Das weltweit tätige Beratungs- und Technologieunternehmen hat schon früh erkannt, dass neue Führungskräfte Unterstützung benötigen. Dies hat sich insbesondere in einem Lernumfeld bewährt, das von digitaler Ermüdung geprägt ist und von manchen salopp als „Tod durch Lernpfad” bezeichnet wird.

Angesichts des schnellen Wachstums und zunehmend komplexer Kundenanforderungen weiß Capgemini, wie entscheidend es ist, neue Führungskräfte von Beginn an optimal zu unterstützen und sie so auf Erfolgskurs zu bringen.

Klassische Führungsprogramme sind jedoch schwer skalierbar, pflegeintensiv und passen oft nicht zum Tempo und den Prioritäten des Unternehmens Bereitstellungsteams verlieren zu viel Zeit mit Schulungslogistik, E-Mail-Verwaltung und manuellen Prozessen. Lernteams hingegen wollen eine kohärentere, modernere und wirkungsvollere Lösung.

Um diesen Herausforderungen zu begegnen, hat Capgemini das Programm Emerging Leaders ins Leben gerufen: eine betreute, klassenbasierte Lernerfahrung auf Basis der Degreed Akademien. Die Ergebnisse? 26 % Kompetenzzuwachs, deutlich geringere Fluktuation und eine Zufriedenheit von 4,6 von 5 Punkten – der Beweis, dass die neuen Führungskräfte von Capgemini nicht nur geschult, sondern bestens für ihre Aufgaben gerüstet sind. 

Führungskräfteentwicklung, die stark beginnt und schnell skalierbar ist

Das Programm Emerging Leaders wurde gemeinsam mit Führungskräften aus der Wirtschaft und Lernpartnern entwickelt und folgt einem vollständigen Lernzyklus. Es ist weit mehr als nur eine Sammlung von Inhalten. Vielmehr ist es ein umfassender Entwicklungsprozess, der Wachstum in den Arbeitsalltag integriert – unterstützt durch Anstupser, Mentoring, Reflexion und soziale Verantwortung.

Dafür arbeiteten die Lernteams eng mit der Personalabteilung und Führungskräften zusammen, um Erfolgskriterien zu definieren, Inhalte auszuwählen und sicherzustellen, dass das Programm die Führungsvision des Unternehmens widerspiegelt. Dabei handelt es sich um eine Reihe von Leitprinzipien, die nach Ansicht von Capgemini alle Mitarbeitenden entwickeln sollten.

Das Ergebnis ist eine Erfahrung, die gezielt auf die Erwartungen einer digital versierten, ambitionierten Zielgruppe ausgerichtet ist. Die Teilnehmenden absolvieren einen sechswöchigen Zyklus mit digitalen Inhalten, realen Projekten, Mentoring, Reflexion und angeleiteten Übungen – alles zentral in der Degreed-Umgebung gebündelt.

Wie Degreed Akademien dies möglich macht

Degreed Akademien liefert Capgemini die Infrastruktur für eine ganzheitliche, betreute Führungsreise in einer einzigen, nahtlosen Lernerfahrung. Vom Onboarding und gezielten Anstupsern bis hin zu Live-Events und Reflexionen ist alles zentral gebündelt. Tabellen, verstreute Tools oder isolierte Kommunikation gehören der Vergangenheit an. Dank der Integration mit Microsoft Teams und der integrierten Kalenderfunktion bleiben die Teilnehmenden auf dem Laufenden und können gleichzeitig ihr Tagesgeschäft erledigen.

Capgemini nutzt Degreed Akademien, um monatliche Klassen in einer vollständig geleiteten Wochenstruktur zu organisieren, wo Inhalte, Führungssimulationen, Mentoring-Impulse und Reflexionspunkte zu einem klar definierten Lernpfad zusammengeführt werden. Die Teilnehmenden wissen jederzeit, was als Nächstes ansteht und warum es relevant ist. Automatisierte Anstupser und personalisierte Nachrichten helfen dabei, die Dynamik aufrechtzuerhalten und die Verantwortlichkeiten zu klären, ohne die Bereitstellungsteams zu überlasten. Da Degreed zeitintensive Aufgaben wie Terminplanung, Kommunikation und Nachverfolgung automatisiert, gewinnen L&D-Teams Zeit für das Wesentliche: hochwertige Inhalte, die aktive Einbeziehung von Lernenden und die Ausrichtung auf Unternehmensziele.

Und weil alles über Degreed läuft, hat Capgemini Zugriff auf Echtzeit-Einblicke in den Fortschritt, die Beteiligung und die Ergebnisse. Dadurch können Weiterbildungsverantwortliche die Bereitstellung auf der Grundlage des Verhaltens der Klasse optimieren und Engpässe frühzeitig erkennen. Mit Degreed Akademien bietet Capgemini nicht nur Schulungen, sondern ein skalierbares, datengestütztes Entwicklungsprogramm für Führungskräfte.

Funktionen wie Live-Events, integrierte Reflexionen und automatische Erinnerungen tragen dazu bei, ein Gefühl der Verbundenheit und Dynamik zu schaffen.

Die Abschlussquote erreichte mit 81 % einen Höchststand, wobei die Zufriedenheit der Lernenden im Durchschnitt bei 4,6 von 5 Punkten liegt.

Mehr als nur aktive Teilnahme. Messbares Wachstum.

Allein im Jahr 2024 schlossen fast 4.000 Mitarbeitende in 39 Ländern das Programm erfolgreich ab. Für 2025 ist Capgemini auf dem besten Weg, monatlich 2.000 Mitarbeitende in Klassen zu schulen. Die Abwanderung von Führungskräften, die das Programm abgeschlossen haben, sank auf 6,5 % – deutlich unter dem Unternehmensdurchschnitt in dieser Zielgruppe.

Das Feedback der Mitarbeitenden ist durchweg positiv. Immer wieder betonen die Teilnehmenden Relevanz, Struktur und den anspruchsvollen Charakter des Programms.

„Das Emerging Leaders-Programm war unter allen Schulungen, die ich bisher absolviert habe, unvergesslich“, sagte eine Mitarbeiterin.

„Eines der praxisnahsten, nützlichsten und anspruchsvollsten Programme, an denen ich je teilgenommen habe“, erklärte ein anderer.

Die Kompetenzwerte der Teilnehmenden stiegen im Vorher-Nachher-Vergleich im Schnitt um 26 %. Und mehr als 90 % der Befragten gaben an, dass sie das Gelernte in ihrer aktuellen Position anwenden würden.

Ein Modell für strategisches Führungswachstum

Capgemini hat nicht nur die Führungskräfteentwicklung optimiert, sondern auch die gesamte Herangehensweise neu definiert. Anstelle eines fragmentierten oder manuellen Modells ist Emerging Leaders heute eine wiederholbares, datengestütztes Lernprogramm, das sich nahtlos in die langfristige Führungsstrategie von Capgemini einfügt.

Für Unternehmen mit ähnlichen Herausforderungen ist die Botschaft klar: Trifft Führungskräfteentwicklung auf durchdachtes Design und skalierbare Technologie, vervielfacht sich die Wirkung.

Angesichts steigender Dynamik und wachsender Nachfrage baut Capgemini das Programm kontinuierlich aus. Damit zeigt das Unternehmen, dass die frühzeitige Förderung von Führungskräften mit dem richtigen Modell sowohl wirkungsvoll als auch großflächig umsetzbar ist.

Jetzt mehr erfahren

Entwickeln auch Sie ein skalierbares Führungsprogramm. Sprechen Sie mit uns darüber, wie Degreed Akademien die Personalentwicklung in Ihrem Unternehmen voranbringen kann.

The post Innovative Führung: Der Capgemini-Ansatz für die nächste Generation von Führungskräften appeared first on Degreed.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “It was the first year of Sunday Night Football on ESPN.”

A graduate of North Carolina State University and the second round 1989 draft pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Peebles was playing for the Cleveland Browns against the rival Houston Oilers on Nov. 17, 1991, when the helmet-to-helmet hit compressed his neck into his shoulders, fractured in his C3 vertebrae, and temporarily paralyzed him from the neck down.

“I was at the top of my game, at the height of my powers. And in one play, it was over. But once we realized I was going to regain mobility, I wasn’t in panic mode about my next steps.”

