Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Exploring and Closing the Middle Skills Gap

As the chair of DeVry University’s Career Advisory Board, I’ve been talking about skills gaps a lot recently. Usually, I address either the technology skills gap or the soft skills gap specifically, and I’m usually referring to graduates of four-year institutions who are pursuing careers in the business world

In reading my veteran HR thought leader Sharlyn Lauby’s new book The Recruiter’s Handbook, however, I was alerted to an entirely different type of skills gap: the middle skills gap. According to Lauby, the middle skills gap is defined as those jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year-degree. Some industries affected by the middle skills gap are finance, manufacturing, telecommunications, healthcare, and retail, and the jobs themselves range from entry-level administrative positions to highly specific operational roles.

Digging Deeper Into the Middle Skills Quandary

Why is the middle skills gap a problem? “At the heart of the issue is an oft-discussed anomaly: while millions of workers remain unemployed and an unprecedented percentage of the workforce report being underemployed, employers across industries and regions find it hard to fill open positions,” said the report by Harvard Business School, Accenture, and Burning Glass Technologies.  “A first, essential step to closing this gap is to differentiate between the vast array of middle skills jobs in order to concentrate on jobs with three important attributes: they create high value for U.S. business; they provide not only decent wages initially, but also a pathway to increasing lifetime career value for many workers; and finally, they are persistently hard-to-fill.”

Lauby recommended addressing middle skills gaps by gaining information that allows you to bridge where your workforce is today with where you want it to be in the future. Specifically, Lauby suggested the following action steps for hiring managers and recruiters:

Pay attention to what’s happening in your geographic area and industry

What’s happening on a global or national stage might not pertain to your region. Your industry could also be affected by external factors other types of organizations aren’t facing. Anyone in the position of hiring needs to know their unique market conditions.

Find credible sources of information

If you’re going to cite sources for a trend or solution, they need to be from trusted authorities. You don’t want your CEO questioning your business case.

For more where this came from, check out the DeVryWORKS site.

How to Sustain the Benefits of Corporate Training After the Course is Over

In my experience as a workforce author and consultant, I’ve observed that organizations tend to invest more in their employees during good economic times, and pull back development efforts when their businesses are feeling the pinch.

Let’s recall what we learned from our earliest years in school. Our teachers encouraged us to master material through repetition. We’d be introduced to a concept in class, practice it via homework, be quizzed on it by the teacher, and be tested on it again much later on a final exam. In other words, learning was an extended, ongoing process. If you want to sustain the benefits of your corporate training long after your employees have completed it, you might consider incorporating this advice into your regimen.

Communicate the Big Picture

While they are still in the main training event, explain why it’s in employees’ best interests to apply the skills they’ve learned. How will using these new concepts help them do their jobs more effectively? Why will they now be able to add greater value to the organization? How will further mastery of the skills drive their careers forward overall?

Emphasize Concrete Actions

As part of any training, crystallize exactly what employees should do as part of their everyday responsibilities so skills are continuously re-emphasized. Decide on a cadence of activities to ensure that self-study and on-the-job practice are occurring on at least a monthly basis, and clearly communicate your expectations. Ideally, these tasks are mandatory.

Gain On-the-Spot Commitment

Before they leave a workshop, employees might write down what they have learned that is most relevant to their current roles, and specific actions they will take to apply those ideas in the next 30-60 days. If they can add results they intend to achieve by way of implementing the course learnings, so much the better. Participants can either take these goal statements with them when they leave the training, or the trainer may collect them and return them to employees at a later date.

 

For more tips, read the rest of the post at the DeVryWORKS site.

Why Corporate Training Must Be Part of Your Mix

As a workforce author, researcher, and consultant, I observed many organizations that were concerned about a labor shortage brought about by baby boomer retirement. This shortage, and the skills gaps that went along with it, was partially delayed in part by the financial crisis and subsequent recession, because many baby boomers lost savings and were working past traditional retirement age¹.

Many baby boomers, born 1946-64, are now in their 70s, and the time has come for them to exit the workforce. According to a recent report by the Federal Reserve², industrialized nations like the U.S. are facing a shortage of working-aged professionals, and employers need enough qualified employees to survive.

In my experience working with dozens of companies over the last decade, I’ve seen that corporate training and development can be an effective solution to this problem. As more senior roles are vacated, corporate training, particularly for succession planning, may be a good vehicle for mid-level professionals to master skills like team leadership, business acumen, strategic planning, conflict resolution, and decision-making.

