00:08.48

Laura Hakala

Hello, and welcome to the Tech In EdTech podcast. I'm your host, Lara Hakala. And today's episode is called Resilient Workforces: Building a Workforce that Bends, Not Breaks. My guest today is Bijal Shah, CEO and board director at Guild. Bijal, welcome, and thank you so much for joining me today.

00:28.15

Bijal Shah

Thank you so much for having me.

00:30.32

Laura Hakala

So to begin, would you share some details about yourself and the journey that brought you to your current role with Guild?

00:36.38

Bijal Shah

Of course, yes. As you mentioned, I'm Bijal. I'm the CEO of Guild. Guild works with leading employers across the country to help upskill and reskill their workforce so that they're prepared for the future of work. We help ensure that individuals get the learning and credentials they need so that they are available and have the skills to be placed in jobs that are much needed by our employer partners. I got to Guild via working at a variety of different companies, actually outside of the education sector. I worked in Consulting and Payments and then in Consumer Technology, and eventually made my way to Guild and was super inspired by the mission of unlocking opportunity for America's workforce.

01:27.24

Laura Hakala

Well, thank you again. And I'm so thrilled to have you here with me today for this conversation. So let's dive right in. So we wanted to talk about building a resilient workforce. So what do you see as the most pressing skill gaps preventing today's workforce from being truly resilient?

And how do you systematically identify them?

01:47.20

Bijal Shah

So when we think about skills gaps, you know, if you take the macro environment, just zoom out for a second, two-thirds of employers cite that skills gaps driven by AI automation and the demographic shifts that are happening, just with baby boomers exiting the workforce and a younger generation arriving, they are real barriers to performance. And so our goal is to help make sure that we are identifying those critical skills gaps that we're helping to enable humans with those durable skills like adaptability and leadership that are critical for creating a resilient workforce, and that we actually get workers the skills that are needed to be able to be employed tomorrow. So in the healthcare sector, hard-to-fill roles look like patient-facing roles, whether they're phlebotomists. You know, medical assistants, radiology techs, making sure we're actually getting individuals skilled in the jobs that are needed. In retail, if you look at the opportunity, you know, there is a real need for leadership and growing leadership inside of organizations that actually enable people who are on the front lines and understand customers and what their needs are to continue to elevate and grow to help build the future leadership of an organization and that's generally not where ah leadership training tends to focus. And so our goal is to help make sure that we are focused on what is really relevant for broad swaths of the workforce and the population.

03:22.95

Laura Hakala

That makes a lot of sense. And that's truly needed right now for, you know, like we said, for resiliency. Could you share any surprising or maybe overlooked scale areas that businesses may sometimes fail to address until it's too late?

03:38.14

Bijal Shah

Yeah, one of the examples I just gave in Frontline is really important. A lot of leadership development and leadership programs focus on broad leadership, desk worker leadership but when you think about who you need leading the workforce that is closest to your customer and where you know the future of jobs are headed and how much customer centricity and empathy and the ability to connect with others is going to matter in the future, having the ability to focus on what is important for that frontline leader how they lead, how they make decisions, how they rally at workforce, where jobs um and time of day and the flexibility that's required and the agility that's required is really amped up. That tends to be an area that's overlooked, and Guild really tries to help surface those types of gaps so that we can create very specific solutions for our employer partners.

04:37.44

Laura Hakala

That leads me pretty nicely into what I want to ask you next, which is, you know, to me, a big part about resilience begins with a shift in mindset, you know, and what you were just talking about in terms of flexibility and adaptability, that all very well aligns with a shift in mindset. So, how do you measure a shift from being kind of like a one-and-done training mindset to more of a culture of continuous development or even lifelong learning?

05:07.41

Bijal Shah

Yeah, I mean, one of the ways that we do that is by really focusing on signals that we think are important related to driving mobility inside an organization. So, guild learners who go through programs are 3.5 times more likely to get promoted than their peers are and 80% of our learners are enrolled in career-aligned programs. And when we say career aligned, we mean where there really are pathways available and mobility opportunities exist inside of that organization. And so that helps us by tracking that over time. We have the ability to ensure that we are actually driving continuous improvement and continuous movement for these employees.

