Strategies for Developing Effective Workforce Skills

00:00.60

Dan

Hi everyone. This is Tech in EdTech. In this podcast, we discuss technology that powers education and improves learning for all. In today's episode, we will be focusing on workforce skills. I'm your host Dan Gizzy from Magic EdTech, and our guest for this special edition podcast is Sean Stowers, CEO, and Chief Learning Officer at WeLearn. Sean, thanks for joining me today, and welcome to the show. 

00:26.71

Sean Stowers 

Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

00:32.41

Dan

So I appreciate you joining today. So we go back more years than I will tell our audience that we go back. Um, I'd love to know just a little bit more for our and for our audience's sake your background and you know some of the things you've been doing since our days in publishing.

00:45.43

Sean Stowers 

Sure. So um, I started my career in learning at IBM in the late '90s. Um, my first job was selling end-user desktop training and teaching people how to use Word Excel, and Lotus Notes. From there, went to New York where I joined a large global publishing company in a division that was focused on financial services training. Um kind of worked in a number of roles in that large global publishing company that you and I both worked for. Um, got to do some really cool projects and um, do some interesting work along the way, and then about seven years ago, decided that I was looking to do something different, and that something different was to be an entrepreneur and start my own learning and development consultancy which is, WeLearn, which is um, you know, focused on building better humans through learning. So, that's a little bit about me and kind of how I got into L&D.

01:46.64

Dan

Such a great journey, and obviously, you know friend and colleague I've enjoyed watching the journey together and up from the sidelines as well. You know I think you know one of the areas that I was hoping to focus on with you and understand a little bit more as you've you know taken this entrepreneur road is you know in the context of learning and workforce development. You know we've heard a lot about it. You know you and I have talked a lot about it from multiple angles as well in our careers you know, personal learning. You know, personalization has always traditionally been something that's been, you know, very useful and very highly focused from anywhere in the K space up to you know higher education as well. You know when we start to think about employee learning and the journey beyond you know, continuing education or workforce skills. You know what does personalization and learning mean to you?

02:36.80

Sean Stowers 

Sure, so I think personalization in learning. Let me tell you what it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean necessarily that there is a different unique learning experience for each and every individual right? So I think let's just say off the bat, right? Individual customization of learning is that, in my opinion, what personalization means but let me talk about what I do think it means. So number one is I think um, you know as learning designers as builders of learning. Um, I do think it is in recognition that learning is personal and not one size fits all for learning. I think too often in the context of corporate learning of workforce development. We spend a lot of time thinking we're going to build this monolithic program and everyone's going to come in and go through that program and you know we want them to stand back and admire the engine that we built and unfortunately, that's just not the way it works right? So I think that. When it comes to personalization, what does that mean building in? It means the number 1 building in um, context for your learner, for them to identify with um their particular situation or their particular point in the learning journey and understand why this learning is important to them. The second piece is that you provide learning in the modalities that are most meaningful to the individual. Um, we all learn differently. We all learn in different ways. Um, you know I think about a conversation I had actually this past weekend with a learner in a workforce development program.

04:15.51

Sean Stowers 

Who was um, you know, just talked about the fact that she was attending labs multiple times um because she was a perfectionist and she had anxiety about this and I remember just sitting with her and saying hey this is a safe environment, this is why we provide this environment. You don't need to feel anxious about um, how you're perceived in this environment because everyone's in the same boat. Everyone's on a learning journey with you and I think that building that context is super important. I think finally um, you know I think personalization of learning is also about having some empathy for your learner and recognizing that not every learner who comes into a program or experience that you developed has the same relationship with learning that you do. Um, there are um, just so many people in our workforce and our population that have been told that they are, you know, not smart, they're not capable, they're not worthy. Um and so you know those are the same people that are coming into your program who immediately that lack of structural support in their lives, immediately cut races to the front of their brain and immediately you know that is a barrier for them to be successful in the program and I think you know personalization and having empathy for that learner and it's saying upfront that you know again, we're all in this journey together. We may start at different points but our goal is to get us all to the same place is super important.

