a coaching approach may be more beneficial to the team or for the individual’s growth and development. The need for reinforcement and practice of the skills beyond the program was immediately apparent. We developed a peer coaching program called “Practice With Your Peers,” as a post-course experience to accelerate the fluency and application of coaching skills. With clear structure and guidelines in place, the peer coaching groups quickly become a safe space for practice and learning and foster close relationships for ongoing peer coaching, support and networking beyond the formal program. 

“Practice With Your Peers” is a peer coaching group that meets for one hour a week for seven weeks. Each group has five participants and a certified coach/facilitator.

The program has been offered virtually and in-person with equal success. Participants must make a commitment to attend six out of seven sessions before registering for the program. Group agreements, including a shared commitment to confidentiality, is a key factor of success .

Figure 1:  Group Agreements 

  Group Agreements My (Participant) Commitment

Equally important is a clear understanding of the expectations of their commitment to the program to maximize the experience for all participants. Also critical for success is coach facilitators who are skilled at creating a safe and trusting learning environment.

In these groups, each learner creates a learning goal they’d like to achieve to elevate their coaching proficiency by the end of the seven-week experience. The sessions are iterative, and designed to mirror the coaching process that includes commitment to action and accountability for progress.

Figure 2:  Program Outline for Practice With Your Peers 

Roles are rotated each week. One learner is the “talent” (the person receiving the coaching), one learner is the observer, and the remaining three learners practice coaching the talent on a real situation in five- to seven-minute increments.

Figure 3:  Participant roles in Practice With Your Peers

The debrief that follows is a rich feedback session for each learner practicing the coaching skills. The feedback is delivered by the observer and supplemented by the coach-facilitator.

Finally, each learner reflects and vocalizes what they learned in the practice session and outlines a new action step toward their goal, for which they are accountable in sharing results or new insights at the next session. 

The small group format provides an opportunity to practice the skills in a real-time environment and receive immediate feedback. Groups can establish themselves as a structured environment that fosters accountability between learners who are all committed to developing the same skill set.

The small group size also allows learners time and space to regularly speak their minds. Listening to the challenges of their peers sheds light on shared workplace issues, and can additionally diminish the sense of isolation a leader may feel in addressing these issues. 

Surveys point to program success 

Consistent themes of impact reported by participants of “Practice With Your Peers” from post-program surveys are increased confidence and self-perceived effectiveness as a leader, enhanced listening skills, more trusting work environments, feeling less burdened as the “problem-solver” and having a more engaged and empowered staff.

A formative evaluation assessed the impact of the peer coaching experience on work unit engagement scores — a measure that is assessed every two years by the organization. Forty-one percent of respondents had been in the same leadership role over the two-year period, and were able to compare engagement scores in their work unit from before and after the peer coaching experience. Of those respondents, 67 percent reported an increase in work unit engagement scores. While statistical correlations between the use of coaching skills and the engagement scores is difficult to assess, respondents attributed 60 percent of the increased scores to their use of coaching skills.

Successful connections ahead

“Coaching Connection” is a less intense version of “Practice With Your Peers,” but is an adaptation of the peer coaching format. This program, also for graduates of the main coaching course, is a one-hour monthly meeting (virtual or in-person) designed to offer an opportunity to practice the coaching skills. Participants can sign up for as many monthly sessions as their schedule allows. The format of “Coaching Connection” consists of the coach/facilitator providing a short overview of one coaching skill or principle, coupled with a brief large group application activity.

Figure 4: Program Outline for Coaching Connection

Participants are then grouped in triads to practice coaching in brief segments using real situations. They rotate the role of coach, talent, and observer in short segments so that everyone gets to practice and receive feedback. The coach/facilitator can briefly join a few breakout rooms as time allows to provide encouragement and offer a piece of feedback where appropriate. Over 95 percent of participants said they expect positive results from using the skills they learn, and would recommend the program to others.

Although this article describes programs specific to developing coaching skills, these formats have proved successful in a variety of other ways. For example, we have also used peer coaching groups in a course on having effective difficult conversations. By strengthening their ability to use the learned skills through the peer coaching experience, 89 percent of participants surveyed reported resolution of work-related problems, 86 percent reported improved relationships and 77 percent reported increased ability to coach others on the skills.

In short, peer coaching experience is an effective way to improve the transfer of learning from the classroom to everyday work in an accelerated fashion and enhances the overall performance of the learner. While more rigorous measures to assess the impact of the peer coaching experience on teams have not been undertaken, there is much anecdotal evidence that indicates higher team performance in organizations in which leaders participated in peer coaching. 

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There are multiple global events impacting the workforce’s intellectual and emotional ability to perform successfully. A recent Gallup poll showed 44 percent of employees experienced emotional exhaustion from navigating post-pandemic trauma and being isolated from colleagues in hybrid and remote work environments.

In addition, employees are craving employer-supported mental health and lifestyle balance. When left unsupported, employee mental health challenges contribute to disengagement and 60 percent of employees quitting quietly. When these intellectual and psychological challenges are unsupported by leaders, 41 percent of Gallup poll respondents identified wanting to change organizational culture which included “better managers.”

Trauma, isolation, mental health and disengagement create a need for empathetic support. Learning and development teams that prioritize development in empathy for leaders have curtailed the strains that employees experience and, in many cases, improved their organizational culture. This article highlights how empathy improves organizational culture, that peer coaching is the preferred method for empathic skills development and five steps to implement peer coaching in your organization.  

Empathic leadership improves organizational culture

While leadership focuses on the behaviors required to guide others, empathy is the ability to understand others in a way that guides your leadership behavior. Empathy is defined as a key element of emotional intelligence. It includes the ability to recognize, understand and react to the concerns and needs of others. Empathy can also be learned and coupled with leadership development. Given employees’ intellectual and emotional exhaustion, empathy should not be viewed as a “soft skill,” but rather as a job-related competency.

Empathetic leadership is a business necessity that enables leaders to mitigate employee emotional exhaustion. Equally important, leadership empathy helps improve morale and organizational culture. Businesses have shifted formal L&D programs from understanding logistics to becoming emotionally intelligent. Now, the majority of leadership development focuses on building employee trust, psychological safety, effective communication and nurturing team collaboration. Mid-level leaders are centrally positioned within the organizational culture linking executive vision, workforce function and management peers’ needs. 

Earlier this year, 70 percent of employees reported feeling their managers should emphasize the importance of mental health. Leveraging leader empathy skills can be developed without these individuals taking time off from their responsibilities. The consequence of not investing in empathetic leadership skills development contributes to short-term organizational cultural dysfunction and exponential long-term costs. Without leaders’ ability to communicate with empathy, employees will continue to have limited capacity to work, quietly quit and job hop. The long-term consequences include poor production/service, continued employee turnover and fiscal waste.

Peer coaching is an effective method for skills development

Peer coaching is different from executive coaching or leadership coaching. Rather than bringing in an outside expert, peer coaching is a strategic skills development method that fosters relationships between colleagues of equal status within an organization. It is a two-way coaching relationship that helps both participants grow through goal-directed, mutual learning, with empathy at its core.

Corporate training was originally designed to replicate the didactic methods of schools and universities. Today, seminars and instructor-led training remain the primary methods for skills development. Large group learning sessions are useful to impart a one-size-fits-all approach to skills development. However, empathy is a uniquely human skill and based on each person’s individual psychology and experiences. So, developing or deepening it requires a different kind of learning approach. 

To learn empathy, you must experience first-hand what it’s like to have empathy for another person and know what it feels like for another person to empathize with you. Therefore, empathy can only be developed through relational learning, where you’re actively put into situations where you have to use it and receive it.

An instructor can still hold a small role in the development of empathy. For example, they can share research on the benefits of empathy or debrief the peer coaches’ learning experience. However, this skill is only fully learned during unprompted, human interactions. For this reason, peer coaching is the ideal, relational learning method.

5 steps to implement peer learning to develop empathy in your organization

Communicate that empathy is good business. Some leaders consider empathy a superfluous “soft skill” that doesn’t deserve focused development. The first step in changing their minds is connecting the strategy of your peer coaching program and its intended outcomes to your business’s goals. Whether you are implementing a standalone peer coaching initiative or using peer coaching as part of a larger leadership development program, show that it’s a necessary skill for your organization to grow. 

Answer these questions as a guide to help you make your business case: 

• Which of my company’s core values are tied to fostering a supportive, compassionate workplace? 
• What strategic initiatives necessitate our ability to understand, experience and act on the feelings of others?
• What data, such as employee engagement surveys, customer experience ratings or other key measurements indicate that a culture of empathy is necessary for the health and success of our organization?
  
  

Set a program structure and strategically match peer coaches

Effective peer coaching programs have parameters that enable the dyads to have both meaningful and productive relationships. Create guidelines that define peer coach roles and responsibilities, the frequency and duration of coaching sessions and the duration of the program and confidentiality.

Next, consider how you will pair leaders. You can combine people by geographic region or by time zone if you have remote teams. You may also consider pairing people cross-functionally, so they learn about different areas of your organization. Some programs also require peer coaches to work a minimum of six months in their role before they can participate. This requirement enables them to have knowledge of company norms, cultural nuances and business processes so they can effectively coach their partner. Finally, give your pairs some agency in choosing their partners. A peer that is available to work remotely or in-person, functional area and previous work experience are factors to consider.

Set your pairs up for success

Positive coaching relationships are initially established in a structured way so they lead to unprompted learning moments. It’s essential for each dyad to have a written working agreement consisting of formal guidelines that govern their work together. Explicit expectations minimize misunderstandings and create more successful outcomes. Working agreements should specify mutual expectations about behaviors that are acceptable and not, coaching goals, styles of working, ways of monitoring the relationship, how each pair prefers to receive feedback and address any other element that impacts the success of the relationship.

Consider creating a standard written template agreement that includes your program structure with additional open space, so each pair can customize it to their needs. The following are questions that you might pose to your pairs to help them customize theirs:

• What are your primary goals for this relationship?
• What do you need to function effectively in your peer coaching relationship?
• What is your preferred communication approach? Consider both style (for example, direct, supportive, challenging, etc.) and method (email, virtual meetings, face-to-face, etc.)
• How do you prefer to receive feedback from your peer coach?
• How do you prefer to address potential misunderstandings or disagreements with your peer coach?

A lightly held structure is necessary for your program’s success. However, once guidelines are established pairs should focus on mutual goals, not methods.

Prepare and support your peer coaches 

Hold a group orientation to introduce the purpose and intended outcomes at the beginning of the program. Peer coaches should know that the intended outcome is to create an empathic organizational culture. Use a flipped classroom where the coaches acquire useful methods and skills for goal setting, giving and receiving feedback and creating psychological safety as prework. Use the in-person portion to begin building empathy through hands-on peer-coaching activities. Have your dyads hold their first peer coaching session and practice the knowledge that they’ve acquired from each other.

After the orientation, ensure the success of the program by periodically checking in with peer coaches to evaluate the effectiveness of the program and the pairs. Also, share conversational prompts that the pairs could use together, assignments and resources to reinforce empathic skills development and reinforce peer learning best practices.

Set the stage for skill transfer 

At the end of the program, gather participants to facilitate a discussion about what they learned about themselves, what they achieved and how the program enabled them to deepen their empathy.  Have them reflect on how they will transfer this learning to how they lead their teams and interact with their peers and other internal and external stakeholders.

Peer coaching as a proven learning method effectively nurtures empathy skills development. As a cost-effective and practical approach, peer coaches are provided with timely feedback to their specific leader-employee needs. Furthermore, peer coaching directly supports leadership skills development impacting employee retention and organizational culture.

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When asked the question, “what do employees look for in a job,” you might imagine the answer would be a higher salary, greater workplace flexibility or more chances for promotion. And yes, these are certainly all effective strategies to attract and retain talent. It turns out, however, that providing on-the-job professional development and skills training is one of the most desirable, effective and feasible strategies organizations can implement to improve company culture, engagement and employee retention. 

Research by Deloitte revealed that organizations with a strong learning culture had between 30 to 50 percent higher engagement and retention rates than those without one. A study of tech workers by Indeed found that self-improvement in the form of employee development or tuition reimbursement was the most-valued job characteristic. And recent research by McKinsey & Company found that between April 2021 and April 2022, the number one reason people gave for leaving their previous jobs was inadequate career development and advancement opportunities.

Employees want learning and development opportunities. And if they are lacking, the majority of them will seek employment with another organization that does value growth, advancement and transformation, and demonstrates this by offering professional development for their whole career journey.

Those working in the world of education know a great deal about how learning works and ways to create effective, efficient and inclusive learning environments (it’s called learning science). Let’s consider some of the lessons we can learn from the world of educational scholarship:

• Learning is not just about content or skill acquisition. Learning, as described by Amy Edmonson, is an “ongoing process of reflection and action, characterized by asking questions, seeking feedback, experimenting, reflecting on results and discussing errors or unexpected outcomes of actions.”
• Learning is hard and requires time and effort in any context and the workplace is no exception. 
• The fact that learning to do something well requires sustained motivation, time, persistence and focused effort is often under-appreciated.
• Goals and expectations must be clearly articulated, feel achievable and be accompanied by opportunities to practice, learn, apply knowledge and receive timely feedback on progress.
• Because new learning depends on prior knowledge, spacing out learning opportunities, taking care not to overwhelm and providing new employees with appropriate scaffolds and supports provide a foundation for future learning.
• Environments characterized by high levels of psychological safety help support people in making contributions, innovating, taking initiative, making suggestions for improvements and sharing information and knowledge. In the context of L&D, a psychologically safe environment is the space that trainers, colleagues, managers and others create for other employees to engage in collaboration, be vulnerable and discuss ideas without the fear of making mistakes or being judged by others.
• Social connections matter. People learn best when they trust and feel supported, connected to and accepted by the people and environment around them.

Leveraging learning science in L&D efforts

With these things in mind, ask yourself this: Are you leveraging principles of learning science in your L&D efforts? Are you doing everything you can to create the kind of meaningful, authentic and relevant learning opportunities that signal to employees that you believe in them and want them to succeed and grow? If not, lessons from the world of education and learning science can help you get there.

Workplace professional development requires us to create and build space and time for formal and informal opportunities for people to learn and grow on the job. Employees need significant time to experience a variety of situations, master systems and processes, practices, to be able to connect with others and learn how to best work and communicate with people at all levels of the organization. Borrowing lessons from the world of education and learning science can help you in these endeavors. After all, learning is learning no matter the environment.

Typically, there are three key intentions guiding employee training: skill-based improvement, compliance requirements and generalized growth of an individual’s character competencies. Employees desire a balance of L&D programs that blend these three areas and help them grow beyond skills needed merely to improve their current roles and responsibilities.

It’s not always easy to create all of these different opportunities for growth. But with an understanding of the scholarship relating to how learning works (including factors that can impede it), we can better design learning experiences that help keep learners engaged, paying attention, motivated, inspired and on-task — which, in turn, helps organizations maximize employees’ success.

7 key strategies of learning

Below are seven key strategies borrowed from the scholarship of how people best learn, which organizations can implement to create a robust workplace learning culture, centered around trust, increased motivation, and psychological safety. 

Encourage questions and normalize mistakes as part of the learning process. We can do this by not suppressing innovation or creative ideas. By helping employees accept tasks or challenges that may be a little out of their comfort zone or outside of the scope of their typical responsibilities. Encourage risk-taking and make sure that there aren’t negative consequences for those who try something new and fail, or make mistakes. Depending on the organization and the impact errors may have, this might involve creating a “sandbox” or other kind of “container” for experimentation and practice to happen. Or engaging a more seasoned employee to serve as a guide, sounding board or other kind of support as a new employee learns the ropes. 