05:53.80

Laura Hakala

That's really important to help prepare students, or I'm sorry, prepare individuals with a kind of future-proof strategy for skills acquisition. So let's talk about that next. How do you balance you know the need for immediate skills, such as you know you mentioned earlier, there's a surge in AI-related roles right now, with more longer-term foundational skills? You know, and you mentioned things like adaptability and leadership. How do you balance between those two different demands?

06:24.28

Bijal Shah

I think the best way to balance what you're really describing is needing to balance short-term needs with long-term abilities. And I think one of the best way to actually manage that is through stackable learning pathways. So when you think about stackability, the goal with stackability is to break things down into bite-size or more achievable parts so that individuals have the ability to learn, get the skills, and then show proof of their ability to have acquired those skills. And that's great to help people move more quickly in terms of mobility opportunities. But in order to actually have individuals who can be adaptable and flexible and problem solve in many different environments and circumstances. They need the ability to stack those things into longer-form programs. And so we think about that by enabling things like stackable learning. And our AI skilling bundle is a really good example. With a surge in AI, we have skills bundles. And there are the goal is to help 112 million frontline workers who are going to be impacted by automation. Actually get these skills and utilize them in conjunction with problem solving and communication skills so that they have the ability to package those things together in a way that is both good for the near term and what employers need, but also good for the long term in terms of ensuring that they have the skills required to continue to rise the ranks, to continue to be successful in different job opportunities, and so that they can continue to be adaptable and flexible.

08:05.54

Laura Hakala

So that strategy that you just mentioned, that shows that you and your company obviously have a lot of foresight in terms of anticipating needs. So what tactics do you recommend in terms of anticipating changes in the labor market so that companies aren't constantly playing catch-up? You know, we all want that kind of magic eight ball that's going to predict the future for us. So, are there any tools or tricks that you can share with us?

08:32.10

Bijal Shah

Yeah, I would say two things in particular. The first is that you have to recognize that a macro shift is coming and it's already started. Those shifts are influenced by demographic changes. There will be 6 million fewer workers, you know, by 2032 in this country, just given the number of people exiting the workforce, you have AI really changing the scope of jobs that are required going forward, and what skills are needed in those jobs. And so if you kind of combine those macro trends, it can feel daunting to say, great, I'm not sure how things are going to play out, so what should I be doing? And I think there are very practical things employers can do, and we see some of the leading employers do this. You know what jobs are going to exist for the next 18 to 24 months. You know which pathways and which functions are business critical to helping drive revenue inside of your organization, to keep your stores open, to keep your beds filled, to make sure the manufacturing line continues to operate. If you start with that and decide and figure out which pathways are most important, you can then create career-aligned pathways and make sure that you have the skilling and education required to actually map into those pathways and move employees who are not in those pathways into those pathways. I think that's a very practical thing that employers can be doing today that doesn't require a lot of technical work, a lot of pontificating. You know your business better than anyone else does. You know what your talent needs are. This is about putting one foot in front of the other and making those moves and making those changes.

10:15.48

Laura Hakala

Yeah, and then probably a matter of finding the right partners to help support with any gaps or training needs that you identify as part of that, you know, research and knowledge that you already have of your company. So I think that many edtech providers and training organizations tend to struggle to move from you know that vendor status to being more of a true strategic partner, which I think is oftentimes the goal. So what's your approach to deeply understanding those employer needs and customizing solutions?