05:44.39

Dan

I think there's some interesting points in there I'd like to expand on a little bit around empathy as well as the anxiety and try and maybe bring that into how can addressing those two points for example, create a more impactful or you know for a lack of a better term fun and learning environment for an end user.

06:07.84

Sean Stowers 

Yeah yeah, I love that question. I think in some ways right? We're as I think as humans we tend to be competitive and I think as humans we also fear um, being judged and I think again like I go back to that conversation I talked about with that learner in a lab setting who was um, super anxious about how they would be perceived and the fact that it took them longer to learn something and just reiterating to that learner in that moment that the lab was a safe safe place that it was a place for experimentation but also failure. Failure is okay right and I think sometimes we forget to say that upfront, right? I think about you know programs that I have been in where um, you know there would be it would be great if someone said to the front of the room and said hey you know what in this exercise there's no wrong answers right? Failure’s acceptable; we learn um from our failures. Um, I think um, there's a great acronym that, one of my colleagues Dr Keith Keating uses and says fail stands for first attempt in learning right? I think if we put that mentality out there rather than oh my god you have to master this in this amount of time and if you don't master in this amount of time you know that this program has but age or you're not meeting expectations I think that if we remove some of that, I think it becomes far more accessible to folks. I think that the other thing that I just come back to all the time is you know learning is fundamentally a struggle right? It is a struggle to learn something new, you're trying to master new skill, a new concept. Um, nobody's good at it the first time. Even the best learners aren't good at it. The first time some people just pick it up quicker. So I think it's those were things if we were maybe a little bit more honest if we built that message into what we were doing. Um, I think that you would find that learning would become far more inclusive.

08:20.92

Dan

Those are great points there. I think from even from the inclusion and the equity piece of that's you know we've always used learning whether consciously or subconsciously as a way to separate right? You know separate those from the haves that have knots and in any capacity as well. So you know to kind of expand, to say on a point in that front, you know what are some of the areas, for example, when you're wearing your Chief Learning Officer hat for a second that you can utilize that type of mentality to create equal access or equal opportunities and learning?

09:00.36

Sean Stowers 

Sure I love that question and I think there's there's a couple things I'll say there. So, number one is I think that you recognize that everyone is worthy of investment. Um, so I think for a long time when it came to learning, investments in learning were prior primarily made in white-collar knowledge workers. Um, and certainly you would see you know investments in you know how do you do your job if you're on the frontline, but beyond that you know the frontline roles the roles that perhaps were viewed as more transient in terms of high turnover, etc weren't invested in. I think that we saw a change in that. Um, even prior to the pandemic. You know there were some great programs. Great programs out there like Amazon and their career choice program, Mcdonald's Archways to Opportunity Program. We see organizations like Guild Education that have gotten into this employee education as a benefits model. But I think that beyond access to you know whether that is access to the GED, access to English language training or post some form of post-secondary certification or post-secondary educational experience, I think in general realizing that all aspects of your organization are worthy of that investment in training is super important and I think it comes back and you touched on the DEI thing. For a minute there and I think it would it, you know in so many ways as a society, as human beings right? We have found ways to create pathways other than um, you know whether that is you know we make determinations of others on the basis of race, on the basis of sex, on the basis of ability. We've created that structure and I think you know we can begin to dismantle that when we again look at all of our employees and say they deserve Investment because what we know and what we see in the data is that when people feel that they're invested in, when people feel that they have opportunities for development they stay, they work harder, they're more productive, customer satisfaction increases, revenues increase. Um, you know the data there shows that investment in development pays off. I think we just have to um you know embrace that a bit more.