A learning environment where mistakes, or not knowing, are seen as learning opportunities, fosters a sense of belonging, support and trust. In turn, this enables employees to:

• Feel comfortable in speaking their mind, seek clarity if they are unsure about a task or deadline, and ask for help. 
• See teammates as collaborators instead of competitors. 
• Receive critical feedback.
• Own their mistakes and work through them in a positive way.
• Brainstorm, express ideas (even if they are not fully formed) and think through problems.

All of these can prevent self-defeating behaviors and mindsets, and allow employees to be more open to guidance and feedback — especially when it is more critical in nature. When an employee receives critical feedback from someone they trust, they are more likely to accept that the person delivering the feedback has their best interests at heart, has confidence in their abilities and is acting in good faith.

Foster an incremental and flexible view of learning (aka growth mindset). Because learning and skill acquisition accumulate gradually, employees must be given many opportunities to practice, learn and respond to timely feedback in an iterative fashion. Focusing on strengths (and not deficits) leads to a more incremental, flexible view of learning, sometimes referred to as a growth mindset or dynamic intelligence. When people embrace a growth mindset, they are more willing to put in the time and effort necessary to learn and improve, rather than seeing their capabilities as fixed and obstacles they encounter as insurmountable. Those with a growth mindset are more likely to be able to accept criticism or persevere with a difficult task. Why? Because they view these moments as learning opportunities. Making sure mistakes are encouraged however,, is a necessary foundation. If mistakes are seen as  failing, and criticism as an attack, learning is not likely to happen. 

Nurture employee’s sense of confidence, competence, and self-efficacy. In “Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us,” psychologist Daniel Pink writes that people are driven by “autonomy, mastery and purpose.” You can foster this drive by helping employees articulate and understand their skills, strengths and motivations, how they can be applied within their job, and recognize that others in the organization understand the employee’s value. To boost self-efficacy (one’s belief that they are capable of doing what is necessary to achieve a stated goal) the goals employees are working toward need to be challenging but also achievable with effort and support. People need to understand their progress and have multiple opportunities to improve. This can be achieved through progressively more difficult tasks and challenges, as well as breaking down tasks into more manageable components. Have discussions about potential and growth and build opportunities for employees to develop skills for the roles they’re in now, as well as those to which they aspire.  

Allow employees to experience the connection between effort and success. People learn best when they believe in their ability to grow and expect they will succeed. These expectations are influenced by prior experiences in similar contexts, seeing others (similar to themselves) succeed on a task and when success (and related praise) is attributed to a combination of ability and effort. To help employees make the connection between their work and results, sincerely praise effort and the processes or strategies used instead of focusing solely on outcomes. Doing so helps nurture perseverance, resilience and determination. 

Collaboratively establish clear, measurable, achievable short-term goals. Short-term goals provide opportunities for employees to make incremental progress and experience small wins. In the early days in particular, these wins can boost motivation, confidence, trust, engagement in work and overall happiness during the workday. Experiencing wins also supports the development of skills and mindsets that support an employee’s belief in themselves. Setting goals collaboratively (with leaders and managers contributing) is also beneficial. This approach gives managers greater insight into how to best leverage an employee’s strengths to help them reach their goals and beyond. Have discussions about potential and growth. Build opportunities for employees to develop skills for the roles they’re in now, as well as those to which they aspire.

Encourage employees to reflect on their growth. People learn best when they are able to plan, observe, evaluate, reflect on and adjust their own learning processes — in other words, develop their “metacognitive muscles.” Metacognitive skills (thinking about one’s own thinking) involve reflecting on one’s strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures and planning the best next steps. Encourage employees to monitor and reflect on strategies used to complete a task or project as well as their progress and performance. By not only looking back but looking forward, employees: 

• Become more aware of their own strengths and weaknesses with particular skills or in a given context.
• Can better plan what’s required to accomplish a specific learning goal or activity.
• Learn to open feedback channels to improve training effectiveness.
• Are able to identify and correct errors should they arise.
• Can determine the resources and support necessary for growth.

Metacognition is a powerful driver of learning. It’s critical, however, to keep in mind that for metacognitive skills to be learned and honed, employees must be clear on their roles, responsibilities and key goals they are expected to achieve within the organization.

Provide regular feedback about current progress, clearly articulate next steps and provide opportunities for continuous improvement. Managers should continually be talking with employees about their role and their performance, and giving timely, actionable feedback on progress focused on specific goals. These touchpoints are important for assuring new employees that they are on track, or letting them know if they are not, and providing clarity on how to close any gaps. These conversations also support a smooth transition into a new role by helping managers and employees get to know each other better and identifying roadblocks as quickly as possible. 

Employees are more likely to learn and grow when they receive specific feedback targeted at their development from someone they trust and are able to implement the feedback right away. As Kim Scott, author of “Radical Candor,” puts it: “Overall, effective feedback — based on caring personally while also challenging directly — shows us what to do more of and what to do less of.”

Setting employees up for success and growth within an organization is inherently complex and nuanced, more so than it may appear. The value of doing so, however, is high. In a world where companies desire to attract, advance and retain top talent, an emphasis on building a strong workplace learning culture based on the proven methods of learning science is an important value proposition. We suggest organizations:

• Align their training according to the best practices of learning science.
• Implement those solutions in varied real-life contexts and for a variety of people.
• Identify and explore the factors that can impede success as well as those that can increase success.

Developing and building skills is an ongoing process. Leaders can support this process by implementing the seven key strategies (shown together in the figure below). Doing so can help organizations nurture a strong learning culture grounded in trust, continuous learning and growth. 

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Personalization matters — now more than ever. Take marketing, for instance. It’s well known that as consumers, we want the market to know us, really know us; our preferences, needs and unique desires. Companies take great pains to demonstrate they understand and care about us. Likewise, the field of medicine has shifted toward a more personalized approach. Research findings no longer dictate a universal mode of care for every individual, and a patient’s genetic profile is frequently used to tailor therapies.

Similarly, personalization is now emerging in the learning and talent development space as leader development embraces a holistic approach — to meet each leader where they are. 

When development is tailored to an individual leader’s needs, they can transform in a holistic way — in body, mind, emotions and spirit. To serve that end, leader development experiences are becoming more personalized, holistic, multimodal and ubiquitous — all at the same time. And technology is enabling that shift to occur accessibly at scale.

We call it “Leadership 2.0.”

The oft-cited leadership development model of 70/20/10 has been around since the 1980s,  helping us to describe how leaders grow. Today, it’s all of that — and much more.

Intuitively, we know developing as a leader is not merely a technical exercise of acquiring new knowledge and skills. Leadership is a fundamentally human endeavor. And it’s complex. Each leader’s capacity to be effective is informed by the totality of who they are, including their history, skills, beliefs, stories, training, experiences, temperament, fears and aspirations. To grow as a leader requires nothing less than transformation from the inside out. That journey will be different for each person embarking on it, requiring a holistic and personalized approach.

We recently spoke with a leader who was being promoted to director for the first time. We’ll call her Liana. She’d been very successful as a manager. She knew her stuff. She could name the typical challenges of taking on this level of responsibility, such as leading people who had been her peers, becoming more strategic in her thinking and communications and championing her team. But what was unique for Liana was her introverted nature, which made managing the organization draining for her. Liana told us she was excited about the opportunity. And scared. She wanted a coach who could help her manage her energy as she found a way to be both inspiring and authentic as a leader. This is not a one-size-fits-all development path.

Many organizations will leave it to chance that their “Lianas” will figure it out. That may work. But with up to 60 percent of new managers failing, it’s a risk. Plus, trial and error can take a long time and cause suffering for leaders and their teams. Other organizations might offer training around the Top 10 Managerial Skills. Helpful, to be sure. But to truly to grow into a new role requires a transformation of sensemaking, self-awareness, habits and leadership presence.

An alternative is to bring a holistic approach to L&D, building skills and mindsets for a variety of environments and contexts, and equipping leaders with a whole-person experience. So, what would a holistic and personalized development approach look like for Liana, or any leader? It would meet them where they are by providing: 

• Personalization. Making space for each leader’s unique talent, mindset, ability to manage complexity, values, emotional intelligence, vision, social drivers and sense of purpose. 
• Individualized context. Identifying which needle is most critical to move in each leader’s context, thus creating personal buy-in for the hard work of personal change. 
• Connection. Having others on the learning journey — whether a coach, cohort peer, or team member — which deepens belonging, builds emotional intelligence and fosters a safe space and accountability for growth. 
• Experimentation. Turning day-to-day experiences, challenges and successes into a laboratory for learning over time. 
• Content. Providing just-in-time learning content that addresses specific real-time needs to learn in the flow of work. 

Envision your company’s holistic approach to development 

A holistic learning experience that creates an opportunity to connect, learn and grow in the context of the organization can incorporate numerous modalities. These elements can be blended in myriad of ways to support a whole-person approach to leadership development. The key is to design experiences that offer each individual the elements noted above. 

Possible elements of a holistic program are:

• One-on-one coaching. By definition, one-on-one individualized coaching is tailored to each leader’s unique needs. This highly personalized approach meets each leader where they are and creates the perfect confidential environment for a transformational experience that is holistic by its very nature. While it requires more of an investment than many other modalities, tech-enabled one-on-one coaching has become more accessible than ever, and its ROI has been proven over and over again. 
• Group coaching. Run by a coach or skilled facilitator, these more intimate group experiences turn the work over to the group. Facilitators share relevant content or challenges and allow the group to problem-solve, self-regulate and hold each other accountable. This modality deepens connection and nurtures a strong culture. It can be used for intact teams, or with same-level peers from different backgrounds and teams. 
• Mentoring. Facilitating the alignment of leaders with mentors in an intentional relationship can be instrumental to a leader’s growth. Mentors bring insights into the organizational context. They aren’t trained to evoke transformational experiences, but leaders feel seen and cared for, which builds confidence and a sense of wellbeing. 
• Assessments: Self-assessments or 360s help participants gain greater self-awareness around their strengths, blindspots and motivations. When debriefed by a skilled coach or facilitator, leaders are open to feedback and can identify the gaps between their intent and impact. The exercise can help them build the capacity to be vulnerable with others. When coupled with a coaching engagement or a peer group debrief, assessment data comes to life and can be powerfully actionable. 
• Large group learning sessions. Traditional group workshops can be effective at delivering content that builds a common language around competencies, skills and concepts that match the organization’s objectives and values. When intentionally designed to support leaders in applying the learning to their role and circumstances, and engaging learners in vulnerable conversations, practice and self-reflection, cohort sessions can be powerful tools for development.

In addition, there are a growing number of tech-enabled habit and practice modalities that can be offered like an a la carte menu to support unique development requests. These include: 

• Feedback loops. Engaging key stakeholders in targeted feedback to increase a leader’s self-awareness and build confidence in a new habit being practiced.
• Libraries of learning content. Learning content, like that provided by Harvard Manage Mentor or LinkedIn Learning, can provide a foundational awareness that supports self-learners.
• Simulations. Role-playing simulation programs support leaders who want to experiment with new behaviors, or practice a new skill.
• Artificial intelligence. Chatbots can be used for quick questions, role play, check-ins and even coaching sessions. AI can help leaders perform a calendar audit, innovate, improve presentations, communication and much more. 
• Nudges. Tech-generated reminders help leaders who are motivated by the gamification aspect of grooving new behaviors or building leadership habits. 

Technology enables L&D that is both personalized and scalable

Holistic leader development is a powerful approach to nurture leaders who will be engaged, loyal and drive the long-term success of your company. It’s worth investing in. And, for your carefully designed programs to have organizationwide impact, you’ll want them to be scalable across the many levels of leadership. Fortunately, just as we’ve seen with marketing and medicine, technology is now leveling the playing field for leaders as well, making personalized growth available to your organization at scale.

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Koma Gandy, vice president of leadership and business at Skillsoft, discusses the pivotal role of artificial intelligence in learning and development, and the critical role learning leaders play in highlighting the ways that generative AI can empower individuals as they embark on their own learning journeys.

Gandy also emphasizes the importance of multi-modal learning, particularly in diverse workplaces, in order to ensure the success of the organization in a rapidly evolving business landscape.

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Becoming a skills-based organization, like any major corporate strategy shift, is a journey. Accenture has been on this challenging, rewarding journey for nearly a decade. Investing in skills as our common currency has transformed our responsiveness to business needs as well as evolving talent aspirations. Being skills-driven also helps us achieve our talent strategy: To access and create talent and unlock people’s potential, for example by hiring for skills and potential vs. university degrees, to expand our talent pool. 

Our journey began in earnest in 2014, when we needed to rapidly build specialization in new, emerging areas to achieve our goal of becoming the leading digital services provider. We developed a new taxonomy and digital library of 8,000-plus skills reflecting dynamic business needs and labor markets, creating a single source of truth on skills to use across the entire enterprise. Then, we built proprietary algorithms to calculate skills and proficiencies, including “proximity” skills — similar skills obtainable with relatively minimal skilling.

Within 12 months, algorithms generated skill assessments that our people validated as more than 93 percent accurate. This machine-inferred, human-confirmed data was better, more reliable and available in real-time, to ensure right skills, right place, right time and the foundation to become a skills-based company. The data and insights from that platform and others that followed are game changers.

Skills-driven organization: 

An integrated network of human + technology systems where skills are the currency and skill-based practices unlock opportunities for all while maximizing talent potential for the organization.

Today, we continue to use algorithms to assess both project needs and career prospects, assisting with staffing assignments, role opportunities and more. Our people can acquire skills based on their work experience and through certifications and learning opportunities; in turn, their skills data enables us to flexibly respond to shifting client needs while also recommending skill-specific training and opportunities that align with an individual’s interests. This approach exemplifies how the right technology and agreement on priorities can enable HR to seamlessly partner with the business and deliver true strategic impact.

Applying the science of learning to work 

Emerging technology has always prompted us to think differently about skilling at scale, and change is only going to happen faster as the transformative power of artificial intelligence and generative AI continues to unfold. According to recent Accenture research, “A new era of generative AI for everyone,” 40 percent of working hours across all industries can be impacted by large language models like ChatGPT, through augmentation and automation. 

We were already shifting our skilling focus before ChatGPT’s arrival in November 2022: To the flow of work, using the science of learning. Though we can never truly be future-proof, we can be more ready by applying what we’ve learned from years of investment in understanding neuroscience, behavioral psychology, social physics, and more, and how they impact learning outcomes. Based on these insights, we have created models and techniques to make learning more efficient and effective.  

To help improve our formal learning, eight “Durable Learning Principles” guide course design so learning lasts, by being Relevant, Engaging, Contextual, Effortful, Generative, Social, Spaced and — critically important — involving Practice. We also enhance our people’s ability to gain and retain knowledge with “Learn to Learn” resources that teach individuals the science behind, and optimization of, intake, encoding and retrieving information. These tips became our popular Brain Hacks video series.

Work Learn Fusion

Now, we are systematically applying the science of learning not just to learning, but also to work, striving to build relevant skills better and faster through what we call “Work Learn Fusion”: increasing learning application within formal training, and reimagining how work can maximize learning and performance every day. This is essential to serving our clients, and to enabling our people to grow vibrant careers.