10:48.79

Bijal Shah

I think it starts with being customer-obsessed, understanding the business goals of your customer, how they did last quarter, what their pressing business problems are, understanding where their talent needs are, talking with multiple stakeholders inside the business, walking into the actual store. I had the chance to visit one of our newest employer partners, Din Tai Fung, which is a Taiwanese chain that has emerged in the United States and is one of the fastest-growing you know retail restaurants in the country. I had a chance to visit one of their stores. I walked in to see what it was like, to see how they oriented around their own customers, how they ran their operations. I think you know, understanding your customers and what it's like to work inside of their facilities is deeply critical. I've been on site at you know, large auto manufacturers. I've been inside meat production manufacturing facilities. I walk into my local Walmart or Target to try and get an understanding of what it's like to be inside those stores today and right now, and what their employees are facing and thinking about. And I think it really helps to then take those learnings back to the employer as a strategic partner, whether that's something you can solve or not solve, being able to help them see ah around corners, even if you aren't the solution and helping them point them to the right providers, helping them understand what other partners in our ecosystem are doing, I think are all really helpful things that are important. The second is backing up what we're doing with data. You know, our buyer today is an HR buyer. They tend to be the Chief Talent Officer, the Chief Learning Officer, the Head of Benefits, the Head of L&D, the CHRO, and they have a really hard job. They have to take their time and energy every day to help prove the ah ROI behind the work and the dollars that they're spending. And so being able to show up proactively with data and helping them see you know, that learners are 3.5 times more likely to get promoted or that for every dollar they spend, they see a two times return on that dollar and helping to do the lift for them, working alongside them and their finance teams to help prove them, prove this, I think is really critical because you show up as a strategic partner versus someone who's just trying to sell them the next thing or the next platform.

13:33.05

Laura Hakala

Yeah, that makes so much sense from both of those approaches. And I'm going to circle back to data in another few minutes or so. But first, I want to talk a little bit more about personalizing the learning journey for individuals and their goals. You know, here at Magic, I'm the Director of Learning Efficacy. So these are the topics that I get really excited to talk about. And you touched on this a little bit a few minutes ago when you were talking about stackable learning and things like that. But I'd love to hear a little more on how do you go about customizing skill pathways for different roles or industries, or even individual learners?

14:11.37

Bijal Shah

Yeah, one of the beauties of Guild is that we're a marketplace business. Our goal is to vet and bring on providers into our marketplace that really deliver on outcomes, both persistence and completion outcomes, but also outcomes that are tied to mobility and job placement, and job success. And so we have over 2000 vetted programs in our catalog, and we have tied those to 18 high-demand career pathways like software engineering, nursing, supply chain and logistics, and manufacturing. And so our goal is to make sure that we are enabling a diverse set of programs in our catalog that support a wide variety of pathways so that regardless of what role or industry or even geography you're playing in we have something that will work for what is needed, not just for one specific role inside your organization, but to really fuel the talent pipelines you need for the future across your entire organization.

15:17.10

Laura Hakala

So now you're working obviously with adult learners most of the time, and adult learners have very unique needs in terms of approaching learning products and upskilling. So what are the, say, top two or three strategies that you've found to be most helpful when helping adult learners select the right programs and to stay motivated?

15:43.48

Bijal Shah

Yeah, to start with, why our approach is the way that it is, you have to realize that 70% of the workforce in the United States is on the frontlines. A lot of the solutions we develop are for the 30% who are not on the frontlines. Guild decided to take a different approach and to say, if you were wanting to help a frontline worker who has a lot of things going on in their life, work, family, needing to manage day-to-day emergencies that come up, how do you create an experience that really helps enable and supports them? And so the first is providing career-aligned enrollment and growth coaching. We have coaches who help enable and ensure that our frontline workers in particular, but any worker um persist in their program, is reminded of what their real career goals are and can actually, especially as they're trying to balance work and life, can be reminded of those things so that they continue to persist and complete their programming. And it is deeply important to the work that we do, and not everyone takes advantage of it. You know, workers at their desk or someone who's later in their career who has already gone through a lot of education and skilling may not take advantage of the enrollment and growth coaching we provide, but many of our frontline workers do take advantage of it. And for those who take advantage of it, they see higher persistence and completion rates because they had access to a coach.

17:14.66

Laura Hakala

That makes sense. So I understand that Guild partners with Lightcast for a standardized skills taxonomy. Why is that important for employer buy-in, and how does it ensure consistency across different roles and industries?