All Employees, All Levels

One of the topics I write about most is increasing automation and machine participation³, and given this trend, I believe that even employees who will not become senior leaders must continuously upskill or reskill to maintain their value within the organization. The days of having one degree and one corresponding skillset may be numbered, because if that skillset is automated, what then? Corporate training provides one way to diversify what each individual employee can contribute and the variety of roles he or she can hold.

There are other benefits besides skill acquisition. I’ve written that despite technological advances, productivity in most organizations is lagging⁴. Corporate training is one method for adjusting your processes, targeting efficiency so employees can better perform tasks and focus their energies more specifically on company goals.  I have personally seen that many organizations with solid corporate training initiatives keep their people longer because the employees appreciate the investment in their development. And, I’ve observed that organizations that do right by their people are perceived as having strong brands that customers want to support.

For the rest of this piece, please visit the DeVryWORKS website.

My Takeaways from the ATD Tech Skills Gap Panel

The technology skills gap is a well-known issue in American employment circles. Yet, research tends to focus on only one aspect of the problem – the shortage of hard tech skills like programming and information security management. But there is another, perhaps even more critical dimension to the technology skills gap¹: the lack of applied tech skills in the workplace.

As we’ve talked about previously, when an individual has applied tech skills,² they can integrate people, processes, data, and devices to effectively inform business strategy and plan for and react to unanticipated shifts in direction.

At the annual Association for Training and Development (ATD) conference³ in San Diego, I moderated an applied technology skills gap panel with John Aquilino, Manager, Skills Gap Training and Services, DeVryWORKS; Jessica DiCicco, VP, Learning & Development, Randstad; Jackie Linton, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer, City of Philadelphia; Kristen Switzer, Sr. People Development Manager, Taylor Morrison; and Andre Walker, VP of Training & Development, Securitas Security Services.

Applied Technology Skills: Why Now?

I began by asking the panel why applied technology skills have become so critical in business. “Everyone in our company, whether they are in construction, purchasing, accounting, or customer service, touches a technology system. They need to understand these systems to do their jobs well,” said Switzer. “We are also offering training on a variety of technology platforms that require employees to come up to speed.”

Next, I asked John to comment on how his cross-industry employer partners are equipping their workforces with applied technology skills. “Access to training and development is not the issue,” he responded. “It’s much more about how those skills are curated and aligned to arrive at actionable outcomes.”

Panelists shared that their organizations are searching for and using solutions that help their employees develop “soft skills” related to technology adoption such as critical thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving. “Applying knowledge of Big Data, digital infrastructure, and integrated processes is essential to effective decision-making,” said Aquilino. “Companies are infusing learning experiences with technology, so employees can leverage the familiarity of working with machines in their daily roles.”

For more panel insights, head over to the full piece at the DeVryWORKS website.

5 Customer Service Skills You Can Improve

In a world that's increasing its degree of automation every day, the value of human interaction is greater than ever. That's why having strong customer service skills is important—and why improving those skills can be a valuable goal for the new year.

Those who excel at customer service may differ in their level, role and industry, but they typically have these competencies in common.

1. Business Knowledge

If you aren't well-informed about your customer's business issues, consider making that a priority for 2018. You can read industry-related publications and relevant social media accounts and/or company materials. You could also interview colleagues about what they've learned.

 

If you're in doubt about challenges a customer is facing, ask. Showing extra interest and investment in their business can enhance your customer service skills, as can taking the additional step of questioning an existing process or situation in favor of continuous improvement.

2. Empathy

There is no substitute for being able to effectively communicate that you understand where your customer is coming from and that you will do everything in your power to help.

Your level of sincerity can make or break your efforts. Listening carefully to the customer's scenario and imagining how you'd feel in her shoes can help you boost your empathy.

It also helps to pay attention to tone and to read between the lines. Consider gently asking questions and paraphrasing back what you hear. And if the customer just needs to get something off her chest, try letting her.

3. Self-Control

Customers can be infuriating sometimes, but those with stellar customer service skills rarely, if ever, lose their cool. "It's important for service representatives to practice emotional control because they are essentially representing the entire organization," says Emily Bennington, author of Miracles at Work: Turning Inner Guidance into Outer Influence. "It helps to recognize that what we tend to view as a personal attack from a customer isn't really personal at all—they're frustrated with the business. Maintaining that perspective can help you hold your composure no matter what."

For more where this came from, visit the American Express OPENForum.