Danny didn’t panic because he’d always put learning first. In fact, we learned this week he’s never given up on the lifelong learning mindset he’s embraced since childhood. As our Q&A affirms, it’s a mindset that’s guided Danny throughout his nearly 20-year career in L&D and HR tech—and every day here at Degreed, where he works as a Raleigh-based Enterprise Sales Director.

Degreed: Working in the world of L&D, you obviously understand the importance of building new skills. Where did that appreciation originate?

Danny: I come from a family of educators. My mother was a math teacher. My oldest daughter is a teacher. My grandparents, my mom’s parents, were college professors: My grandfather was a math teacher. My grandmother was an English teacher. So math and science are kind of what I lean toward. I just happened to be good at sports. In fact, my nickname through middle school was “The Professor.”

I started off at North Carolina State in computer science, and the challenge in computer science at that time was it was all mainframes. There were 25 seats in the computer lab. After I got out of football practice, sometimes I’d be waiting until 2 or 3 in the morning to get a seat to do my punch cards and things of that nature. And I was like, I can’t. Do you know what I mean? I can’t survive doing this.

I studied biology. But eventually I was like, “What am I going to do with a biology degree?” I’ve always been a logical, practical thinker, but I was ignorant at the time of the Raleigh pharmaceutical research triangle right in my backyard.

I had a cousin who was a partner at that time at [accounting firm] Arthur Andersen. We had a conversation. I switched my major and made the decision to get a degree in accounting, and I got a second degree in business management. One of my advisors was like, “You’re only two classes away from getting a second degree.” So while I was prepping for the NFL draft, I went ahead and did two more classes. That’s how important school was to me. The draft was the night before my finals. When I showed up for my exams the next day, they were perplexed.

Degreed: You say you “happened” to be good at sports, but there’s got to be more to it than that. What did your path to the pros look like?

Danny: Coming out of high school, I got recruited for both track and football by some top schools. I was probably actually better at track than I was at football. NC State is seven minutes from my house where I grew up. So I grew up an NC State fan. Honestly, the reason I ended up at NC State is because I thought, “If I go to school and get on the field and play, it’ll be easy for me to get a job.” That was my mentality coming out of high school. I wasn’t thinking, “I’ll be in the NFL.”

Nowadays, I mentor kids and go speak. In middle school, they’re saying, “I’m going to the NFL.” When I was that age, I didn’t have any preconceived notion that would be the case. I always thought that if I didn’t get drafted before the fourth round, I was going to do other work. The money you could make in football as a late-round pick back then wasn’t like it is today. I already had other job offers coming out of college. But during my senior year, I started moving up the charts to the point where they were talking about me as a potential late first-round, early second-round pick. That changed the dynamic.

Degreed: You played running back in high school, but you weren’t big enough for that position in college or the pros. How did you adjust?

Danny: I naturally was a running back and defensive back, but I knew I wasn’t going to be big enough. Back then, if you were fast, you played running back. So literally almost my entire career until my senior year in high school, I played running back. I had to learn to be a receiver. It wasn’t as instinctive for me. I forced my high school coach to move me to receiver my senior year. I probably caught 15 passes my senior year. I had more interceptions. But it was vital.

We didn’t call it “skilling” then, but that’s what I had to do. I had to refine my skill set. I had to upskill myself. The path to success in any field requires continuous growth and a relentless pursuit of improvement. It’s about making a choice to invest in yourself, even when it’s not easy.

I’ve always wanted to push myself forward to be relevant. Take the role I have today. Sales was a learned skill for me. As a kid, we had to sell raffle tickets and stuff to raise money, and I wasn’t going to ask anybody for anything. You would’ve never in a million years convinced me I was going to be a salesperson. But it works for me today because I’ve upskilled, and I believe in what we do.

Degreed: How does your personal career journey inform your conversations with L&D leaders, our customers, and prospective Degreed clients?

Danny: I see the learning and business leaders I sell to as coaches. I often talk to them as If I’m talking to a coach about empowering a team. When I’m talking to prospects, I like to talk about their individual employee’s journeys. I talk about my own journey too.

In my first year with access to an LXP, I learned more than I had in the previous 20 years of my professional career. I’m always trying to hone my skills. I’m so grateful for platforms like Degreed that provide a comprehensive solution for skill-building and continuous learning. It’s like having a personal coach and mentor right at your fingertips. I’m currently learning a lot about generative AI and Chat GPT. And I’m always keeping current from a business development standpoint.

When I’m talking to prospects, I like to talk about how they can improve the individual employee’s learning journey because it’s going to help the business reduce turnover, which improves the bottom line. It’s going to help boost career mobility. It helps business leaders keep the people they want to keep.

The beauty of the LXP to me, versus an LMS, for example, is the experience. I’m passionate about that with the people I’m talking with because of what’s in it for them. And if you watch me demo, most of the time I’m demoing from the passion of the person, the employee, the learner.

Degreed: You enjoy mentoring kids, and mentioned they often dream of the NFL. They can’t all make it. How do you talk to them about other options?

Danny: I’m not going to kill anybody’s dream. I always say, “Chase it 100 miles an hour, but don’t just have one basket. You need to have something not as a Plan B but as a parallel.”

Presuming they do make it, a good education is going to help them be more engaged in their affairs, finances, and things of that nature. I point that out.

But the most important thing I say is, “I was right there where you want to be. One play, one hit, took it all away. So just because you get there doesn’t mean you’re going to stay there.”

That message, that’s where I think I actually make the biggest headway.

The post <strong>From the NFL Gridiron to Degreed: Adversity, Success, & Lifelong Learning</strong> appeared first on Degreed.

Can business leaders reimagine and modernize tuition assistance programs (TAPs) so they benefit every employee rather than a select few? Yes, it just takes a little work and innovative thinking, but the payoff is undeniable. 

Modernizing tuition assistance and reimbursement benefits your company and employees by making it easier for them to upskill, remain relevant, and grow in their careers. Not to mention that when you reimagine outdated education funding, your company can close its skill gaps and boost retention. 

If your business ranks among the 47% of companies offering undergraduate or graduate school tuition assistance to employees, or if you offer some form of reimbursement-based learning program, we explain why that’s more than likely a problem, and provide five alternate solutions. 

The Big Hurdles with Tuition Assistance and Reimbursement

What parts of your tuition assistance and reimbursement need modernizing? It’s likely there are several obstacles that could be hindering your upskilling and retention success. Here are the common issues you need to solve first.

Hurdle 1: Siloed Funding

The primary problem with TAPs for mid-size and enterprise businesses is siloed funding. If yours is a small business with one person running HR, then siloed funding won’t be an issue. (SMBs, feel free to skip ahead to the next hurdle). But the larger your organization, the more disjointed funding becomes. 

Most tuition assistance funds often roll up into HR, and this means L&D can’t to use these dollars for critical upskilling initiatives. This leads to U.S. employers spend $22 billion each year on TAPs, but according to the Lumina Foundation, just 2.5% measure the ROI of these programs or align them with broader talent-building initiatives. Ideally, this significant investment should be directed more effectively towards upskilling initiatives. 

Hurdle 2: One-size-fits-all Learning Experiences 

Along with aligning funding with upskilling initiatives, companies must modernize how they spend these funds. Today, because of how it started, tuition assistance is primarily used for traditional formal education programs like MBAs. But in order to fully address the skills gap, learning benefits should prioritize faster, skills-based learning experiences.  

While traditional programs have a time and place, they’re not always focused on the skills your business needs. Only 11% of employers surveyed told Gallup that new graduates have the necessary skills for their businesses. Before you think this is just business owners being cynical, consider that the American Association of Colleges and Universities agrees. An AAC&U survey found just 25%of employers say new grads have the necessary skills for their jobs. Combined with today’s rapid pace of technological advancement, two- and four-year colleges and university programs can’t keep up.

So why are businesses sending employees to programs that aren’t delivering a stronger workforce?

To be fair, many of today’s opportunities such as boot camps and short courses didn’t exist as recently as the 1970s when tuition benefits became law. But now there is a growing awareness that adults learn faster in blended work-learning environments, where new skills and knowledge can be applied immediately and retained more quickly. It’s an easy fix: diversify. Luckily, the tax benefits typically used for traditional degrees also qualify for a variety of shorter and skills focused programs like bootcamps and certification programs.