First, we’re shifting the overall focus of our learning solutions from objectives to be learned to tasks to be performed. That focus helps keep skills and job performance — and not just knowledge — front and center. Second, we’re integrating six elements that we know enhance lasting learning through application into formal learning and the flow of work: Reflection, On-the-job, coaching and mentoring, social learning, performance support and micro-learning (see details in Figure 1).

Third, we are focusing on helping people take advantage of every opportunity to intentionally learn as they work, a critical mindset shift that can significantly increase learning speed and retention, supported by technology enhancements making it easier than ever to find the learning our people need, when they need it. 

Finally — and this was not obvious to us at the outset — we are raising the focus on the qualities of people leadership to include building learners and a learning culture and making it a strategic priority. This is the most significant lever to closing skills gaps. 

One last thought

Becoming truly skills-driven involves so many moving parts — taxonomy, tools, integration, adoption — that it can be easy to get lost in the mechanics. That’s why it’s essential to clearly understand the business problems you most need to solve through a skills-based approach. Defining a strong vision and strategy informed by this understanding, coupled with an uncompromising commitment to a learning culture, helps realize true value from skills and skills data as a powerful enabler of business and talent.

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In the rapidly evolving business landscape, the role of the chief learning officer has undergone a significant transformation. No longer confined to managing training programs leading learning and development teams, today’s CLOs are integral to broader talent management strategies that drive organizational success. 

Let’s delve into the expanded role of the CLO and how it intersects with talent management.

From training manager to strategic partner

In the past, the primary responsibility of a CLO was to oversee and administer L&D programs within an organization. Their tasks were primarily centered around curriculum development, program delivery and ensuring that employees acquired necessary skills and knowledge. The CLO’s function was often viewed as somewhat operational, focusing on the day-to-day execution of learning initiatives.

However, the evolving business landscape has significantly transformed this role. Today’s organizations are confronted with numerous challenges — from rapidly changing technologies to shifting demographics in the workplace. In this dynamic environment, the role of the CLO has expanded and evolved to become more strategic and integral to the organization’s success.

CLOs are no longer just managers of training programs and learning teams, they are now seen as strategic partners who contribute significantly to an organization’s overall vision and objectives. They are expected to have a deep understanding of the business, industry trends and the broader macroeconomic environment. They need to align L&D efforts with the organization’s strategic goals, ensuring that employee development supports business growth and competitiveness.

The modern CLO is now tasked with developing comprehensive talent management strategies. This involves a holistic approach to managing people and includes everything from talent acquisition and performance management to succession planning and leadership development. The goal is not just to enhance employee skills, but also to drive engagement and retention. CLOs are expected to create a culture of learning within the organization where continuous skill development is encouraged, recognized and rewarded.

Aligning learning with business goals

A crucial aspect of the CLOs evolved responsibilities involves aligning learning initiatives with the broader business objectives of the organization. This alignment is not a mere correlation. It’s a strategic integration where learning initiatives are designed to directly contribute to the achievement of business goals.

To effectively perform this role, CLOs need a deep, comprehensive understanding of their organization’s strategic objectives. They must be aware of the company’s vision, mission and long-term goals to ensure the learning initiatives are not developed in isolation, but are intricately linked with these objectives. Whether the goal is to increase market share, enhance customer satisfaction or improve operational efficiency, the CLO needs to understand these targets and how learning can contribute to achieving them.

Translating these strategic objectives into relevant learning programs is a complex process that requires expertise and creativity. It involves designing programs that not only equip employees with the necessary skills, but also instil in them an understanding of the larger business context. For instance, if a company’s strategic objective is to drive innovation, the CLO and her team might develop programs that foster critical thinking, encourage creative problem-solving and create a culture of experimentation and risk-taking.

Ensuring that learning programs support key business goals is not a one-time task, but an ongoing process. The CLO needs to continuously monitor and assess the effectiveness of these programs in achieving their intended outcomes. They should use metrics and analytics to measure the impact of learning initiatives on business performance, making necessary adjustments to ensure alignment with evolving business goals.

The CLO’s role in talent management

The CLOr’s role in talent management is significant and multifaceted. As the person responsible for L&D within an organization, the CLO plays a crucial part in ensuring that the company’s talent has the skills, knowledge and abilities necessary to meet current and future business challenges.

Here are some key aspects of the CLO’s role in talent management:

• Talent development: The CLO oversees the design and implementation of learning programs aimed at developing the skills and competencies of employees. This includes everything from technical training to leadership development programs. The goal is to ensure that employees have the skills they need to perform their jobs effectively and contribute to the organization’s success.

• Succession planning: CLOs play a crucial role in identifying potential future leaders within the organization and preparing them for higher-level roles. This involves creating targeted development programs that help these high-potential employees build the skills they’ll need to succeed in leadership positions.

• Performance management: The CLO is often involved in developing strategies and tools for assessing employee performance. These assessment tools can help identify skill gaps that can then be addressed through targeted training and development initiatives.

• Talent retention: By creating a culture of learning within the organization, the CLO can help improve employee engagement and retention. Employees who feel that their employer is invested in their professional growth are more likely to stay with the organization.

• Strategic alignment: Perhaps most importantly, the CLO ensures that all talent management initiatives are aligned with the organization’s strategic objectives. This means L&D programs are designed not just to improve individual performance, but to drive the organization’s overall success.

• Driving employee engagement and retention: CLOs play a crucial role in driving employee engagement and retention through effective talent management strategies. This involves creating a culture of continuous learning, fostering career development opportunities, and recognizing and rewarding employee achievements. By doing so, CLOs can help attract and retain top talent, thereby enhancing organizational competitiveness.

• Promoting diversity, equity inclusion and belonging: Promoting diversity and inclusion is another critical area where CLOs can make a significant impact. This involves developing inclusive learning programs, promoting diverse leadership, and creating a culture that values and respects differences. By championing diversity and inclusion, CLOs can help foster a more inclusive and innovative workforce.

In essence, the CLO’s role in talent management is about ensuring that the organization’s most valuable resource — its people — are equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to drive business success.

Today’s CLOs are strategic partners, critical to shaping and implementing effective talent management strategies. By aligning learning with business goals, driving employee engagement and retention, leveraging data and analytics and promoting diversity and inclusion, CLOs can contribute significantly to organizational success. Embracing this expanded role is not just an opportunity for CLOs to enhance their impact, but also a necessity in today’s dynamic and competitive business environment. 

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If you spend any time online, you’d think that all Gen Zers were on TikTok or Reddit sharing how they either quit an “unjust” company or got fired for “being themselves.”

According to a recent survey by ResumeBuilder.com, nearly 75 percent of leaders find it hard to work with young adults, and 65 percent find themselves firing them due to their lack of motivation or effort, and for being easily offended. As a chief learning officer, you have an opportunity to help change the narrative for your Gen Z workforce by focusing your training on resilience,  which can increase engagement, wellbeing and retention.  

Resilience is like a muscle.  It can be strengthened if enough attention is put towards developing it. To build resilience, the American Psychological Association recommends focusing on these four areas: connection, wellness, healthy thinking and finding meaning. Health care serves as a great example of how training on resilience in these areas can make a real difference. Hospital workers have successfully demonstrated how to overcome tough situations due to the recent pandemic. Perhaps they can also teach us how to work with our youngest and most vulnerable workers. 

Connection 

Gen Zers were raised during the era of social media. Unhealthy use of social media has been proven to increase social anxiety and impair social skills. Focusing on connection and healthy relationships increases resilience by offering support. Connections allow for staff to cultivate trust and provide an outlet to discuss frustrations on the job. To build connections, consider offering team-building opportunities and a mentoring program. For example, in health care, nursing units with recent graduates are notorious for bullying and gossiping. Providing team building has helped them work together to solve problems and build trust despite their differences. Nurse educators can also step in as mentors and role models, allowing new nurses to have a healthy outlet to express their frustrations while providing much needed advice and modeling.

Wellness

What’s the opposite of resilience? Burnout — the act of giving up because of exhaustion. How do you combat burnout? By focusing on wellness. Wellness is a holistic term that includes physical, mental, emotional and even spiritual health. To focus on wellness means taking care of yourself and finding equilibrium between work and rest. Hosting training on mindfulness and decompression techniques has reportedly helped health care workers increase their wellness. Mindfulness means to slow down, reflect on the present moment and calmly acknowledge one’s feelings and attitudes to give an appropriate response to a trigger. Decompression means enjoying personal time while not worrying about work, such as providing nurses with mindful moments in the chapel and private rooms with massage chairs to help address wellness concerns. 

Healthy thinking

Healthy thinking includes flexible thinking, perspective-taking, realistic expectations and hopefulness. A healthy way of thinking starts with knowing your worth and how to deal with challenges in an effective way if and when something goes wrong. Hospitals, for instance, have a lot of policies to maintain high reliability in a high-risk environment. What this allows is for workers to know what is expected of them and how to respond to stressful circumstances. Similarly, training with emphasis on boundaries and grievance policies can help Gen Zers know their value and when necessary, use appropriate tools to address concerns in a constructive and fair manner. Training in these areas helps to maintain an optimistic outlook when dealing with a difficult situation.

Finding meaning

Young workers are very values-driven. Finding meaning helps one stay focused and motivated. Health care, for example, draws on individuals who share the “why” of wanting to help others and offers continuous opportunities to develop new skills to achieve this “why.” As an organization, it’s important to know the purpose or the “why” behind the work in order to cast a compelling vision. Likewise, Gen Zers need to be trained in discovering their “why” and then be supported with investments in their development toward their goals. By investing in their training, leaders can help these young direct reports stay focused and build confidence through competence.

The fact is, we need Gen Z workers. As a CLO, you know there is a war on talent that must be won if your organization is going to thrive into the future. The baby boomer generation is retiring at alarming rates and you, no doubt, have started to see the risks involved in not taking action. The strategy to help these young adults build resilience and avoid losing their jobs on preventable offenses is within your reach.

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Group learning has long been recognized as an effective approach to learning and talent development. However, many organizations underestimate its true power in fostering relationships, collaboration, culture and inclusion in the workplace. Group learning can break down long-standing silos, drive culture change, build critical skills and leverage diverse perspectives in decision-making. By tapping into our inherent need for human connection and a sense of community at work, learning in a group environment can yield remarkable results.

Human beings are social creatures by nature. We thrive on connections and the feeling of belonging to a community. In the workplace, fostering an environment where employees feel connected and included is vital for productivity, innovation and overall job satisfaction. The shift to hybrid work has made it harder to bring employees together and create that sense of community, but group learning offers a powerful tool to tap into these innate needs. It serves as a platform where individuals can come together, and share their knowledge and experiences while developing a deeper understanding of themselves and greater trust with their colleagues.

Group learning offers a number of benefits. First, it can provide the catalyst for culture change. As a case in point, one of our clients wanted to transition from a top-down “command-and-control” culture to a collaborative, servant-based leadership approach. The organization used group coaching sessions to develop the new culture by helping leaders identify mindsets and behaviors to stop, start and continue. Group coaching built trust across functions and silos and led to a deeper commitment to the new culture as leaders supported one another in making the transition. The top five levels of leadership participated in monthly group coaching sessions, while individual coaching was provided to each leader to help with specific challenges and application. Culture change takes time, but group learning can accelerate the shift and improve the chances of success.

A second benefit of group learning is that it can help leaders develop critical skills to navigate the changing business environment. Another client, a national manufacturing company, used group learning to help leaders develop and refine their leadership skills in response to a changing workforce. They implemented a curriculum-based group coaching program, addressing various leadership gaps. Monthly group sessions, complemented by individual coaching, were conducted across functions and locations. Leaders discussed challenges they faced, shared best practices, and reflected on specific changes they needed to make to demonstrate new skills and behaviors. The pilot’s success prompted program expansion to multiple cohorts within the initial division and several hundred leaders in a second division. The program not only provided valuable learning opportunities, but also fostered relationships and networks that will continue to support these leaders long after program completion.

A third benefit of group learning is that it can create connection among employees in a hybrid work environment, leading to a more cohesive work culture. Organizations have embraced hybrid work because it can provide better work-life balance, reduce the risk of burnout and improve productivity. But there are tradeoffs. In many companies, hybrid and remote employees feel isolated and lack a sense of belonging to the organization. Hybrid work requires a new set of skills to communicate and collaborate effectively. At another client organization, group coaching served as a powerful tool that bridged geographical gaps, enhanced teamwork and fostered a sense of community among its completely remote workforce.

To maximize the effectiveness of group learning, organizations should consider a few key principles. First, senior leadership support is essential to ensuring participants fully engage in the program. In many cases, senior leadership participated as their own cohort so they could speak with authenticity about the power of group learning. Next, it is important to create a psychologically safe environment where participants feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas without fear of judgment. Making a firm commitment to confidentiality within the group and utilizing a coach skilled in group dynamics can go a long way toward creating psychological safety. Finally, organizations should encourage ongoing learning and support mechanisms to sustain the benefits of group learning over time.

Group learning is a powerful tool for organizations seeking to build relationships, collaboration, culture and inclusion in the workplace. Perhaps the greatest benefit of all is that it is a cost-effective way to not only prompt change, but to also accelerate it. Bringing people together and creating shared experiences taps into our innate need for connection and brings about greater engagement, fulfillment and productivity at work.

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In the face of critical skill gaps, talent scarcity and digital disruption, the demand for new and improved skills has led to an increased focus on upskilling of current talent. According to McKinsey and Company, 87 percent of business organizations are currently suffering significant skill gaps, while research from the National Skills Coalition says one-third of today’s workers lack the foundational digital skills needed for the future. 

To meet these challenges, leaders must pick up the pace and get more intentional about upskilling their workforce. Upskilling current talent is more cost-effective than hiring new employees and makes it easier to attract and retain talent. For example, an overwhelming number of employees say upskilling opportunities can increase their job satisfaction and the overall likelihood that they’ll stay with an organization. Tech professionals in particular cite a lack of mobility and skill development as a primary reason for leaving an organization. 

While most organizations recognize the importance of upskilling, many leaders fall short by relegating development responsibilities to HR or L&D.

Here are five key actions leaders can take to step up, ramp up and ensure the success of upskilling efforts. 

Identify the skills needed for your organization to thrive. Leaders should consult with stakeholders across the organization and think together critically about what skills are becoming outdated, what skills are in short supply and what skills will be needed to move the business forward. As part of a future-fit agenda, financial leader HSBC used a workforce intelligence solution to identify current skills and understand where they needed to strengthen capabilities. Hamish Nesbit, group head of resourcing, says this effort provided “a stronger platform to think about increasing our internal mobility, which in turn retains our global corporate knowledge and builds employee engagement.”

Not sure where to start? Increasing employees’ general digital literacy is generally considered necessary groundwork for more advanced skills-building. For instance, research from the National Skills Coalition says about 92 percent of today’s jobs across every industry require digital skills, and one-third of workers don’t have the foundational digital skills necessary to enter and thrive in those jobs.  

Invest time and money for development. Upskilling initiatives require financial investment, whether through tuition reimbursement, paying for certifications or paying someone to simply learn on the job. As an example, the leadership team at Seagate invested more in strategic workforce planning, mentoring and succession planning to strengthen internal, future-ready skill sets and avoid layoffs during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Patricia Frost, chief human resources officer, says: “We decided to grow new operations from within.” As a result, the company was able to fill 30 percent of their full-time roles internally. In addition, the investment paid off by saving $13 million from reduced external hiring costs and saving $20 million from minimized termination costs. 

