Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

The Real Story Behind Stretch Assignments

Stretch opportunities are all the rage in the workplace. But as popular as they are, it’s unclear why some people decide to accept a stretch assignment or role – and others step aside. It’s also unclear why women haven’t benefited from stretches as much as men.

Selena Rezvani is Be Leaderly’s VP of consulting and research and a recognized speaker on women and leadership. She recently led Be Leaderly’s original research on how both genders decide if they are ready for a stretch, and how they make that decision. The report also explores how employers can create a workplace that supports employees who step out of their comfort zones. Based on a survey of 1,549 U.S.- based professionals, the research uncovered the following:

• Men (48%) and women (52%) are equally interested in ultimately advancing into senior vice president or C-suite roles.
• However, the largest portion of women (45%) don’t feel their employers make it easy to gauge if they are ready for a promotion, while the largest portion of men (40%) think their employers help them know whether they are prepared to advance.
• Women are less engaged in and passionate (67%) about their jobs than men (77%), another possible explanation for why fewer women take on stretch opportunities. A strong correlation exists between employees who feel engaged and passionate about their work and those who perceive that their employer makes it easy to assess their readiness to advance.
• In order to apply for a job, both women and men feel that they need to meet, on average, 75% of the qualifications for the role – a surprising difference from accepted thinking about gender attitudes toward the qualifications people feel they need to try for a new position.
• Women may hold back from taking stretches because when assessing how ready they are for a new job, they are less likely than men to overestimate or “round up” their skills, and more likely to underestimate or “round down” what they know or can do. (73% of women disagree that they round up their skills while 60% of men disagree).
• For both men and women, the top criteria for deciding whether to take a stretch assignment are having the influence to create a positive outcome (40% women/43% men), and getting an assignment that lines up with their career goals (33% women/33% men). Both genders say office politics is the biggest practical challenge to taking a stretch assignment (38% women/33% men), with lack of time a close second (34% women, 31% men).
• Money matters. Men are 3.5 times more likely than women to cite pay as an important factor in evaluating the appeal of a new assignment, job or level.

So what do we make of this? Well, if the workplace is being disrupted by sweeping, large-scale trends, employees must have the opportunity to continually redefine and hone their skills. One way employers can offer that is through stretch assignments that provide intrapreneurial short-term “gig economy” type work with minimal risk and disruption, all within the organization’s dominion. Employees, especially millennials, want to “job-craft” their roles. Offering an internal gig economy – or stretch marketplace – delivers big.

Strategies for Engaging an In Person Audience

In my almost 15 years as a workshop speaker and facilitator, I’ve learned a lot. The most valuable lesson of all? Be interactive.

I’ve observed that you can be presenting the most intriguing topic of all time, but it’s only a matter of time before you audience tunes out the sound of you droning on and on. If you want to keep your participants’ attention and prevent them from checking their phones or falling asleep, I recommend sticking to no more than five minutes of instructional content at once, followed immediately by an interactive component that surprises the audience out of any stupors or daydreams.

The good news is, there are more choices for engagement than ever before. The following six techniques are my go-to standards. Depending on how long your next training is, mixing and matching them is likely to liven up the session, and hopefully, increase overall learning and results!

Technique #1: Storytelling

Funny or self-deprecating stories and anecdotes are always a hit, but early in most trainings, I like to share a specific story called The Hero’s Journey. Based on the famous narrative concept, the Hero’s Journey describes all the obstacles I faced while becoming an expert in the topic. Much of the time, the audience isn’t expecting to hear something like this, and participants are fascinated. I increase the engagement by asking for a show of hands if the audience has personally experienced something like what I’m relating (e.g. “Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a boss you thought really hated you”).

Technique #2: Surveying and Polling

The best type of survey takes place in advance, so you can ask participants about their experiences in detail, and customize your content to address what you learned. Given that this isn’t always possible, you might want to familiarize yourself with online polling technology that allows the audience to answer simple questions on their phones in real time – with answers appearing on your presentation screen. Both approaches pique the interest of audience members who are curious what their fellow participants answered.

For more techniques, have a look at the DeVry WORKS website.

Why You Probably Need More Training, Not Less

In my work as a business and workforce consultant, I’ve observed that in times of change and uncertainty, some organizations stop spending money – and especially money that goes to employee training and development. However, given the future work trends of cross-functional teaming, workforce-wide digital fluency, and an emphasis on uniquely human skills, this may be a short-sighted approach. Let’s look at these one by one.

Cross-Functional Teaming

I’ve noticed that employees are starting to move around organizations with greater speed, and so they may need to know more skills than were required in the past. Even if they received a solid university education, employees might well be moved to a role in which nothing they learned in their degree program applies. For instance, it’s not unusual for someone trained in finance to end up in marketing, and vice versa. And, even those schooled and working in marketing often find it beneficial to have cross-functional expertise in finance.

My hunch is that employer training might not be able to keep up with the reskilling and upskilling requirements of cross functional teams, and this is why there are gaps. And, in the Career Advisory Board’s 2018 survey, Talent Activation, the Employee Experience, and Skill Development, 77 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: In my organization as a whole, I am concerned about employee skills gaps.

In the study, the greatest skills gaps were observed in the areas of technology/digital fluency (cited by 62 percent of respondents), communication (56 percent), business acumen (48 percent), diversity and cultural awareness (46 percent), and customer service (42 percent), and skills gaps affect employees at all levels. And, when asked about barriers to closing skills gaps, our respondents cited a too-small training budget most frequently.

If anything, it’s my opinion that cross-functional teaming requires larger training budgets, not smaller ones.

Workforce-Wide Digital Fluency

In the Career Advisory Board’s 2017 Job Preparedness Indicator survey, we defined an applied technology skill as a skill that is needed by employees to leverage the right technology to do their jobs. It’s another way to talk about digital fluency, and the research indicated that a majority of employers is now looking for these skills in new and existing employees.

Training existing employees in applied technology skills is a major challenge, in part because current professionals did not receive this type of instruction via traditional education paths. In response, many survey respondents are ensuring that their workforces continuously train and retrain on applied technology skills through the development of internal courses (40 percent), internal trainings (38 percent), tuition reimbursement (35 percent), and external trainings (31 percent). Only one-fourth said their organizations are taking no actions to develop this skillset.

As discussed above, however, developing skillsets can be expensive – especially when one round of training isn’t enough. So, in my recommendation, employers should have a specific and ongoing budget set aside for applied technology skills alone – in addition to other training requirements.

For more where this came from, check out the DeVry WORKS website.

 

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.