Hurdle 3: Inequitable Opportunities 

In addition to misaligned funds and unimaginative applications, most TAPs are inherently biased. The sheer size of the skills gap doesn’t give any wiggle room — everyone needs to upskill. If business leaders don’t make upskilling accessible to every employee, the job won’t get done. 

How do traditional tuition assistance and reimbursement programs exclude employees? They’re biased toward workers privileged to have the discretionary time and money to use them. And they favor people who have a support network that enables education to be a priority. 

Tuition assistance may work for management consulting firms that want elite pedigreed MBAs who will graduate and return to attractive salaries. But for the majority of employees, TAPs make little practical sense. Deloitte drew a similar conclusion: “Such a program [TAPs] is more likely to be attractive to and used by more highly compensated employees — whom it could be argued to have a less pressing need for such a program in the first place.”

To find out just how inequitable tuition assistance programs are, read „Why Your Tuition Reimbursement Benefit is Hurting Your DEIB Strategy.“

Remove Hurdles & Upskill Equitably 

TAPs were invented for a different era when degree programs were the primary pathway to business skills, and these skills remained relevant for decades. The digital revolution, or what the World Economic Forum (WEF) calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is changing how people learn, what they need to learn, and the rate at which they need to learn new competencies. 

In January 2023, the WEF estimated that some 1.1 billion jobs are liable to be radically transformed by technology in the next decade. That’s already a staggering number but also take into consideration that the report came out before the generative artificial intelligence blew up in March 2023. Now, the CEO of IBM is telling The Washington Post that the tech giant could replace 7,800 jobs with artificial intelligence. 

Undeniably, business leaders have a skills emergency on their hands, and businesses of all sizes feel the skills pinch. In fact, 87% of executives told McKinsey that they were experiencing skill gaps in the workforce, but less than half of them had a clear sense of how to address the problem. Skills will become a major constraint akin to recent shortages of microchips for a wide range of businesses from smartphone manufacturers to automobile makers. Businesses need to invest in talent-building at scale or risk falling behind those that do.

TAPs — or more precisely, reimagined education benefits in the form of dedicated learning funds — can and should be powerful tools for your employees and businesses. By seamlessly integrating these learning benefits into your business’s comprehensive talent-building strategy, and aligning them with key performance indicators (KPIs), you can unlock the potential of your workforce to transform itself. When done right, learning benefits and talent-building can also become a diversity engine that further accelerates business performance. To get there, let’s explore five recommended changes to the traditional TAP model.

5 Ways to Tap Into Your TAPs

1. Move TAPs out of your HR benefits package and into your Talent Management department. Taps should be focused on programs that develop job-ready skills that are aligned with L&D, Talent Management, and relevant lines of business as another way to meet hiring goals. 
2. Leverage TAPs to enroll employees in short-form courses, boot camps, and certification programs that develop specific skills directly aligned with business outcomes. Move away from years-long degree programs that deliver generalized knowledge as the sole learning solution. Embrace shorter, more targeted programs that also enable employees to swiftly acquire and master new skills, then implement these skills in real time. 
3. Integrate diversity and inclusion. Diversity is not just a social necessity — it’s a business imperative. It’s been proven that businesses with diverse leadership teams outperform those with homogenous teams. Since the start of the Covid pandemic, the performance gap has widened in favor of diverse teams. Diversity of race, gender ability, and age enables teams to make better decisions for their employees and their customers. The barriers to leadership opportunities for underrepresented populations are different from those affecting more privileged groups. For the underrepresented, time, funds, awareness support, and guidance are often not available. TAPs and talent-building strategies can reduce or eliminate those barriers. 
4. Give employees time to learn on the job or during working hours. Time is an overwhelming obstacle to employees. Time constraints are also the most impervious barrier to low-income communities. Tuition alone will not enable your people to strategically upskill at the pace and scale that overcoming the skills gap calls for. 
5. Shift from reimbursement to prepayment with no financial penalties. The tuition reimbursement model, with all of its requirements to qualify for reimbursement, discourages participation and is subtly (and in some cases not so subtly) discriminatory. There are a few ways you can make the shift. One is by providing employees with prepaid learning stipend cards. If you can’t go that route, then at least consider a learning stipends program that streamlines and speeds up the sign-off and reimbursement process for employees.   

To learn more about using stipends and how to modernize your tuition assistance and reimbursement programs, download a free copy of “Rethink Your TAPs: Empowering Small and Medium-sized Businesses with Quick and Equitable Upskilling.” 

The post 5 Ways to Modernize Tuition Assistance (So It Benefits Everyone!) appeared first on Degreed.

The benefits of upskilling are huge. PwC found that successful skill-building programs lead to stronger culture, higher productivity, and accelerated innovation. Effective upskilling also makes it easier to attract and retain talent.

The perils of ignoring a skill strategy are notable, too. CEOs struggling with the skills gap are worried about missed market opportunities, rising talent costs, stunted growth, and a lack of innovation. They also expect quality standards and customer experience to suffer.

Mastercard has proven how effective upskilling pays off. Facing fintech startups in the wake of the recession, CEO Ajay Banga insisted that this payments company would become a technology company. Mastercard’s L&D team responded by revolutionizing its digital offerings, especially for the crucial Operations & Technology division. From 2016 to 2019, employee adoption of digital learning climbed steadily to 96% and the average number of learning platform logins per employee tripled.

In that same timespan, Mastercard’s stock price tripled too, as the company broke through in key areas like mobile payments and cybersecurity. Was the stock surge just a coincidence? The learning leadership doesn’t think so. “That represents Mastercard having the right skills and people to explore new payment technologies,” declared Steve Boucher, the VP of Global Talent Development.

Time to Shift the Paradigm

If the benefits of upskilling are so obvious, why aren’t most companies making progress? The problem is the paradigm. For too long, upskilling has focused on the company, not the individual.

The old models of work typically centered on the company. Leaders relied on a “command and control” management style, forcing employees into “one size fits all” training programs. Companies wanted to dictate when, how, and what people learned and tried to tie a predictable return on investment (ROI) calculation based primarily on employee participation. Decades of research have shown how ineffective this approach has been.

These days, leading analysts like Deloitte’s Center for the Edge are calling for a new model of work that puts individuals at the center. As artificial intelligence and machine learning make uniquely human capabilities more valuable, companies can no longer treat people like interchangeable parts. Workers thrive with variety, fluidity, and autonomy.

Focusing on individuals will transform upskilling efforts. Employees can direct their own development, recognizing and addressing personal skill gaps. Employers can get real-time data and insights about people’s skills and can make it easy for people to find projects and positions that match emerging skills, rewarding the workers who learn and grow within the company. In this paradigm, people can easily see the link between their learning and the skills they are building for their careers creating a more engaged, purposeful, and impactful workforce.

Align Individual Experience with Company Value

When organizations are effective with upskilling, the approach aligns the individual experience with value for the company.

The individual upskilling experience starts with each employee’s aspirations. Once it’s clear what people want, you can start conversations about the skills they’ll need to get there. Personalized learning platforms like Degreed make it easy to deliver content to close their skill gaps by leveraging data generated by its users. Then, individuals can put new skills into practice with stretch assignments, become more well-rounded as workers, and even take on entirely new roles within the company.

Focusing on individuals also creates value for companies. Affirming employees’ career goals helps establish trust so you can have an open conversation about strengths and weaknesses.

As workers learn on digital platforms like Degreed and strategic learning programs from your company, leaders can track progress via data dashboards and use the insights to inform supportive check-ins. The end result is a win-win: internal mobility rewards loyal workers and is often far more efficient than hiring outside talent.

Five Changes to Make in Your Organization

Alright, let’s get into the details. What specific shifts will support an effective upskilling strategy focused on individuals? To get started, try these five adjustments in the following key areas:

1. Recruiting: from external talent to internal talent.

External hires are costly and risky. But internal mobility can improve retention and accelerate the learning process. Deloitte found that 76% of top talent acquisition teams look to hire internally, compared to just 17% of low-performing teams. 

2. Capacities: from static competencies to dynamic skills.

Many people don’t know the difference between competencies and skills. Competencies usually include attitudes and behaviors. Skills, on the other hand, reflect transferrable expertise. Competency models were designed to keep people in one role, but shifting to a skills strategy can enable much greater flexibility for individuals and organizations.