A time investment from leaders is also a critical success factor since mentorship programs and leadership training are integral to most effective upskilling programs. Consider Singapore-based financial institution DBS, known in some global circles as the “World’s Best Bank.” As part of its commitment to build the long-term career of its people, each of its more than 10,000 upskilling programs has a business sponsor who provides direct access to participants. Today, one out of four vacancies in the bank are filled internally due to its strategic people agenda and distinctive leadership culture.

Prioritize continuous learning. Leaders must create an environment that celebrates learning and links learning to opportunity. To that end, leaders across all levels should actively demonstrate a commitment to their own continuous learning and development and make learning conversations part of their everyday work. Since employees frequently complain that managers do not allow enough time for learning, companies like Allstate supplement managers’ performance measures to include “time to learn.”

Effective upskilling solutions also integrate skills taxonomy and skill practice into existing workflows. To promote employee engagement and buy-in, provide collaborative, social learning networks and the use of newfound abilities in real-world settings. Unilever utilizes an AI-enabled talent marketplace, known as FLEX experiences, to automatically connect workers with training, mentorships and projects that align with personal and organizational goals. 

Ensure equitable, easy access to upskilling opportunities. Research from Gallup shows that many upskilling opportunities are disproportionately offered to the highest-skilled workers while many of those who express the greatest desire to learn are the least likely to have participated in opportunities. For instance, 54 percent of employees in computer and mathematical-related occupations participated in an employer-provided upskilling program compared to 19 percent in transportation or moving services. This suggests many upskilling programs are, in effect, “skilling the skilled” rather than being offered to those who would benefit most from developing new skills and advancing their careers.

When considering inclusive access, keep in mind that minorities, women, younger workers, and workers with lower education or income were most affected by job losses during the pandemic. For those groups, upskilling is essential to preventing further job erosion and helping with reentry into a digital workplace. 

Measure progress and collect continuous feedback. Part of any good upskilling strategy includes a continuous feedback loop so that leaders can determine if their programs and processes are effective. While measuring the precise payoff of upskilling can be challenging, performance indicators like employees’ productivity levels, satisfaction and retention rates, and successful application of newly acquired skills can be used as metrics. 

In general, use tracking systems to answer such questions as: 

• Are employees taking advantage of opportunities?
• How much utilization happens across the organization? 
• Do employees view upskilling resources as relevant? 
• Are skills gaps closing because of the participation in upskilling opportunities? 
• How are newly acquired skills impacting the business?

Final thoughts

The skills shortage doesn’t show any signs of easing up. It could take decades for today’s employees to be ready for the future if the current pace of upskilling doesn’t pick up. Practices promoting a renewable, upskilled workforce enable employees to successfully redeploy to new roles and help businesses increase productivity, improve morale, lower hiring costs and enhance their brand reputation. While upskilling is no quick fix for closing skill gaps, now is the time for leaders to double down and tip the scale toward a more future-proofed talent pipeline. Harness the power of upskilling in your organization — heed the call and start putting these five actions into place.

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For knowledge workers everywhere, the nature of work is shifting fast. Digital transformation has been impacting some roles for years, but automation powered by artificial intelligence is dramatically accelerating the rate of change across industries.

One app in particular, the generative AI tool ChatGPT, was adopted practically overnight by professionals in a range of roles. In fact, it’s one of the fastest-spreading apps of all time, racking up one million users in just five days. In contrast, it took Spotify five months and Facebook 10 months to reach their millionth-user milestones. When it comes to AI, we’re talking blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed of change.

Everyone seems to be using generative AI these days, from copywriters and software coders to data analysts, doctors and CEOs. Less than six months after ChatGPT launched, TalentLMS conducted a survey of 1,000 corporate employees and found 70 percent of them had already used the app at work. 

For good reason, too: More than half of respondents said AI made them more productive by substantially reducing time spent performing daily tasks. ChatGPT was initially employed for mundane to-dos like researching topics and drafting emails, but now it’s being used to build HTML pages. Other AI-enabled apps like Midjourney and DALL-E emerged to handle visually oriented tasks like creating illustrations or photo-realistic images for use in websites and presentations. 

Meanwhile, the algorithms of AI tools, particularly those powered by eerily clever large language models, keep adapting and advancing their capabilities. Like the star employee who’s eagerly embraced a growth mindset, AI is making the most of every learning opportunity it’s presented with as a chance to grow smarter and more proficient. It’s hard to predict exactly where it will take hold next, but it’s safe to assume AI will impact every job in one way or another, and much sooner than you think.

AI and automation are reshaping how we work

We are clearly entering a new era — one that will look a lot different than the era we just exited. According to LinkedIn, workplace skills have changed by 25 percent since 2015, but that number is expected to double by 2027. Put another way, half of the skills knowledge workers have today will be useless in less than five years. The world is evolving so quickly it’s difficult to gain a clear, confident picture of what the future will look like for our companies and our employees. Yet we, as learning and development professionals, still must make our teams future-ready, without knowing exactly what tomorrow will bring. 

What skills should we invest in building next? Digital fluency is certainly a competency every employee needs if they are to work well with AI-enabled tools. But as promising as AI is, it won’t be able to do everything humans can do, at least not immediately. As far back as 2018, McKinsey Global Institute declared that in the future demand will be high for “skills that machines aren’t good at doing: social and emotional skills, creativity and applying high levels of cognitive function and expertise.” Even now, LinkedIn’s “2023 Workplace Learning” report states emphatically that “human skills remain critically important.”

In conducting research for this article, I couldn’t resist asking an AI tool what humans can do that it can’t. It responded this way: “Humans can show empathy, intuition and creativity that AI cannot. AI can process and analyze large amounts of data but cannot think outside the box or come up with creative solutions. Communication is a uniquely human skill because it requires an understanding and appreciation of language, context, and emotion. Additionally, communication requires empathy, the ability to understand and respond to other people’s emotions. This capacity gives humans the ability to express themselves, build relationships, and create a sense of community.”

Yes, AI has its strengths, and so do we. By working together, we can ready our organizations for the future.

Soft skills are needed to thrive today and tomorrow

While many routine tasks can be automated, our uniquely human skills are still needed to solve tough problems and collaborate with others to get work done (whatever that work may become). Think about the last particularly tough conversation you had at work. Would you have trusted an AI tool like ChatGPT to script that entire dialogue for you? Probably not, because you understand the situation and your audience more completely than any app could. As a result, you’re far better equipped to read subtle emotional cues, adapt how you communicate, and guide the dialogue toward a successful resolution. 

These same abilities are essential for transformation of any kind, including deploying technologies like AI. In its ”2023 Future of Jobs” report, the World Economic Forum stated that “soft skills are critical to companies being able to respond to change,” particularly cognitive and social skills. Disruption challenges people to imagine new possibilities and invent novel solutions to old problems, which takes a blend of analytical rigor and intuitive leaps. Getting those novel ideas adopted requires people to exert influence on others, by exercising a nuanced combination of empathetic listening and artful persuasion. 

To successfully ride this wave of change (and the one after it), leaders and their teams need three essential skills: creativity, communication and empathy.

No. 1: Human creativity gives ideas clarity and impact

The ability to think creatively can help people identify potential uses for AI technologies, but it’s also necessary for using the technology itself. While generative AI tools can produce text or images in seconds, the algorithm needs a “prompt” fed to it by a human that tells it what to represent. So, before you can use AI to communicate an idea, you first have to describe that idea in words an algorithm can understand. What’s more, that description has to ultimately generate text or images that other humans can understand. That takes analytical thinking and creativity, too. 

Creativity is equally necessary when making graphics using AI tools. In my own dabbles with apps like Midjourney, the quality of images it generates can best be explained by the programming principle of GIGO, which stands for “garbage in, garbage out.” When using Midjourney, you’re first presented with a text box that begins with the phrase “/imagine” followed by blank space where you type words about the concept you want the AI to visualize. If your thoughts about the concept aren’t precise and specific, the images you get back will be off the mark. It takes trial and error, a process that forces you to think about your idea from multiple angles until you hit on a phrase that truly gets it across. 

The same is true even when asking human designers to create visuals. Graphic designers at the presentation agency, Duarte, Inc., begin by asking their clients, “What do you want your audience to take away from this slide?” If they can’t explain it in one or two crisp sentences, the designer asks more questions that help the customer uncover the essence of their message and distill it into a clear statement. Once the idea is clearly stated, designers can easily riff on clever ways to express it visually. Creativity and communication also work together when you’re trying to articulate change and get people to embrace it.

No. 2: Human communication boosts productivity and cohesion

Effective communication is at the core of how high-performing teams get things done. When individuals communicate well with each other, collaboration improves and barriers to success fall away. Beyond helping projects run more smoothly and efficiently, communication fosters an environment where everyone feels heard, understood and respected. However, technology can only go so far in helping individuals interact with each other.

The process of crafting communication deliverables, like writing articles or designing slides, can certainly be accelerated by AI-powered apps. Until robots replace us entirely, important discussions and decisions will still take place person-to-person. Whether through an email or chat exchange, a casual conversation, group meetings or formal presentations, influence is an art best left to humans. Sure, you could rehearse for an important talk using the Speaker Coach feature in Microsoft PowerPoint online, which will flag every “um” or “you know” or warn when your pace is too fast. But if a speaker doesn’t have a good command of public speaking skills to begin with, they’ll come off looking and sounding robotic. Ironic, isn’t it?

Connecting with and relating to others is one of the basic building blocks of influence. Robert Cialdini’s research on persuasion found that when individuals share a common interest or bond with another person, it increases likability and influence. Finding common ground with an audience requires human skills like self-awareness as well as emotional intelligence. A speaker must know themselves well enough to identify a relevant shared experience, then be willing to get vulnerable by talking about that experience in an emotionally appropriate way. Sharing experiences in the form of a story is an especially powerful method for building connections within teams and creating a deeper sense of belonging and purpose. But to truly move people takes the most human skill of all: empathy.  

No. 3: Human empathy makes work satisfying and meaningful

In the pantheon of so-called “soft” skills, empathy could seem like the hardest one to quantify. Yet it has been proven to deliver substantial business benefits. A study by EY Consulting found that practicing empathy in the workplace increases efficiency, creativity, satisfaction, innovation — and revenue. It’s doubly important to exercise empathy in times of change like we’re all in now. As Kim Billeter of EY put it: “In order for businesses to successfully transform, they must put humans at the center with empathetic leadership to create transparency and provide employees with psychological safety.” 

Most people define empathy as the ability to “walk in another person’s shoes.” That definition isn’t wrong, but it’s not precise. I prefer the term “perspective-taking.” When you attempt to “take on the perspective” of another person, you not only imagine yourself in their position, but you learn how to see the world through their lens. In the process, you come to a deeper understanding of not only what they might be thinking and feeling, but also why they hold that perspective. With that newfound insight, you can make different choices about what to say and how to say it. Imagine how collaboration between teammates, or between leaders and their teams, would shift if each person truly took on the perspective of the other and used it to adapt how they communicate.

Beyond social benefits, research shows that perspective-taking can dislodge routine thinking and unlock the mind’s ability to imagine. Researchers at the Wharton Neuroscience Institute discovered that when people attempt to consider another perspective, two functions of the brain are engaged: “mentalizing” and “exploring” networks. Consider, for instance, that you’re driving down the road when another car suddenly cuts you off. While fuming about their rudeness, you start to wonder what could possibly have led that driver to do something so careless. The mentalizing part of your brain thinks about the driver and what their state of mind might be, while the exploring part begins to invent a story about the driver’s situation. Perhaps they’re late for an important meeting with the boss or just got a call from school that their child was hurt on the playground. Maybe you even start to feel sorry for the other driver and worry about their safety more than yours (hi there, fellow empath!). 

The same function of your brain that considers the perspectives of other people can help you think more creatively about a lot of things. All those creative possibilities could spring from the simple act of empathizing with your audience. Imagine, indeed.

Embrace human potential to power growth and agility

Creativity, communication and empathy form a foundation of “power” skills that are essential for the future. Embedding these skills in your culture will make entire teams stronger contributors who are better able to adapt to new technologies like AI. These skills can be developed through training, but skill-building at this scale takes effort and time because change is a journey in itself.

Ironically, this means learning and development professionals must also master the same skills our teams need to succeed. But with the right training, resources and support, everyone can grow their capabilities, overcome obstacles and emerge transformed. When you help your teams and organization build the human skills they need to cope with change and excel in the midst of it, you’ll be unstoppable.

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The past several years have been an ultramarathon for organizational leaders: They’ve led by example where none existed, and surmounted steep learning curves around remote work and an unpredictable economy. 

But the past several years have also delivered incredible growth. Technological advancement, though daunting, unlocks remarkable capabilities in the way of hiring practices, learning delivery and optimizing talent cycles. Likewise, access to advanced data analytics unlocks numerous advantages such as the ability to enhance employee performance assessments or cybersecurity programs. 

Today’s leaders face a unique playing field. They’re responsible for ensuring the growth and productivity of both organizations and employees. To succeed, they must lead with agility, compassion and careful commitment to flourishing talent through learning and development.

Acting with intention

Organizational leaders have to respond, act and plan with intention. 

In a recent summary of their 2023 “CEO Excellence Survey,” McKinsey explained that high-performing executives are finding “the true signal within a lot of noise,” taking advantage of high-impact trends to manufacture moments of opportunity and create forward momentum. 

Considering the large premium on technological skills, many leaders are making the most of the moment’s “digital disruption.” For example, according to the survey, companies can use ChatGPT and other emerging artificial intelligence platforms to tailor consumer-specific content and “leverage advanced analytics for competitive advantage.” When British beverage maker Diageo used geolocation data to target specific consumers, the company saw an impressive increase in ROI media spending. 

Operating with intention can also pay dividends with company culture and morale. Another critical component of heeding the “true signal” involves stepping out of the way to create meaningful connection. As the senior vice president of right management North America at ManpowerGroup, Karel van der Mandele makes an active effort to engage his employees. Like many leaders, he laments how remote work limits occasions for natural conversation. To compensate, van der Mandele jumps on any opportunity to initiate connection. “I always like to say, when you notice something, say something,” he says.

As Scott Blanchard, president and co-owner of leadership development training and consulting company Blanchard, puts it, “The best leaders have always been much more interested in building a deep relationship with their people; today, you’ve got to do those things on Zoom.”

“Most of the companies we’re working with are wanting their leaders to learn to lead people virtually more effectively,” Blanchard says. Given the high popularity of remote and hybrid work models, companies want to see their leaders “actually create a more inclusive environment within their micro-team.” 

Learning to lead online

Like riding a bike or tying your shoes, knowing how to meet the demands of a virtual team is now an indispensable skill in people leaders. 

Many leaders want to see employees back in the office, and to a certain extent, they can. Even Zoom — the company behind one of the largest platforms for remote work — announced its plans in early August for a “structured hybrid approach,” requiring local employees to enter the office at least two days a week. Talk about Zoom Gloom. 

Like Zoom, tech giants Amazon, Google and Salesforce have also imposed recent requirements for onsite work. Though the trending transition from fully remote to hybrid work marks a step in the right direction, virtual options will likely remain a staple in the workforce. 

“I think the genie is out of the bottle,” van der Mandele says; he too recognizes how virtual communication pales in comparison to the real deal, but he reckons video meetings and messaging platforms won’t be leaving the workplace any time soon. 