11:41.27

Dan

I think those are great points. You know, um I'm gonna throw you a bit of a wriggle. So I did we didn't prep for this and it wasn't in our notes prior. So you know traditionally when we've talked about adult education or workforce education. It's always been historically talked about the upskilling of the employer or the upskilling of the workforce. You know one of the things that we've seen with the dramatic shift in not only just the way that workers engage and the workforce engages you know due to the pandemic or due to just you know the ever-evolving world since then. There’s been a shift from upskilling to reskiling. You know the differences between the two are very stark. You know where an entire workforce you know all of you know the data is pointing to that you know within the next ten years over a billion people are actually going to need to be reskilled versus upskilled. You know where there's that complete shift of the workforce taking on not just what would move them to the next level in their career but complete career changes, you know. So do you have any thoughts on that? I'd love to get your take on that.

12:45.91

Sean Stowers 

I do. I think my thought on that is in so many ways when this conversation comes up, it is radical, this idea of radical reskilling. So we're going to take someone who's a hairdresser and we're going to turn them into a cyber security professional,  we're going to take someone who does X job and turn them into Y person and I think that there are always going to be examples of radical reskillng. But I think the thing that gets lost in that conversation a lot of times is just that in so many ways the opportunities for reskilling and the opportunities for upskilling are really not always that radical, right? It's not always that radical. It is a lot of times far more mundane in the unsexy and in a number of ways, requires um, far more almost hand-to-hand combat if you will like you're going to be far more involved in delivering that upskilling or reskilling because the people that you're wanting to that most need the up-skilling or reskilling um are going to be people that have probably been left on the pathway of educational attainment, to begin with so we go back to those people who have relationships with learning that are far different than ours and I just think that you know it. It's going to be far more intensive than again what I think sometimes this notion of oh you can put out a digital program and just you know reskil someone to go from this job to this job and they're going to go from making you know $50000 a year to one hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year. Those are stories I mean those are great stories. Those are great headlines. But I think again when you look at the populations that are most likely going to be reskilled, need to be reskilled. Those aren't the populations that necessarily are going to go, you know are going to be even with reskilling equipped to go into that one hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year job maybe. But I just think there's I think it's um I just think it's more intensive and less sexy than some of the like radical reskilling conversations out there.

15:11.85

Dan

In an attempt to continue the less sexy part of the conversation, I'm gonna ask you to switch your hats back to your CEO hat for a minute so you know as someone who has made what many would consider a very radical change in their own career. You know from the safety of larger organizations to that path and treading out in a world that you really you know probably one scary ride, probably was very scary to think about I'm going to completely blow my own model up. Um, when you're out there having that level of conversation as a CEO say to another CEO or CFO of a company that's struggling from their own side to understand what a ROI will be to spend this kind of money for their employees right? Learning and development have always been a cost center or treated like a cost center, for example. You know what are some of the things that you know maybe from your own personal experience or just you know obviously being successful in the industry that you used to employ, for example to show hey this is why you should be doing this, this is why you should be spending this money on your employees.

16:13.40

Sean Stowers 

Sure you know what? That's a great question and I think that first of all remember that the ROI calculation has more to do with just what was the cost of training and did someone learn something right? So I think you know when depending on what the program is and what the goals of the program,you begin to look at, okay, how do you quantify the impacts that come from the initiative. So let's just take for example. you know, allied health right? So ah, the average turnout cost of replacing an allied health technician in the US right now with the few exceptions you know hovers around you know $6000 per position right? Um, the average top cost of turnover for an allied health role, we saw one study um for clinical medical assistance for a hospital system that said you know their cost total cost of turnover for an hour for a clinical medical assistant was $14000. So you kind of look at that and know okay, so my cost to replace is 6000. My total cost of turnover you know is you know let's call it 14000, could be fifteen-twenty thousand for a medical assistant. Well if you begin to get then say okay, what does it cost for me to reskill someone inside of the organization to go from say um, ah a non-clinical role into that clinical role? What does that investment look like maybe that investment you know is $5000 six thousand dollars? Well if you look at it in that way, right? Then hey if you're if it's costing you 5 or 6 if it's costing you $6000, then hey you're meeting your kind of basic replacement costs. But you know you don't have the other costs associated with that because you know you're taking existing employees your risk, you're training them and then you're putting them in the role. You don't have the recruitment costs. You don't have the talent acquisition cost built into that. You do not have the cultural onboarding costs associated with that. So I think when you look at these sort of initiatives, you really do have to look around and go what are the things that I'm impacting right? In learning, we don't always think about the fact that we maybe you're saving on the talent acquisition costs that we're saving a turnover cost. And that's part because we there's a silo between us and talent acquisition. A lot of times we don't look around and say what are those other data points around us that I need to understand that I can connect my work to and I think that that's probably the big conversation that I try to have with organizations. Where is the pain that corresponds to what we're solving and how will we know that we have solved for that pain and what does what does solving for that pain look like in terms of the results that we'll be able to say that we have achieved?