3. Performance management: from top-down evaluation to employee experience feedback.

Managers are key to helping their employees build skills and progress in their careers. This all starts with having a career conversation. In addition, when employees know what’s expected of them, when they can use their strengths every day at work, and when they are recognized and rewarded for the great work they do, it’s an all-around win. Finally, managers should help employees find projects and stretch assignments so people can actually apply the skills they’ve learned. This may even lead to a completely new role inside the company. The role of managers in effectively upskilling the workforce is to focus on being „career coaches“ and helping people grow and thrive in the company. Yet, many managers are not tuned in to their team’s development. To compensate, I recommend asking for feedback on employees’ experiences. Do they have clear expectations? Are they using their strengths and earning recognition? Can they find opportunities to grow?

4. L&D: from one size fits all training to a continuous skill strategy.

For generations, companies trained large groups on discrete objectives. Teams gathered to learn a management technique or the latest software program. But this approach could never keep pace with digital disruption. Now top firms like Unilever are using digital tools to create a lifelong learning ecosystem. Workers are always exploring and building the emerging skills that they’ll need for their unique journeys.

5. Career development: from high-potential programs to building skills for everyone.

In the days of pricey in-person training, many employers treated career development as a perk for “high-potential” employees. This exclusionary approach had predictable downsides, making participants more entitled and alienating those who didn’t get invited. As online platforms drive down the cost of upskilling at scale, it’s time to get more inclusive. Looking for a model? One major bank pioneered a genius “funnel” approach that lets people prove their own potential.

Time to Take the Next Steps

If you’re ready to get started, check out 7 Steps for Upskilling Your Workforce for a clear framework on how you can build an effective upskilling strategy.

Skills are the key to the future. The only question is which organizations will be effective with upskilling. Now is the time for a strategy that elevates the individuals who make your organization great.

The post Now It’s Personal: Effective Upskilling Addresses the Individual appeared first on Degreed.

These world-renowned organizations may have the budgets to invest heavily, but encouraging learning at work and upskilling is crucial for every company. The World Economic Forum predicts that one billion people — nearly a third of the global workforce — need new skills for the upcoming decade.

So it’s no surprise that PwC placed the biggest bet on upskilling, especially when its research proves the urgency. When asked about the biggest upcoming threats, CEOs cited “availability of key skills” as one of their most critical concerns.

Skills are rising to the top of minds and executives everywhere are making massive investments in their workers. Yet there is no guarantee that these pledges will pay off.

Success depends on how the money is spent. Learning at work is in the middle of a major transformation. Traditional models are crumbling, disrupted by the need for agility and the resulting new approaches. Certain companies are cultivating vibrant learning cultures, leveraging best practices and scientific research, while others are stuck with outdated ideas about knowledge and expertise.

So, how should the learning leaders at Chase, Amazon, AT&T, and PwC spend their booming budgets? They have to face the future fearlessly, create thriving learning cultures, and implement scientifically proven approaches.

Face the Future

The way we learn is changing. Our most recent research, How the Workforce Learns, shows that content is not enough to promote learning at work, but thriving companies create conditions for learning at work.

The average worker is likely to spend more time on content that has been somehow vetted —  an article that they searched for, a podcast that a colleague recommended, or a video that an algorithm suggested. Some forward-thinking organizations are cutting traditional classrooms and starting skills academies (often online) where people build capabilities in the flow of work through a combination of self-directed learning and group project-based learning.

Not only can this strategy save money — research indicates that 79% of learning comes from low- or no-cost resources outside of employers — but the future of learning will also be more effective.

Most formal training has failed, concludes Harvard Business School professor Michael Beer, because it does not fit firms’ existing practices. “The system of organizing and managing is so powerful,” Beer warns, “that individuals and teams returning from training will not be able to be more effective unless the system enables them to apply their learning.”

Instead, learning should flow smoothly into work. This will build skills, not just knowledge. What’s the difference? Knowledge is acquired information, but skills are abilities developed with that acquired information along with practice and feedback.

For a competitive advantage, skills beat knowledge. This is undeniable in athletics, for example. Plenty of fans know how to play baseball or soccer. But far fewer folks are skilled enough to hit a curveball or dribble past defenders. Without those skills, the knowledge is useless. You can’t just study the game, you have to practice.

Similarly, workers might watch tutorial videos or click-through training modules. But if they never practice or receive guidance, they won’t build skills.

To properly develop people’s skills, try the learning loop. (The Expertise Economy dives deep into this framework.) Knowledge is the first step of the learning loop, followed by practice. Next, people need feedback on their performance to adjust their efforts. Offer time to reflect, so the learning gets locked in. Then, the learning loop begins again, with a fresh dose of knowledge.

Booz Allen Hamilton has effectively implemented the learning loop for workers. The technology consulting firm is developing data scientists internally, rather than paying a premium to bring outsiders onboard.

To start, participating workers assess their existing skills. Next, the employees explore curated pathways to gain the knowledge they need. After absorbing this information, they take on mini-projects with mentors to practice their emerging skills. To close out the learning loop, the aspiring data scientists prove their abilities with a capstone project.

Create a Learning Culture

Of course, for AT&T and PwC, those billion-dollar budgets must build more than one specific skill set for a select few employees. Upskilling has to happen at scale. Therefore, the entire organization needs a strong culture of learning at work.

This was a top priority for Satya Nadella, the celebrated CEO of Microsoft. “Culture is something that needs to adapt and change,” he insists. “You’ve got to be able to have a learning culture.”

To instill this culture at Microsoft, Nadella told his staff about two imaginary employees: “If you take two people, one of them is a learn-it-all and the other one is a know-it-all, the learn-it-all will always trump the know-it-all in the long run, even if they start with less innate capability.”

This was more than an abstract anecdote. Nadella modeled the behaviors that he believed in. “Where was I too closed-minded, or where did I not show the right kind of attitude of growth in my own mind?” he asked. “If I can get it right, then we’re well on our way to having the culture we aspire to.”

Organizations typically go through four stages of building a learning culture. They start at the lowest level — a compliance culture — where learning at work is limited to mandatory requirements. The next notch is necessary training, when people push themselves to learn whatever their job entails. Strategic learning is the third stage, as individuals build skills for the organization’s key initiatives. And the highest level is continuous learning, meaning employees choose to cultivate their capabilities in the flow of work.

Climbing that ladder could seem daunting. But many people are already in a position to help. Managers might be the most important influencers for any company’s learning culture. Workers crave their guidance, recognition and encouragement.

For managers, the next steps are straightforward. They can set clear expectations, reminding folks that it’s important to take time for learning at work. Managers should start regular career conversations with their workers to identify personal goals and give guidance on which skills to build. Additionally, managers should pick new projects to which people can apply their skills, earning genuine praise for their growth.

Implement Proven Approaches

So far, much of the advice can be done by individuals. Workers can build their skills, executives can promote a learning culture, and managers can guide people as they learn.

But what about more systemic shifts? Can companies adjust their structures and incentives to enable more effective learning at work?

Certainly, more profound changes can be powerful. The key is to implement proven approaches backed by data and research. Here are a few methods to consider:

• Recognize and reward learning. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck is famous for her work on growth mindsets, which most companies have embraced. But she worries that many people misunderstand her research, as they market meaningless mission statements and praise any effort. Instead, Dweck urges organizations to affirm learning, not just effort, and to connect learning goals to real rewards.

• Let go of command and control. One powerful way to change structures and incentives is a bit counterintuitive: get rid of them. In his synthesis of scientific research on motivation, award-winning author Daniel Pink argues that intrinsic motivation is stronger than extrinsic forces. Instead of prizes and punishments, most people thrive through autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

• Optimize the conditions for learning. If workers are trying to learn at work, organizations must put them in a position to succeed. Bror Saxberg of the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative is an expert on learning motivation. His team has identified four critical factors: relevance, confidence, environment, and emotion. Employers should monitor these conditions, and assist employees if anything is amiss.

• Have regular career conversations. Thoughtful managers might do this on their own, but smart organizations will encourage regular career conversations for everyone. At LinkedIn, managers tracked how these talks boosted employees’ engagement and retention. Harvard Business Review has published similar conclusions for organizations in general.

