Recently, a small gathering of (fully vaccinated) HR leaders from Fortune 1000 companies came together in Chicago. As they met, there was one topic they discussed that came up over and over: talent acquisition. The reasons are obvious — recent data concerning talent and the labor shortage shows a bleak outlook:

• According to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics June report, there were 10.1 million job openings, with 6.7 million hires, 5.6 million separations and a quit rate that increased  2.7 percent.
• An August PwC survey reported that 88 percent of executives say their company is experiencing higher turnover than normal, and 65 percent of employees are looking for a new job.
• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce noted that there are “approximately half as many available workers (1.4) for every open job across the country as there have been on average over the past 20 years (2.8 historical average).” This ratio continues to fall.

Unfortunately, this situation cannot be alleviated quickly. The COVID-19 pandemic and its ongoing effects on the labor market have compounded the war for talent. On the campus recruiting front, freshmen enrollment plummeted an unprecedented 13 percent from fall 2019 to 2020, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. Things haven’t improved much since: In May, overall college enrollment decreased by 3.5 percent from spring 2020 to 2021. This drop is “seven times worse than the decline a year earlier, and the largest decline in year-over-year percent change and student headcount” in a decade. In short, the solution to your organization’s talent crunch is not coming from your campus recruiting program any time in the next three to five years.

Fortunately, one of the key solutions to the war for talent is talent development programs, of which the reasons are twofold: First, by shifting talent development programs into a recruiting tool, employers can attract better and more applicants. Second, turning talent development programs into a focused pipeline can address roles that are at high risk for talent shortages in the future.

Turning talent development into a brand asset

In the past month, talent development programs have been grabbing headlines in the national press: Waste Management, Walmart and Target all announced on national television that they are offering debt-free education programs. Other major employers, including Discover Financial and Chipotle, also announced significant expansions of similar programs.

After it’s launch of debt-free education programs in April, Waste Management kicked off a recruiting drive that attracted 1,200 people. This resulted in 420 offers and 70 percent of those people have started working for the company. More than half of those applicants mentioned the free college tuition offer.

Recently, Chipotle launched a national hiring campaign with 200 of its stores that were struggling to fill roles. The team reached out to more than 20,000 candidates in the first two weeks of the campaign. They received 7,500 applications for those 200 stores, which was a 46 percent increase in applications. Each store ended up hiring one to two new employees.

While much of this data revolves around education benefits, all these examples illustrate what PwC found in its report as one of the top five benefits employees want from their employers — expanded career development. Not only does this hold up as a reason to pick an employer, but also a reason to stay.

Turning talent development into a talent pipeline

While well-marketed development programs play a good short-term role in boosting both the number and quality of job applicants, it can positively impact a longer-term strategy too. With the right management and design, talent development programs can retain and upskill talent into areas that a company expects to have high talent demand in the future.

Employees actively engaged in talent development programs have a lower turnover. Prior to the pandemic, turnover rates in frontline industries such as manufacturing, retail trade and food services were about 30, 60 and 80 percent, respectively, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. These numbers are likely to climb in the coming year as we undergo what economists call “The Great Resignation.” As a point of comparison, Chipotle has cited a 90 percent retention rate for employees using its “Cultivate Me” benefits program, which represents a 42 percent increase in retention over a one-year timeframe.

But getting employees to stay with companies while they’re enrolled in programs to reduce the “leaky bucket” is not enough. Employers must turn their talent development programs into more intentional pathways for employees to climb the ranks. This includes workers of all types, not just those deemed as “high potential.”

Some employers are finding a correlation between those investing in long-term talent development programs, even in their frontline employees, with promotion rates two times their peers who aren’t a part of the programs. These companies are creating upskilling opportunities that are highly aligned to future of work jobs, like training in the skilled trades and digital technology. As a result, employees engaging in these programs are opening up more possibilities for their own economic mobility.

Fighting the war for talent on all fronts

No single system, process or tool will result in an organization winning the war for talent. This is an ongoing struggle that exists on multiple fronts, and it requires every team across various departments to devise a strategy. At the same time, it’s clear that a real substantive talent development program is now table stakes.

Without offering employees an opportunity to advance, there will be no way for the nation’s leading employers to attract the type of talent they need and want. Too much competition exists. With thoughtful programs and partners, as well as refined marketing and brand strategies, every organization can both find and develop amazing talent to position themselves for the future of work.

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This is the second in a five-part series, published in partnership with Businessolver, outlining the national employment crisis facing U.S. women and strategic recommendations for employers to implement or enhance specific programs and policies to recruit and retain women.

The first article explained that women—and particularly women of color—have faced an uphill battle for equity since women broke into the workforce at scale during World War II. The COVID-19 pandemic upset the delicate balance that women had been holding and led to a massive employment exodus that Vice President Kamala Harris called “a national emergency.”  

In part two, we’ll look at the complex issue of caregiving, dependent care affordability and availability and how employers can support caregivers in the workplace.

“Child care is an invisible part of the economy.” —Ellen Galinsky, chief science officer, Bezos Foundation and author of “Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs”

A 2019 study by Ready Nation found of the 14 million parents with children under age three in the U.S., 78 percent—or 11 million—are working parents.

It may seem like the most obvious issue, but we have to address the stuffed toy elephant in the room: Dependent care challenges throughout the pandemic have been tough for families— especially given the swiftness and suddenness with which schools and child care facilities closed in 2020 only to reopen with varying capacity and health restrictions.

Parents, particularly mothers, found themselves struggling to work productively while simultaneously caring for and educating their children. And while the pandemic accelerated and made it more acute, it’s important to remember: There was a dependent care crisis before March 2020, the fallout of which mainly affected women.

Many Americans lack access to local, quality child care options. The Center for American Progress found in 2018 about half of American families with young children live in a “child care desert,” an area with a high density of families with young children, but few or no available child care options within a 20-minute drive.

As might be expected, it’s harder for lower-income communities and families, who may have access to government subsidies for child care, but no available or affordable options nearby.

Child care costs consume a large share of women’s earnings, who continue to earn less than men. Pre-pandemic, many women were simply working to afford their child care bill. About 55 percent of families report spending at least $10,000 a year on child care, per Care.com. Multiply that times the two children in the average American family, and—after calculating for the gender pay gap—it stopped making economic sense for many women to work outside the home. Some women who found themselves at home due to layoffs may simply stay put if they have a partner who can earn income for the family.

Women also bear the biggest caregiving load. Regardless of how far we think we’ve come as a society, decades-old gender expectations are still prevalent. The McKinsey and Company analysis, “Women in the Workplace 2020,” reveals a deep disconnect on the division of household duties, showing the difficulty in breaking antiquated gender roles.

• More than 70 percent of fathers think they are splitting household labor equally with their partner (during COVID-19) but only 44 percent of mothers report an even split.
• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, mothers are more than three times as likely as fathers to be responsible for most of the housework and caregiving. And they’re 1.5 times more likely than fathersto be spending an extra three or more hours a day on housework and child care— equivalent to 20 hours a week, or half a full-time job.
• Mothers are more likely than fathers to spend an extra three or more hours a day on housework and child care— equivalent to 20 hours a week, or half a full-time job.

Now that COVID-19 has limited care center capacity, disrupted continuous operations and resulted in care provider furloughs or layoffs, the caregiving dilemma is even more dire. The child care industry—itself fueled primarily by women—was hit hard and has yet to recover, along with other female-dominated industries such as service and retail that eliminated jobs during the pandemic. Women who kept their jobs during COVID-19 were nonetheless squeezed by lower pay on one side and fewer child care providers on the other.

Based on those factors, it appears it was more than a simple question of “Who makes more?” when families nationwide determined “Who will stay home with the kids?” and “Who will continue in their career?”

The result? The cultural and economic underpinnings of the “she-cession.”

Making it work: Dependent care

While the federal government continues to determine how to support child care with bills such as the “Child Care is Infrastructure Act,” and local school systems continue to sort out how and when to open, employers can take five key steps to ensure working women have options when it comes to dependent care.

1. See employees as whole people. Work-life balance isn’t just an HR catchphrase—it’s a real need. Employers must use empathy to recognize many working women are also caregivers to children, dependents or semi-independent adults or parents.
2. Conduct a “care census.” Track data on employees’ caregiving responsibilities. Gathering that data, even anonymously, will give employers a baseline to help shape their strategy.
3. Connect the dots between care and cost. Understand how caregiving challenges can affect the bottom line. Employers lose $12.7 billion each year due to lost productivity from child care challenges faced by their workforce. Caregiving clearly impacts productivity, absenteeism and attrition. Addressing caregiving needs and costs is a critical part of an effective benefits strategy that will reap clear dividends.
4. Offer a dependent care flexible spending account (DCFSA). Allowing employees to set aside pre-tax funds for child and elder care can create long-term savings for all involved. Participants can save 20-30 percent on their annual dependent care spend with the pre- tax advantage a DCFSA provides. As child care centers reopen with smaller class sizes and/or increased sanitation procedures, costs will likely rise—and be passed on to parents. DCFSA tax savings can give a leg up to employees paying for care. As part of federal COVID-19 relief, the IRS raised the family maximum election amount to $10,500, so families can now set aside even more tax-free funds to offset child care costs.
5. Find partners. Are there groups in the community who are already offering quality child care? Parent support groups? Babysitting services? In-home elder care? Instead of recreating the wheel, see if there are partnering or referral opportunities or negotiate discount programs for child care, camps, after-school or elder care services or consider on-site programs to retain and recruit more working parents.

The following articles in this series will take a deeper dive into how employers can address key challenges to help working women, and the American workforce at large, recover employment levels. Up next: Mental health.

This article is excerpted with permission from Businessolver’s white paper, “Where Have All the Women Gone?”

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In March 2020, business leaders were faced with the unknown: how to lead their teams through a pandemic and still keep their companies afloat.

During our recent C200 event, the Ins & Outs of D.C., Sylvia Burwell, president of American University, shared with our community of successful women in business that this pandemic isn’t over. Instead, it’s something we’re learning to live with. What became apparent from our discussions at the event is that while we as business executives learned a lot this year, there is still so much that will evolve. This next phase of leadership will present a new set of challenges and questions.

As business leaders, we need to consider the best ways to navigate the constantly changing business landscape and support our employees while growing our companies.

Take responsibility

What is my role as a business executive, and what can I do to make a difference?

Responsibility lies with the leader, and we have a responsibility to put the health and safety of our employees first. The guidance shared at the Ins & Outs of D.C. from Burwell and Dr. Kavita Patel, a primary care physician, is that the most important thing people can do to keep themselves healthy right now is get vaccinated.

As leaders, we can emphasize the importance of community health while being transparent and straightforward about what is expected of employees to keep everyone safe. There will always be vaccine hesitancy, but if you are a trusted leader who is there to answer questions and help your employees make the right decision, you’re doing your part.

You can take it one step further and make these health resources accessible. By giving your employees access to a full spectrum of physical and mental health resources as we navigate this uncertain time, you can reach beyond the individual and impact the community.

How to most effectively take care of the health and safety of your employees may evolve, but when you listen and adjust accordingly, you can take care of the overall well-being of your employees and their families, ultimately leading to successful returns in business.

Be transparent

How can I be a trustworthy leader?

Being transparent is key as you plan for returning to the office, adjusting to a hybrid model or going remote full-time. With this changing business landscape, employees are going to have questions and concerns. Answering those questions directly will help your employees feel supported and heard.

You need to explain the “why” behind your decisions. Clear leadership means simultaneously acknowledging that these changes will feel awkward and take time to adjust to while reminding your team that everything is fluid right now and things can change. Invest and prepare for the time it will take to adjust. Abrupt changes will not only harm your employees but harm your business. Being transparent about a plan, timeline and expectations will lead to clear execution.

Keep the flexibility

How can work remain flexible yet engaging?

After more than a year of working remotely, many employees and job seekers expect an entirely different work environment in the future. We’ve realized this past year how important it is to meet people where they are. But flexibility doesn’t mean leaving people behind, especially women.

During the Ins & Outs of D.C. event, Vanessa Fuhrmans with The Wall Street Journal said that we don’t want flexibility to mean women are disproportionately working remotely to cover at-home responsibilities, potentially missing out on face time with executives and promotion opportunities or not being considered for a new project because they’re remote. Flexibility means engaging with all employees no matter where they are, being diligent about inclusion for the entire company, applying the right policies that support your setup and monitoring how these changes are going.

Equip your managers

How do I monitor how these decisions are impacting my employees?

As executives, we have the benefit of seeing our company from a bird’s-eye view, but our managers are at the ground level. They are closest to the workforce and can translate policy into everyday action.

It takes a good manager to understand what challenges women in business face and how young people joining the workforce are looking for flexibility. Your managers need to be equipped to support all types of employees at every level. For working parents, they may need child care support, whereas new employees may need in-person mentorships.

Keeping that support in mind, executives can set up policies and systems that continue the pipeline of advancing people in business. Support your managers by staying engaged, having those conversations, listening to their perspectives and adjusting the plan based on what they’re seeing.

Hold yourself accountable

Are the decisions and changes I’m making as a leader having a tangible positive impact?

The past year has brought about more change in the workplace than we’ve seen in decades. By taking responsibility, being transparent, giving employees the flexibility they’ve grown accustomed to and equipping your managers, you can hold yourself accountable to a new standard of business leadership.

Actions speak louder than words. When you are implementing policy changes, like DEI initiatives or mental health support, revisit them regularly and evaluate whether they’re working. Every few months, check with your managers, survey your employees and communicate clearly so you can create long-lasting change that makes an impact.

With the right leadership, we have a chance for our businesses and our business cultures to come out of this pandemic better than we were before.