19:12.89

Dan

So this will be the last question before we wrap up. So taking the allied health example you just gave solving the investment piece of it. Where are you, wearing now your futurist hat, you know, what sort of model ability do you predict 5 years from now that will actually help solve that problem beyond obviously the training and development needs, and do you feel that you know the role of AI in that futurist model as well?

19:41.33

Sean Stowers 

Yeah, So I think, I love that question. So I think the role for me if I look at the role of it. So first of all I think if we just look at allied health. I think that ultimately the um the lens on what the pathways, what are the possible pathways um, is going to widen right? So I think you know you and I both spend time in higher ed, we both know and it can point to any number of programs where some of what would be considered the allied health roles, whether that's medical assistant, pharmacy technician etc. You know there were any number of institutions that were out there promoting an associate's degree in those fields. The reality is that an associate's degree isn't required for those fields and unfortunately, I think there were a lot of people that went that unfortunately, the reality is that there were a lot of people that went for those sort of degrees and walked out with levels of student debt that were perhaps not um, commensurate with the salaries that they walked into, and therefore you know that promotes turnover right? if people can't pay their bills and the salaries that they're getting, they're going to turn over they're going to continue to make decisions based on, you know how do they make their lives easier. Um, so I think that looking at that in a lot of Industries, it's going to be widening the lens. It is going to be widening the lens in terms of what is acceptable education to get into those roles. It's going to widen the lens in terms of um, the audiences that we look to. I attended a great session last night that talked about fair chance second chance hiring and how do you look at people who have maybe been justice impacted and bring them into roles and you know I think that's going to be something that plays into this so then to the second part of your question about AI. You know, one of the ways I think AI plays a role in this is to the extent that AI can begin to act as an advisor and provide guidance to somebody in the absence of a live coach right? So I'm a big believer that man if we gave every one of our employees an annual kind of career counseling or academic advising learning advising conversation that helped them decide how to invest their time in learning I, think that investment would pay off in spades. I think AI has an opportunity to play a role in that where you know whether you're using natural language processing, you know bots built within a learning ecosystem that allows someone to tell you a little bit about their interests. What they're good at and you begin to feed them content to say hey maybe look at these sort of careers or people with your interest tend to kind of gravitate to these sort of opportunities. This is how they're interrelated. I think those sort of things become super interesting to help someone arrive to the point that they then maybe get to talk to a human. So I think AI has a role. I think um, we're not there yet um, but I could see that as the future of where AI can play.

22:51.36

Dan

Any parting thoughts or advice for organizations in our audience?

22:59.40

Sean Stowers 

Yeah, I think that um, my biggest advice is don't be hemmed in by what you believe we have to do. I think that there's a ton of room for innovation and exploration out there and you know, sometimes that's scary, I mean it's certainly scary to think about that. But it's also really rewarding. So I would say like don't be afraid to try something new. Don't be afraid to tinker with what you're doing and to push to think is there a better way.

23:37.23

Dan

Sean, thank you for joining me today on the latest Tech in EdTech workforce skills edition podcast. We appreciate your insight and look forward to you in our audience joining us in future podcasts.