• Get insights from learning analytics. As mentioned above, the latest research from Degreed shows how people are actually learning at work. Workers are looking to a variety of sources, like their professional network and favorite websites, not just their company’s L&D offerings. Smart learning platforms can track these activities and find patterns. The savviest Degreed clients are diving deep into their unique data. The analytics help these firms adjust their offerings and refine their strategy.

Whether they are spending $350 million or $3 billion, the world’s leading companies should ensure that their learning strategy is backed by rigorous research and detailed data. Even without such budgets, all learning leaders must make every dollar count. These proven techniques can strengthen an emerging culture and prepare companies for the future.

Sure, it may be challenging to change old habits. Many people don’t think they’re learning unless they’ve sat in a classroom. But it’s time to broaden our definition of learning. To address the concerns of CEOs and actually upskill one billion workers, we have to innovate. Now is our chance, so let’s seize this moment.

Want to Learn More?

Download our latest research for actions you can take to promote learning at work through a positive learning culture. Or contact a Degreed representative today.

The post Invest Wisely: Help Your People Learn How to Learn appeared first on Degreed.

Jordan, cut from his high school team, became a teenage phenom. Scottie Pippen, the star sidekick, kept trying even when he didn’t make his college squad. Dennis Rodman, the top defender, persevered through poverty and depression. Head coach Phil Jackson almost went back to school before his breakthrough with the Bulls. They all knew failure, but together these cast-offs became champions.

If psychologist Carol Dweck was watching The Last Dance, she would not be surprised. Years ago, Dweck analyzed Jordan in her best-seller Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. “He was a person who had struggled and grown, not a person who was inherently better than others. He was the hardest-working athlete, perhaps in the history of sport.”

MJ and his teammates had what Dweck calls a growth mindset. They practiced relentlessly to improve their weaknesses, always trying new tricks. Jordan led by example and challenged the others constantly. If you wanted to be like Mike, you needed to cultivate a growth mindset.

Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset

With a growth mindset, we believe our skills and smarts can develop over time. If we fail at something, that’s okay, because we learn from it and try again, which makes experimentation exciting. With this mindset, we focus on the big picture, stay patient, and reach our potential.

The opposite of a growth mindset, according to Dweck, is a fixed mindset. When we feel that our intelligence, talents, or abilities are innate — that we cannot change what we’re capable of — then we have a fixed mindset.

With a fixed mindset, we’re worried about our performance. Failure and feedback are bad because they expose our inadequacies. When we make a mistake, it feels like proof of our permanent limitations.

Why Mindset Matters

These days, cultivating a growth mindset is essential. Disruption demands flexibility from all of us. We might learn one way to work, then some new technology changes everything. To build skills for the future, we must believe that we can grow and change.

Your mindset affects your creativity and resilience. Someone with a fixed mindset won’t see fresh perspectives; they’re too busy pushing their own agenda. With a growth mindset, though, you can let go and change your approach. This sparks innovation. You embrace new ideas and explore unique applications.

Jordan’s Bulls went through this. In 1989, Chicago was a top team and MJ won the MVP. After losing in the playoffs, though, the Bulls switched to an unusual offense called “The Triangle.” At first, they struggled with it, falling short again in 1990. But the Bulls kept learning, undaunted by failure. The next year, they won their first championship.

Myths About Growth Mindset

Since Carol Dweck published Mindset, many have tried to follow her advice. But a few folks are stuck with myths about mindsets. Let’s set the record straight by busting a few of these common misconceptions:

• You either have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. None of us have the same mindset all the time. It depends on the context. For example, I have a growth mindset when cooking, but with artwork, I usually doubt myself. Recognizing this is key since fixed mindsets can sneak up in certain situations.

• A growth mindset is all about positivity. You could try to smile through every struggle, but that’s unrealistic and unnecessary. In many cases, a growth mindset means recognizing problems and leaning into frustrations. For some of us, negative emotions fuel our fire to persevere.

• A growth mindset just means setting goals. Some goals reinforce a growth mindset, but others backfire. Stretch goals push us to patiently improve. Yet certain performance goals — like trying to make every shot or get all the best grades — can discourage us from working on our weaknesses.

• With a growth mindset, you can master anything. Trying new things does not guarantee mastery. A growth mindset helps you get a little better; it won’t completely overwhelm other factors, like luck and talent.

Cultivating a Growth Mindset

What can you do to cultivate a growth mindset? Psychologists have identified plenty of specific strategies that you can try:

• Deal with discomfort. When we’re confident, it’s easy to try hard and take feedback. But what about when we don’t feel so great? That’s when we need self-awareness. Recognize your discomfort, then remember that everyone feels this way sometimes. Tell yourself that it’s okay to make whatever mistake you’re afraid of.

• Put improvement before performance. Work on your weaknesses instead of always playing to your strengths. Tracking your progress helps, too. When you’re stuck, reflect on the long run. Look back one year, and recognize how you’ve grown. Then, think one year into the future, and imagine what you might learn in that time.

• Making adjustments. Psychologists recommend “flexible thinking patterns,” which means looking at a problem in different ways. You can try unique strategies until you figure out what works. Other people can help you adjust, too. You can learn from those around you, even if they can’t fix all your problems.

• Positive self-talk. Language makes a difference, too. Try adding “yet” to negative thoughts. “I’m not good at this… yet.” After you make a mistake, ask yourself, “What can I learn from this?” Or, you can even quote Michael Jordan when he said, “I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”

Even if you’re not winning NBA championships, the possibilities are exhilarating. Working towards cultivating a growth mindset can transform your personal and professional life.

It won’t always be easy –– but the right mindset can help you look past your imagined limitations. Like Mike said, “You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.”

Want To Learn More About Growth?

Take our Upskilling Strategy Audit to receive personalized insights to help build your strategy, or contact a Degreed representative today.

The post Skills for the Win: How to Cultivate a Growth Mindset appeared first on Degreed.

It takes many skills to be a great leader, and those skills evolve as a business, team, and market change. Unfortunately, many organizations haven’t kept pace in consistently upskilling leadership. In Australia, more than 72% of workers who left their jobs in 2019 cited poor leadership as their main reason. Managers, overall, ranked as ‘average’ in the eyes of many Australians, scoring just 5.6 out of 10 when rated on their performance and skills. 

The Evolution of Leadership

Leadership is as old as human civilization. As people began forming groups, leaders emerged to establish order, provide direction, and help groups meet goals (with survival as a top priority).

Fast-forward to the modern era, to the emergence of what we recognize as traditional leadership. In 1905, Max Weber’s bureaucratic management theory said it’s essential to have clear lines of authority, rules, and procedures in each business operation. Frederick Taylor in 1909 presented his scientific management theory, which focused on worker output and said that if tasks were optimized and simplified, productivity would increase. Workers’ main motivation under this model was that they remained employed. And in 1916, Henri Fayol formed what became known as administrative theory, which looked at how efficiently management was organized and processes standardized. He also created the 14 principles of management. 

Together, these theories were building blocks for many of the management practices used today. 

Leadership Today

Today, leaders are required to navigate significant organizational and social realities that exceed any challenges early business leaders could have imagined.

For example, leadership must anticipate and address disruptions to take advantage of new opportunities created by digitization and automation. 

Simultaneously, there’s an increased demand for empathetic leadership styles that understand people perform best when all of their needs and concerns are taken care of. Managers are increasingly asked to consider work-life balance, family and other commitments, and the fears or concerns of their people. Indeed, research has shown that managerial support is critical in supporting people as they deal with stress and health issues.

New Leadership Skills

New expectations require a new set of skills. The most important behaviors that workers want from their leadership are authenticity, trustworthiness, and inspiration. Therefore, many of the skills that modern-day leaders need are human skills. Upskilling leadership in human skills can inspire, set direction, build trust, and foster teamwork.

“Leaders need to turn up and give confidence that they are working on [an issue],” said David Thodey, former CEO of Telstra and Chair of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. “And you need to bring in processes around the collection of data to create a single source of the truth. You need to be open and transparent, but you also need to be flexible, because sometimes you will see you made a decision where something isn’t quite right and need to be willing to say, ‘We got that wrong,’ and move on.”

What skills should be on the list?