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Sirtex Medical is in the business of saving lives. The global medical device company, headquartered in Woburn, MA, creates devices to treat patients with liver cancer, including a radioactive minimally invasive radiation therapy.

“Everything we do here is centered on the patient experience,” says Cathleen Lowndes, CHRO of Sirtex. That commitment begins with how they support the workforce, who “have a lot of talent and not a lot of ego,” says Lowndes.

When an engagement survey in 2017 showed Sirtex employees wanted more and better professional development opportunities, Lowndes decided they needed to build a talent development program that could accommodate the company’s culture, passion and unique scientific skill sets.

At the time, she was working with Sure People, a people analytics platform, where she partnered with Juan Antonio Ruiz-Hau, Sure People’s head of content and learning strategy, to build the emotional intelligence of Sirtex’s workforce.

“The brilliance of Juan is that he cuts through the noise to focus on things that are important to the individual,” says Demetra Anagnostopoulos Co-CEO of SurePeople. “He’s masterful at adapting to stakeholder needs – focusing on high level strategy for leaders and going into detail when he needs to.”

Lowndes agreed. “Juan got our mission and understood the importance of our work,” she says. At the same time, he was passionate about helping businesses improve performance by giving their people the tools they needed to be better managers, leaders and performers.

Lowndes believe Ruiz-Hau was exactly the right person to lead Sirtex’s learning transformation. So, she hired him as the company’s first global director of talent management and sales effectiveness.

It was the perfect match.

Small town boy

Ruiz-Hao was born in a small town in Puerto Rico. His parents were school teachers who spoke no English, but when he was two years old, they moved to Chicago and later to Boston.

“Imagine moving from a small town to a big city where you don’t speak the language,” Ruiz-Hau says. He says his parents wanted to create a better future for their kids, and they were willing to disrupt their lives to make it happen. “It is part of the immigrant story that so many of us share.”

It was the 1970s, and at the time there were no immersive elementary school language programs, so Ruiz-Hau learned English the hard way – by sitting in an all-English speaking classroom and figuring it out.

His parents also learned the language, and both went on to get advanced degrees from Harvard and Boston University. Their ability to attain that level of education and success despite the odds, shaped his own perception of education and the importance of engaging diverse students and faculty in the educational environment.

As an adult, Ruiz-Hau received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Boston University and an MBA from Boston College. The combination reflected his own dual interests in helping people find what inspires them as a way to build more resilient, customer-focused businesses.

He’s now bringing that balance of human and business development to the team at Sirtex.

Building EQ from the ground up

The company’s 266 employees include scientists, engineers and researchers who are adept at pursuing the knowledge they needed to do their jobs. So when Ruiz-Hau was hired he didn’t want to dictate what training programs employees had to complete. Rather he sought ways to “infuse the company with the skills needed to balance people and business.” That approach is driving a talent transformation across the organization.

Sirtex didn’t have a huge budget for change, but Ruiz-Hau found innovative ways to engage employees in learning, coaching and performance management to drive a more connected and collaborative environment. It started with a focus on emotional intelligence (EQ).

Lowndes and Ruiz-Hau believe EQ is the key to creating a stronger, more values-driven organization that results in better business outcomes. They want to foster EQ in every employee at Sirtex.

Ruiz-Hau originally worked with Lowndes when he was a consultant at SurePeople to bring the Prism Brain Map tool into the Sirtex culture. Prism is a personality tool that maps three elements of employees’ behavior: how they prefer to behave, the patterns of behavior they usually follow and the extent to which they are able to modify that behavior to achieve key objectives.

Ruiz-Hau continues to use the tool to shape everything they do, from hiring through personal development. “We use Prism to help our people build self awareness; to understand themselves and how they relate to others,” he says.

We all serve a purpose

That begins with talent acquisition. Rather than hiring talent only based on specific skill sets, he’s taught recruiting managers to look for people who “map to the culture,” by identifying features like humble leadership, innovative thinking and collaborative personalities.

He also aligned the company’s the onboarding process to make sure the talent they do hire feels immediately engaged with the team and the business. “Onboarding should be about relationship building and hand holding – not paperwork,” he says.

Now every time a candidate is hired, Ruiz-Hau makes sure they meet the CEO and a chosen group of “influencers” related to their role in their first few weeks on the job.

They also all learn about the company’s products and how they help patients with liver cancer. This is an important element of Ruiz-Hau’s leadership philosophy, says Santiago Madrinan, leader of global sales effectiveness training. “Every employee represents the product, not just sales reps,” Madrinan says. “So they all need to be educated about the product and how it ties to their roles.”

Ruiz-Hau also makes sure each employee understands how their individual work supports the company’s goals – regardless of their role. Lowndes says she has seen Ruiz-Hau sit with many employees, from scientists to receptionists, talking them through how the work they do connects to the business and to patient care. “There were a lot of ‘aha’ moments,” she says.

The onboarding program and efforts to connect employees to the business is receiving rave reviews. Global Employee Net Promotor Scores (eNPS) increased from +23 in 2019 to +27 in 2020 overall, along with significant spikes in APAC, where eNPS increased from -25 in 2019 to 0 in 2020 (a 25-point increase) and in EMEA it went from -11 in 2019 to +3 in 2020.

“We are also seeing tremendous improvements in culture, engagement, leadership and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts,” Ruiz-Hau says.

Everyone’s in sales

Ruiz-Hau and Madrinan have since opened sales and product training to everyone in the company as a way to expand the onboarding program to give all employees access to content on how the products and business works, as well as the c-suite perspective on the where the company is going. This content was delivered virtually during the pandemic, but Madrinan is looking forward to offering it live at the Boston office over several days to anyone who wants to attend. “It’s a decision we made because we believe

“I want everyone to understand what we do and why we do it,” Ruiz-Hau says. “It is how they become part of the fabric of the company.”

everyone in the company will benefit from understanding our products and services,” he says.

They weren’t sure how interested employees would be in sitting through product training courses, but the response has been amazing. Madrinan recently hosted a course on the biology of cancer for a group of five new employees and 30 people showed up. “We’ve created a culture where you can always get access to education and people are really engaging.”

Ruiz-Hau’ teams have also given employees greater control over their own personal development paths, through Own Your Own Career. Through the program, Ruiz-Hau has promised $4000 to every employee to use for personal or professional development as they see fit. It can include any topic an employee is interested in, as long as they can communicate the value to their managers.

Ruiz-Hau is encouraging managers to be open-minded to all ideas. “You never know how the dots will align,” he says. He likes to share the story of Steve Jobs spending time in a calligraphy class in college, which he attributes to the Mac’s first font collection. “Who are we to say someone shouldn’t take a class or attend a conference if they see value in it.”

Employees love the program and have used it for everything from online masterclasses to Harvard leadership programs.

Leading the leaders

Ruiz-Hau’s next goal is focusing on leadership training and using employees’ Prism profiles to help them become better coaches by adapting their style to the needs of their people. “We are creating a culture where leaders lead with humanity,” he says.

Ruiz-Hau uses the Prism profiles to help managers become more self aware about how they lead, and their preferred leadership methods. Then he teaches them how to use their team members’ Prism profiles to understand what mentoring strategies they are most likely to respond to.

It’s had a profound impact on leadership for many managers, particularly those who aren’t inherently focused on the relational side of management, he says. He recalls working with one manager who was struggling to guide a team member who was outcomes focused and tended to ignore his suggested changes.

The manager thought he was telling her what to do, but Ruiz-Hau helped him recognize that his communication style was causing his directives to be heard as suggestions. “A lightbulb went off,” Ruiz-Hau says. At the time, the manager was trying to find a way to get that person to leave the organization, but once he altered his communication style, she became much more receptive and her performance improved significantly. “Now they both see a successful way forward.”

Ruiz-Hau also tries to demonstrate this behavior in all his interactions as a way to embed them in the company culture. “He has a comfortable way of talking to people that is never defensive,” Madrinan says. “He never tells someone ‘this is the way to do it.’ He tries to help them think about how they might find a better way.”

Focusing on EQ and encouraging people to lead with humility and civility has altered the culture at Sirtex. “We are self-orienting to civility,” Ruiz-Hau says. “When people don’t speak in kind ways, other react. It causes people to auto-correct.”

He’s now using the work invested in Prism and EQ to address the mental health needs of all employees. He notes that recent employee surveys show people are facing a lot of uncertainty about the future and he hopes to ease their stress by offering wellness programs and teaching leaders how to have purpose-driven conversation with employees struggling to see the way forward. “Leaders have an important role to play right now in helping employees feel connected to the organization.” Sirtex believes Ruiz-Hau is the perfect leader to help guide them through this crisis and beyond.

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Think back to when you started your last job. As you got acquainted with new responsibilities, people and systems, you likely sat down to watch a few required training videos — perhaps on your organization’s approach to diversity in the workplace or sexual harassment. Thinking back, did the content feel meaningful and relatable, or was it disconnected — maybe even bizarre?

Corporate learning content is one of the first opportunities organizations have to connect with their employees and build an inclusive employee experience. Executed well, learning content can help organizations develop the knowledge and tools to build a better workplace for everyone, from uplifting voices within systemically silenced groups to leveling the playing field for job opportunities.

But as many of us know from firsthand experience, learning content has fallen short in this area, even now as it’s become especially important. Over the last year or so, organizations have recommitted to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in the workplace. One study found that more than 71 percent of learning and development teams either have a diversity and inclusion program, or are interested in starting one this year.

My job is to help flip this script and make new workplace learning content more effective. Learning about DEIB — or any other workplace initiative — isn’t going to resonate with our audiences and inspire action unless DEIB principles are folded into the content itself. After three years of creating original learning content — specifically for corporate L&D programs — and a career in video and digital production spanning two decades, I’ve identified three key strategies to make learning content feel authentic, inclusive and an effective tool to drive change.

Build diversity into the production process

As production teams take their first steps in developing a piece of content, they might have ideas about storylines and scenarios. But having a well-rounded approach to the content at the earliest stages of production is necessary for creating inclusivity. This means understanding the intersectionality within the topics teams cover, such as the relationship between the gender wage gap and race.

To grasp these nuances and accurately portray them in content, production teams need to consult with subject matter experts, run focus groups and question biases before making decisions about what topics to prioritize and how. After this process, teams can start building narratives and hiring talent.

Executing this research process helped our team get responses about a series we are currently developing that takes an innovative approach to defining and addressing core DEIB terms. After interviewing our colleagues and clients and running focus groups about the creative idea, we pivoted the creative and editorial direction based on their feedback about our organizational needs and the topics that would speak best to our audience.

Conveying inclusion in content

To truly connect with learning content, everyone needs to be able to see themselves in the content they consume. This can mean representation in talent (being inclusive of race, gender, ethnicity and ability), but should also go a level deeper — like ensuring scripts use inclusive language and source art, music and graphics from a diverse group of artists. The context of the video, the atmosphere that’s portrayed and the language used all hold weight in supporting inclusivity.

Applying inclusivity to every digestible aspect of content avoids turning people into props and upholds authenticity. And, often, that includes the composition of the production team. Having a diverse team made up of people with different backgrounds is key to ensuring content supports different perspectives and identifying ways to bolster inclusion throughout the entire production process.

Making content accessible

People learn in various ways, or may face different barriers to learning. To make sure everyone can still learn effectively, it’s important to offer a wide range of content, or provide different versions of the same content so it’s accessible to everyone.

When we produce a video, for example, we make sure the transcript clearly delivers the message on its own. This way, someone who only listens to audio or someone who is visually impaired, receives the same experience without relying on visuals. Providing a transcript also allows learners — particularly those who don’t learn by listening or have hearing impairment — to follow content in real time, or download and print the content to access later offline.

Making it possible for employees to learn at their own pace or method promotes more learning equitable opportunities, allowing even more people to benefit from the content.

Measuring the impact of inclusive learning content

When learners engage with content that authentically resonates, they’re more likely to complete L&D courses. Learners will want to return for more and may start proactively seeking it out rather than waiting for their managers to assign it.

But, more importantly, inclusive learning content can make a real impact on people’s experiences at work. The first original series that I produced with Cornerstone, called DNA — Digital Native Advancement — was created to help Gen Z employees improve interpersonal skills while bringing their true, authentic selves to work. One DNA lesson included a scenario that depicted a young lesbian woman who wanted to put a picture of her and her partner out on her desk. After the woman comes out to her coworkers, they react positively and accept her. The takeaway: Be authentic. Don’t leave yourself at home.

A month later, a colleague shared a story with me that after watching the content, their teammate came out to them because they felt proud and secure knowing that their organization would be supportive. My colleague told me, “I couldn’t wait to tell you this, because that is an immediate cause and effect of the impact of the kind of content that we’re creating here.”

It will probably be one of those moments that I’ll remember for the rest of my life, and part of the reason why I continue to create inclusive learning content to improve the experience for everyone at work.

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The pandemic has been a mixed bag in terms of career opportunities for talented women. Some have flourished and some have languished. Two key strategies — setting boundaries and establishing priorities — were almost always daily practices for the women who not only coped, but thrived amid the personal and professional challenges of the pandemic. Their success was not about balance, which is tentative and illusive, but about blending what they spent time on with what they valued.

Boundaries and priorities: The urgent need

Recently, a number of articles and research studies have pinpointed how the pandemic has taken a greater toll on career women than on men.

• According to a recent McKinsey report, from June to August of 2020, mothers were twice as likely as fathers to do an extra five hours of household chores a day in dual-career marriages.
• Also, according to McKinsey, 79 percent of men said they had a positive work from home experience during the pandemic versus 37 percent of women. 
• VOX recently reported that despite the additional challenges of working remotely, women are more likely than men to want to continue to work from home.
• According to a Kaiser Family Foundation Women’s Health Survey, one in ten working mothers said they quit their jobs during the pandemic. And, nearly 2 million women have left the labor force since the start of the pandemic.
• The overwhelming consensus from several studies, including VOX, Forbes, Harvard Business Review and Fortune, was that the stress level among women increased dramatically during the pandemic, and significantly more than their spouses and their male colleagues.