 

The Strategic Elevation of HR

I’ve recently had the opportunity to work more closely with DeVryWORKS, which offers organizations solutions to acquire and retain the best talent, plan for succession, and close skills gaps. One thing has become very clear in recent years: the strategies organizations used yesterday to recruit, manage, and retain top people won’t work today. Increasingly, employees are looking not just for a job they like, but an experience that’s meaningful. Thanks to analytics tools, we are in a better position than ever to measure whether our initiatives are working as intended, and it’s especially critical that we are agile in the face of a continuously evolving business climate.

Moving forward, I will publish one article a week here on topics of utmost concern to leaders and talent management professionals like you. Sometimes I’ll aim to help you build a business case for strategies you already know are imperative, and other times, I will introduce a new idea you might not have considered before. 

Let's start with a piece on how HR is changing. If you have been in the human resources profession for a while, you might have heard the legend of how HR originally became a thing. Allegedly, around the turn of the 20^th century, The National Cash Register Company had a strike to which it responded by launching a “Personnel Department.” The new division was responsible for regulating wages, ensuring a safe work environment, keeping employee records, and responding to grievances.

The HR function did not change for the better part of 100 years. While other functional areas grew and expanded, HR largely remained static and administrative in nature. If a new employee was starting or one was leaving, you contacted HR staff. Otherwise, you rarely (if ever) interfaced with them.

As the economy has improved and skills shortages have increased, however, the competition for top talent has intensified. Now, effective talent management across the employee lifecycle – from recruiting and onboarding to learning and performance, has become a c-suite imperative. By necessity, leaders are calling on HR to advise on critical matters related to the longstanding competitiveness and overall success of the organization.

In other words, the HR function has been elevated strategically so that every operation supports the larger business goals. But while many HR professionals grumbled about “not having a seat at the table” for decades, now that the seat has been granted, some aren’t sure how to contribute in the most effective way. If this is your situation, here are some recommendations to get started:

Know Your Business

Many HR professionals only know HR – and at a basic level at that. HR leaders who have the ear of the CEO, on the other hand, have a solid understanding of their companies’ position in the industry, how they are run, their unique histories, their products and services, and the roles that various functions play in achieving the organizations’ goals. If they don’t have experience with a function (finance, for instance), they are proactive in learning more about it. This deeper body of knowledge allows them to provide more meaningful talent management guidance to other leaders.

Know Your Customers

The most strategic HR professionals have a handle on both their internal and external customers. Speaking with representatives in other departments, they’ve become well-versed in the profiles of those who purchase their company’s products and services, those who apply to work at the organization, and those who are currently employed there.

Think Beyond Tactics

Far too often, HR is guilty of launching initiatives without a broader context, which are developed in a vacuum. Continuous improvement is good, but make sure there is a method to your madness. For example, an HR leader shouldn’t implement a shiny new applicant tracking system without first doing research on how individuals are currently hired into the organization.

Focus on the Employee Experience

Employee experience design involves thoughtfully considering what employees should feel and do at each stage of the employment lifecycle to maximize engagement, productivity, and retention. The old HR way involved a series of unrelated and isolated actions (i.e. an employee’s orientation agenda did not address the goals that would later be addressed in his or her performance review), but the new way is continuous and connected.

Involve Managers Everywhere

It is well known that the most critical factor in retention is the manager/employee relationship. Strategic HR leaders facilitate these relationships from the get go, ensuring that managers are mentally present for new hires and are taking specific actions to ensure that employees effectively assimilate into the organization and receive appropriate guidance throughout their tenures.

Pilot and Measure Innovative Projects

Strategic HR professionals understand that current processes and procedures – especially manual ones – have a limited shelf life, and that today’s HR organizations must be agile in their response to constituent needs. They constantly aim to do things in a new way, often taking a promising idea and implementing it on a small scale (for example, an onboarding portal rolled out initially to the marketing department) to see how it will play. And most importantly, they know that building a business case for a new initiative requires knowing how to use Big Data and analytics tools to measure a pilot’s success.

HR is most strategic when everything it touches has business implications. If you find yourself constantly being asked to collaborate, that’s a good thing. It means you are headed in the right direction.

 

You Are More Than Your Credentials

Credentials ruled in the traditional job market. Candidates were coached to dial up the prestige on their resumes, on social media, and on job interviews. Saying you went to Harvard was better than saying you went to the University of Illinois. Describing a stint at Deloitte at age 22 was better than talking up the rare and desirable skills you picked up in a second-act career.