1. Emotional intelligence

Upskilling leadership in emotional intelligence and empathy is critical. Stress, anxiety, and depression rose by 21% in 2020 among workers in Australia. And managers are increasingly supporting the mental wellbeing of their people. 

2. Effective communication

Transparent and open communication can help to alleviate people’s concerns and build trust between leaders and their workers. Many CEOs now communicate with their teams multiple times a week — to respond quickly to changes, communicate their thoughts, and address suggestions. 

3. Agility

The ability to effectively respond to change is another key skill. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, only 12% of organizations reported having continuity plans that prepared them for it. Many leaders scrambled to adjust their business strategies. As a result, leaders are now watching more closely for new opportunities and unexpected challenges. 

4. Resilience

In the wake of COVID-19, resilience skills rose in importance by 34% (up from 13% pre-Covid) among surveyed workers. This makes sense when you consider that leaders are expected to be a calming force

How to Build Leadership Skills

Knowing what skills are needed is one thing, but building them is a whole different challenge. Human skills cannot be taught in a classroom. 

Tailor development to each individual.

Successful organizations empower their current and future leaders to own their upskilling. By taking control of their own upskilling, people can dictate what, how, and when they embark on their personal development journeys. 

OceanaGold emphasizes enabling leaders at every level to achieve sustainable results and help their teams thrive.

“We recognized that leadership needs to be values-driven, constructive, and capable,” said Karlie Webster, Group Manager for Organizational Culture and Development. “To achieve this, our leaders require a strong achievement orientation (focus on delivering high-quality results) with a humanistic, encouraging approach (supporting the growth and development of people) that filters throughout our culture. A bespoke, interactive training series takes our leaders through all the key elements needed for great leadership — 95% of our 400 leaders completed the first round of this within three weeks.”

Offer formal and informal learning.

Providing a range of learning opportunities can tailor leadership training to different interests, learning styles, and needs. Leaders are exceptionally busy, so learning delivered in bite-size content can greatly increase engagement and completion. A book, a podcast, a TED Talk, and everything in between can help leaders build much-needed skills. 

At the international spirits company Edrington, learning leaders shifted a one- and two-day leadership training program to a virtual, modular program that delivers training over three to four weeks. Now, upskilling opportunities are delivered at a time and pace that suits each individual, making them more accessible to global employees and those who otherwise couldn’t attend training days. It’s also reinforcing newly learned skills. Because people are learning over a longer period of time, they’re more likely to remember and apply their learning. 

Turn to peers.

Peer-led learning, coaching, and mentoring are important ingredients for upskilling leadership. People (55%) often turn to their peers to learn new skills. Shadowing a senior leader can be inspiring. And access to a coach or mentor can help aspiring leaders learn what it takes to be in charge. (And mentoring others can help people build valuable communication skills.) In addition, stretch assignments can give people their first chance to manage a team. 

Final Tips

Tracking what people learn throughout an upskilling leadership journey is important. Setting clear goals and skill requirements for their next career steps provides incentives to complete leadership training. It also provides direction. 

People need the opportunity to practice their new skills at work through experiential learning like secondments, stretch assignments, and volunteering. This helps them remember their learning and also hone those skills further.

Make no mistake: strong leadership will be the competitive differentiator for tomorrow’s top organizations. Enabling your people now, by putting learning in their hands and providing training that’s personalized, will pay off with higher engagement, completions, and capabilities.

Want to Learn More?

Take our Upskilling Strategy Audit to receive personalized insights to help build your strategy, or contact a Degreed representative today.

The post Upskilling Next-Gen Leaders: Why, How, and What Skills Are Needed appeared first on Degreed.

That’s all good news. However, the pace at which we need to iterate is increasing at an alarming rate. A quick web search shows that many people and organizations are thinking about the skills they’ll need in the future. Clicking into search results reveals predictions of what some of these skills might be: 

• Institute for the Future lists 10 skills and six drivers: extreme longevity, the computational world, super-structured organizations, the rise of smart machines and systems, a new media ecology, and the globally connected world.
• World Economic Forum, based on the McKinsey Global Institute, looks at five categories of skills: physical and manual skills, basic cognitive skills, higher cognitive skills, social and emotional skills, and technological skills.

Each of those sources is reliable, and each undoubtedly followed a sound methodology to arrive at its conclusions. And yet, how do you choose a path for your company’s upskilling strategy when you’re being asked a key question from within your organization: How will we know and build the skills we need in the future?

There are two ways to answer this question. You can be: 

• Data-driven: Creating or using models to identify a starting point, and then analyzing data to adjust your initiative as needed.
• People-driven: Crowdsourcing the skills needed through conversations with those doing the work, and crowdsourcing the data that tells the story of what they’re actually doing.

Need a helping hand with building your company’s upskilling strategy? Take our new Upskilling Strategy Audit — completely free. Answer a few foundational questions and we will create a personalized assessment of where you are, uncover your weaknesses, and plan out your next actionable steps to get to where you want to go. Take the Upskilling Strategy Audit today!

Data-Driven 

This approach starts with your company’s business plan disaggregated into the top skills needed to support it, resulting in an organization-wide taxonomy for future skills. Several organizations have taken this approach.

Prudential began with survey data that showed that 30% of responding employees didn’t believe they have the skills to do their jobs today, and that grew to 50% when respondents looked forward a decade. Prudential embarked on a solution that involved technology and the translation of job descriptions to skills. Those skills were then matched to qualified workers, and a workforce mobility solution emerged.

Amazon is analyzing how various jobs are evolving. A peek at their data shows, maybe unsurprisingly, that the top jobs include data scientist, solutions architect, and network development engineer. What might be surprising is that Amazon is making the data available to employees as well as potential job candidates. Imagine the possibilities as candidates, internal and external, match themselves to the evolving skills most needed within Amazon. That seems so much better than answering (again) an interview question about your favorite job.

JP Morgan Chase is working with MIT to forecast a future in which skills and roles intersect, with a focus on technology roles. The result of this effort will be increased mobility as well as opportunities for upskilling and reskilling. The approach will be shared with employers in other industries. Specific areas of focus for the initiative are the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and related fields on the shift in job skills and the workforce. Past investments by JP Morgan Chase in its New Skills at Work initiative have resulted in strengthened partnerships with educational institutions and improved access to job and career opportunities, allowing for better labor market analytics and industry and employer collaboration.

A note of caution about a top-down, data-driven approach: The competency model can be a trap. While each learning program mentioned above was driven centrally from organizational leadership, each contained an agile, data-driven approach that let leadership review processes and adjust programs as needed on an ongoing basis.

People-Driven

This approach leverages the data and actions of your employees, resulting in a dynamic folksonomy of sorts that can be used for social learning as well as organizational curation. According to recent Degreed research, 90% of workers are confident that they know what skills they need to perform better in their current roles, and 82% are confident they know which skills they need to advance their careers.

A wide range of organizations have taken the people-driven approach.

ATB Financial created a CEO-backed, crowdsourced project marketplace to drive an organization-wide technology change to Google G Suite. Out of 5,500 team members, several hundred auditioned for the role of G Evangelists, or champions of the change, and 50 were selected. ATB didn’t stop there though. It created an assessment for G Whizzes, who would provide tech support on launch day, and 249 were selected. Rounding out the strategy, 190 G Guides were tasked with providing local flavor to organization-provided resources.

Meriya Dyble, Managing Director, Connected Learning & Change, said that ATB couldn’t have created a business case for 400 people to join a learning team. But because it was crowdsourced, it worked. ATB flipped the switch on a Monday and received 300 calls on the first day. By Friday it was down to 10, with no customer complaints. It was a non-event. Within the first quarter, 2,000 processes were changed, and the organization calculated a savings of 24 full-time employees by reducing costs. 

ATB actively encourages employees to become teachers in the organization, Dyble said. “We create the ecosystem that removes friction for people.” Dyble  said she’s tried to become a connector vs. creator. ATB is leveraging people in the organization to do things that the L&D team would have had to do in the past. Individuals grab work they want to do in order to grow their skills, even those decoupled from roles. Teams also use tools, data, and technology that let the L&D team know when there are new opportunities. In one example, half of the company’s developers were teaching themselves a language they don’t use. That made L&D ask: What do we need to change if that many people think it’s important?