These studies all highlight the benefits of women setting boundaries and establishing priorities with the help and support of their family, their managers and their corporate leadership. The importance of these strategies lies in them being both career-advancing and stress-reducing.

3 proven approaches to setting boundaries and establishing priorities

First, it is important to understand that in setting boundaries and establishing priorities women cannot fly solo. On an individual level, spouses and significant others must be willing to listen and buy into a more equitable division of household chores and caring for children or aging parents. On a professional level, women must engage their managers for support by:

• Having conversations to identify and prioritize what is truly important.
• Determining together what can be delegated.
• Ensuring their managers provide opportunities for visibility with senior organizational leaders so women’s contributions can be recognized and valued.

Next, according to a study done during the pandemic by WOMEN Unlimited, Inc., managers gained a much greater understanding of — and empathy for — the specific challenges that women, and especially working mothers, face. It is vital for managers at all levels to continue their efforts to accept flexibility and individuality, a strategy with proven individual and corporate benefits. Organizations that supported women’s prioritizing when and how they worked performed significantly better during the pandemic. Additionally, the women had lower stress levels and, feeling valued and appreciated, they were more likely to stay on the job.

Finally, a variety of mind shifts are needed by women themselves. Learning to make the shift from being sole purveyors of tasks to being co-owners is an important start. Women must also abandon the guilt they often associate with taking time for themselves and be willing to embark on a strategy of practicing self-care, which includes nurturing both their physical and psychological wellbeing. This shift brings with it the all-important realization that in order to care for others they love, they must first care for themselves.

The foundation for this self-care lies in setting boundaries and establishing priorities. It puts women in the right frame of mind to think of their own needs, and it frees up the time to make self-care happen.

Setting boundaries and establishing priorities have an immediate impact on women in the workforce. They become less stressed about prioritizing personal and professional responsibilities, more accomplished at the tasks that matter, and less likely to abandon the workforce. But that’s only the beginning. This quote from the article, “Women, Work and the Economy: Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity,” perfectly sums up the far-reaching benefits of these strategies:

“When women feel valued for their career aspirations and men feel valued for their family involvement, the side effects include greater personal well-being, closer families, better marriages, faster innovation and a more efficient economy.”

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As job postings fill your employees’ inboxes and recruiters pound the virtual pavement for skilled workers, it’s time to actively consider the competition for talent — through your employees’ eyes. Companies are facing a growing skills gap and a struggle for talent across all industries. How can your rewards program help attract, win and keep the people you need?

In moving the post-pandemic employee experience forward, the c-suite needs creativity to be successful in the war for talent. We’re in a fascinating place; employers are starting with a clean slate. There is no better time to reconfigure the future employee experience.

The fight to fill roles is fundamental to maintaining a competitive advantage — but so is employee retention. How does your organization measure up? By evolving your rewards to align with employee preferences, your company will be ready to change — all while cultivating an environment that shows people you recognize their value.

Culture and well-being

Supporting people holistically means offering programs and fostering an environment that supports employees’ well-being. Among the many issues exposed, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed a stark disconnect between what employers believed they were providing around well-being versus what employees perceived. While the overwhelming majority of CFOs (84 percent) agreed their company has successfully addressed essential issues such as well-being, only about a third of employees thought so.

Many employers are investing in programs such as paid time off and technology, such as apps designed to address well-being. However, they often overlook the importance of culture to create an environment where employees feel empowered to focus on the everyday behaviors necessary to improve well-being.

Global culture statistics highlight that 72 percent of leaders agree culture helps successful initiatives happen. And it’s critical to attracting new talent. It’s no surprise employees want to be happy at work. So how are your leaders, managers and peers contributing to a positive culture of caring for themselves and one another?

Managers who set boundaries are an enormous value, avoiding employee burnout by being proactive. But watch out for managers who feed an unnecessarily stressful, demanding culture — it can be a leading factor for employee exodus. Don’t risk pushing talent away — the time to actively promote inclusion, empathy and innovation is now.

Upskilling

Proactive upskilling programs are another solution to attracting new talent and employee retention. Upskilling programs across all areas dismantle employment insecurity rooted in automation, replacing it with new career paths and increased enrichment. First-quarter 2021 stats show a majority of workers are concerned about losing their jobs to tech and 77 percent are ready to learn new skills or completely retrain.

As business crossed into employees’ living rooms, workers effectively managed their jobs and became empowered to make decisions. These soft skills translate neatly to digital upskilling. Your firm most likely invested in tech infrastructure for remote access — leverage this investment by implementing upskilling programs that create new career opportunities.

Attracting talent through recruitment is about presenting the total rewards package. While compensation alone may contribute to successful poaching, it’s ultimately short-sighted. Organizations need to present new talent with the long game — opportunities to grow a career by building and/or enhancing skill sets.

Hybrid work, flexibility and paid time off

PwC’s Pulse survey showed as industries leap-frogged from limited hybrid work availability into fully remote access, more than half of employees want a mix of in-office and remote work once pandemic concerns recede. People want to love not only what they do, but also where they do it. Availability of hybrid work and flexibility is make-or-break for talent. Some have gotten used to staying home and more than half would forgo higher salaries for more flexibility. Those numbers are higher among women (53 percent) and experienced professionals (56 percent). Giving people a say in how frequently they come into the physical office fosters loyalty and trust.

Leaders are quickly learning there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to hybrid work. Although Gen Z and millennials just entering the workforce would give up future earnings for the chance to work remotely, that’s not the entire story. Transitioning smoothly to remote work doesn’t necessarily mean new workers want to dismiss office culture completely — Gen Z and millennials in urban areas may look forward to building professional relationships on site. Trust your talent to excel based on where they work best.

Now that a new level of work-life integration has arrived, boundaries are often blurred. Paid time off has been top of mind for employees: 44 percent said they would give up more than 10 percent of their pay raise for unlimited vacation time. And of employees surveyed, 33 percent said they would give up a portion of their salary from a new job offer in exchange for PTO to volunteer for a cause of their choice.

Diversity and inclusion

Diversity and inclusivity extend far beyond the walls of work. According to our most recent Pulse survey, 62 percent of job seekers said they are more likely to apply for a job where a company is openly committed to improving diversity and inclusion in their workforce.

When you consider a staggering 3 million women have dropped out of the workforce since the pandemic, it reinforces that businesses aren’t doing enough to support gender equality. Recent social justice movements have also given many employees a voice to express their concerns, hopes and opinions on these issues. It should come as no surprise that many will consider the alignment of their values with that of their current or potential employer when choosing whether to stay or go.

Businesses in nearly every industry can differentiate themselves. As you evolve employee experience, create a stable environment where employees are confident management cares about them. Ask your employees what they want — then listen and be open to change. It’ll go a long way to winning the top talent you need.

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Right at the start, professional training, learning and development made a misstep. At the time workplace training and L&D was being formalized in the mid-1900s, people were segmented and siloed within their organizations in terms of the professional development opportunities they were offered.

For example, if you joined an organization in a finance role, and you were lucky enough to be provided professional development opportunities, those opportunities would likely solely be within the field of finance. As a result, corporate L&D has produced huge cadres of specialists, but very few generalists.

Moreover, the skills that many consider to be leadership skills are typically only taught to someone after they are promoted to a leadership role, requiring a new leader to be accountable for new functional outputs as well as new interpersonal skills, which is often a burdensome expectation.

If you’d like to successfully get in front of the leadership transition that is about to occur, before the last group of boomers retire by the end of this decade, there are four key concepts you must start teaching now to have well-rounded leaders in your future leader pipeline: 

• Personal development
• Interpersonal development
• Business acumen
• Next-level learning

Here’s a brief look into each of these topical areas and why they are important. 

Personal development. We have heard a lot about emotional intelligence in the last few years, and the need for leaders to uber-possess this quality. Unfortunately, typical workplace practices such as the competition for promotions and the type of outputs “graded” in-performance reviews often surmount the development of EQ. In general, we default to explaining what EQ is, but fall short of helping people develop it.

In addition to being able to manage oneself, there are other personal capabilities a future leader should demonstrate, such as being able to work collaboratively across the organization, communicating well in both writing and speaking and being able to independently look for opportunities to expand one’s capabilities, such as through volunteering. Personal development is critical to working with others, as well as to working independently, and will only become more important as a broader work-from-home culture takes hold.

Interpersonal development. Interpersonal skills are the lifeblood of organizations; without them work simply doesn’t get done. However, we make a huge assumption in believing that everyone in our organization knows, for example, how to work cooperatively, understands how teams form and perform or is able to agreeably come to consensus. These are fundamental workplace skills that everyone should possess, and we assume people in leadership roles do possess, but rarely are they purposefully developed in our workforces below the leadership level.

Business acumen. As I mentioned, those of us in professional training and L&D have created masses of specialists and very few — if any — business generalists, unless the employee is a chosen “hi-po,” and there are very few organizations that utilize this developmental model. It is critical that we develop future leaders’ business acumen, or organizations risk suffering irretractable mistakes made by leaders who lack a full perspective of how the organization operates, makes money, keeps money or hedges against risk.

Understanding organizational finances is one important aspect, as are the concepts of continuous improvement, competitive intelligence, project management — the list goes on. Typically, organizations reserve these kinds of topics for people in operations, but why? What is the benefit of isolating increased performance? You don’t need an organization full of PMPs , but it is exceedingly beneficial for everyone in the organization to understand how projects are conceived, teamed, scheduled and monitored. Likewise, think of the money your organization could save, or generate, if everyone had a basic understanding of continuous improvement and was on the lookout for opportunities within their own role.

Next-level learning. “Next-level learning” is a term I invented. It encompasses the knowledge and skills we presume a leader possesses, especially in the executive ranks, but that we rarely purposefully teach to our up-and-coming leaders — things like, but not limited to, assessing risk, planning strategy, behaving ethically or polarity thinking.

Many of these capabilities in the “next-level” category are learned through experience and reflection. For instance, it’s not very effective to teach the “concept” of ethics, it’s more impactful and results in deeper learning to experience an ethical dilemma and have to reason through the best course of action. Building the ability to think through a situation from multiple angles (i.e., how will this impact our people, our finances, our reputation in the industry?) and arrive at a well-reasoned, defensible decision is not achieved quickly or easily. We need to start building capabilities in this realm early in people’s careers so that they possess these capabilities before ascending to leadership roles. 

There are a number of demographic shifts happening in the business environment today and for the foreseeable future. For organizations to minimize the stresses of leadership in flux, now is the time to build a leadership pipeline focused on these four critical areas.

The post Teach these four key concepts to develop well-rounded leaders appeared first on Chief Learning Officer - CLO Media.

Chief Learning Officer is pleased to announce the 2021 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 win a gold, silver or bronze award during a special virtual awards ceremony on Wednesday, October 13. At the same time, the prestigious CLO of the Year Award winner will be named!

Finalists are listed alphabetically by category:

THE BUSINESS IMPACT AWARD

Division 1:

• John Kusi-Mensah, AVP, Global Distribution Academy, MetLife
• Karen Powell, Chief Talent and Learning Officer, IQVIA
• Sudhakar Ravada, Transformational Change & Talent Development Leader, Applied Materials

Division 2:

• James Bruce, Senior Director, Learning & Development, Apeel Sciences
• Kristina Tsiriotakis, Global Director of Learning & Organizational Development, DECIEM
• Lauren Zdunek, Senior Demand Generation Enablement Program Manager, Veeam

THE BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP AWARD

Division 1:

• Bank of America
• CGI
• College of Contract Management
• Nationwide
• Unilever

Division 2:

• ​​Apeel Sciences
• Infoblox
• Toyota Financial Services

THE INNOVATION AWARD

Division 1:

• Stephanie Findlay, VP, Learning and Leadership Development, ABM Industries
• John Kusi-Mensah, AVP, Global Distribution Academy, MetLife
• Rachel Richal, Director, Learning and Team Member Activation, Buffalo Wild Wings

Division 2:

• Lindsey Costello, Director, Design & Development, Veeam
• Mark Dirkson, TFS Digital Learning Officer, Toyota Financial Services
• Kristina Tsiriotakis, Global Director of Learning & Organizational Development, DECIEM
• Employee Services Team, Paycom

THE STRATEGY AWARD

Division 1:

• Pamay Bassey, Chief Learning and Diversity Officer, The Kraft Heinz Co.
• John Kusi-Mensah, AVP, Global Distribution Academy, MetLife
• James Woolsey, President, DAU

Division 2:

• Dan Carusi, Vice President, Learning & Development, ORBCOMM
• Melissa Janis, Vice President, Leadership & Organizational Development, McGraw Hill
• Kristina Tsiriotakis, Global Director of Learning & Organizational Development, DECIEM

THE TALENT MANAGEMENT AWARD

Division 1:

• Stacey Johnson, Head of Leadership and Culture, The Kraft Heinz Co.
• David Padley, Director, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
• Karen Powell, Chief Talent and Learning Officer, IQVIA

Division 2:

• Bridget Huffstutler, Professional Development Manager, Greenberg Traurig
• Melissa Janis, Vice President, Leadership & Organizational Development, McGraw Hill
• Matthea Marquart, Assistant Dean, Online Education, Columbia University School of Social Work

THE TECHNOLOGY AWARD

Division 1:

• John Kusi-Mensah, AVP, Global Distribution Academy, MetLife
• Manoj Parthasarathy, VP, HR Digital Operations and Global Learning Solutions, Baxter Healthcare
• Nicolette Spykerman, Senior Partner Learning and Development, NTT Ltd.