17:29.94

Bijal Shah

One of the things that is important to note is that I think it's something like 32% of the skills required in the next three years; the skills that are required in jobs are going to shift. And in order for our employer partners to be able to understand what skills already exist inside the organization versus where are their skills gaps and what pathway should they be creating, we need common language and common taxonomy across industry, across role types, and honestly across functions inside of an organization so that you can take someone from customer operations and put them in IT or you can take someone who's working in strategy and move them into software engineering or vice versa. And when employers don't have that type of common language or consistency, it's really hard to look across your workforce and identify where latent talent how is that talent building the skills that they need? And how do we actually take those individuals when they've completed the skilling that they have and move them as quickly as possible into roles that are available inside the organization? And we've noticed that when it's done right, strategic skilling investments can increase profitability inside of an organization by more than 10%, but it has to be rooted in the right data and you have to be able to work nimbly to actually understand what skills people have, what skills they're acquiring, and then when they're ready to move.

19:02.97

Laura Hakala

So that leads me again very nicely into my next question. And I did promise it would circle back to data in a little bit. So, I would say that we are living in a very data-driven moment right now, and most organizations and individuals really need it access to data so that they can make those important data-driven decisions. Can you give me, maybe, a concrete example of how data, either real-time or otherwise, helps companies predict and close skill gaps before they become critical?

19:34.03

Bijal Shah

Yeah, one really great example, and just to make it very concrete for you, is in healthcare. We have one of our partners, OSF Health, and they use our data to help identify a looming talent shortage they saw specifically inside of nursing. And then they also used our platform and were able to see a 42% uptick in nursing enrollments after tailoring a program to actually close the gap. So, understanding why folks weren't enrolling in nursing programs, identifying where there was talent inside the organization who might be ready to embark on those programs, and then creating stackable pathways so that people weren't biting off a BSN in nursing right away, but could actually move into the right pathways and go on a journey so they eventually got their nursing degree and be able to actually change and drive mobility inside the organization along the way as they enrolled in these programs.

20:33.23

Laura Hakala

Oh, that's awesome. That's such a great success story, and you make it sound so simple. 

20:38.00

Bijal Shah

I think it requires, you know, I do think it requires being pragmatic and being really willing to put one foot in front of the other. And one thing I do see is organizations getting really paralyzed by trying to find the perfect data or the right data or needing all the data. And look, skills taxonomies and skills and the jobs are changing so quickly that if you wait for perfect, I think you're going to miss the opportunity.

21:04.79

Laura Hakala

That is such an important reminder. I think a lot of us tend to be guilty of falling into that trap of not wanting to operate from an area of uncertainty, especially when so many people are looking for data to help them make their decisions. And sometimes you just have to operate with what's good enough or what's available in this moment, so you don't miss the moment. So what kind of insights are you providing to employers, and how do they use that data to shape future workforce strategies, whether that's in something like succession planning or pivoting to new market opportunities?

21:39.81

Bijal Shah

Yeah, we're really concrete on the data we provide back to our employer partners. So the first, like we just talked about in partnership with Lightcast, skills gained data. So what did you actually gain, or what were you enrolled in, and what were you learning through the process of going through our programs? The second is internal mobility data. How do we show you who's enrolled in what program and where they moved to inside the organization? Likely while still enrolled in that program, because they already started gaining skills. We could prove that they were gaining those skills and they were ready to move into the next step, even though there might be five steps in the process. We help our employers better understand upticks in retention. How much longer are employees staying inside the organization who are in Guild programs versus those who are not? We help them look at wage growth data. So what impact are you actually having on your workers by investing in their education and helping them actually move into other job opportunities? And then most importantly, program ROI. The employers will invest in something like Guild if they can see the benefits, and not the cost-saving benefits, but the real benefits of driving increased revenue and productivity inside the organization. And so how do we help partner with them and their finance organization to showcase the program ROI and what it's doing for the organization, both in a very tangible way, but then if you sit in my shoes, you know you have the luxury and the privilege, I think of listening to amazing learner stories and opportunities that got created by employers investing in, you know, deep skilling and learning for their employee populations, and the confidence boost it has, the actual mobility that it drove, the hunger that is released. And I think this is another place where these programs can also help spot rising talent, people who are really wanting to invest in their futures. They want to invest inside the organization that they're in, and that they're hungry and they have the grit and persistence to want to both balance work as well as educating themselves, and it's pretty amazing to see.

24:02.58

Laura Hakala

Yeah, and then I would imagine that just leads to further employee retention because they see growth for themselves. And if you're allowing them to do those skill transfers and skill pivots, then they're going to be even more loyal. And that just benefits the individual as well as the organization that they're working for.