That’s finally staring to change, but not every job seeker has quite gotten the memo. Many still tout their credentials as stand-ins for the job skills recruiters and hiring managers are really looking for. Here’s how (and why) to switch up your approach.

THE TROUBLE WITH PEDIGREES

Employers in all industries are finally wising up to the limits  of fancy credentials as predictors of on-the-job success. Too often, high test scores and degrees from elite universities signal wealthy parents and other forms of privilege at least as much as they signal competence and expertise. Relying on signs of prestige doesn’t provide either the diverse perspectives or the grit that employers need their workforces to possess in order to thrive in the modern business world.

For the 2018 Job Preparedness Indicator, my nonprofit organization, the Career Advisory Board, asked 500 U.S.-based hiring managers to share their thoughts on nontraditional job candidates. We defined nontraditional college students and graduates as meeting any of the following criteria:

• Started attending college more than one year after graduating high school
• Attended/attending college as a part-time student
• Had/have children and/or other dependents other than their spouse while attending college
• Worked/work at a full-time job while attending college
• Did not receive a standard high school diploma and instead earned a GED or high school certificate of completion

Since the Career Advisory Board is supported by DeVry University, a for-profit institution that attracts many students from nontraditional backgrounds, DeVry certainly has a stake in the trends my team set out to analyze. Still, half of our respondents said their organizations are hiring more nontraditional students and graduates than they used to: 50% said they “recognize valid, alternative education paths besides the typical college journey”; 34% “desire more diversity in our workforce”; and 32% feel “nontraditional students and graduates have a stronger work ethic.”

And refreshingly, fully 70% of hiring professionals agreed with the following statement: “If a candidate has the right skills for an open position, it doesn’t matter what type or format of education was used to get them.”

These attitudes are reverberating throughout the talent space. A recent LinkedIn survey of some 9,000 recruiters and hiring managers likewise picked up on intensifying efforts to shake up the traditional recruitment process to find more diverse, qualified candidates without elite credentials. And artificial intelligence is playing an ever-wider role in efforts like those. At the same time, tech leaders like Airbnb and Pinterest are expanding apprenticeship programs to hire smart, non-traditional engineers first, then train them on the job. One tech company Fast Company spoke to last year has even started intentionally hiring people with no relevant experience, as long as they possess the right skills and qualities instead.

GETTING BACK TO THE ACTION, NOT THE SETTING

But these evolving attitudes won’t matter if you don’t change your approach as a job seeker in order to capitalize on them. Desperately talking up every impressive-sounding credential on your resume is going to pay diminishing returns in the years ahead. So whether or not you’re a nontraditional student or grad, it’s time to start pushing your skills to the forefront. These are a few ways to do that:

Focus on on-the-job wins. Let’s say you’re applying to a job as a marketing data analyst. In the past, perhaps you led with the fact that you earned high honors studying computer science at a top university. Today you may have better luck mentioning how you mastered analytics skills by selecting and implementing new software at a previous employer, then used the mined data to tell a story about the best path forward.

Speak directly to the job description. You have to know the target position inside and out in order to show how experience directly relates to the job in question. Be prepared to tell your interviewers exactly how you have solved similar challenges–with excellent results. Then, instead of trying to prove why you’re like every “prestigious” cookie-cutter graduate who walks through the door, explain how the organization will benefit by having an employee with your special combination of determination, resilience, and resourcefulness.

Get specific. Rather than trusting that a kid who got a few lucky breaks can hack it in an often chaotic business climate, employers told our researchers that they’re after candidates who “have developed niche skill sets or unique experiences that differentiate them from the market,” “have internal drive and good time management,” “have demonstrated a track record of stable work history, including promotions and cross-functional experiences,” and who are “willing to learn the business and work in whatever capacity the company needs them.”

Arguably, these are all things that hiring managers have sought out since time immemorial–they just used fancy pedigrees as a shorthand for these attributes. As that begins to change, more opportunity is opening up to more job seekers, no matter where they went to school or last worked. All that’s left to do is seize it.

This post was originally published in Fast Company.

Hot Career Change: From Finance to Technology

A few years ago, if a financial professional said they were abandoning the world of money for the world of software, they might have been laughed out of the room. But recent examples (including a banker who went to work for Google, a Barclay’s exec who joined a tech firm, and an economist who launched a healthcare technology venture capital firm) illustrate that financial prowess is exactly the sort of expertise that tech companies desperately need.