Division 2:

• Alain Cérat, Director of Medical Capability Building, Novartis Pharma AG
• Kristina Tsiriotakis, Global Director of Learning & Organizational Development, DECIEM

THE TRAILBLAZER AWARD

Division 1:

• Elizabeth Greene, Director, Global Learning & Development, ON Semiconductor
• Salvador Gutierrez, Corporate University Manager, General Motors Mexico
• Stacey Johnson, Head of Leadership and Culture, The Kraft Heinz Co.
• Rachel Richal, Director, Learning and Team Member Activation, Buffalo Wild Wings

Division 2:

• Mark Dirkson, TFS Digital Learning Officer, Toyota Financial Services
• Analicia Humes, Senior Director of Process Improvement and Learning & Development, ACERTUS
• Kristina Tsiriotakis, Global Director of Learning & Organizational Development, DECIEM

EXCELLENCE IN BLENDED LEARNING

• Cognizant Technology Solutions
• DBS ASIA HUB 2 PRIVATE LIMITED
• Entelechy
• INSEAD
• McDermott Will & Emery LLP
• Roundtable Learning
• TELUS International

EXCELLENCE IN CONTENT

• Cognizant Technology Solutions
• Connect Learning & Development
• McDermott Will & Emery LLP

EXCELLENCE IN E-LEARNING

• Mursion
• Origin Learning Inc.
• Raytheon Professional Services
• Tipping Point Solutions Inc.

EXCELLENCE IN EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

• Esme Learning
• INSEAD
• Institution for Management Development

EXCELLENCE IN PARTNERSHIP

• Cognizant Technology Solutions
• Impact
• InStride
• ion Learning

EXCELLENCE IN TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

• GP Strategies
• ion Learning
• Medtronic
• Mursion
• Qstream

The post Congratulations to the 2021 Learning in Practice Awards finalists appeared first on Chief Learning Officer - CLO Media.

Beginning a new job can be scary during normal times, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, interviewing, hiring and onboarding with a company became a new experience for everyone. It was quickly apparent to the talent professionals at Zotec Partners we needed to evaluate our traditional onboarding practices to create innovative virtual ways to welcome new team members and create a stronger sense of belonging on our team, while managing uncertain business disruptions and change.onboarding

For Zotec’s people and culture team, the migration of team members into remote roles was the catalyst to think differently and explore new possibilities of an augmented onboarding experience and new team engagement. The first day is critical and we want our new team members to feel excited and supported as they begin their careers with us. With that in mind, we launched the redesign of our traditional New Employee Orientation program to enhance, advance and transform our onboarding approach to include bold, welcoming and high-impact features to wow our incoming team members.

Compass guides the way

We gathered select team members, hiring managers and passionate people from across Zotec to creatively enhance the New Employee Orientation program. This eclectic team delivered innovative ideas, diverse perspectives and functional insight that quickly revealed we should focus on creating an experience that empowers new hires beyond the first-day orientation. This discovery process led to creating new hire roadmaps designed to guide team members through pre-boarding activities, day one onboarding and the first 90 days at Zotec.

Once we defined the major milestones and touchpoints for the onboarding journey, the people and culture team redesigned the new hire experience into what we now call Compass. Compass delivers the most meaningful experience for team members in an engaging manner that connects them to the company, their teams and our focus on compliance excellence. During Compass, Zotec officially welcomes new team members through a virtual experience that includes:

• Leader-led discussions that explore our origin story, current news and culture of belonging
• Activities that reinforce and personalize Zotec 5 P’s in a way that evokes a sense of welcome and connection: People, Passion, Persistence, Perspective, Predictability
• Team activities spaced evenly and often within every discussion to enhance engagement through chat, word clouds, polls and games
• Videos and scenarios that inspire small group discussions
• Professional supplies, technical equipment, lunch and Zotec gifts delivered to their door for first-day fun

Reimaging Compass helped us reinforce our commitment to provide an exceptional first-day experience that inspires new team members to be excited and ready to join their department the following day. As part of the continual improvement processes, we measure each aspect of Compass to ensure new hires understand our employee tools, processes, technology and mission to serve our clients and their patients. To date, more than 400 team members have graduated Compass, of which 96 percent say the program exceeded their expectations.

Onboarding roadmaps 

After transforming Compass, Zotec focused on the next part of the roadmap: 30-60-90-day onboarding plans. First, we identified our teams with the highest talent acquisition and growth. Then we launched a listening campaign to understand the most valued skills and relevant learning needed to support new hire success. An important aspect of the discussion was determining and negotiating the expectations of new hire “time to competency,” the point in time a new team member is considered self-sufficient.

After listening, we generated a heatmap of learning needs and created curated learning paths using our content library. These learning paths became new hire 30, 60 and 90-day learning plans and are now integrated into 70 percent of our departments.

The evolution of department learning plans is ongoing and we continue to discover more about the real-world effectiveness of the 30-60-90-day path to competency. Through continued evaluation of the program, we learned to be flexible and understand that not all teams and team members onboard at the same speed.

For the client-facing and technology teams, we adjusted the new hire plan to extend to 100 days to accommodate the complexity of the work. In contrast, our operational teams required a 60-day plan which ensured a faster track to role independence. This flexibility in planning revealed another surprising aspect for our new hires – they felt their onboarding was personalized to meet them in their understanding of our business. Through onboarding plan personalization, we reinforced our diversity, inclusion and belonging efforts to our time to competency to ensure every team member felt valued and welcome.

There are more changes on the horizon for improving Compass and new hire training plans. Our people and culture team is exploring how to continue providing learning-in-the-flow-of-work opportunities through the first year of learning. We are focused on designing an integrated learning experience that reinforces our commitment to our team members and their successes, delivered at just the right time.

The road less traveled 

Our journey to providing exceptional new hire experiences has required immense dedication and commitment across the organization. The Zotec leadership team continues to endorse and champion innovative actions that reinforce our status as an exceptional place to work and build a career. Through our discoveries, we have designed a flexible program to ensure new team members understand their performance, careers and learning plan expectations from their first day. As we recognize and measure the meaningful outcomes of Compass, we continue to empower a highly motivated team of innovators, collaborators and doers who contribute to the success of our business, clients and patients we serve.

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As remote work transitions from a temporary pandemic necessity to a permanent workplace fixture, talent leaders must ensure a successful remote working model, which begins with investing in support for  managers.

Managers are the most important people in your business. No other position has as much influence with your employees. Great leaders put the right managers in place and equip them to succeed. To navigate the uncertainty of transition, providing support to the managers of your remote teams may be the most important investment to make.

Successful businesses bring together diverse teams of employees to serve a broad base of customers. It is management’s responsibility to ensure each team member meets these expectations month after month. Managerial responsibilities have become even more difficult as employees work outside of the office. Below are four ways to support managers so they can consistently achieve organization goals while working remotely.

Provide training

Being the manager is not the same as knowing how to manage. This is especially true in the new remote working environment. Supervising a team of remote workers is different than overseeing a traditional office. Managers are responsible for the overall performance of their teams and flexible working programs might be seen as disruptive if managers believe these arrangements make it more difficult to achieve the team’s goals.

Supervisors must learn how to adjust their managerial approach to enable remote workers to be successful outside the office. Providing clear expectations about structure and goals of remote working programs is critical for success. Training should be implemented to help managers understand the company’s remote policies and learn how to best supervise those in alternative work settings. Top leadership must explain how remote work fits with the overall business strategy so managers can understand how these programs help the company achieve goals and how their roles impact success.

The managerial training should address the mistaken belief that employees must be seen sitting in their office chair to verify they are working. An employee’s worth to the organization is not measured by how much they are seen in the office but by what they accomplish.

Training helps managers understand performance is measured by the quality of service, timeliness of service and work produced. Managers need to know what metrics to monitor and what output to measure, so they can think in terms of performance and tasks accomplished, not time at a desk. When they understand how to effectively monitor the performance of their remote workers, they will be more confident their team is reaching performance goals.

Build trust

Establish a foundation of trust and support for your management team to succeed in challenging times. This begins with healthy channels of communication. Communication is the currency of effective leadership. Organizations that do it well have a strategic advantage. Open channels of communication with top leaders are needed for supervisors to feel supported. Utilizing a collaborative leadership style based on healthy communication influences the emergence of trust, providing a foundation for everyone to effectively work together.

Additionally, leaders need to create a cooperative model within the team that allows managers to work together collaboratively rather than in isolation and unhealthy competition. Peer relationships provide a source of support and comradery. Managers need healthy relationships with colleagues to discuss and address common challenges and identify shared solutions. When leaders invest in the relationship building process within the managerial team, it sets up the remote working environment for success.

Establish a formal remote working policy

Every company has written and unwritten policies that guide the organization. However, many may not have formal remote work policies in place. Supervising remote employees can be difficult when managers do not know what is expected. Without a clearly defined policy, managers are sailing a ship without a map and the remote work program may run aground. Having a formal written policy in place will help provide direction and security for managers to feel supported in their role.

This policy should be developed collaboratively with all levels of management, along with input from top performers who successfully demonstrated they can work remotely. The drafting of a remote working policy needs to contemplate many scenarios, applications and exceptions. Spend extra time planning to avoid having to clean up practical and legal challenges that may arise from a poorly written policy.

The written guidelines need to be detailed enough to provide clear instruction but not so rigid as to limit manager creativity. The policy should be clear on who is eligible for remote work and what performance requirements are necessary to participate. For instance, the policy must clearly state the times during the day when all employees must be available and working, either for customer service or for inter-company communication.

Companies must also consider whether there is sufficient space at an employee’s home for remote work and who is to purchase the equipment necessary. Your policy needs to be comprehensive and consistent, otherwise your managers are going to feel frustrated that all responsibility falls on them to make decisions on a case-by-case basis.

Make sure to carefully articulate the requirements and protocols of your flexible working program in an order that managers can easily reference and follow guidelines and direction. This process establishes a contract of expectations between the manager, the employee and the company.

The written policy must also provide the conditions for participation by the manager. Managers must understand what is required of them and how they are expected to support their teams. Managers usually have additional duties such as their own work to handle and are required to be available to answer questions, respond to emails and provide necessary support for their teams. It is within this policy that your company can set forth what managers are expected to do, as well as outline when managers are expected to be available for customers and the needs of their remote employees.

Invest in technology

Businesses must invest in reliable management software to provide access for managers to monitor performance. They need to be able to easily login and observe the performance of each employee on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis. The best systems provide easy to understand metrics documenting performance and results that can be incorporated into reliable reports and regular reviews.

Another critical tool is reliable communication technology to help remote teams stay connected. Companies need to have a secure and dependable way for mangers to communicate with their teams. Communication tools allow managers to frequently stay connected to their teams, which helps maintain the relationships and trust needed for success.

When employees are working together in a traditional office setting, the manager can make regular informal check-ins, which create coaching opportunities. There are a variety of software options and communications applications available for remote teams that allow managers to send quick check-ins through a message or video call. Although it can be a substantial investment of time and money, the savings from reduced office rent, parking, utilities and commuting costs is more than enough to justify the technological investment to make it easier for your managers to successfully supervise a remote team.

Remote work has significantly changed the way managers supervise their teams. Companies are wise to update the way they provide support to their managers during this time.

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Imagine a new leader joined your organization during the pandemic. They’re mid-career, juggling the demands of family life and managing a team whom they’ve never met in person. They want to develop leadership skills and authentically connect. They took this job because it offered flexibility to work where and when they want — autonomy they’ve long craved. But after reviewing the various ways to engage in learning, suddenly these myriad choices feel overwhelming. How do they choose the optimal way to spend precious and limited time to learn?

Many learning leaders are now on the brink of redesigning new pathways to professional greatness. Choices in how to learn are in abundance. What worked before may not work at all now, or won’t yield the same results. Empowering learners to choose what works best for them can enable growth rather than facilitate the passive consumption of information. But how might learning executives use more choices in learning as an advantage?

Here are four key steps for learning leaders to consider when evaluating plentiful learning options: 

• Define what business objectives align to the benefits of remote learning experiences.
• Define what business objectives align to the benefits of in-person learning.
• Evaluate and challenge the organization’s beliefs about collaboration and creativity at work and analyze data that support them.
• Co-design personalized paths with learners to optimize for choice in our new world of work.
  

Let’s dive into each step.

Remote learning offers newly discovered benefits. By early 2020, learning executives assumed the responsibility of bringing learning into virtual environments. For some, this meant rapid transformation in the delivery approach, including eliminating in-person experiences and migrating them online.

Remote learning presents unique challenges. In the early days of the pandemic, I facilitated a workshop with a mix of participants: those at home, those onsite with masks and those with cameras turned off. Without consistent real-time visual feedback cues, I suspect my ability to “read the room” was severely impaired. With experimentation and a healthy dose of humility, I discovered new ways to connect. 

But the benefits of remote learning can be significant: 

• Reduced friction to achieve participation at the click of a button.
• Increased modes of oral and written communication streams, from live chat feeds to emojis to sharing ideas in live collaboration platforms.
• More scalable, on demand, cost-effective solutions that reach larger audiences.
• The potential for reducing implicit or unconscious bias.

This last discovered benefit to the remote learning environment may be the most significant insight. Video conferences reduce us to small squares on the screen. In many ways, it’s the great equalizer. By making the owner of ideas essentially anonymous, content may be evaluated based on merit, rather than the source.

Naomi Davidson, a former L&D executive and now head of people at Anyscale, shared, “My brother is in a wheelchair. He’s a quadriplegic and a lawyer. He was one of those people dialing in remotely whereas everyone else was in the room. That diminishes his presence in the room dramatically. Now that we’re all on camera now, there’s almost no difference between him, you and me. While we may be moving around more, he’s equally in the room and equally present. Things like his wheelchair that a lot of people are distracted by suddenly don’t matter as much.”