For one, many employees have grown accustomed to the increased comfort and flexibility that characterize the virtual workday. In May, over 1,000 Amazon employees participated in a companywide walkout to protest the company’s recent requirement for onsite work (among other frustrations).

“It is very important for leaders to understand how you actually lead in that hybrid environment,” van der Mandele says. At all levels, managers should feel comfortable leading geographically disparate teams and providing meaningful feedback. 

“There’s no substitute for good leadership, and leadership is personal,”  Blanchard says. “It’s getting to know your people, caring deeply about them, and learning from them.” Through small but meaningful exercises like asking questions about an employee’s personal life, leaders can present themselves as an approachable ally instead of an intimidating boss.  

Blanchard says the new reality of remote and hybrid work requires that managers be “much more sensitive, much more alert, much more aligned, much more responsive to what’s happening today than they maybe were just five or six years ago.” 

Bearing in mind the importance of intentional action, today’s leaders need to maintain ongoing and authentic communication with their employees. Organizational leaders and management teams are now responsible for bridging communication gaps, and hosting one-off meetings or delegating tasks without continued support just won’t cut it. 

Managing expectations

In an article examining how quality managers can enhance employee performance, Gallup reports that positive conversations can move mountains — so much so that 70 percent of the variance in team engagement relies on the manager. 

With that in mind, companies need to keep a strong roster of managers at every level in order to drive employee engagement and satisfaction. 

“The key to creating a great organization is to catch people doing things right,” says the company’s founder, Ken Blanchard. Healthy channels of communication and compassion are a hallmark at Blanchard. The company prioritizes building collaboration and trust between leaders and their teams — both internally and by way of leadership development training.

Blanchard teaches and utilizes a method called “servant leadership.” According to Ken Blanchard, the concept comes in two parts. First, leaders must articulate the relevant “vision, direction, values and goals” in a comprehensible manner. The mission is not to intimidate the staff or bury them in orders, but ensure that they understand what’s expected of them and have the appropriate tools to proceed. 

Next, practitioners of servant leadership should make conscious efforts to level with their employees and “invert the pyramid,” says founder Ken Blanchard. Within this framework, the leader’s job is to work with employees, helping them to accomplish their goals and develop as individuals.

The “Great Resignation” marked an inflection point. This mass departure from the workforce — over the course of which millions either left their jobs or exited the workforce entirely — is still a considerable cause for apprehension. The stakes are high: In late 2023 and early 2024, an even greater number of employees say they plan on quitting, making it imperative that companies put their all into increasing employee satisfaction. 

With a tight labor market and concerns over employee retention placing strain on the talent acquisition process, organizational leaders need to ensure they are fostering the best possible employee experience. 

To begin, employees need organizational leaders they can trust and confide in. By reinforcing the idea that they have their employees’ goals and best interests in mind, leaders can improve the nature of both their individual partnerships and the team’s collaboration as a whole.  

Another outcome of the Great Resignation, Scott Blanchard explains, is the shortage of senior-level leaders. As such, a lot of companies are concerned about developing the next level of senior leaders; the trend is as much a source of stress for executives as it is an impetus to strengthen their companies’ commitment to employee well-being and L&D opportunities by making sure the best possible candidates get the best possible learning opportunities.  

Scott Blanchard explains that part of appealing to prospective employees involves showing them a safe, equitable and positive work environment. Along with empathy, people want leaders who promote and embody diversity.

Boosting engagement through L&D

Of course, hiring talent is only half the battle. To bolster employee engagement and retention, it’s imperative organizational leaders provide continued support through L&D programs that support individual advancement.

For van der Mandele, creating that sense of belonging and purpose begins with comprehensive onboarding and flourishes through career planning, which he believes “has to be an intentional process” within the talent cycle. 

To begin, van der Mandele believes proper instruction for leading remote and hybrid teams is an essential component of leadership development. And in combination with the proper learning plans, companies should make use of assessment data to ensure they’re matching the right talent to the right jobs. 

In order for companies to make the most of that assessment data and leadership development programs, those initiatives should operate at a “central level” to ensure consistency. To this end, companies should eliminate any discrepancies around assessments standards or action plans across individual divisions, and “really make sure that you run it as one,” said van der Mandele.

Using assessment data, companies can optimize the efficacy of their hiring practices, and continue evaluating employees’ performances as they progress into the role. At the same time, these development programs should work in tandem with career development programs. 

Often, van der Mandele will find that companies only facilitate one centralized corporate leadership development program, then delegate talent decisions to their outer business units. And that defeats the purpose. 

“The whole point is that you’re investing a lot in your leadership development program, in order for that talent to rise to the leadership level,” van der Mandele says. “If you’re not managing the career development paths for that talent to actually reach those levels, then that investment in your leadership development program is hard to justify.”

Staying ahead of the stress

A Harvard Business Review article identifies six broad factors contributing to executive burnout—“having an unsustainable workload, a perceived lack of control, insufficient rewards for effort, a lack of a supportive community, a lack of fairness, and mismatched values and skills” — each highlighting the importance of equipping leaders and managers with the necessary tools for protecting their mental health and mentality. 

For Scott and Ken Blanchard, the most important elements to keep in mind are mindset and skill set — that is, your understanding of what it means to lead, and your ability to engage a spectrum of emotionally loaded conversations. Leaders should aim to foster a partnership with their team members, and remember that negative outcomes are not a personal failure. 

To echo Ken Blanchard, “one plus one is a lot greater than two.”

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The advent of artificial intelligence is an extraordinary, fascinating and challenging time for the learning and development industry. In order for a business to be sustainable, empowered employees must continually grow their technical hard and soft skills. 

As AI dismantles the hierarchical structure and places accessibility, opportunities, scrutiny and decisions throughout the organization, the role of L&D must expand its toolkit to promote and advance leadership skills at all organizational levels as a foundation for integrating soft and hard skills and enabling employee empowerment. Traditional hierarchical structures will no longer meet organizational needs and will provide a gap through which artificial intelligence may embody negatives such as unethical, biased and discriminatory results. 

Throughout all this, chief learning officers play an especially critical L&D role in developing the new organizational environment and culture to thrive in the new era of digital transformative AI. However, AI ethicality and humanism will depend on solid leadership attributes at every level throughout the organization.

The modern workplace’s emphasis on soft skills will drive the empowerment of individuals within the organization. Recognizing the critical role of soft skills brings us to the theory of servant leadership as the foundation for individual empowerment to develop and flourish. Let’s look at the new focus and changes L&D can bring through servant leadership, teamwork, soft and hard skills and individual empowerment while embracing AI for its highest positive advantage and value. But first, a brief examination of the era of AI.

The Era of AI

The presence of AI has created a whole new world for the organization and for L&D within the organization. According to Cohen and Feigenbaum (2014), the theory of AI has been in development for many years, with its roots in 1956. McGettigen (2016) defines AI as machines with more than human-like intellectual capacities and a combination of computing technologies converging to enable rational decision-making in complex situations and contexts. Engineers have now created a device that can simulate human intelligence through the emergence of big data, cloud computing, artificial neural networks and machine learning. By integrating these technologies, these machines can perceive, recognize, learn, react and solve problems as AI. Personally, I believe intelligent technologies, as described here, will revolutionize future workplaces, are emerging as the next disruptive innovation, and are recognized by many as the fourth industrial revolution as described by Zhai, et al., (2021). 

AI can only work through processes from a vast amount of existing data. To operationalize AI, the first step is using big data, the second is applying analytics, and the third is prediction. Machine learning and deep learning are the prerequisites for developing AI applications, indicating the need for active leadership and scrutiny of data at all levels throughout the organization. Many of the risks presented by AI are understood to be the creation of social problems generated by biased data and algorithms that can sometimes cause harm. From this knowledge view, L&D must play a leadership role in operationalizing data scrutiny with servant leadership, teamwork, soft and hard skills and individual empowerment throughout the organization to minimize, if not eliminate, the inherent risks of AI. L&D may find the tools for this level of expansive and in-depth scrutiny in Servant Leadership, the formation of teams and the promotion and activation of individual empowerment.

Servant leadership For agility and empowerment 

“Servant leadership” was first introduced by Robert Greenleaf (2002), first published in the 1970s. Keep in mind that the title of “servant leadership” is used here merely to distinguish a type of leadership with characteristics in opposition to the hierarchical, authoritarian style of leadership used in many of today’s organizations. The identified essential characteristics of Servant Leadership, as introduced by Greenleaf, are love, humility, altruism, vision, trust, empowerment (of others), service, acceptance, compassion, concern for others, courage, dependability, self-discipline, empathy, honesty, integrity, justice, prudence, self-sacrifice, trustworthiness and wisdom. 

The title of CEO is not a prerequisite for becoming or performing as a servant leader. A manager can be a servant leader to direct reports, team members can act as servant leaders to their peers, and flourish within small task forces, committees, departments or divisions. With an emphasis on vision, they can empowers teams, divisions, and the entire organization around clear goals.

Servant leaders can create an organization’s culture as a winning strategy, creating a climate of inclusion, utilizing the critical principles of listening, action-oriented integrity, connecting, being open, serving and empowering others. As noted, servant leadership operates on the foundation of soft skills, tantamount to creating an environment and culture of equanimity, engagement and empowerment throughout the organization. It is clear that in this new AI era, employees at all levels must become knowledgeable and supported in understanding personal leadership attributes and capability through the L&D introduction of servant leadership skills, modeling and training for a comprehensive approach to ensuring safeguards against any possible harmful risks which may be inherent in AI. In addition to the emphasis on servant leadership, in the era of AI, increased emphasis must also be placed on cultivating collaborative teamwork, actualizing employee participation with soft and hard skills, and employee empowerment with a focus.

The demand for teamwork

Another one of the significant and dynamic shifts in an organizational structure during the pandemic has been the shift to a “super team” organization as a basic structure. There have been many shifts in organizational structures through the years, but they have remained in a somewhat basic hierarchical architecture. The super teams design is the first example of a focused, non-hierarchical shift from the age-old hierarchical structure. The formation of teams and teamwork within departments in organizations has been recognized since the 1980s as one of the avenues to obtain employee commitment, involvement and participation in innovation and production for sustainable organizational responsibility.

The era of the pandemic and post-pandemic workplace modifications provided an impetus for exploring and considering new types of work communication, organizational structure, and workflow, with the advent of AI increasing this emphasis. Some companies have moved the “team” concept to a new and higher level of company structure based on super teams. This genre of organization moves away from the traditional hierarchy of “divisions,” “departments” or “managers.” The change embraces a new structure of “teams” dedicated to organizational functions and projects with a rotating team leader who reports directly to the organization’s CEO. Each team and team member assumes equal direction, responsibility, and accountability for the team results of the function or project. An overview of the super team organizational structure follows with the definition, benefits and characteristics. 

Rajesh Padmanabhan (2021), CEO of Talavvy Labs, states, “A super team is defined by a mix of functional experts and generalists, strategists, executors, supporters and finishers as: a basket of cross-functional capabilities, with a common purpose and goal. ‘We’ is more important than ‘I’ in such self-directed work teams, and technology is a common denominator.”

To elaborate further, Padmanabhan states that the conversation has now reached the point where AI in particular, and technology in general, is no longer just an enabling solution but is a transformative potential for what is needed as a makeover of the very architecture of work itself. 

The benefits of a team-based organization include creating and implementing solutions that stem from in-depth collaboration among highly skilled, dedicated individuals. Unlike the traditional format that relies on one director, team members focus on the organizational goals and their specific function or project related to that goal. A clearly defined focus leads to open communication and innovation, resulting in better solutions and better business strategies. The distinguishing factors of high-performance work teams are their ability to function at a high level for extended periods, most efficiently and effectively possible. Teams of this type come in many shapes and sizes, and no team model suits every business. 

The L&D challenge is to promote digital agility and adaptability as a rule. Be proactive in the leadership for formation of teams, banishing hierarchies and following work rules only. Major characteristics of team-based organizations include trust, empowerment, goal setting, autonomy, team accountability and shared leadership. Examples of foundational characteristics of a high-performance super team are: diversity, clear goals and expectations, effective communication, trust, ownership of functions and projects, empowerment of team members and vision. Teams demonstrate the results from integration of soft and hard skills.

The integration of soft and hard skills

Just as the advent of AI has impacted the role of leadership by opening the window of equanimity throughout the organization, AI has also eliminated the great divide between the application of soft and hard skills within the workplace. 

AI has opened the window to review how soft and hard skills are interdependent, integrated and needed for positive, successful growth. The new landscape of growth and opportunity brings us to a new era of integrating soft and hard skills, creating overriding durable skills — leadership, communication, listening, creativity, collaboration, self-empowerment and adaptability — all identified in our recognition of servant leadership characteristics. Soft and hard skills are needed equally and interchangeably in our AI environment.

Conclusion

In a world perceived by many as disrupted by AI, there is an opportunity for expansion of the role of the CLO beyond the traditional scope of L&D to becoming a servant leader model and advocate for recognition and development of leadership capability and empowerment throughout the organization in every role and at every level throughout the organization.

The challenge for the CLO and L&D is to weave servant leadership and AI into a cohesive cultural fabric throughout the organization. CLOs and L&D can not achieve digital agility and adaptability throughout the organization without an explicit acceptance and transparency demonstrated in employee value through fostering servant leadership, innovation, collaborative teamwork and integration of soft and hard skills to prepare the workforce to effectively navigate and participate in the new reality of digital transformation, and any future iterations, utilizing servant leadership skills and empowerment for all. 

References

1. Bhattacharjee, M. (2021). How do Superteams function? Retrieved from https://www.hrkatha.com

2. Cohen, P. R., & Feigenbaum, E. A. (2014). The handbook of artificial intelligence. London: Butterworth-Heinemann.

3. Greenleaf, R. K. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power & greatness, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist.

4. McGettigen, T. (2016). Artificial Intelligence: Is Watson the real thing? (2016). Available in SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2826047 or https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2826047

5. Padmanabhan, R. (2021) Super teams. Retrieved from https://www.excoleadership.com/teams/rajesh-padmanabhan/6. Zhai, X., Chu, X., Chai, C. S., Jong, M. S. Y., Istenic, A., Spector, M., Liu, J-B., Yuan, J., & Li, Y. (2021). A review of artificial intelligence (AI) in Education from 2010 to 2020. Hindawi Complexity, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/8812542

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Chief Learning Officer is pleased to announce the 2023 Learning in Practice Award finalists! 

The awards were established in 2003 to recognize learning leaders who have demonstrated excellence in the design and delivery of employee development programs.

Finalists will be named gold, silver or bronze winners during CLO’s Learning in Practice Awards Ceremony on Monday, October 16, at the Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego. The ceremony (the first in-person celebration since 2019) is being held in conjunction with CLO’s Fall Symposium. 

Also during the LIP Awards Ceremony, CLO will announce its prestigious CLO of the Year Award winner.

We look forward to celebrating with you October 16 in San Diego!