Wall Streeter takes Google by storm

A recent Business Insider article described the journey of Sameer Syed, a JP Morgan investment banker who took a position working in strategic partnerships at Google. According to Syed, financial training requires the development of a tremendous work ethic, communication, and a fresh perspective that traditional technology workers sometimes don’t have.

Attention to detail and flexibility are two other traits that often aren’t represented as strongly in tech firms. For instance, Syed’s colleagues have commented on his emails and presentations. “They were like, ‘Oh wow, this is very clean and professional. It looks like we hired a bank to do it,'” he told Business Insider. “Working in banking, you can’t have mistakes or errors, and sharpening this skill is super valuable.”

Despite the stereotypes about stiff bankers, Syed said that financial professionals are taught to adapt to changes and learn on the job quickly. Tech startups want to know that a prospective employee can pick up a new concept and get it immediately. Financial pros can do this because they’ve been in the position of having to rapidly pick up new regulations and products.

For more on this intriguing career path, check out the full post on the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Announcing My New Book Collaboration: Mom.B.A.!

When I met Karyn Schoenbart in the summer of 2013, I never imagined that I'd embark upon a partnership and friendship that would be one of the most defining of my life.

Karyn's the CEO of global market research firm The NPD Group, and today we publish the book we've been working on together for two years, Mom.B.A.: Essential Business Advice from One Generation to the Next.

The book asks the reader to imagine life would be like if your mother was the CEO of a global company. She could provide the type advice that would propel a career and help them overcome the many stumbling blocks that keep people from fulfilling their full potential at work. That's the idea behind Mom.B.A. 

Mom.B.A. is based on Karyn's lessons to her daughter Danielle, now an established businesswoman in her own right. And in it, we include lessons on everything from effective first impressions and workplace politics to relationship development, skill building, and priority-setting. Alongside current employment research and trends, Karyn candidly shares funny anecdotes, triumphs, and missteps as she recalls her journey from an entry-level market research position to CEO. By the time you finish reading, you'll feel like you know her as well as I do. 

We've fortunately gotten a lot of support from senior leaders in the business community, and here's my personal favorite endorsement:

"Sometimes, matter-of-fact approaches to our biggest challenges are hiding in plain sight. Karyn Schoenbart blends the learnings of her life into a set of guidelines notable for their straight shooting, and credible because they ring with the truth of her own experience. Karyn s excellence as a business leader, as a mother, as a philanthropist, and as a friend are not separate achievements, but instead part of one storyline and approach that she has weaved together beautifully for us in this terrific book." --Oliver Libby, chair and co-founder, The Resolution Project.

I thank you in advance for your support of my latest endeavor and hope you learn as much from Karyn as I have!

 

Making a Good Decision with Limited Information

Leaders do not always have the luxury of time when making a critical business decision, yet research shows that quick decisions are often remarkably solid despite time pressures. Here are six strategies for coming to the best conclusion in a non-ideal situation.

Strategy 1: Define Your Result

Consider why you must make a prompt decision now. What is the most pressing problem, and what do you need to have happen as a result of the decision? If everything worked out the way you hope, what would be the outcome? Don’t get too caught up in a detailed list of pros and cons, because inevitably, some listed won’t be as important as others. Recognize that every option will likely have a downside as there is rarely a 100 percent perfect decision. You simply have to do the best you can with the data you have available at the time.

Strategy 2: Look Both Short and Long-Term

Envision how your decision will play out immediately, and how it will play out down the road. Understand your organization’s short and long-term goals and evaluate your decision in relation to both of those. Suzy Welch’s 10-10-10 method is one way to employ this strategy: think about the implications of your decision 10 minutes from now, 10 months from now, and 10 years from now!

Strategy 3: Reduce Your Risk with a Trial

If you are uncertain about the best path forward, can you test the impact of a particular decision on a small scale? For instance, can you implement a new process in a single department, or company-wide for only one month? Trials give you an out if a decision isn’t working, and also provide opportunities to modify your approach based on feedback.

Strategy 4: Talk to People Who Have Been There

Seek out those (either inside or outside your company) who have been in a similar situation and probe them about their learnings. You might also ask the opinions of those who will be directly affected by the decision, and those who are truly impartial. The more perspectives you can get, the better informed your decision will be. However, in order to protect yourself from analysis paralysis, don’t leave your inquiry open-ended. Instead, commit to a concrete decision after collecting points of view for a specified period of time.

For more strategies, head over to the QuickBase Fast Track blog.