Consider: 

• Does the business need ways to quickly distribute learning in multiple places? 
• How can the business use technology to its advantage to collaborate, reduce bias and achieve greater scale? 

The skills needed to maximize the benefit of remote learning can be acquired with effort and practice. Many have taken important steps of creating breakout room discussions and building regular, diverse modes of interaction. Leaders can now engage technology to host listening circles or meetings for pure social connection. And some have adopted parallel online working hours to mimic the experience of working alongside colleagues in the office or signal when they’re open to an unsolicited chat. 

Davidson says she recalled a moment mid-pandemic when she remotely joined her new company’s team-building event. “I turned off my camera and listened to them talking and I felt like wow, this [is] what it felt like to go to my office and hear people talking about the challenges of the day. I learned about this team, I got closer to one of the leaders, and I could see the love that his team had for him. It gave me a real feel for things that I would normally not have been able to pick up. They were really interacting, and I was able to be a part of the room without being in the room.”

These new ways of engaging technology can move us beyond a passive e-learning course. Even if some live online learning experiences don’t scale, they may enable virtual sharing of energy, ideas and build real-time connections. In some situations, these have the potential for higher impact and may outweigh the benefits of in-person learning experiences. As more companies migrate to hybrid or remote-first structures, remote learning is here to stay.

In-person learning offers deeper skill building and social stickiness. When we come together to share a meal or co-create a tactile project, we cement human relationships. These moments can build meaningful shared history within an organization. I vividly remember a pre-pandemic team-building exercise where colleagues and I built guitars for charity. It was hands on, creative and required collaboration and teamwork. Non-verbal messages were transmitted. We bonded. Some experiences simply can’t be replicated remotely.

Because of these rich layers of in-person communication, some believe the content of those experiences can go deeper, exploring controversial topics that may evoke strong emotions. In person, learning leaders can move beyond Bloom’s Taxonomy’s “understanding” level of learning and into “evaluation” and “creation.” With a trusted guide, these learning experiences can be transformational.

But in-person learning also comes at a cost. John Foster, chief people officer of TrueCar, explains, “Bringing people together in-person is precious, expensive and rare. So only use that mode when you’re going to get the best possible return on investment. It’s not that we shouldn’t do it. When we do it, we should be aware of how expensive it is.”

Consider: 

• Does the business require learning and interaction with physical material, and if so, is there a creative way to replicate the experience virtually? 
• Is the content of the learning sensitive or emotionally charged? (For example, discussing race relations at work or learning about a reorganization of your team.) 
• Is the business objective to build relationships and strengthen social bonds, particularly among people who don’t know each other well?

These investments may become less frequent in the future, which demands a bigger emphasis on the quality and a commitment to measuring results and ROI. We can then thoughtfully select moments to learn in co-located spaces to maximize their impact.

Commonly held beliefs and opportunity for myth busting. After aligning business goals to the benefits of remote and in-person learning, shift to evaluate and challenge the organization’s beliefs about collaboration and creativity at work. There may be leaders who are concerned that more remote learning will result in lost moments of spontaneity and a fractured culture. As learning leaders, it’s important to lean into data versus conjecture. It’s time to bust some myths.

Myth #1: We can’t collaborate online. With the advent of new technology tools, collaboration may require a different approach, but there are new benefits. Davidson runs regular hackathons remotely. “I don’t notice a big difference between the hacks I’ve run in person and the hacks I run [remotely],” she says. “We’re immediately productive and have an artifact coming out of it.”

Myth #2: We lose spontaneous interaction online. While you may enjoy the serendipity of bumping into a colleague in the hallway, Foster is quick to acknowledge that we should reassess the value gained from those micro interactions. Technology can enable organic moments of shared learning. It merely requires a social contract between parties to co-create, something we don’t always achieve through spontaneous in-person interaction.

Myth #3: We can’t build authentic relationships online. Many coaching and mentorship relationships have always been virtual. And global teams have long relied on technology to successfully build trusted relationships. Much like in-person connection, it often comes down to the emotional intelligence of each party. Greater empathy and social awareness can be brought into virtual spaces, but those underlying skills still take practice.

Myth #4: We can’t innovate creatively online. Research reveals there’s little evidence to support that requiring people to work together in an office leads to more innovation and creativity. In fact, there’s a greater risk of losing the innovative and diverse talent you’re trying to attract.

Optimizing for choice. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. In many ways, having more choice in how we learn is both a blessing and a curse. After assessing the pros and cons of different methods of learning and dispelling myths, leaders can then focus on optimizing for choice.

Consider:

• Are we falling back on old habits and approaches to learning? Simply because you did it one way before and you can do it that way again, doesn’t mean that’s the best option.
• Are we personalizing learning paths or overly relying on learning that scales? Davidson encourages taking a closer look at how changes actually happen and scale through organizational influencers. “Find those bright spots and invest in them – with deep learning, coaching and cohort-based learning,” she says.
• Are we empowering learners to make wise learning choices?  “Spend more time helping people figure out what they need and how they’re going to get it and less time teaching it,” Foster says. “Teach them how to fish. Don’t give the fish.”
• Are we using technology to its fullest? Take time to learn and invest in technology that facilitates stronger connection and collaboration among your audience. Don’t try to replicate an in-person experience and simply move it online.

With multiple ways to learn, learning executives can focus on empowerment. “Empowerment has two parts: opportunity and capacity,” Foster says. “[Learners] now have the opportunity, but maybe not the capacity to make the right choice. Why do I not make choices that are better for me, like learning? Being aware of those choices is the critical factor.”

Remember the new leader who started a job during the pandemic? Imagine they have the option to listen to a curated podcast while walking the dog, read a hand-picked article after the kids are asleep, watch a 30-second video from a peer (to which they can send an instant message of appreciation), engage in a listening circle from their home office to strengthen connection with colleagues and experience quarterly in-person learning experiences that go deep on transformational behavioral change. This is how they can choose their personalized learning journey.

Let’s use choice to our advantage. Let’s do the hard work of elevating the learning experience whenever possible. And, let’s help learners choose what’s best for them – and empower them to seize the opportunity and build capacity in this new era of learning at work.

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UKG Inc., a global provider of human capital management solutions, has acquired global people analytics and consulting firm Great Place to Work Institute Inc. According to a company press release, Great Place to Work will continue operating as a standalone company within the UKG organization. This is the latest expansion in what has been an unprecedented year and a half for the company; after HR tech giants Kronos and Ultimate Software announced an industry-changing merger valued at $22 billion, which was finalized in April 2020, in October, the newly formed company unveiled its new name, Ultimate Kronos Group, or UKG.

“We are determined to raise the bar on how HCM technology can help organizations and their people thrive,” UKG President Chris Todd stated in the press release. “The time has come for companies to expect more from their HCM providers, and we plan to lead the charge.” Todd says the acquisition will allow for greater positive impact on customers and workplaces around the world.

Great Place to Work was founded in 1990 and its software and insights are used by more than 10,000 companies worldwide. Their Great Place to Work Trust Index survey is seen as “the world’s most credible methodology to measure the employee experience that cuts across regions, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability status, level and role,” according to the press release. Great Place to Work plans to continue its media partnerships tied to the many “Best Workplace” lists published around the world.

According to the press release, UKG will offer Great Place to Work tools to its customers, with the goal of integrating data and benchmarking from the Great Place to Work ecosystem into its HCM solutions.

“By combining our employee-centric insights with UKG’s leading HCM solutions, our potential is limitless to help tens of thousands of companies around the world build more productive, more inclusive workplaces with higher levels of employee and customer loyalty,” Great Place to Work CEO Michael C. Bush stated in the press release.

UKG plans to embed elements of Great Place to Work insights into their solutions throughout the next several years and will provide UKG customers with access to Great Place to Work assessments and benchmarks, allowing organizations to compare themselves with peers of similar size, industry and geography.

“Today marks the day that we move from an organization with our own culture primarily at the center of our brand identity, to one focused on helping others build remarkable cultures and become recognized as superior workplaces themselves,” UKG Chairman and CEO Aron Ain said in the press release.

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Three forces are shaping today’s market landscape: the transformation to digital is accelerating, workplace skills are becoming obsolete faster and we’re increasingly navigating a sea of unknowns. These trends make the job of chief learning officers and their teams a lot more challenging and at the same time massively more important. Overlaid on top of all of this is the pandemic. To be clear, the pandemic didn’t cause these forces to happen, but it did cause much of the world to confront these forces far sooner.

Taken together, these forces, along with the ongoing pandemic, beg the following question: How do you upskill or reskill workforces during a time of seismic change? Do you boost investment in hard and soft skills? Yes. Do you begin to see those skills as durable and perishable? Yes. But at a time of increasing skill obsolescence and heightened unknowability, we propose adding a new set of complementary skills called immutable skills.

The immutable skills we’re referring to, which we write about in our book, “Win With Decency: How to Use Your Better Angels for Better Business” are humility, empathy, vulnerability, gratitude and generosity. Decency is the golden thread that ties them together. In this article, we’ll share real-world examples of companies and leaders who have transformed the aforementioned qualities into immutable skills, creating better business leadership and increased competitive advantage.

Humility

Humility equips us with the mindset we need as business leaders to stop, think and probe. Humility asks, what have we overlooked? Humility fosters the positive paranoia you need to look around corners and recognize blind spots before your competition does. In this sense, humility is a fundamental antidote to disruption.

But how do you transform the quality of humility into a skill? One of the easiest things you can do to build humility as a skill is to learn something new, to be a beginner. Try this: Write down three things you’ve always wanted to do, then pick one and try it out. You don’t have to become an expert at it. You don’t even have to be proficient at it. The key is to exercise your humility muscles by learning something new.

Mark Hellendrung, president of Narragansett Brewing Co., led with humility when he described the brand this way in Entrepreneur magazine: “It’s not my brand or even our brand — it’s a public trust.” In the span of six years, production of Narragansett beer went from 6,000 cases a year to 600,000. Clearly, humility is at the core of Narragansett’s business and allows the company to prioritize its customers above everything else.

Empathy

Empathy can play a huge role across your enterprise. Empathy is essential to protecting and growing your business. It drives everything from product development, user experience and innovation to marketing, sales and communications, as well as employee recruitment and retention.

Let’s take a look at how you can develop the skill of empathy through the following exercise. A former colleague used this ice breaker for one of his team retreats. He asked everyone seated at the conference table to take off their shoes. He then asked them to take their shoes and pass them to the person on their right. Then he asked each person to put on the shoes and walk around. You get the idea. The point is to show what it feels like to walk in someone else’s shoes — literally. This kind of exercise is bound to produce more than a few chuckles and is an excellent way to get you and your team focused on empathy.

Interestingly, a 2016 Empathy Index published by Harvard Business Review found a direct correlation between a company’s empathy and its growth, productivity and earnings. HBR measured companies’ empathy through ethics, leadership, company culture, brand perception and public messaging through social media.

Researchers found that the top 10 most empathetic companies increased in value more than twice as much as the bottom 10 and generated 50 percent more earnings. Those top companies included brands like Alphabet, Southwest Airlines and Whole Foods. That same study also found that 93 percent of employees said they’re more likely to stay with an empathetic employer. Equally important, 87 percent of millennials said they would consider leaving an employer who they didn’t think was empathetic enough.

Vulnerability

Vulnerability is the ultimate bridge to connect with your audience, customer and workforce in a way that builds trust, connection, leadership and executive presence. Done well, vulnerability humanizes a leader and a company, drives innovation, eyes potential disruption and allows for a fail-fast culture.

One way to transform vulnerability into a skill involves social media. Get comfortable taking your followers behind the scenes in your posts. Reveal yourself to people, even when you think you’re not at your best. This shouldn’t be done in a way that’s damaging to your reputation, professionally or personally, but in a way that’s affirming of your humanity. In other words, share photos or videos, even on bad hair days!

One example of a company using vulnerability well is the insurance company John Hancock. Its CEO, Marianne Harrison — the first female CEO since the company’s founding 157 years ago — is leading the way. We learned about her leadership efforts from an interview conducted by Rachel Montañez.

John Hancock has created an internal initiative called the John Hancock Signature Series. The series provides a platform for employees to share big ideas and personal experiences. The goal, according to Harrison, is “to address the stigma around vulnerability in the workplace and really try to encourage people to bring their whole selves to work.” From Hancock’s website, we learned that an additional purpose of the series is to challenge the company’s “usual way of thinking and to spark new conversations at work.”

Gratitude

Gratitude has the greatest untapped ROI potential in business. Why? Because it helps drive the two things that businesses need most to survive and thrive: employee loyalty and customer loyalty.

When you think of the practice of gratitude, there’s probably nothing as ubiquitous as the “gratitude journal,” where you write down things you’re grateful for. But have you thought about creating a gratitude journal, not for yourself, but for your employees? According to the employee recognition firm Achievers, 90 percent of employees hope to be recognized at least once per quarter. Here’s something that can be done to fulfill those expectations.

Let’s say you have a team of 10 direct reports. At the beginning of each quarter, buy 10 journals. Label each journal with the direct report’s name. At the end of each day, take a moment to write down something in each person’s journal that they did that you’re grateful for. At the end of the quarter, each journal will have a list of up to 60 expressions of gratitude from you. Gift wrap each journal and give them to your direct reports. This will show them you noticed the little things along the way and that you made it a daily practice to recognize their contributions to you and the team.

A business leader who is great at expressing gratitude is Doug Conant, former CEO of Campbell’s Soup. When Conant became president and CEO in 2001, Campbell’s Soup was facing significant market and financial headwinds. According to a Fast Company article, employee morale was low, teams were dysfunctional and trust was lacking. In Conant’s words, it was a “very toxic culture.”