Finalists are listed alphabetically by category:

THE BUSINESS IMPACT AWARD

Division 1:

• Heidi Baschnagel, Sr. Director, Learning & Talent Development, Interos
• James Craig, Learning Solutions Manager, Shell
• Wayne DeMarco, Corporate Vice President Learning & Development, New York Life Insurance
• Frank Kelley, Vice President, Defense Acquisition University (DAU)
• Eric Kenar, Manager Technician Environment and Service Technical College, General Motors
• Robert Willis, Pharmacist and Residency Director, Albertsons Companies
• Holly Wishnow, Executive Director, BNY Mellon

Division 2: 

• Kristin Brookins Costello, Chief People Officer, Blanchard
• Jay Fortuna, VP Learning & Organizational Development, GoHealth
• Amanda Fullbright, Senior Vice President, Learning and Performance Development, Blue Sprig Pediatrics
• Rachapol Lamee, Senior Manager, CV Learning and Development, E. & J. Gallo Winery
• Ben Spackensen, Senior Instructional Designer, Appen

THE BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP AWARD

Division 1:

• Anglo American
• General Motors
• Siemens
• Tractor Supply Company

Division 2: 

• AlixPartners
• Sidley Austin LLP
• Veeam

THE INNOVATION AWARD

Division 1:

• Christopher Hall, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Training and Development, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
• John Kusi-Mensah, Vice President, HR Distribution Academy & Services Lead, MetLife
• Alicia Sanchez, Director, Research and Innovation Center, Defense Acquisition University (DAU)

Division 2: 

• Mike Blanchette, Vice President, Global Sales Acceleration, Veeam
• Jay Fortuna, VP Learning & Organizational Development, GoHealth
• Sam Moat, Learning and Capability Solutions Lead, AlixPartners

THE STRATEGY AWARD

Division 1:

• Christopher Hall, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Training and Development, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
• Kristin Harrington, Senior Director – Brand Talent, Marriott International
• John Kusi-Mensah, Vice President, HR Distribution Academy & Services Lead, MetLife
• Daniela Proust, SVP, Head of Global Learning and Growth, Siemens
• Francis Tan, Vice President of Learning and Talent Development, MGM

Division 2: 

• Russell Fitzpatrick, Chief Learning Officer, The Vertex Companies, LLC
• Rachapol Lamee, Senior Manager, CV Learning and Development, E. & J. Gallo Winery
• Brian O’Neill, Leadership Development Advisor, AMH

THE TALENT MANAGEMENT AWARD

Division 1:

• Elena Dale, Director of Career Growth & Deployment, Marriott International
• Christopher Hall, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Training and Development, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
• Michelle Kay, Vice President, Learning, Albertsons Companies Inc.

Division 2: 

• Jay Fortuna, VP Learning & Organizational Development, GoHealth
• Sarah Stockton, VP, Talent & Learning, HealthEdge
• Jamie Tripp, Global Program Manager, Veeam

THE TECHNOLOGY AWARD

Division 1:

• Karen Butcher, Head of Global Sales L&D Transformation Office, Dell Technologies
• Ismail Hafidz Hashim, Senior Manager, Global Learning and Development, PETROLIAM Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS)
• John Kusi-Mensah, Vice President, HR Distribution Academy & Services Lead, MetLife
• Asmawati Sukaimi, Manager, Global Learning and Development, PETROLIAM Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS)

Division 2: 

• Jay Fortuna, VP Learning & Organizational Development, GoHealth

THE TRAILBLAZER AWARD

Division 1:

• Preethi Anand, Capability Transformation Leader, GBO, Diageo PLC
• Niza Adila Hamzah, Manager, Global Learning and Development, PETROLIAM Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS)
• John Souther, Executive Director, Digital Growth & Strategy, Carrier Global Corporation
• Marina Theodotou, Center Director, DAU Web Events, Defense Acquisition University (DAU)

Division 2: 

• Jay Fortuna, VP Learning & Organizational Development, GoHealth
• Rachapol Lamee, Senior Manager, CV Learning and Development, E. & J. Gallo Winery
• Brigett Potts, Senior Talent Development Manager, Fragomen LLP

EXCELLENCE IN ACADEMIC PARTNERSHIPS

• University of Phoenix

EXCELLENCE IN BLENDED LEARNING 

• Bluepoint Leadership
• Entelechy
• SweetRush
• TELUS International
• TrainingPros
• Vertex Professional Services

EXCELLENCE IN COMMUNITY SERVICE

• GP Strategies

EXCELLENCE IN CONTENT 

• Cognizant Digital Learning
• Harbinger Group
• Melbourne Business School

EXCELLENCE IN E-LEARNING 

• Enable Education
• Ingenuiti
• Melbourne Business School
• NovoEd
• Syneos Health Learning Solutions
• Vertex Professional Services
• WorkRamp

EXCELLENCE IN EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

• IMD International Institute for Management Development
• INSEAD
• NovoEd

EXCELLENCE IN PARTNERSHIP

• Entelechy
• ETU
• getAbstract
• GP Strategies
• Innovative Learning Group
• Vertex Professional Services

EXCELLENCE IN TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION 

• Cornerstone
• Sidekick Training
• SweetRush

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As a senior leader, you are responsible for aligning learning and development efforts with your organization’s strategy. You’re focused on the ever-elusive training impact and return on L&D investment.

Let’s look at a few facts to set the context in which you and your learning team operate: The unemployment rates are at an all-time low — 5.4 percent in Canada and 3.6 percent in the United States. 

Record-high job vacancy rates and skills shortages contribute to chronic difficulty for organizations hiring needed workers. In addition, our aging population means this trend will remain, so hiring employees with the required skills will continue to be challenging.

As learning leaders, we know L&D is part of the solution. And the data backs us up: 51 percent of HR managers indicate training employees is their primary method of addressing the skills gap in their organizations. And yet, these managers lack buy-in from leadership for L&D: ⁶ 

• 54 percent say leadership often sees L&D as a cost, not an investment.
• 52 percent report facing resistance when asking for budget approval.

Given this landscape, the time is now for L&D to move from the shadows and become a strategic partner that works proactively to directly contribute to the organization’s priorities. L&D needs to move from a cost center to an investment and get buy-in and support from leaders across the organization.

As you lead the charge for a more strategic learning function, you need managers and learning professionals with the skills to implement your vision and deliver on your commitments. 

L&D professionals are the shoemaker’s children

Learning professionals take care of and develop employees in their organizations, but don’t always take care of their own development. Tier1 Performance Institute’s “2023 Learning Trends Report” identifies that learning professionals get very little professional development from their organizations and rely on general interest learning such as podcasts, articles, books and websites. Fifty-six percent of learning professionals want more professional development. 

When learning professionals don’t invest in their own development, they continue operating with the same mindset and expectations. They continue to use the same delivery channels, technology and design approaches. They hold onto beliefs such as “strong learning objectives and performance outcomes form the basis of good instructional design,” and “learning outcomes are measured by Kirkpatrick Levels 1, 2 and 3.” While this may be accurate, it represents a narrow view of L&D. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many L&D teams were caught off guard by this overreliance on familiar, established approaches.

Learning managers need to expand their comfort zones and learn about the world of business so they can execute your business-focused, strategic vision for L&D. Being business-fluent helps learning managers be more responsive to and anticipate business needs. It provides the impetus for having a variety of solutions to ensure the solution will suit the need and environment. 

Furthermore, if learning professionals are unable to prioritize their own development, how can they expect other employees to commit to the programs they implement? It’s the proverbial airplane oxygen mask — put the mask on yourself before putting on your child’s. Learning professionals, starting with learning managers, need to develop their own skills so they can, in turn, develop others. They need to role model innovation and continuous improvement. They need to embrace cutting-edge technology and step outside their comfort zone to gain new skills and knowledge. 

Essential skills for your learning managers

Learning and development managers must stop being the shoemakers’ children and develop these three essential skills.

Learning acumen includes adult education principles, assessing needs, instructional design, facilitation, evaluation and learning technologies. These may seem obvious, but two nuances need highlighting. 

First, learning managers need to shift from doing the work to managing others. They need to build on their instructional design skills and: 

• Translate business goals into priority projects and identify metrics for success. 
• Build relationships in their organization to facilitate work between their team and the business units they serve. 
• Develop processes and standards to ensure consistency and quality across their team. Consistency reduces design time, decreases the manager’s review time and provides a predictable experience with stakeholders. When combined with quality standards, this elevates the reputation of the learning function in the organization.

The second nuance is that some learning managers move into the learning manager role from the business. They might be high-potential employees on a “tour of duty” with a stop in L&D. They may have a background in a contiguous role such as HR and now have learning under their umbrella of responsibility. These managers need a foundation in learning acumen to guide their team members effectively.

Managing projects and programs. This includes setting up and managing projects, and closing out projects or transitioning them to ongoing programs. Managers need project management skills to lead their teams and liaise with their client groups. As with learning acumen, managers need to establish processes, project management templates and standards for working with stakeholders. 

Managers who lead their teams with learning expertise and project management skills build positive experiences with other business units. Timelines are met, budgets are adhered to and scope changes are managed more smoothly. Managers in different business units gain confidence that the learning manager’s team will balance learning priorities with the needs of the business unit and the project. 

Business acumen is the third skill managers need to lead the learning function effectively. It includes understanding L&D as a business function and how it operates in relation to other functional areas. It includes financial acumen (knowing how money moves through an organization and the finances for the learning function. It also includes data and analytics) how to find and analyze data and communicate the story data tells.

At its core, business acumen is about learning the language of business. As long as learning professionals remain in their learning silo and talk about learning impact according to Kirkpatrick’s Levels instead of business outcomes, they will continue to operate outside the business and be unable to articulate their value and contribution. They will remain a cost centre and not an area in which to invest. Learning managers need to become bilingual — speak the language of learning and the language of the business — to understand the performance needs and recommend the best solution — training or otherwise. 

The opportunity 

When learning managers develop their capabilities and gain essential skills in learning, managing projects and programs and business acumen, the L&D function can move from being a cost center to a valuable contributor. L&D takes on the role of a business partner able to implement your vision and position the organization for success in the current environment of talent shortages and an aging population. 

Managers in 67 percent of organizations expect to increase their L&D budgets⁶ so ensuring these investments yield tangible benefits becomes even more important. By enhancing the capabilities of your learning managers, you can transform learning from a cost center to a business partner. You not only maximize the potential of your L&D budget, but also ensure your learning function contributes meaningfully to the success and adaptability of your organization in an ever-evolving landscape.

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Organizations used to get away with throwing around a few phrases that never felt quite right. “Work-life balance,” “flexibility in the workplace,” “prioritizing self-care”: Even though individual contributors, leaders and learning and development professionals knew from experience that these goals were rarely achievable, particularly in a vacuum, they generally accepted them as nice-to-haves. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the truth became undeniable. As people actually lived at work because they were working from home — and were forced to integrate work and life at almost every turn — L&D professionals realized their organizations had to rethink the definition of good leadership. Flexibility was no longer an ideal, it became a necessity. 

This continues to be true in 2023. Organizations now grapple with factors like burnout, declining retention and generational and societal pressures. Most C-suite L&D professionals have discovered it is no longer enough to help their people develop the same, traditional leadership skills. 

Because meeting today’s challenges means ushering in a new type of leadership, nonprofit Center for Creative Leadership® created the (Better) Leadership Project. We are motivated by our mission-driven commitment to advance the understanding, practice and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide. This, combined with our research and decades of experience as the leading force in leadership development, made us uniquely positioned to identify three focus areas critical to effective leadership in today’s world: Compassion, wellbeing and belonging. We believe these areas to be fundamental in building better teams, stronger organizations and healthier communities. Here’s how your organization can enhance all three.

Leading with compassion 

Compassion is an awareness of another person’s condition, coupled with genuine concern for that person and an orientation toward taking action to address the situation. Compassionate leadership lies at the heart of relationship-building, and it’s usually best expressed in consistent, day-to-day interactions.

Expanding one’s understanding of others is an important facet of compassionate leadership, and this requires a curious mindset in which leaders notice the challenges their direct reports are facing and then ask questions to expand their scope of understanding. Listening and asking open-ended questions gives leaders deeper insight into why people on the team may not be aligned, committed or able to focus. 

Keep in mind, the goal of compassionate leaders is not to solve the problems of their direct reports. However, the goal is to move beyond simply lending a sympathetic ear to supporting team members as they work through challenges. 

Ask yourself if leaders within your organization feel empowered to use their influence and power to provide support. Sometimes that involves looking for systemic ways to reduce friction. Other times, it means creating a more even playing field.

In order for leaders to express genuine compassion in a way that has a meaningful impact on culture, they need the space. It’s the job of L&D professionals to consider how organizations can create a culture that allows leaders to be proactive about acting on empathy and then help establish a culture that rewards compassionate leadership. For many years, people thought about leadership as an individual endeavor. Leaders felt that in order to be promoted, they had to be laser-focused on driving results. All too often, they viewed actions like compassion and vulnerability as a weakness. 

We have found, however, that the more loyal employees feel to their leaders — the more leaders see employees as human beings that have complex lives — the more engaged employees are with the organization. Taking this a step further, when employees who embody compassionate leadership qualities are rewarded, organizations help solidify compassion as part of their culture. 

Wellbeing for the whole

Wellbeing is an important pillar in the “Better Leadership” trifecta because when employees have a sense of wellbeing, they’re more engaged, creative and productive. They also have higher job satisfaction. 

At CCL, we think of wellness as feeling good and functioning well — not just individually, but also as a community. During COVID, many organizations focused on self-care to help alleviate stress and burnout. While important, self-care alone is not enough. True wellbeing and leadership depend on a broader focus of connection. Why? Because strong and healthy relationships lead to acceptance of others and a culture of respect. 

Employee Resource Groups are one outlet for people to connect with others across certain commonalities, such as shared experiences and social identities. Whether people are being supported or are supporting others, they come away with a feeling of connection and belonging. 

Employee wellbeing is also enhanced when people feel they’re growing and learning within a culture that prioritizes a growth mindset. When employees — senior leaders included — are encouraged to accept mistakes as opportunities to reflect on what was learned, they tend to be more innovative and creative. 

Across the organization, meetings or other gatherings can be an opportunity to celebrate wins and losses. This creates space for people to share what they learned from things that didn’t go as planned and contributes to a psychologically safe workplace where people feel comfortable revealing mistakes, allowing for greater growth. 

Space for belonging

The third pillar in our (Better) Leadership Project prioritizes the basic human need of belonging. Belonging in the workplace is a critical component of creating cultures of equity, diversity and inclusion. In conjunction with compassion and wellbeing, belonging paves the way for greater performance, satisfaction and persistence through challenges. 

When employees lack a sense of security that their perspectives are valued — often because they feel different from their colleagues and peers, either in appearance or lived experiences and identity — they experience “belonging uncertainty.” Belonging uncertainty is especially common if employees are from historically underestimated groups and worry about being treated negatively based on a stereotype. Sometimes, the feeling of belonging uncertainty leads people to hide aspects of themselves.

Creating conditions that allow people to show up as their authentic selves, having confidence that their experiences and perspectives are valued, starts at the top with executives and senior leaders serving as role models.

L&D professionals can train leaders to notice when key indicators are missing, like if someone seems hesitant to participate during meetings. Also, during group settings, leaders should keep in mind common power dynamics. For example, those who hold more senior positions or privileged social identities often take up most “airtime” in meetings. Leaders should strive to create space for everyone to contribute and to share openly and honestly, leading to a greater sense of belonging and more opportunities for innovation and creativity.  

Leading into the future

An organization’s culture can make or break its future, and talent development professionals know more than anyone that leaders shape culture. Because today’s challenges are different from those leaders have faced in the past, the same long-held ideas of what constitutes “good” leadership must evolve, too. 