24:18.08

Bijal Shah

That's right.

24:19.26

Laura Hakala

So, Guild obviously has a lot of proven successes in these areas. What metrics should tech platforms be collecting in order to show that genuine learner progress and the return on the investment for their corporate partners?

24:34.59

Bijal Shah

Yeah, you know, I spend a lot of time with HR leaders, and kind of one of the first metrics they cite is engagement rates of, you know, the number of people who are like logging into a platform. And that's really helpful to know that people are, you know, exploring or understanding. But I would say that that's probably like a rudimentary thing that is good to know, but probably isn't driving the business results at the end of the day. The next place people tend to focus is on completion, which I think is the next stage of, okay, right, you engaged, now did you complete, which is really helpful in terms of ensuring that the content is engaging, that people find it relevant, that they keep going, that they're you know that they're likely learning something because they're completing. But I think where it starts to get really interesting is when you can marry that completion with things like tracking internal promotions, wage gains, business impact, productivity increases. And so I would encourage, you know,  edtech platforms are doing really incredible things, but I would encourage them to really look at how you can go beyond just course completion or engagement data so that you are really showing and proving the ROI for your employer partners.

25:57.19

Laura Hakala

So, taking a more holistic approach to looking not just at their completion data, but really what impact does this have on their career, on their life? Because ultimately, that's what we're trying to help support.

26:10.32

Bijal Shah

Yep

26:11.61

Laura Hakala

Alright, so I thought it would be fun to close with a lightning round. So these are some quick and easy questions that I'd just love your take on. So ready?

26:20.77

Bijal Shah

Yeah, I am.

26:21.88

Laura Hakala

All right, so what is one practice, maybe something that's often overlooked, that yields strong results when upscaling and reskilling programs?

26:30.40

Bijal Shah

One of the things that I'm most excited about and that I think is really needed, especially as you look at kind of the shakeup that's happening in higher ed, is translating on-the-job training into college credit. We helped convert nearly 30,000 hours of work-based learning into credit. In the last year, it has saved money for the employee, the employer, and actually gives a confidence boost to the employee that they have the ability to be successful as they take on more challenging educational journeys.

27:01.34

Laura Hakala

Awesome. And besides your own platform, what emerging tech trend or tool excites you the most for workforce transformation?

27:10.54

Bijal Shah

So it's pretty easy and probably a cliche answer, but I'm most excited about players and spaces that are really focused on how to use AI to disrupt how learning is happening, how we teach fundamentals in conjunction with AI, how we get people to be AI fluent, how we help people understand that there's a no whole new job of orchestration that can come in a world that is more AI powered or AI native and so those are things that are most exciting to me that and that I try to stay on top of.

27:48.30

Laura Hakala

From your experience, what's the most common pitfall that organizations face when rolling out new skill initiatives, and how can they sidestep it?

27:58.06

Bijal Shah

From my perspective, it's what I mentioned before: analysis paralysis or waiting for the perfect answer or trying to make sure everything is integrated and perfect and trackable. There is a lot of low-hanging fruit on things you could be doing. Just taking a very business-first approach on, what are things my business needs? What are the pathways I can create and how can I press go and make that happen?

28:26.13

Laura Hakala

Awesome. And lastly, you have any final words that you'd like to share with our listeners on how they can start building a more resilient workforce today?

28:35.69

Bijal Shah

Yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, continuous learning and a culture of learning starts at the top. And so spending the time yourself of becoming more, you know, AI native as an example, or spending time on continuous learning, I think really sets the tone and tenor for the rest of the business. And so I would make sure that you are thinking about how you are staying resilient and adaptable, and utilizing the latest tools and technologies, and then imparting those examples and ideas onto your business.

29:09.22

Laura Hakala

I couldn't agree more. Thank you so much for all of those insights that you've shared and for your time in chatting with me today, Bijal. I really appreciate it.

29:18.16

Bijal Shah

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed this conversation.

29:21.52

Laura Hakala

Thank you so much. And on behalf of Magic EdTech, thank you all for joining us on this episode of Tech in EdTech.