Conant recognized that “you can’t expect a company to perform at high levels unless people are personally engaged,” and he set out to change this. During an 11-year period, Conant sent more than 30,000 handwritten notes of appreciation to employees for their contributions — from maintenance people to senior executives.

As a result, by 2009, the company experienced a complete turnaround. Campbell’s Soup outperformed both the S&P Food Group and the S&P 500. Sales and earnings were up, and so was employee morale. In fact, the company had 17 people who were enthusiastically engaged for every one employee who wasn’t. This was a sea change from 2001, when for every two people actively engaged, one person was looking for a job. By recognizing employees at every level with small gestures of appreciation, Conant was able to transform a culture of toxicity into one of gratitude and success.

Generosity

The opposite of generosity isn’t stinginess — it’s desperation. Desperation reaches out to get, while generosity reaches out to give. You may be thinking, “There’s no way generosity can be made into a skill.” But here’s one approach we read about in another Fast Company article written by Wharton School professor Adam Grant. It’s a group exercise called The Reciprocity Ring, which Grant first learned about from University of Michigan sociologist Wayne Baker and social scientist Cheryl Baker.

Its purpose, in part, is to foster information sharing to help solve problems in real time. Each participant makes a request of their fellow team members. Those teammates then combine their collective expertise in order to match solutions to those requests. Here’s one example cited by Grant: A Wharton student of his had always wanted to work at the amusement park Six Flags. But Six Flags didn’t recruit at Wharton. Through The Reciprocity Ring, the student landed an introduction with a former Six Flags CEO.

Creating a culture of generosity can have a multiplier effect in your business. Potential benefits include fewer silos, less information hoarding, better communication, greater team collaboration and overall improved productivity.

Here’s a real-world example of how generosity can create competitive advantage. Mint.com — an online financial management tool — used free content to promote brand awareness and credibility before it launched. It published free content in the form of a personal finance blog called MintLife. This ramp-up garnered great results. By the time Mint.com was ready to launch, it had already engaged an audience of more than 20,000 people via MintLife. Mint.com was eventually sold to Intuit for $170 million. And yes, you could say they made a “mint.” But it started by offering valuable content for free.

The dividends of decency

A century ago, it took 35 years for half of what an engineer learned as a student to lose its relevance. Today, the half-life of a learned skill is estimated to be five years. When the world looks back on the 2020s a decade from now, we believe the dividends that will have counted for business leadership and competitive advantage will be the dividends of decency, driven by the immutable skills of humility, empathy, vulnerability, gratitude and generosity.

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The pandemic has put the spotlight on frontline employees. While the rest of us have hunkered down at home, field teams in stores, in warehouses or on the road kept on donning their masks and showing up for work to keep our machinery working properly, our products shipping on time and our vital infrastructure safely maintained.

These everyday heroes deserve our gratitude, of course. They also deserve a better toolkit to eliminate some of the pain-points that make mobile work far harder than it ought to be. Deskless workers are a vital part of the modern enterprise, accounting for 80 percent of the global workforce — but at far too many organizations, mobile teams are left using paper and clipboards instead of the enterprise-grade digital tools relied upon by every other part of their organization.

It’s time that changed. We need new tools to support these vital employees, optimize their performance and underscore their status as vital and valued members of our workforce.

Managing a distributed workforce

Making employees feel valued is far harder, of course, when those teams do their jobs out in the field, not at HQ where managers can stroll by and easily offer guidance or support. While deskless teams do usually have systems in place to report on the work they’re doing, those systems typically involve old-school systems and archaic, one-way communication tools that are inherently inefficient and leave frontline workers feeling isolated and undervalued. At best, deskless teams are left using digital tools designed for desk-bound workers, which inevitably create more problems and inefficiencies than they solve.

The result: managers frequently lack visibility into their frontline workers’ performance and lack the tools they need to communicate, collaborate with or motivate their mobile team-members. That’s been especially challenging during the pandemic, with organizations struggling to implement new standard operating procedures relating to health and safety, or new omnichannel strategies such as click and collect, curbside pick-up and return-in-store procedures.

Field teams are generally trusted to get the job done without much supervision or training —and while they’ve generally done an incredible job, the lack of digital infrastructure creates unavoidable bottlenecks and failure-points as teams seek to rapidly adapt to new strategies and changing business needs.

To solve this problem, we need a smarter approach that enables frontline teams to perform everyday tasks better. Just as importantly, we need a system that improves the employee experience of teams entrusted with the vital work of servicing customers. Employee engagement and motivation are key to providing good customer experience but also to retaining valuable workers.

Operational efficiency for all

Fortunately, digital technology is emerging that promises to help organizations solve these problems by empowering workers as they complete their tasks and allowing managers to support them better.

Smartphone and tablet-based apps can help field teams to manage tasks, share information and acquire new skills without interrupting their workflows, while simultaneously giving managers visibility into their operations as if they were on the ground. Look for apps that include communication and mobile learning features that allow deskless workers to surface ideas and mentor and support one another.

Combining digitized task management, communication and mobile learning in the flow of work makes a tremendous difference in employee experience and productivity.

All this might sound a little bit predictable — apps that help teams track their work and stay connected. Pretty straight forward, right? But if you feel that way, it’s probably because you work in an office where such apps and tools have been commonplace for years. In the deskless space, many of our most crucial employees still lack access to the powerful productivity tools that have transformed the rest of our organizations.

Unlock human capital

Talent managers must ensure deskless employees feel heard, are praised and rewarded for their achievements and are given real opportunities to grow into new roles and to advance within organizations. That’s especially important right now, as retailers and other businesses struggle to staff back up and prepare for the return to in-person shopping.

While many younger employees say they aspire to deskless jobs and roles that give them opportunities to learn and grow, they are also twice as likely to say they feel unfulfilled. Reengaging these vital workers is a critical priority for modern enterprises.

Investing in digital tools is an important step toward helping deskless workers reconnect with their organizations. But companies also need to recognize that digital apps aren’t a silver bullet. In addition to building out the right digital and mobile infrastructure, we also need to recommit to making our mobile teams feel genuinely included and giving them the recognition and support they deserve.

That will require significant management changes as well as new IT investments — but the payoff will be worth it. Companies that get this right will be better able to recruit and retain employees, boost the efficiency and engagement of their mobile teams and drive better results across the board.

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Leaders want to know they are “not alone” and that what they are experiencing has also been experienced by others. We support ourselves better when we acknowledge that leadership is hard. Everyone, even the most confident leaders, suffer from a bit of imposter syndrome. As a coach, these are the types of realities we help leaders accept and grow from. And when we work with a leader that has grown up in the same organization for many years, these insights have different and sometimes deeper impacts.

When I met my co-author Emily, on the surface, things appeared to be going well — great even. She had been quickly promoted over a 10-year period and was operating in a senior leadership role at a Fortune 100 company. Smart and ambitious, she had become more comfortable acknowledging these attributes, but, despite her growing confidence in some areas, she experienced significant growth pains in others. Throughout our coaching, I guided and supported Emily as the reality that “leadership is hard” caught up with her. She was forced to abandon behaviors that once assured her success but no longer served her as well as demonstrate resilience and vulnerability well beyond what she ever considered necessary as job requirements.

Our work together inspired us to share the following learnings in hopes of normalizing some of what Emily experienced for the benefit and comfort of other leaders and to provide the assurance that you are not alone.

Emily’s leadership reflections

Reflecting on the past 10 years, the journey seems immense — finding my way as an individual contributor to a supervisor, then as a leader of leaders while sitting on an executive team with peers at least a decade more experienced than me. The challenges I faced seem like an obvious consequence of the significant leaps in scope and scale in such a short period of time. I transitioned from working independently to leading a team and being responsible for the work of others. Colleagues, who were formerly peers, were now working for me. I was an ambitious late 20s, then 30-something leader trying to figure out my place, drive impact and perform in a way that was consistent with what the organization wanted to see from me and what I wanted to see from myself.

Perceived or real, I felt those around me questioning my trajectory, and, to be honest, in the early years, I questioned my own readiness. After each leap in scope and scale, I found myself working twice as hard to avoid disappointment from my champions and advocates and to prove, to myself too, I was capable and deserving.

At the time, and maybe even now, I did not fully grasp the accelerated leadership growth these sharp upward movements in my career would demand of me. I offered myself little to no grace. When I met my executive coach (and co-author), Lacey, I felt alone and frustrated, working myself into the ground to deliver the best results, be a good leader and maintain some semblance of a balance in my life. I remember being excited, nervous and generally uncertain of what to expect, but grateful that the company viewed me as worthy of the investment.

Throughout our time together, I learned a lot about the benefits and obstacles of quick progression within the same organization. These learnings helped me realize and establish who I am as a professional and a leader. Reflecting on our coaching journey, we share three critical tools below to help early-career leaders navigate these relatable challenges.

1. Communicate/ask for what you need

One of the biggest misconceptions I held early in my progression was that asking for help, support, guidance and resources was an admission of weakness, defeat or failure. For me, this meant subscribing to a leadership fallacy and a mindset where there was never enough time, patience or people to accomplish the goals in front of me. I now know that part of a leader’s role is to understand and ask for what you and your team need to deliver on your goals. Here are some things I learned to ask for along the way:

• A mentor/coach/advisor. When you grow up within the same organization, you can identify individuals you look up to and proactively seek out their advice and feedback during key career transitions. If the relationships are no longer appropriate based on organizational structure or you have outgrown the mentorship, find new role models and mentors you can learn from in other parts of the organization. Also, consider an executive coach. Working with Lacey provided me with a confidential outlet to share my challenges, frustrations and successes and develop skills to manage issues more effectively.

• Resources. At one point in my career, I found myself stretched very thin, providing direct leadership to a large team responsible for significant goals. Instead of asking for help, I neglected to speak up, concerned that asking for more resources meant I could not do the job successfully on my own. The real failure was working myself and others to death and not having the courage and maturity to redesign my team’s structure. Once I finally spoke up, not only was I personally relieved, but my team was also much better positioned for success. Part of the role of a leader is being realistic about the resources required to deliver on your team’s goals. If there is a misalignment between the available resources and what is required, it is up to me to communicate that and ask for what I need. Being asked to do too much with too little can impact your ability to motivate, inspire and empower and can lead you and your team to feeling overwhelmed, stressed and burned out.

• Patience and empathy. As leaders, we hear repeatedly the importance of extending empathy to those we lead. I was so focused on figuring out how to do that effectively that I could not see my own need for empathy. When stepping into a new role or leading a new team, growth, risk and failure are a natural and expected part of those transitions. One of the benefits of being promoted internally is there is broad recognition that you are in a new role and, in some cases, a stretch position. Chances are you have built up goodwill and a reputation that supported your promotion in the first place. Remind yourself you are surrounded by people who want you to be successful, and ask for their patience and support as you find your footing.

2. Acknowledge the transition and the challenge

One day you are surrounded by good friends at work, and the next, you’re venting to your co-worker about how a leadership decision is completely inappropriate. Redefining relationships and setting new boundaries is a real and necessary implication when leading former peers and attempting to establish yourself as a peer to those you previously considered your bosses. The following mindset shifts were key in my personal transition:

• Recognize some of your behaviors will need to change. Decide how you are going to set boundaries with prior friends and colleagues. Lacey encouraged me to seek out a mentor outside of my function. Managing a new and larger team, I needed someone I could talk to and confide in about my challenges and experiences, and it was no longer appropriate for me to do that with colleagues within my own function. Seeking out another leader within the organization, but in a different area of the business, gave me the benefit of a sounding board who knew the company but was removed from my direct team.

• Remember that you were asked to do the job for a reason. When promoted internally, the decision makers’ confidence in your capabilities stems from your track record at the company. Take time to learn from your new peers and leadership team members, but let them learn from you as well. While you may be less experienced, you bring new ideas, personal strengths and unique perspectives to the group.

• Decide how you want to show up. It is time to turn the chapter on who you were versus who you aspire to be going forward. Several months into our coaching engagement, Lacey guided me through an exercise for further clarity on who I am as a leader. I spent weeks reflecting on what I value, what I admire about other leaders, when I am at my best and when I am at my worst. Through that process, I discovered more clearly the unique value that I add as a leader and crystalized how I want to show up every day. Today, I am more transparent and authentic about who I am and self-aware about my weaknesses.

• View feedback as an opportunity to learn and grow. Seeking feedback can be terrifying, especially when you know you are learning and will have some missteps along the way. Instead of fearing feedback, I have learned to embrace it as an opportunity to understand the impact I am having on those around me and how I can further enhance my contributions. As an ambitious “star” student, anything less than an A rating felt like a total failure to me. My worst fears were realized when I received closer to a C feedback from my direct reports as I was learning to lead my largest team yet. After a few days of tears and frustration, I unpacked the feedback in partnership with Lacey and went to work on applying the insights. Now, I seek feedback on an ongoing basis and formally every six to 12 months to check in with my key stakeholders to track and share my progress. Do not mistake your inexperience for weakness. Learning is an expected and ongoing part of the leadership journey.

3. Seek external perspective

As an early career leader who progressed within the same organization, I placed a lot of focus on what it meant to be successful within my current company and measured myself accordingly. As I’ve matured in my career, I’ve come to appreciate the value of understanding leadership in a much broader context. Seeking perspective outside of my existing company and industry through insights from articles, external networks and Lacey’s coaching gave me access to new role models and different styles. As I worked with Lacey to define my leadership aspirations and identity, I was able to do so with a broader appreciation of what good leadership means.

Leadership is a journey, not a destination

Every leader’s path is different. What Emily experienced, and the learnings that helped her most along the way, may not coincide with your own experience. However, if there is one thing we hope you take away from this article, it’s the validation that the demands of leadership and quick progression are very real.