BMO Financial Group took what CLO Gina Jeneroux called “a chandelier approach” to identifying priorities. Most company strategies, she said, come from an angle of growth, and learning is a crucial part. Jeneroux encourages her team to connect every priority to department-level strategy and then to company-level strategy. 

“Everything we do needs to support those bigger things, or why are we doing it?” Jeneroux said.

To support these strategies, Jeneroux’s department needed to transform and gain new skills. It shifted from a mostly instructor-led training focus to one that’s personalized at scale. To deliver this transformation, Jeneroux identified new skills and roles to add to her team. These included things you might expect, like videography, animation, and social media experts. It also included novelists and musicians — to tell stories in new and refreshing ways.

Jeneroux also shared a strategy that BMO Financial Group called #HelpWanted, in which gigs for two hours, two days, or two weeks are posted. Employees can respond to the opportunities that fit the growth and timing they’re looking for. This strategy helps employees expand their networks and it gives them a job experience that expands their careers, all while they remain in their existing roles. It’s an internal gig economy that sets up the company for success.

AT&T launched an internal talent upskilling initiative in 2016, fully crowdsourced from its people. Managers documented profiles for themselves and their teams, with a view toward the future. As part of the initiative, every manager was assigned a new role and was expected to upskill for it. The initiative had radical results, consolidating roles from 250 down to 80 while increasing flexibility and internal mobility. Individuals were given the opportunity to move within the organization, even as it faced eventual downsizing. This choose-your-own-adventure approach led to many employees staying and growing within the company instead of leaving to develop elsewhere.

Choosing Your Strategy

Deciding on your approach is the first step to building an upskilling strategy at your organization. But it’s certainly not the last. And no matter what approach you choose, agility is truly your key to success. Consistent among all of the stories shared here is the element of analyzing your programs and adjusting to skills and roles that emerge from your efforts.

As you choose an approach, ask yourself: 

• What role does my executive team play in driving a skills-based vision for the future?
• What partnerships do I have to help me drive an organization-wide skills strategy and taxonomy?
• Do I have the technology, processes, and permission-based culture that support a people-driven, crowdsourced strategy?
• Do I have the tools and team to aggregate, analyze, and make decisions on the various data points that could come out of an evolving, crowdsourced strategy?

Customers of our new Degreed Career Mobility product also leverage the power of AI, which identifies the top 10 skills in demand by internal opportunities viewable by their employees — including full-time or temporary roles, projects, stretch assignments, tasks, or mentorships. Because these opportunities are posted and viewed in real-time, they’re a window into the skills needed by an organization now and in the future. With Degreed Career Mobility, our customers can drill down into the skill needs of a specific business unit, location, or key role.

And what happens after our customers have collected their top 10 skills data? Degreed helps them easily curate upskilling Pathways and Plans, so employees can start learning the new skills they need right away. As new data emerges, it’s easy to adjust skills and plans as needed.

Want to Learn More?

Take our new Upskilling Strategy Audit or contact a Degreed representative today.

The post Building Your Upskilling Strategy: Data vs. People appeared first on Degreed.

A global, top-down mobility approach is appealing but increasingly, the complex strategies that solve today’s needs are outdated by the time they’re implemented globally. Organizations notoriously spend years on competency frameworks, for example, only to realize they are outdated by the time they’re complete. These tumultuous conditions, we hope, are temporary. But if COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that the pace of change will only accelerate. Rather than ignoring this reality, organizations should build a culture of experimentation by favoring a more agile work environment over long-range planning when innovation is required.

In the early days of software development, the business would put together long, complex lists of technical requirements, and engineering would commit to building a product, exactly as outlined, with every associated bell and whistle. Turnaround times were measured in months or years, with few mechanisms to capture feedback on usability, value, or changes in the market. The products built this way were sometimes successful, of course, but the risks were huge: what if users don’t like this solution? Or can’t use it? What if the problem has changed so dramatically that our solution no longer addresses a need?

These risks pushed IT to move toward agile methodology — building lean first iterations, collecting feedback quickly, and releasing and testing improvements more frequently. This takes the burden off of the initial requirement-gathering phase, acknowledges the dynamic nature of today’s world, and prioritizes the most important type of feedback: the kind we get from users when they’re actually using the product.

People in the L&D space know that stealing from marketing and IT can sometimes garner amazing results — and this is no different. You can steal the idea of an agile methodology as well to create an agile work environment at your organization. Let’s take a look at how this can be done.

1. Champion an agile work environment within your organization.

Usually this requires experimentation. Perhaps you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and get going. You might even feel a little excited. But then you remember: you work in a corporation. Things are complex, sometimes bureaucratic, and principles that work for startups have failed in the past (remember the bean bag chairs?) That’s not how budgets get allocated, and you don’t want to risk being seen as naive.

Luckily, there’s a ton of research to tap into as you become your team’s lean champion. One study found that projects applying lean methodology were more likely to come in under time (5% sooner), where others usually finished right at time. Budget-wise, lean projects came in, on average, 9% under budget, while others were only 2% under.

A company Degreed recently worked with had a large call center population, and trouble with turnover. Attrition rates had been raising red flags in this part of the business for years, and engagement rates for this population were low. One of our Degreed champions committed to approaching the problem differently, and began by compiling data on previous efforts. There had been some work done in the area, but many of the solutions felt like shots in the dark. She knew she needed to better understand the problem before she’d find the right solution.

She didn’t begin by championing agile practices across the entire organization all at once. She chose to implement an agile work environment for one particular initiative to demonstrate the power of the approach.

2. Get to know your employees.

Remember when implementing an agile work environment, we’re looking to maximize value for our employees, which means we have to first dig into their challenges. Most enterprises begin with engagement surveys, and these are great places to start. Many of our clients, for example, come to us with a goal of improving the learning experience after a less-than-stellar result for a question like “How does the firm support your development?” While investments in Learning Experience Platforms are great ways to enable your team to drive more meaningful experiences, creating real value for employees requires going deeper into their challenges with the current environment.

Whether it’s in response to an engagement survey, or retention/promotion rates within an area of the business or demographic, grab a few of these folks (and a few of their managers) and speak to them candidly about what’s going on. Interviews work best here, but a follow-up survey with free response can work well too, depending on resourcing. In some cases, especially if there’s a lack of trust, it’s helpful to use a third-party firm, but even in high-trust environments, ensure your employees know the responses are confidential. Everyone has to be aware that this isn’t a shame or blame game.

Conducting interviews to deeply understand the challenges your people are facing takes discipline. This framework from the Silicon Valley Product Group has been helpful as we’ve prepared for and conducted interviews like these.

Our call center champion found that many people were leaving within the first 90 days, and those that made it past 90 days were likely to leave at around two years. So her problem was actually two problems, and she used her interviews to dig into each. Because of the high volume of hiring and the high turnover, she was able to sit in on exit interviews for both populations. 

3. Define employee challenges. These are the problems you’re trying to solve.

Once you’ve conducted the interviews, it’s time to make sense of what you learned. Are you hearing similar themes from your employees? If so, what are they? (If not, you likely haven’t spoken to enough people yet, so get back out there!) Group what you’ve heard into the key challenges and prioritize. 

When prioritizing, you’re living in the tension between two poles: maximizing user value and minimizing waste. At this stage, imagine Steve Jobs on your right shoulder and Marie Kondo on your left. Steve says think bigger, and focus more on delight. Marie helps to keep unnecessary complexity in check. If talking to imaginary characters doesn’t work for you, try using the Value vs. Complexity model to rank these problems, with the goal of finding those with the highest potential value and the lowest effort required to solve.

In the call center, it was discovered that employees leaving within 90 days of being hired struggled with many things, chief of which was friction in processes and social isolation, whereas longer tenure employees were leaving largely due to lack of career progression. Managers were stretched so thin that they could often not give either population what they needed: adequate onboarding or adequate career conversations.

4. Design a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Once we have a clear understanding of our priority problems, we can start to form hypotheses about the best ways to solve them. The critical element in an agile work environment is that our solutions, no matter how sexy they seem, are hypotheses. For each problem, frame your solution as an MVP, identifying:

• Value proposition: how will this solution create value? How will it solve the problem we identified?
• Key activities: what do we need to do, at a minimum, to drive this value?
• Key resources: what will we need to execute on the above? 
• Metrics: how will we know if it succeeds?