Leaders go from good to great when they expand their scope beyond developing individual skills to uplifting individuals, building teams and reimagining culture. After all, leadership is most effective when it’s a collective effort. By taking compassionate actions, prioritizing wellbeing and nurturing a sense of belonging for every individual, cultures are transformed and organizations are prepared for the future of work. 

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With the words diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging being thrown around in boardrooms, how important is it really? 

A recent study by Deloitte indicates that millennials are 83 percent more likely to be engaged if they work at an inclusive company. According to Harvard Business Review, companies with high levels of diversity are 70 percent more likely to capture new markets. Additionally, a Glassdoor study revealed that 76 percent of people consider a diverse workforce to be a significant factor when evaluating companies and job opportunities. 

As learning and development leaders, people are paying close attention to the work we are doing in this space. McKinsey found nearly 70 percent of organizations consider the work done by employees to promote DEIB to be very or extremely important.

Unfortunately, many DEIB learning initiatives fall short. While most people can agree that fostering an environment of inclusion is a good thing, it can be challenging to connect concepts that people have learned in a training session to actions they can implement back at work. 

How can we move from a lot of feel-good language and promises, to tangible and impactful action? How can we empower our leaders to create lasting change on their teams and throughout the organization?  

In this article, I will discuss strategies that L&D leaders can use to drive DEIB outcomes through training. 

Identifying privilege and unconscious bias

The first step in addressing unconscious bias and microaggressions in the workplace is raising awareness and understanding of the privilege that each individual can possess, how it can look in the workplace and how it can manifest in unintentional harm. Many people who have not been exposed to these concepts yet may not be aware of the privilege they hold. Incorporating exercises that assist individuals in recognizing the areas of unearned privilege and understanding how this privilege has positively impacted them both personally and professionally can be a powerful experience.  

Training can also include demonstrations of harmful bias and microaggressions at work and in the larger societal context through real-life scenarios. By recognizing and confronting these biases head-on, leaders can begin to reflect on their own unconscious biases. 

This is a great first step but seems to be where most training ends, often concluding by making vague commitments to DEIB without establishing concrete action plans or mechanisms for accountability. So, what would these next steps look like? 

Setting team norms for calling out bias: A framework for change

In a video from The Way We Work, a TED Series, speakers Trier Bryant and Kim Scott introduce a framework for identifying biased language and behaviours at the team level. This framework can be a useful concept to present in a training context. The video walks participants through steps for holding a team meeting and defines some common language for calling out unconscious bias. For instance, during a meeting, if someone were to say something biased or make a microaggression, the team could collectively agree to use phrases like “purple flag,” “time out” or “learning moment” to call out such behavior. It doesn’t matter what words are chosen. What matters is the whole team has agreed and understood that when someone uses those words, something potentially harmful has been said. This creates an opportunity for the behavior to be called out in a respectful way that the whole team can learn from. The key is that everyone understands what the identified phrase means and agrees to use it.

Once a behavior has been called out, individuals have two options. If they have understood what is being called out, they can respond with something along the lines of “Thank you for calling that out. I see what the issue was and will avoid using that language in the future.” If they are not sure why something has been called out, another response could be “Thank you for calling that out, but I’m not quite sure what the problem with that statement was. Can you please clarify so that I can learn?” In both situations, there is space for learning and reflection. Regardless of the situation, team members should be encouraged to address and confront inappropriate and harmful behavior. 

Applying the knowledge for meaningful change

Other options for hands-on work and accountability could be attending a conference or event on DEIB-related topics, or reading a book or article and preparing a presentation for their team on what they learned — including any actions they would like to implement. Another example could be coming up with a list of allyship behaviors they would like to apply — personally and on their teams — and creating an action plan explaining how they will complete their plan and hold themselves and each other accountable. 

In each case, participants are expected to submit a concise written reflection detailing their experience, highlighting successes, challenges, lessons learned and outlining their envisioned next steps.

These submissions provide a valuable opportunity for participants to explore the impact of their interventions, identify encountered challenges, share what they’ve learned and highlight any positive changes they have witnessed. This documentation can serve as a testament to the progress made and can offer valuable insights to senior leadership or DEIB boards to inform decision making. 

Unpacking learning through group discussions

After the participants have had time to apply their learning and new strategies, it can be helpful for them to reconvene for a facilitated group discussion. This discussion can be facilitated by the L&D team, a member of the DEIB board or a senior leader. The sessions serve as a place for leaders to engage in conversation, exchange ideas and best practices, discuss any challenges and reflect on their experiences together. The key is to provide them with a safe space for these conversations, as well as dedicated time to review their learning and growth. 

It is advisable to establish a predefined structure for these conversations. Consider using prompting questions like:

• What did you do for your assignment and what were the outcomes? 
• Have you observed any behavioral changes on your team? 
• What did you learn through this process? 
• Has doing this work changed your perspective? In what ways? 
• What are your plans for maintaining a focus on DEIB moving forward? 

Keeping the momentum going

Now that the participants have had a chance to learn and have some success in this space, the question becomes: How do you keep this momentum going? One way is to issue a new challenge — to have them integrate their DEIB learning into their everyday work. 

Participants can create a personal action plan outlining the steps they will take to move forward with this work, and L&D or DEIB groups can support periodic check-ins where participants report back on their progress. 

Additional challenges could include:

• Examining their language and communication patterns to use more inclusive language and challenge microaggressions.
• Creating structures that allow people from marginalized groups to have their voices heard and their contributions recognized. 
• Becoming allies and mentors for colleagues from underrepresented groups. 
• Committing to continuous learning including attending conferences and events, reading books and joining employee resource groups. 

Making progress on DEIB initiatives is not something that happens overnight, but with the help of a well thought out approach, training can be an effective driver of key DE&I outcomes. 

Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging are all essential factors that significantly contribute to organizational success. DEIB initiatives unlock a wider range of perspectives, experiences and talents, leading to innovative problem solving and improved decision making. Embracing diversity and promoting equity allows organizations to attract and retain top talent, enhance employee engagement and productivity and establish robust relationships with a diverse customer base, leading to long-term success and sustainable growth. 

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.

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As someone with a background in cognitive science, I’ve always been fascinated by how people think, learn and adapt.

That’s why I often ask people, “How does your brain work? How do you approach issues and solve problems?” The most common response I get is, “I don’t really know how my brain works.” Some people even joke and say, “My brain doesn’t work all that well!” 

So then I follow up with the question, “How were you taught to learn?” and the answer is usually, “I wasn’t really taught how to learn, it just sort of happened.” Occasionally, someone will say, “I learned by osmosis.”

It’s clear most people aren’t consciously aware of their thinking process when it comes to problem-solving. Nor have they been taught how to optimize their learning abilities, which can lead to wildly varying results, even when the training materials and delivery methods are the same.

Why is this the case, and what can we do about it? In this age of digital disruption, it’s especially important to take a closer look at how we learn and prepare our leaders and teams for the challenges ahead.

Why digital/AI disruption will require innovative and new L&D strategies

The rapid advancement of digital disruption and the recent widespread implementation of AI have propelled us into the early stages of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, according to the World Economic Forum. In WEF’s “2020 Future of Jobs Report,” it is suggested that 50 percent of all employees will require reskilling by 2025 and that a billion people will need to be reskilled by 2030.

The 2025 skills outlined in the WEF Report emphasize thinking and self-management skills, rather than traditional knowledge-based subject matter expertise. 

Additionally, new brain science is challenging old approaches to learning and development. As a result, addressing the WEF’s reskilling revolution successfully will require more than just providing new content and using new delivery mechanisms. It will involve understanding how people learn best and how organizations can enhance their employees’ learning agility to equip them with the skills needed to become lifelong learners and be more adaptable. This will necessitate an innovative approach to L&D strategy with an emphasis on thinking skills and adaptability, thereby enabling employees and organizations to thrive in the age of the reskilling revolution.

It will also entail the chief learning officer engaging in some critical discussions and negotiations with their CEO and CFO.

CLOs will be required to lead the charge in this reskilling revolution, ensuring their organizations remain competitive and sustainable. An effective reskilling strategy and execution will provide a competitive advantage, while getting it wrong may result in organizations becoming unviable.

Therefore, this is a significant strategic issue for organizations that requires a collaborative and integrated approach by:

• The CEO, to make sure that addressing the reskilling revolution is a key priority in the overall organizational strategy.
• The CFO, to make sure that the reskilling strategy is appropriately and fully funded.
• The CLO, to design and implement an effective and innovative reskilling strategy that can address this novel problem/opportunity, and ensure that the program is well-resourced and funded with the strong backing of the CEO and CFO.

Leveraging brain science to enhance L&D strategies

Have you ever noticed that, even after attending the same training program on the same day with the same facilitator, two people can have vastly different levels of comprehension and learning? This is due to the differing levels of cognitive and agile learning (learning to learn) capabilities.

Let’s delve into cognitive science and neuroscience research to better understand how the brain learns and applies new knowledge. By doing so, we can prepare ourselves to develop innovative L&D strategies that address the WEF reskilling revolution issues.

Part one: Cognitive science, CHC theory of human cognitive abilities

Think of the brain as an iceberg, with the conscious mind above the waterline and the subconscious brain below. The Cattell-Horn-Carroll Theory of Human Cognitive Abilities is a model that analyses the cognitive abilities that impact an individual’s learning ability. 

To make CHC theory more understandable and intuitive, I’ve slightly adapted some of its terms:

Crystallized knowledge. This is the knowledge an individual has accumulated over their lifetime. It’s what we know. It is language-based and two of its key components are:

• Declarative knowledge: Knowledge that can be declared to demonstrate understanding, such as understanding a particular marketing model.
• Procedural knowledge: Knowledge of procedures or operations, such as knowing how to create a formula in Excel.

From an L&D perspective, language-based approaches like facilitated training, coaching, books and online courses provide the input mechanism. The output mechanism assesses what a person has comprehended using language-based feedback such as verbal responses, essays, multiple-choice questions, online tests, etc. However, this approach only assesses comprehension, not the ability to apply newly acquired knowledge.

Fluid thinking. This is the raw cognitive capability that enables flexible and agile thinking, providing the ability to adapt quickly to new and novel problems, opportunities and disruptions. It’s how we think and process information. 

It supports effective and efficient learning, and the ready application of newly acquired knowledge — agile learning if you will. It’s underpinned by 10 subconscious thinking habits (or “mini-brain computing programs”), such as analytical thinking, innovative thinking, conceptual thinking, strategic thinking, abstract thinking, etc. fluid thinking is also what we use to address VUCA situations.

From an L&D perspective, enhancing these subconscious thinking habits involves using Ericsson’s deliberate practice approach. Under the guidance of an expert, it consists of repeated practice of harder and harder cognitive tasks over time, and tapping into the brain’s inherent neuroplasticity. This process strengthens the associated neural pathways so that they can run automatically and without conscious thought. In this way, they become part of the brain’s “subconscious operating system.”

A distinguishing feature of fluid thinking is the capacity to solve new and novel problems without prior knowledge or strategies to guide the development of the solution. This capability will be paramount in the age of digital disruption. In the context of a computer analogy, fluid thinking is akin to a computer’s operating system that runs in the background, below your conscious awareness. However, you become very aware of it when it runs slowly or freezes at an inopportune time, such as during an important presentation.

Let’s use an analogy to compare crystallized knowledge and fluid thinking capability. A non-swimmer can read a book on how to swim and fully comprehend the subject, yet they could jump into the surf and still drown because they don’t know how to apply their new knowledge.

Figure 1 summarizes the differences between crystallized knowledge and fluid thinking.

What are the top 10 skills from the Future of Jobs Report by WEF?

The WEF Future of Jobs Report highlights the top 10 skills that businesses will require by 2025. Interestingly, only 20 percent of these skills are related to crystallized knowledge.

However, 80 percent of these skills are underpinned by, or related to, fluid thinking and the associated 10 subconscious thinking habits. This makes it clear where the WEF report sees the skills emphasis related to the reskilling revolution.

The skills identified by the WEF are listed in the table shown in Figure 2. To illustrate the difference, the skills have been further categorized into the cognitive territories of fluid thinking and crystallized Knowledge.

We will all face an enormous challenge as we navigate the need for ongoing reskilling and upskilling. The world is still uncertain about how we will approach these reskilling challenges. This will be a great test of the capacity of CEOs, CFOs and CLOs to adopt a more balanced approach to L&D.

When producing programs oriented toward crystallized knowledge development, the focus is on areas such as the training materials, the associated instructional design and the delivery method. The trainer takes responsibility for the overall training approach.

In contrast, programs oriented toward fluid thinking focus on the learner’s existing agile learning capability and how it can be improved. It is necessary to shift the emphasis from the trainer to the learner.

Achieving success in the future will depend on how we approach developing the brain’s capacity. In the past, there has been an emphasis on “teaching and testing” crystallized knowledge. This will continue to be important, but by itself, is not sufficient for the future outlined by the WEF. It is clear the skills identified by the WEF to equip our employees for the future are predominantly fluid thinking skills and not the traditional crystallized knowledge. 

This is further complicated by the rapid advancement of AI because AI platforms will be able to access almost infinite sources of ever-increasing data and information (as opposed to an individual accessing just their own crystallized knowledge). Intriguingly, this will demand enhanced fluid thinking capabilities, such as analytical thinking and conceptual thinking, to develop finely honed questions and context — this will be paramount in extracting the most out of AI platforms.

Part Two: Neuroscience, novelty-routinization theory and its impact on L&D strategies

Elkhonon Goldberg, a clinical professor of neurology at New York University School of Medicine, describes the brain as having two divided and distinct hemispheres that work together, but function and process information in different ways.

According to Goldberg’s novelty-routinization theory about the bicameral brain, the left hemisphere of the brain specializes in processes driven by well-established cognitive routines based on past strategies and experiences. In contrast, the right hemisphere specializes in novel cognitive challenges that cannot be addressed by relying on pre-existing cognitive routines. Thus, cognitive novelty requires an innovative and adaptive approach to thinking, which also plays a particularly important role in the learning process.

Goldberg confirms that the neural pathways that underpin cognitive behavior can change over time. An individual’s mastery of a cognitive task through repeated practice causes change, but it can only happen unidirectionally from the right hemisphere (which specializes in novelty) to the left hemisphere (which specializes in routinization) for most people.

Figure 3 illustrates the functions of the left and right hemispheres based on Goldberg’s novelty-routinization theory. Please note the Corpus Callosum plays a major role in transferring information between the two hemispheres.

An excellent example of this process is learning to drive a car. Initially, as you begin to orient yourself with everything that driving entails, you rely heavily on the right hemisphere. However, with a lot of practice, you eventually master the skill of driving so well that you can do it without even thinking about it. Indeed, driving becomes a cognitive routine because your brain can easily access this skill routine from the left hemisphere automatically, below the conscious threshold. When you have mastered driving, you can quickly and easily adapt to changes in traffic and weather conditions quickly, even on unfamiliar roads, and control your vehicle with complete ease.

From an L&D perspective, this emphasizes the importance of taking a brain-balanced approach to learning by increasingly tapping into the brain’s right hemisphere novelty functionality rather than an overemphasis on a language-based, left hemisphere routinization functionality.

Many are still trying to train backward because they don’t understand the underpinnings behind brain science. Currently, we try to cram as much language-based information as possible into an individual’s left hemisphere (crystallized knowledge development approach). In so doing, we substantially bypass the right hemisphere, which is used to accelerate the learning process as well as the ability to readily apply new knowledge (fluid thinking development approach).