While you may have excelled at everything up to this point in your career, taking time to work through these new obstacles and challenges is a natural part of growing and developing as a leader and deserves your understanding and attention. Even those with the best natural tendency to lead are faced with these challenges.

Don’t confuse growth and development that may feel uncomfortable and painful at times with failure. Stay focused and be purposeful in working toward your goals, both professional and personal, and seek help from others to support you in achieving them. Remember that asking for help and acknowledging the growth these transitions demand are not signs of weakness but an indication of maturity. Leadership is not a destination or a task to be mastered; it’s a continual journey, and you are not alone.

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Immersive learning is on the rise. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, one in three small- and mid-size businesses in the United States reportedly planned to pilot a virtual reality employee training program. Despite the unprecedented economic headwinds of 2020, spending on augmented and virtual reality training systems topped $1.3 billion in 2020 — close to half of all commercial investments in immersive technology.

The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated the trend as demand for skilled labor has not abated, but the pandemic’s limitations on face-to-face contact threw a wrench into the talent pipeline. However, as adoption has grown, so too has confusion.

As a growing number of employers, schools and government agencies tapping the potential of immersive learning, many are seeking out the rules of the road for successful adoption.

Here are three key benefits prospective buyers — namely chief learning officers and other learning leaders — should be looking for when navigating the complex and growing immersive technology market.

Efficiency in workforce productivity and outcomes. The use of VR for professional learning and development traces its origins to the introduction of the first motion flight simulator called the “pilot maker,” in 1929 —  a mere 26 years after the Wright brothers’ first flight in Kitty Hawk. Flight simulators became a mainstay of military and commercial flight instruction, over time incorporating innovations in VR and AR, artificial intelligence and motion simulations.

Ironically, the cost to build a military-grade flight simulator still runs about the same as the actual aircraft, according to the Department of Defense. So, military flight instructors are now turning to the latest civilian industry-led advances that have made the technology more affordable, agile and light-weight, helping new pilots gain invaluable “stick time” as they wait their turn for a flight instructor and simulator.

As costs decrease and the technology becomes more agile and mobile, it is important to seek out these more efficient approaches to immersive learning technology. By and large, immersive technology should not be as costly and cumbersome as the experience it is simulating. Immersive technology should make reaching training goals easier, providing efficient and cost-effective ways for people to acquire the skills they need for the jobs they want.

A recent study from PwC revealed that employees can, on average, complete VR programs up to four times faster than in-person learning. Indeed, when Honeywell began using a mix of AR and VR tools to train its industrial workers, the conglomerate reduced training time by more than 60 percent.

Meanwhile, UPS uses VR to train its drivers on safety and navigation before they ever get behind the wheel of a delivery truck. In years past, the company’s training program was confined to large — and stationary — brick-and-mortar facilities. The VR program, however, is delivered through kiosks housed in a 53-foot mobile trailer, which allows UPS to easily bring its learning concepts to drivers across the country.

Efficacy in learning and employee development. Of course, efficiency matters very little if the tools aren’t also effective at improving learning outcomes.

For example, Honeywell not only reduced training time with its VR program, it improved employee skills retention by 100 percent. After H&R Block began using VR to help its employees gain important customer service skills, the company saw a 50 percent decrease in dissatisfied customers and a nearly 10 percent decrease in customer handling times among workers who took part in the program.

It’s crucial to understand what kind of outcomes a program aims to achieve with immersive technology and then seek out tools with proven track records related to those goals. Not all immersive technologies are built the same, with tools not only being of varying quality but designed to meet different kinds of needs.

When Hyundai Power Transformers, for example, decided to partner with Alabama’s state workforce development agency to use virtual reality to train more workers in the manufacture of power transformers it needed immersive learning tools built specifically around OSHA standards for lifting heavy equipment.

The program now allows workers to safely gain first-hand experience — and, importantly, certifications — required to operate machinery and equipment weighing up to 400 tons. With so many wildly different uses for immersive technology, the “why” becomes very important in ensuring any tool meets the needs of learners.

Employers should research companies that not only offer tools designed around their needs but are open and transparent about outcomes. The best immersive learning companies will back up their rhetoric with case studies and other resources demonstrating their efficacy. 

Advancing toward equity goals. Some have branded VR as the “rich white kid of technology.” But the truth is, immersive learning tools are increasingly being used in ways that promote equity. But done well, they can help to advance equity by removing many of the system barriers of awareness, accessibility and representation that too often reinforce bias in the workplace.

They can help to build classroom-to-career pathways, addressing the pain points faced by both employers unable to find job-ready candidates and potential employees unaware of existing opportunities. Through immersive learning technology, workers are able to experience and explore jobs they may have never imagined for themselves, and then gain the learning they need to unlock new career paths.

Additionally, students and workers with autism spectrum disorder also greatly benefit from using VR to learn critical career skills, including how to interview for a job and communicate and interact with co-workers and customers.

And, major companies like Amazon, Google and Target are also using virtual reality to enhance their diversity training efforts. The idea — and it’s one backed by research — is to increase empathy by allowing users to experience interpersonal interactions they may previously have been unable to even imagine.

These examples are just scratching the surface of the ways immersive technologies can make experiences more accessible to people who might otherwise be shut out due to geographic distance, socioeconomic status or disability.

Prospective immersive technology users should follow the lead of education and workforce nonprofit JFF, which in its immersive learning technology scan, carefully reviewed more than 300 immersive learning technology companies and included impact diversity, equity impacts to identify the most promising solutions in this fast-growing market.

Immersive technology is evolving rapidly, allowing companies and institutions to provide a wide range of learning and training opportunities to employees. By keeping these three benefits in mind, learning leaders can help ensure the investment they make in immersive learning tools for their organizations will be a wise one.

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Q: I’m writing about my learning management system. We’ve been together for almost two decades and made it through some hard times together, like e-learning during the pandemic and emergency compliance training. But I think I’m outgrowing the relationship. My LMS always wants to be the center of the universe, and it’s such a chore to get it to try new things, like external content and mobile learning. I feel like it’s over. Is it time for us to split?

— Conflicted CLO in corporate

A: Dear Conflicted Chief,

You’re not alone in asking yourself if it’s time to break up with your LMS. Even if it worked well in the past, that doesn’t mean your current relationship is still right. It’s time for some introspection. 

Have you found yourself supplementing your relationship with other apps or third-party systems? When you’re with your LMS, do you ever think, “I wish it had this interactive feature, like my collaboration app, or that embedded assessment, like my quiz tool.” Has it gotten difficult to keep track of all of the workarounds needed to get your LMS to fulfill your needs?

Don’t worry; you’re not alone. A few decades ago, it was common for an organization to pin all of its hopes and dreams on a single, massive system. But we’re living in the 21st century. It’s more acceptable than ever to have an assembly of applications that collectively support learning. In fact, the Gartner Group predicts that, by 2023, more than 70 percent of organizations will need a human capital management suite, with various learning apps, to support corporate learning. But a word of caution: You must do this intentionally. Don’t try to band-aid your relationship with short-lived flings. Have a plan. Grow your learning technology family incrementally, and, most importantly, make sure all of your learning applications talk openly to one another. Communication is key!

Q: I’ve only been with my LMS for a year, but I feel like it’s constantly hiding things from me — holding back information. It’s impossible to get the full story from it, and trust me, I’ve tried everything! Why won’t my LMS open up?

– Down in the Data Dumps

A: Dear Data Downer,

This is an all-too-common story, and unfortunately, it may be challenging to change your LMS, especially if it’s stuck in its proprietary ways.

Does this sound familiar: Your LMS puts on a good face — with slick dashboards of student outcomes — but when you try to look beneath the surface, you hit a black box? Do you have to force your LMS to talk, manually prying the CSV files out of it, only to find only the most basic scores and stats inside them?

It seems like you need a more sensitive and transparent platform. Find a digital learning system that’s willing to listen to your measurement needs, collect the data you want, and share it with you. And you shouldn’t always have to initiate. Your learning platform ought to be willing to publish its innermost data without requiring your personal effort each time.

Finally, make sure your learning system speaks your language. Too often, we’ve seen LMSs claim that they’re open, but in reality, they’re bad communicators — only talking in their own made-up languages and expecting everyone else to adjust. Honey, there are a lot of fish in the sea; you don’t need to play that game! You deserve a learning platform that’s transparent, insightful and deep, sharing openly with you in a language you can understand.

Q: I have a confession. I’m only using my LMS for its automated training. My company is big — and I mean really big — so as long as the LMS lets all my employees click through its screens, I don’t care what else it does (or doesn’t) do. Does this make me a bad manager? 

– Stubbornly Shallow Supervisor

A: Dear Stubborn Supervisor,

You’re not a bad manager, but ask yourself: Is this really working for you? Sure, it’s easy to turn a blind eye to usability problems or bloated features, especially when you’re not really engaged with your LMS. But let’s be honest, are you truly satisfied? And how do your workers feel?

The best relationships are built on a foundation of continuous learning. Imagine your company with a culture of upskilling, reskilling and innovation. Research shows that investing in your employees’ learning pays dividends, with benefits like retention and commitment. And you know what they say about organizations with a big learning culture: they’re more productive, faster to market and more profitable — not to mention five times more likely to manage change and engage their workforces effectively.

Even if organizational learning investment isn’t your cup of tea, you could at least picture your workers doing onboarding or compliance training more efficiently—like though microlearning. That tiny change could, for example, earn you around a third fewer general liability issues and a quarter fewer worker’s comp claims.

So, if you feel ho-hum about your LMS, maybe you haven’t found the right system. Open your horizons and find the learning platform — or platforms — that work for your organization. Don’t settle for a loveless relationship — you deserve more!

Why is the LMS in our crosshairs?

There’s never been a greater demand for technology-based learning, and traditionally, the LMS was a titan of this sector — the one-stop shop for e-learning curriculum, courseware, assessments and student management. However, the dominance of LMSs (at least the conventional ones) is waning.

We wrote this article with a humorous twist, but each of these “advice column letters” highlights a real-world issue you may have encountered with your LMS, such as monolithic software packages that lack flexibility, data silos and proprietary formats that ensnare your data, or low-effort integration strategies that fail to capitalize on the potential of learning at scale.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a traditional LMS, or more accurately, there’s nothing uniquely wrong with LMSs or other legacy technologies in this sector. Software modernization is advancing at a dizzying pace, and increasingly, CLOs are expected to translate those IT best practices into our portfolios. In practice, that means a vendor-locked, monolithic, server-based application (like an old-school LMS) no longer passes muster. Modern technology architectures use modular open systems approaches — for plug-and-play LEGO-like interoperability — and disaggregated software services that break apart big-box applications into many little functions that run independently.

Modern software practice has also migrated to the cloud, and with that change, has also shifted toward bigger, shared enterprise systems (versus smaller, more dissimilar local ones). Finally, there’s data. As the saying goes, “Today, every company is a data company,” and I think we can safely say that every significant corporate IT system is a data system. That goes for ed-tech too.

So, does this mean you need to break up with your LMS? Not necessarily, but if you want to stay competitive, your relationship needs to evolve. With a little less satire, here are five recommendations for “couples counseling” with your LMS:

Determine your systems’ maturity. Capability maturity models help organizations gauge the quality of their systems and plan future investments. Typically, these models are built like a rubric, with multiple key performance areas and corresponding five-stage descriptions of their maturity from initial (zero) to optimized (four) levels. You can search online for a model that fits your needs or try the open-access Distributed Learning Capability Maturity Model from the U.S. government’s Advanced Distributed Learning initiative. It includes multiple sub-scales across five performance areas, including commitment, design, human infrastructure, technological infrastructure and data infrastructure.

A capability maturity model provides a thorough understanding of where the organization is, and perhaps more importantly, where it needs to grow.

Find early adopters to help you pilot test new ideas. Once you’ve taken stock of your learning system’s maturity, consider which investments will bring the most value. Is there a relatively quick fix? Or is there a particular improvement that promises to yield major rewards? Similarly, are there places where modernization targets intersect with business goals?

Of course, you don’t have to answer these questions alone! In fact, it’s better to enlist the help and participation of business stakeholders. Working hand-in-hand with them will kindle a sense of shared purpose, better align your priorities with enterprise goals, and foster support for your long-term modernization strategy.

Start small and build gradually, reserving the right to learn along the way. Often, this means developing a compelling minimum viable solution to directly impact your stakeholders rather than trying to solve everything at once. In other words, follow lean startup principles for accelerating product development. And, periodically, make sure to revisit your roadmap (or maturity model) to gauge your progress.

Take a learning engineering approach. “Learning engineering is a process and practice that applies the learning sciences, using human-centered engineering design methodologies and data-informed decision-making to support learners and their development,” according to the ICICLE Consortium for Learning Engineering. Learning engineers take a systems approach, looking across a variety of factors such as organizational context, learning technologies, data, analytics and individual differences to optimize learning outcomes. Search online for a variety of recent books and articles on the topic or join the ICICLE professional community to learn from peers working in this emerging field.

Unlock the power of your data. There are hundreds of corporate truisms about data: It’s the new oil; what gets measured gets managed; from data to decisions. You may be tired of those cliches, but they’re no less valid. And, they apply just as well to learning and development as they do to corporate earnings or consumer behavior. In other words, it’s time to invest in good measurements and meaningful analyses — and to unlock your data from single-purpose or proprietary systems, like old-school LMSs.

The data standard xAPI is the industry standard for capturing, storing and transporting learning, development and performance data. It lets you share and aggregate across platforms, like among an e-learning system, a mobile application and an on-the-job assessment system. Using xAPI — and associated measures and analyses—right has a big impact. One case study from AT&T reported a savings of 670,000 production hours by using xAPI to facilitate adaptive e-learning and ceramics manufacturer Villeroy & Boch claimed an extra $2.92 million in revenue from its xAPI implementation.

xAPI is an open-access standard, which means it has no license fees or propriety barriers, and it’s supported by an active community.