In the call center, one elegant solution was proposed: give longer-tenured employees opportunities to mentor new employees. The hypothesis was that this would create engagement for each population, and could provide career development for the tenured folks. A program was defined, and success would be measured based on a pre- and post-engagement survey, as well as retention rates for the participating population.

Remember, the first iterations of program rollouts are about maximizing value, but they’re also about learning as much as we can, as quickly as possible, and about whether our solutions are the right ones. So as you’re designing, keep in mind that MVPs may require more manual effort than you’d hope. This is fine because if it works, you can invest more in infrastructure later. With reducing waste as one of our guiding principles, we can’t invest more than necessary in a solution we don’t yet know will work.

Depending on the number of problems you’ve prioritized, you may need more than one MVP. Depending on your resourcing and other constraints, you can run these MVPs in parallel or sequentially. One thing to note: if you’re working to tackle multiple problems for the same user group, you likely want to run these MVPs at different times, so you can measure results from each independently.

5. Measure & iterate.

Once you’ve rolled out your MVP(s) and collected your results, it’s time to make decisions about what about this solution, if anything, drove value as measured by our metrics. This is the time where we may want to think about how to more efficiently scale, make some tweaks and run another MVP, or scrap the project altogether. This is the process that will dictate organizational agility

In the call center, the program reduced turnover for the new employee population but did not have a meaningful impact on the tenured employees. Before scaling the mentorship program, our champion will conduct another set of interviews to understand the pain points for the longer-tenured folks. She solved part of the problem, but needs to iterate in the next go-around to drive even more value.

So if the MVP is a “failure” — i.e. it didn’t drive the results you were hoping it would — it’s time to celebrate! You learned something valuable, and because we rolled it out as an MVP, we wasted as few resources as possible. This is probably the most important element of embracing an agile work environment: we have to have the humility, honesty, and confidence to pivot entirely when something isn’t working. This will lead to incredibly impactful results in the end.

Want to learn more about creating an agile work environment? Take our mini-course on career mobility — five days, five experts, 15 minutes per day. Sign up here!

The post How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love an Agile Work Environment appeared first on Degreed.

• A role is identified as lacking up-to-date (or any) skill definition
• Lots of assessments and interviews are conducted with a variety of stakeholders
• Maybe a consultant is brought in
• A draft map is created and shared back to all stakeholders for feedback and wordsmithing
• At long last, a shiny new plan is written to share the model with workers and their managers, but not always with clear expectations of what to do with it

This process often takes months and sometimes close to a year. Now, apply that process across hundreds or even thousands of roles in your organization, and you see the challenge many organizations face today. It’s a common misconception that all of this mapping, defining, and taxonomy building is a prerequisite to an impactful skill strategy.

While planning for a long-term and well-defined skills ecosystem at your organization is important work, it shouldn’t prevent anyone from taking action to build skills right now — and that’s what it means to have organizational agility. Your people have skill needs today. They can’t wait for the competency models of tomorrow.

Then vs. Now

The key to organizational agility is enabling and empowering frontline leaders and workers to set and carry out their own skill strategies.

In the past, defining and driving a skills strategy fell primarily to a central L&D team, and the primary focus was defining and mapping skills across various roles. This often led to more documentation than development — including lengthy PDFs and slide decks covering every skill and each level within those skills, but not a clear indication of where and how to get started actually building those skills. Many competency models also have 20 to 30 skills associated with them, far too many to develop all at once. How would a worker know where to start?

Often, the first people to recognize a skill gap are those closest to the realities of the work. They see first-hand the changes in their markets, their workers, and their strategies. 87% of respondents in a McKinsey Global Survey say they either are experiencing gaps now or expect them within a few years.

Imagine if those people had the tools and the confidence to start addressing skill needs as soon as they arise (or even before) rather than waiting for L&D to define and solve all skill needs for them. This organizational agility would allow workers to quickly identify and assess their own skill needs, and start developing themselves without needing a manager or L&D to sign them up for the next round of formal training.

Decentralize and Democratize

Democratizing your skill strategy and allowing leaders and workers to develop and iterate skill journeys in real time allows you to improve multiple elements of your learning culture:

Agility — If a leader or worker recognizes a skill gap, it’s likely already causing some business or performance pain. If they have to wait for a top-down solution, that pain remains unaddressed and will likely get worse. Markets, customers, technology, and ways of working are changing faster than ever, and we need skill development to be able to react just as quickly. Empowering leaders and workers to set their own skill priorities allows them to adjust to changes in real time.

Relevancy — When skills are prioritized for people at the local level, the connection to their day-to-day is clearer than a one-size-fits-all competency model that covers everything. If skills are prioritized at a global or even functional level that’s removed from a worker’s day-to-day work and team, that person will be less likely to buy into the importance of those priorities.

Engagement — According to Degreed research, the top two barriers to learning at work is lack of manager encouragement and lack of guidance or direction. In short, manager involvement and guidance are crucial in learning engagement. 

Data — Allowing workers and leaders to set their own skill strategies creates a wealth of skill data that your organization might currently lack. By empowering frontline workers to identify their own skill needs, you can essentially crowdsource competency frameworks and skill priorities from those closest to the challenge rather than try to infer the skills people need from the top down.

While adopting this more decentralized approach to skills may seem daunting, the good news is that Degreed is perfectly built to make it easy for your workers and leaders to own their skill destinies. Degreed enables leaders to quickly assess, develop, and track team skill growth while leveraging internal expertise to curate learning solutions quickly. People can set personal skill goals and explore your company’s entire learning and talent ecosystem for the best content, SMEs, groups, and opportunities for chosen skills.

All of this can begin the moment the skill need is identified, without needing to wait for a formal L&D solution to be designed and built. Degreed essentially makes every employee and leader in your organization a part of the L&D team rather than a passive recipient. And as skills are built all across your organization at the individual and team level, not only are you enabling organizational agility, but your company is also generating lots of data on existing skill levels and gaps, internal SMEs, most relevant content and providers, and more.

The First Steps Towards Organizational Agility

Now, you may be wondering if this democratized approach to skill building diminishes the importance of a central L&D function. But here’s the good news: it does the exact opposite.

First, your global L&D team will still own the development of skills that are consistently in demand across your organization, including leadership models, core values, and org-wide strategic skills.

But more importantly, L&D will be the architect for this new environment, in which leaders and workers are enabled and empowered to take on their own skill challenges. Rather than the old way of L&D feeling like order takers that need to solve all learning problems, the new objective is to teach people to “fish for themselves” when it comes to learning, and to make sure they have the skills and tools to be successful.

Here are a few key activities your central L&D team can focus on as part of this broader culture shift towards organizational agility:

Shape the environment — L&D can ensure leaders understand the tools and processes at their disposal to tackle the skills challenges most important to them. Tools like Degreed are a critical component, but ensuring access to content, data, and other resources is equally important.

Change mindsets — When workers understand that they are empowered to solve their own skill problems, L&D can equip them with the technology, data, and resources to address skill needs as soon as they arise. Individuals are encouraged to take the responsibility for driving the solution and understanding how to directly connect skill needs to business challenges. L&D becomes an internal consultant and coach to help individuals and team leaders shape their nascent skill strategies. And Degreed research suggests that your workforce will need that guidance.

Amplify internal success cases — L&D can find the early champions or business areas that are owning their skill development and share those examples across your organization. Marketing great use cases and success stories helps teams learn from each other while recognizing and rewarding the teams that are innovating and succeeding.

Connect the dots — L&D has an opportunity to identify and align teams focused on the same challenges. If three different parts of your organization are all trying to develop data analytics skills at the same time, L&D can help connect their initiatives to gain efficiencies and increase overall quality.

Changing your learning culture to create more ownership and empowerment will take time. 

Rather than attempt to shift your entire organization to this new approach, start with a focused initiative partnering with just one part of your organization.

Identify a function, team, or leader that already has a clear challenge and a desire to take ownership of the solution. Partner closely with that function to bring this agile and empowered approach to skills to life, so they can serve as an example that helps to bring the rest of your organization on board.

Want to Learn More?

Download our new guide, 4 Ways Every Manager Can Create a Positive Learning Culture, to discover what managers can do to build a positive learning culture. 

The post The Secret to Organizational Agility? Empowering Your Managers. appeared first on Degreed.