When an individual’s ability to learn has not been developed optimally, their brain will have difficulty keeping up during the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This will impact the quality and speed of all future learning and the ability to apply those learnings. Relying predominantly on oral and written language for training leaves our left hemisphere overworked and our brain drained, as we are continually asking it to do things it wasn’t designed to do (i.e., cognitive novelty). 

Summary, risks and payoff

While it is important to continue to enhance employees’ crystallized knowledge, the WEF is highlighting the need to develop fluid thinking skills due to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 

These skills identified by the WEF include:

• Problem-solving and thinking skills, such as analytical thinking and innovation, critical thinking, reasoning, originality, ideation, etc.
• Self-management skills, such as active learning and learning strategies, resilience, flexibility, etc.
• Working with people skills, such as leadership and social influence.

To enhance employees’ active learning and learning strategies, CLOs and their teams will need to rethink their L&D strategies. This will require a complementary approach to the traditional left hemisphere, language-based crystallized knowledge training. It will also require a new method directed at developing the right hemisphere, nonverbal fluid thinking skills.

To achieve this, organizations will need to tap into the brain’s inherent neuroplasticity to rewire neural pathways and “recode” Subconscious Thinking Habits such as analytical thinking, conceptual thinking, innovative thinking, strategic thinking, abstract thinking, and perspective thinking. A brain balance approach of developing both hemispheres’ capabilities and using Ericsson’s deliberate practice methodology of undertaking and repeating harder and harder cognitive thinking exercises will be essential, as will be applying the enhanced fluid thinking capability to the business world.

As organizations are repositioning themselves through the innovative use of digital technologies and AI, they also need to rethink their L&D strategies and enhance their people’s agile learning capabilities to keep ahead of these ongoing disruptions. This will require a considerable pivot by CLOs and organizations.

By getting this right, organizations can position themselves not only to survive but also to thrive.

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Change is constant; that’s nothing new. But if it seems like it’s exerting more intense pressure than ever lately on your work and your people, you’re in global company. “We’re faced with a Human Energy Crisis,” Microsoft’s Chief People Officer Kathleen Hogan recently quipped, declaring the state of the world’s workforce worse than just collective burnout. Gallup suggests the next global pandemic is already here, and it’s a mental health crisis — “stress, worry and sadness have been on the rise globally for the last decade — and all reached record highs in 2020.”

Here’s the good news: Human resilience is a tremendous force. Resilience is our ability to withstand and recover from difficulty. It’s that transcendent strength that arises from our shared experiences, the silver lining to our clouds. We show up, we face the challenge, we survive and learn and then we tell our stories. 

And here’s the even better news: We can learn faster from those experiences— and increase our resiliency — when we share those stories and listen to those stories with more intention.

Here are three ways in which I’ve seen high-performing brands use storytelling to help their organizations overcome challenges and keep their employees resilient. For each example, I’ll include some tips on how you might apply story today as a force for good in your own organization. 

Rally a team’s languishing spirit

Recently, I witnessed a global networking company face a difficult turning point in a years-long transformation effort. At the time, the team was exhausted and feeling daunted. They’d worked so hard and endured so much change, but so far for little visible gain. The CEO and board still believed the strategy was right and would pay off. There just were very few tangible results to show for all the effort, and spirits were low across the company.

HR had just executed its annual employee engagement survey, which asked employees to rank on a scale of one to 10, how strongly they believed in the company’s strategy and in the company’s ability to execute. Scores on those two questions were relatively low across the board. But what really sounded the alarm for the company’s optimistic and charming CEO was this: Senior leadership — more than 100 VPs and above — were the lowest scoring cohort, scoring both those questions only at about a six. Oof.

It’s one thing for an aligned team of leaders to earn the trust of the masses. It’s entirely another for a CEO to re-earn the trust of the leaders themselves. How did he do it? He turned, at least in part, to story.

First, he carefully crafted a state of the union presentation to deliver to his leadership team. He positioned the transformation effort itself as a story, framing the leaders themselves as part heroes, part customer-mentors, and part supporting cast in a sweeping technological epic. He was also careful to make his content empathetic to the concerns his leaders had shared, addressing both rational and emotional objections one by one.  

But more importantly, when it came time to deliver that presentation, he paused before he opened the PowerPoint. “I have a deck,” he said, “but first, did you know that before I rose to CEO here, I almost quit?”

Most of them didn’t know: A few years prior to his promotion to the head office, he was losing faith in the company’s direction and his own role within it, and he’d walked into the then-CEO’s office with the intent to resign. The ensuing radically candid discussion had not only persuaded him to stay, but made a lasting impression on him about the kind of executive he wanted to be. 

His presentation that day helped make the strategy clearer. The slides addressed the leaders’ objections head on. The content presented a rational case to believe. But the personal story? That ended up doing something more potent. It bonded the CEO and his leaders in a shared moment of empathy and feeling.  It made his optimism more credible in the eyes of his worried team. It made their doubt and vulnerability feel safer, while subtly signaling to them an invitation to overcome those doubts and persist — or to self-select out. 

Three months after this turning point, the company repeated the same engagement survey. On those two questions,  belief in the strategy and in the company’s ability to execute, the senior leadership cohort’s score rose to an average of nearly nine-tenths, almost 30 percent higher. Was it the CEO’s story alone that made it happen? Of course not. But the CEO and his leadership team alike know that moment had a profound impact on the results. 

How you could apply this:

• Consider an emotional challenge or conflict you or colleagues face. Reflect on the emotion at its core. What is it? Anxiety? Impatience? Frustration? Regret?
• Think about stories from your personal life, fiction or real life around you that caused  that emotion. Keep it simple: a noun, a verb, then the emotion.
• Try fleshing one story out on paper using story structure. Sketch it or use words, whichever feels more natural. Give it a protagonist and identify what “inciting incident” happened to create the tension or conflict. Describe what happened next as the hero attempted to resolve the tension or conflict. Then explain how it ended and land on the lesson.
• In your next presentation, try weaving in one relevant story — something from your own experience or something that comes to mind from the world around you  to emphasize an idea and connect to your audience on a more emotive level. 

Build trust and share ideas across generations

It’s no secret that a workforce made up of 20-somethings, 40-somethings and 60-somethings will be full of diverse perspectives and working styles that can impact interpersonal relationships and productivity. What if it leads to a communication disconnect that threatens resilience? 

In 2021, that was happening at a Fortune 500 financial services leader. In this company’s culture, persuasion and innovation happened using tightly worded executive briefs sent over email. This had served them quite well for decades. Headed into the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, this company’s stock was rising to unprecedented levels and it was a perennial name on Fortune’s “Most Admired Brands” list. 

The company hired an influx of Generation Z workers, most of whom were working remote and had never met their older, more senior colleagues in-person. These Gen Z workers were showing up principled, assertive, smart and opinionated, but unindoctrinated in how to communicate within the company’s executive-brief culture.

“For that matter, our older leaders weren’t great at giving feedback to the younger workers either,” our learning and development contact shared. “We had a rising two-way trust problem, and we were headed toward a culture clash.” The generational divide was part of the problem, the remote work was another part. Together, it was a recipe for growing frustrations and innovation blockades. 

The company’s leadership turned to storytelling. Specifically, they turned to storytelling structure. Starting with their younger new hires, they systematically taught team members how to organize their ideas and supporting data into a brief that had an intentional beginning, middle and end, using effective story shaping that would bring their senior-colleague audience along toward a compelling conclusion. Then, they taught the more senior workers — typically the recipients of briefs — to deliver feedback using the same kind of story structure.

Storytelling did its job here and got the business back on track quickly. “We were amazed at how much this shared story language led to trust in both directions,” the L&D leader told us. “It’s a culture shift, and it’s beautiful.”

How you could apply this:

• Read up on the easy basics of “story structure.”
• Review a recent or upcoming presentation, and consider how you might reorganize the flow of the information using story structure.
• Consider who makes up that story’s cast of characters. Who is the protagonist? (To quote presentation guru Nancy Duarte in her book Resonate, “You are not the hero who will save the audience; the audience is your hero.”) Who’s the mentor? What or who is the inciting incident or challenge that calls the protagonist to a journey of change? Knowing this, what might you do differently to organize your presentation?

Bonding your people for strength and connection

Change or no change, humans have a psychological need for interpersonal bonding, belonging and connection. On Maslow’s hierarchy of needs these rank just after food, water, air and safety.

When times are tough for teams, you can expect those interpersonal needs to intensify as people look for stability and strength in their relationships with the people around them. Here, storytelling can work absolute wonders.

At a major U.S. television network, the executive team was undergoing a business challenge and realized that in the midst of it, the bonds of trust among them were suffering. With shelves full of Emmys, they knew all too well the power of story. So they set aside a day to gather, took a break from business, and bonded over stories in answers to prompts, especially about the mentors they’d had throughout their lives.

Our own company does something similar. We often close our monthly virtual all-teams meetings with speed-story sessions, placing teams in small breakout rooms and giving them five minutes to answer easy prompts. This encourages casual bonds and serendipitous connections. It also builds storytelling muscle into our daily work.

At a recent in-person gathering of the whole company, we asked everyone to bring a physical artifact that symbolized their roots. Each person placed their artifact on a long table — close to 100 objects in a random collection that was beautiful to behold in aggregate. Then at one point in the agenda, we broke into small groups and told our individual stories. In my group, a designer shared a drum kit tuning key and spoke about the time he spent learning music and drumming with his musician father. He shared how he drew on the idea of tuning a drum kit as a metaphor in his life for fine tuning his professional craft and his own mental health. I see him in a new way now. Under the pressure of a deadline or in the trenches of change with him, I’ll feel different working side by side with him.

How you could apply this:

Try your own “speed stories” session at the end of a monthly team meeting:

• Write a series of basic speed-story prompts that would help your team members better connect and bond. These can be simple, like, “what’s something you did this summer that made you happy?” or “what is your favorite holiday and why?” 
• Take the last 10 minutes of the meeting to conduct the session. Do one prompt per session.
• Keep the groups small, three to four people at most. 

 “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” wrote Henry David Thoreau.

When we hear a great story, we’re transported into another world where we can laugh, cry and escape the boredom or stress of our everyday lives. We love stories so much that we tell and retell them…at the coffee shop, around the dinner table, beside the campfire. But stories can do so much more than entertain us. They can enlighten us, teach us and unite us. And when the going is hard and when change is constant, they can give us the strength and unity we need to recover, rebound and rise. 

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The tide is turning in the job market. The historic levels of job hopping and quits we saw during the “Great Reshuffle” have subsided as more professionals stay put in their roles for longer in a moment many are now dubbing the “Big Stay.” 

LinkedIn data shows the rate of people staying in roles for less than a year has sharply declined, down nearly 30 percent compared to last year as of April. Federal data shows a similar trend, with quit rates falling to pre-pandemic levels.  

No one is better positioned than learning and development to help build long-term loyalty — from the bigger changes needed to empower employees to take control of their internal career possibilities, to the smallest habit changes that will get businesses closer to matching employee ambitions to business needs. 

Internal mobility takes center stage

With fewer people leaving their jobs, companies have the chance to fill in a missing, and often overlooked, piece of their talent strategies: internal mobility. When done right, identifying top talent from within becomes a big advantage for both employees and organizations. 

This is not a new topic for L&D, but it is now a more prominent conversation for all business leaders today. In a recent survey of roughly 5,000 U.S. executives on LinkedIn, employee L&D and retention both topped the list of the areas in which they are investing.

That’s because there’s urgency to figuring this out, especially in industries still struggling to fill open roles, and in an environment where we all continuously need to invest in new skills to keep up with advances in technology like artificial intelligence reshaping many roles. 

Here’s how to make the Big Stay work for you. 

Identify the roadblocks and ask hard questions

When it comes to figuring this out, a lot of companies jump straight into solutions and programs without truly understanding the biggest roadblocks that have prevented employees from looking internally before taking a job outside. 

Getting to the bottom of this requires having conversations across your teams and asking the hard questions: Are internal moves really encouraged at your company? Do your employees even know how to access and discover open internal roles? Are they comfortable broaching the topic with managers? 

What we’ve found in our research is that when employees want to switch things up in their career, they are more likely to consider leaving their company than look for an internal move. The reasons could be multi-faceted. In some cases, this could be due to a culture that’s actively discouraging internal hiring, e.g. a mindset against “poaching” or that encourages talent “hoarding.”

In some cases, it could be more due to a problem of discoverability and awareness. Understanding where your organization stands and identifying the blockers is the first step to charting a path forward. 

Champion and celebrate the behavior you want to see 

Once you’ve identified those barriers, it’s critical to get your C-suite involved as active advocates, walking the talk and inspiring people to see all the possibilities and paths they can go down at the company to build a rewarding career. 

Significantly more L&D pros say they are working more closely with executive leadership this year than last, and 61 percent agree their CEO is a champion of learning.

This means showcasing leaders on your teams and even the executives themselves who have made multiple lateral moves and developed a wide range of skills and experiences during their tenure to get to where they are today. In my experience, it is also important at those forums to share openly and honestly lessons learned and even failure, to emphasize ownership we all have of our careers and courage we need to have in order to take those leaps. 

C-suite engagement is incredibly important to help teams get past the misconception that internal mobility is risky, and that the outside hire who has performed the same job at a different company is going to be a surer bet at succeeding. Seeing senior leaders who have had their own “squiggly line career” at the company and showcasing those stories can help shift mindsets in a big way. 

Part of modeling this behavior is actually saying out loud to your teams that it is OK and a good thing to let your best talent go so they can explore other areas of the business and build new skills. 

At LinkedIn, this has been well-embedded in our culture ever since our co-founder Reid Hoffman introduced the concept of “tours of duty” (the opportunity for employees to take on rotational assignments that provide access to new skills, experiences and connections). It’s something we all hear about on day one, so that expectation is clear from the top down and from bottom up. 

Encourage managers to help employees spot opportunities 

A big shift I’ve witnessed over the course of my career is that today, employees don’t expect to be told what to do or where to go — they want to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to their career. They want options, and they want control over their destiny. 

This means you need to create a two-way conversation between managers and their direct reports about long-term career goals, and then encourage managers to help spot opportunities to give high-potential employees greater exposure to new skills and new areas of the business—whether that’s job shadowing, mentorship, job rotation or something else. 

Managers play a critical role in making internal mobility a reality, and so investing in that relationship and incentivizing them to move from talent hoarding to talent mobility is critical.

At LinkedIn, we piloted a three-month job-shadowing program, called ShadowIn, that matches a “shadower” to a “host” based on their specific career goals. The program includes wraparound training and support to ensure employees get the biggest return on their investment of time. Creating clear programs where our employees feel supported by their manager and the company to experience a new side of the business is one way we’re continuing to find ways to help people explore different career paths without having to look elsewhere. 

Your best next employee is the one you already have

Exposing your teams to internal mobility opportunities is not just good for their own careers, it’s a way for businesses to build resilient teams that have a more dynamic range of skills and are inspired to stay for the long-run. Our recent “Workplace Learning Report” found that at the two-year mark, an employee who has made an internal move has a 75 percent likelihood of staying as opposed to the mere 56 percent likelihood for an employee who hasn’t made an internal move. 

Our CEO at LinkedIn has said that your next best employee is likely your current employee. That’s never been more true than it is today. Now is a moment for all companies to invest in growing and nurturing their next best employees and to build a culture where people stay, and then keep staying even as the job market heats back up. 

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