Make friends with your IT modernization department. If all of this sounds daunting, don’t panic! CLOs aren’t expected to be advanced technology experts, but you do need familiarity with modern IT. Make friends with the more technical folks in your office or community; you might find that they’re eager to find early adopters for their own improvement efforts.

Keep an eye on software modernization, in general, looking at trends such as cloud computing, development security operations, cybersecurity, identity management, enterprise business systems and data engineering (At least, aim for a passing familiarity with the concepts.)

More importantly, stay abreast of ed-tech trends — which, as a reader of this publication, you’re already doing. Additionally, the Government’s ADL Initiative provides periodic updates on its research projects and working groups, and it helps organize the annual iFEST conference, which focuses on emerging trends in distributed learning. Deloitte also publishes regular updates on major industry trends at the intersection of IT and human capital, including annual Human Capital Trends and Tech Trends Reports, and a weekly WSJ CIO Journal.

It’s OK to admit that your LMS isn’t enough anymore, but you don’t have to split up entirely. Following these five steps, won’t necessarily rekindle the old romance with your LMS, but perhaps you can build a better, more modern relationship with it — redefining your commitment around a data-centric, open architecture, business-minded future.

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While women — and particularly women of color — have faced an uphill battle for equity since women broke into the workforce at scale during World War II, the COVID-19 pandemic upset the delicate balance that women had been holding and led to a massive employment exodus that Vice President Kamala Harris called “a national emergency.”

The statistics are flooding in at an alarming rate with overwhelming headlines. Behind the research is a stark and startling reality: The women have left the building.

This is the first in a five-part series, published in partnership with Businessolver, outlining the national employment crisis facing women in the United States and strategic recommendations for employers to implement or enhance specific programs and policies to recruit and retain women. In each article, we’ll look at one of the key challenges women are facing and what employers can do to retain, recruit and attract women back through greater support and more equitable work practices.

The workforce pandemic no one saw coming

Time Magazine called it a “she-cession,” while another term floating around is “wexit.” But clever wordsmithery aside, the ripple effects of this blow to the workforce are going to take years, if not a generation, to overcome.

Just before the pandemic, in January 2020, women had edged out men in the workforce by a tiny percentage, giving hope to an eventual move toward workplace equity, at least in practice if not in profit. Women still lag men in pay, with a woman earning anywhere from 53 cents to 85 cents on the dollar compared with the average man’s pay.

The factors contributing to this exodus are complex, bringing a different and darker meaning to the cliché “women and children first.” It’s the workforce pandemic no one saw coming:

• More than 5.4 million women’s jobs have been eliminated from the U.S. workforce between February 2020 and January 2021.
• Since March 2020, at least 2.3 million women have left the U.S. workforce, compared with 1.8 million men.
• Seventy-six percent of mothers with children under age 10 say child care is one of their top three challenges during COVID-19, compared with 54 percent of fathers with young children.
• Since March 2020, 28 percent of women with kids under age 18 at home have temporarily or permanently left the workforce to become a primary caregiver to their children, compared with 10 percent of men.
• Women of color are being hit disproportionately hard, with 9.1 percent of Latinas and 8.4 percent of Black women unemployed, compared with 5.7 percent of white women.
• More than 2 in 5 of the 12.2 million women’s jobs lost between February and April 2020 have not yet returned.

Stopping the ‘she-cession’

But this is just temporary, right? Once we hit our economic stride, get vaccinated, reopen schools and get back to normal, the women will come back … right?

Not necessarily. The problems contributing to the she-cession are multifaceted, and many have been building long before the pandemic. Some are systemic issues requiring legislative or more holistic national action that will take years to implement. Still, there are definitely actionable steps employers can take to make their workplaces more female-friendly in the near future.

Beyond the ideals of workplace equity and empathy, there’s a real bottom-line incentive to getting and keeping women at work: Increased female labor force participation could accelerate U.S. GDP growth, adding a staggering $5.87 trillion to the global stock market in 10 years.

Employers looking to take a share of that growth and put a stopgap in the she-cession can best put their investment and energy into four key areas:

• Dependent care
• Mental health
• Equal pay
• Flexible work

The next four articles in this series will take a deeper dive into how employers can address each of these key areas to help working women, and the American workforce at large, recover. Up next: dependent care.

This article is excerpted and adapted with permission from Businessolver’s white paper, “Where Have All the Women Gone?”

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An oft heard aphorism is that if something looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

Applied in the context of learning and development, if an intervention is provided by the L&D function, involves instruction and learners, then it is “training.” This is an unfortunate truth, because to external appearances, most training does indeed look the same.

Though all training may look like “training,” the value propositions that underlie different training initiatives differ dramatically in their relevance to current business needs and goals. Until these value propositions are clarified, explicated and agreed to by L&D leaders and their clients and stakeholders, it is impossible to make the right decisions about L&D program priorities, resource investment scope and intensity, needs for manager engagement, demands for evidence of impact and so forth. 

A crowded and growing marketplace for training offers a vast and potentially baffling multitude of training programs and tools. Amid this clutter, we posit that there are only six fundamental L&D value propositions that a viable organization needs to fulfill to survive and thrive.

The importance and worth of any L&D initiative are determined by the relationship of the value proposition to the organization’s business strategy and goals, not by the nature or type of the training program itself. Consider, for example, training programs in fire safety, suppression and extinguishment. Like ducks, such programs look a lot alike. But they differ dramatically when viewed through the lens of the value proposition. In a fire department, that training is vital to effective business success. In an accounting firm in a ground floor office, not a very high priority, if at all.

Despite this fact that worth derives from value proposition, L&D selling and purchasing transactions are commonly discussed and negotiated with little if any dialogue about value propositions. L&D department leaders can attest to the numerous times they are told something like, “We need some project management training.”

How much they need, how effective it must be, how much they should spend on it, how intensive it must be, the extent to which it requires manager engagement and so forth, are dependent on the value proposition that must be fulfilled. Consider, for example, some differing reasons a project management program might be needed:

Value proposition No. 1: A company is transitioning from a product sales business to a services business. Managers will no longer lead sales reps that just sell its technical products, they will now be required to lead cross-functional project teams to sell expansive service contracts that include its products as component parts.

Value proposition No. 3:  A business is consistently but slowly growing, creating a need to promote staff into project management roles.

Value proposition No. 5:  All projects are currently effectively managed, but new sales opportunities are arising in government agencies where an up-to-date project management completion certificate is required.

Value proposition No. 6:  The need to hire new team members is growing fast, but the labor market is very tight. Research has shown that prospective new hires demand opportunities to grow their marketable skills.

It is obvious in the instances noted above that all the training needed is nominally the same (project management), but that each presents a need rooted in a different value proposition. What is not so obvious is that the demand for training transfer — the turning of learning into job performance — varies from very heavy, to little or none. In VP example No. 6, for instance, the simple availability of such training meets the business need, and if the training is not designed to have any impact on job performance, it is no big deal. Yet in VP example No. 1, the training experience must be carefully crafted to produce broad and rapid transfer rates, since the company’s very existence is at risk.

As the learning transfer burden grows toward the top of the VP list, so does the design challenge. Strategic execution training, for example, aims at driving new skills that do not exist yet broadly throughout the organization. Thus, role models and mentors will be scant, behaviors will be hard to define precisely and exhaustively, and entrenched culture, current practices, longstanding habits, implicit and explicit policies, as well as existing standard practices, will present formidable obstacles to success.

Current job training, on the other hand, includes known and documented skills that are aligned with current performance systems and organizational culture. Likewise, on-boarding in some organizations is more simplistic and tactical, aimed only at minimal understanding of HR systems and company policies. In other instances, it is more strategic and extensive, with job skilling, speed to competence and retention goals in mind.

Some types of training programs are notoriously liable to confusion and even controversy about the value propositions in which they are rooted. Diversity, equity and inclusion, or sexual harassment training, for example, may have a vital strategic intent to change behavior and culture; in other organizations, their purpose may be only to minimize legal exposure.

If L&D programs are intended to drive new and extinguish harmful behaviors — a far more aggressive value proposition — they must be rigorously designed and supported systematically. The casual off-the-shelf program designed to meet minimal legal requirements will be woefully inadequate to the charge.

L&D leaders must interact with all clients to surface, discuss, clarify and establish agreement to the value proposition for any prospective L&D initiative. To return to the example of DEI training, if the organization’s intent is strategic and to change behaviors, but other stakeholders and participants see it as simply ticking the legal requirement box, lack of support will undermine even a thoroughly designed behavior-change effort.

Figure 1 re-arranges the six value propositions into a hierarchy where the topmost value propositions depend increasingly heavily on training transfer and behavior change, and those toward the bottom represent diminishing requirements for training transfer. This should provide L&D leaders with a simple guide to the likely degrees of complexity, resourcing and design requirements needed to achieve initiative goals.

At the bottom of the pyramid are those L&D offerings that serve principally to enrich the organization’s appeal to prospective and current employees. As in the case for other staff benefits, such as a company cafeteria or insurance coverage, they derive a lot of their value from the very fact that they are available. Just above these reside those often numerous initiatives that ensure that an organization adheres to the rules and regulations of running a business. These lower-level L&D initiatives are must-haves for an organization, but there are often typically low needs and expectations for return on investment and actual behavioral change. Importantly, no one program at these lower levels is make or break for the organization.

The third level from the bottom includes “just in case” initiatives that address potentially catastrophic or life-threatening events, such as a fire, an explosion, a shooting or a chemical leak. These are necessary to have as part of a training portfolio and can be prioritized based on balancing the likelihood of occurrence with the severity of consequences that may ensue if they do occur. 

The third level from the top includes initiatives such as succession planning and career advancement training, which are also “just in case,” but these instances are predictable and necessary to strengthen the organization. But as in the emergency training scenario, there is no need or expectation for immediate and consistent behavior change. They build capacity for future use.

The second level from the top deals with job proficiency and includes a broad range of common L&D programs, including managerial skills, soft skills and technical skills — whatever job incumbents across the organization require to perform to expectations. Because these initiatives are aligned with existing performance expectations, responsibilities and policies, they face fewer obstructive performance “headwinds.” But here there is still a need for robust design and implementation because immediate and sustained performance changes are expected.

The topmost level relates to L&D interventions meant to help the organization execute new strategic and change initiatives. These aim at new priorities, new performance requirements and outputs, and new capabilities and competencies. At this level, the training is “make or break” — a training failure here poses a significant risk to the success of the entire organization. 

L&D initiatives closer to the top of the hierarchy require them to be designed as performance-oriented learning journeys. Top hierarchy initiatives are successful only to the extent that they drive rapid and sustained behavioral change. They require maximum performance and transfer support, such as manager engagement, use of job-aids, mentors, coaching and frequent practice with feedback. Lower hierarchy initiatives can employ less robust instructional designs.

The importance vs. risk paradox

It is a formidable truth that as the importance of an L&D initiative increases, it is increasingly likely to fail. Why? Consider that a major strategic and culture shift often implies a large magnitude of change; what got the organization to where it is today, will not get it to where it needs to be tomorrow. In these cases, the gap between what is needed by way of leadership actions and what has been the long-standing previous way of working is often a gaping chasm.

Given entrenched attitudes and styles of leadership, deeply embedded implicit and explicit policies and practices, L&D has a steep mountain to climb. The likelihood of failure is high. Only an extraordinarily intensive and robust initiative designed to overcome the resistance and embedded practices will succeed.

Application of the hierarchy within a contemporary L&D ecosystem

Creating a strategically balanced L&D investment portfolio. The categorization and differentiation of value propositions enables L&D leaders to create a prioritized hierarchy of L&D initiatives, e.g., an annual plan,  based on their specific value propositions. Their place in the hierarchy changes depending on the strategic context of the organization. In a company that is aiming to rapidly grow its existing products and services through staff expansion, for example, current job training should rise to the top of the prioritization. In another company facing obsolescence of its current operations and aiming to transform itself strategically, current job training takes a backseat to adoption and execution of strategy. For yet another company operating within a highly regulated industry that has suffered many sanctions for failure to meet requirements, regulatory training which may be humdrum to its more compliant competitors now percolates to the top of the priority list. 

Clarifying and negotiating value-proposition agreement with clients. In our view, too many L&D or client interactions are too tactically focused on the types and titles of programs being bought and sold, versus focused first and foremost on the value proposition needed to meet a business requirement. 

Budget and resource allocation. Utilizing the value proposition to support the business case for each L&D initiative based on where it’s placed in the hierarchy. This enables L&D to resource their different offerings based on the intended value they bring to the business and according to the different level of performance-oriented design that is required to achieve this.

Updating and converting existing offerings. The adoption of new L&D methodologies and approaches, such as Blended Learning and Learning Journeys, has become increasingly popular as it becomes clear that they can deliver improved performance and value. To do so entails an overhauling of existing L&D portfolios. Applying the Value Proposition Hierarchy enables a decision to be made on what needs to be converted first and where existing programs are good enough. 

Enlisting senior stakeholders to support L&D Initiatives. Strategically important L&D initiatives will most likely require the involvement of senior stakeholders to be successful. An understanding of the value proposition and the ability to draw the links between behavior, performance, and results is key to getting both the attention and support required.

Return on investment and evaluation. L&D initiatives have to prove their value to the business, those that require greater investments and potentially additional funding, should be evaluated according to the value they need to deliver. The level at which they are positioned in the hierarchy provides a guide as to the level of evaluation that is required for each initiative. For some, a more stringent level of evaluation is needed, whilst for others it may be enough to evaluate them simply according to how popular they are, as shown by the number of participants who attend them.

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