Why Organizations Need to Respond to the Call of the Skills Evolution

Full Transcript

Malika:

Welcome to The Skill Shift, a podcast for organizations that want to future ready their workforces, brought to you by D2L. I’m your host, Malika Asthana, Senior Strategy and Public Affairs Manager. Each episode will speak with guests from some of the most innovative businesses around the world about their unique approaches to learning and development. They’ll share specific actionable insights into how they’re preparing their workforces for the future and the ways they’re addressing skills gaps in their industries. You are listening to The Skill Shift.

Our guest today is Jackie Barker, Director of the VMware IT Academy. Jackie Barker has been in the education and skills business for over 25 years, trained as an elementary school teacher. She’s now the Global Director of the VMware IT Academy, which partners with governments, educational institutions and non-profits to offer courses that create a pipeline of much needed talent in the IT industry. She’s passionate about creating change through education and is passionate about up-skilling and re-skilling in an era of what she calls the skills evolution. Jackie, welcome to The Skill Shift.

So let’s get right into it. We know that attracting and retaining talent is difficult across sectors, but it seems to be, especially so for technical roles that require certifications. I want to start with giving our listeners some context about the labor market, particularly in the cybersecurity and IT industries. What can you tell us about what the situation is right now?

Jackie:

Sure. So there’s definitely a need, and when you think about IT and technology, it’s evolving faster than it ever has. Some of the biggest technology changes and shifts that we’re seeing is really skills that are focused on cloud technologies as well as cybersecurity, and an understanding that we have those two areas as key focuses.

Malika:

Right. I read somewhere that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the number of cybersecurity jobs is going to increase by 35% between 2021 and 2031. That seems much faster than the average for all occupations.

Jackie:

It definitely is going faster and faster when you think about it. It’s probably in large part due to the phones that we all carry with the devices that are… Everything’s connected at this particular time, and when you think of our expectations as consumers, we want things now. We want them to connect at any moment, which is requiring some of the shifts in those areas.

Malika:

Absolutely. Just as an aside, I think that when you start to see things pop up in film and television, that’s when you know that it’s becoming more common. So I was just watching a new season of a program, and I’ll leave the name out for those avoiding spoilers, but a cybersecurity attack was part of it, and it was like the whole premise of the episode. So I thought that was interesting, just how common it’s become and how pervasive it can be for sure.

Jackie:

Definitely.

Malika:

For years, future of work literature has talked about the declining shelf life of skills. We’ve seen that so many times in report after report. We’re seeing that in action now though with the rapid rise of generative AI. And Jackie, when we were doing our prep call, you were talking a lot about your passion for the skills of evolution. What are the challenges that come along with upskilling people as skills become out of date more quickly?

Jackie:

I think there’s a shift. So when you think of the ecosystem who actually trains people on the skills, they have to think differently about how do I do that? So it may not be as important anymore to know a specific hard skill, but more important to be able to be a lifelong learner, more important to think about problem solving, critical thinking. So as we think about how do we retrain individuals with the right skills, well, you have to give them the skills that they’ll be able to connect the dots, they’ll be able to pull information, et cetera.

So it’s not only the hard skills that are important anymore. It’s really some of those soft skills from a problem solving and a critical thinking that are increasingly becoming important.

Malika:

That makes sense. I think one of the other things that you were talking about was this idea that how do you design skills programming when you’re not even sure what the skills that are coming up? And it sounds like you’re trying to prioritize those everlasting human skills and things that involve cognition in a different way. But I think it sounds like you’re also working on questions like how is AI going to change the skills dynamic when it comes to skills programming? Can you tell us a little bit more about your work with that?

Jackie:

Sure. I think it’s AI and I also… Before I hit AI, I’m going to just pause for a minute and think about who defines what skills are necessary in the employment market? And I think that’s the other piece. So we know as an educator, I know that problem solving and critical thinking is important, but I also have to partner with employers. I have to understand where is technology going? I have to understand what are governments expecting? Because as we think about the ecosystem that surrounds skills development, that’s equally important as the skills themselves, I believe.

Malika:

Absolutely.

Jackie:

Lots of concentric circles. So as we think about AI and the adoption of AI, AI is going to… I heard a great example. Somebody was talking about AI is math, and it’s really pulling together information. The person said, “It’s not the robot who’s going to get you.” It’s how do we use the tool that if AI can help you pull information together quicker, what does that mean to what you do on a day-to-day basis? So if you can become 50%, 60%, 75% more productive, well, that gives you more free time.

So I think when we think of skills, again, important to know how to use them, important to know what’s required, but then it’s also important for us to keep appraised of what tools may be able to assist you in that skills development. So I may not need to be the best writer anymore because I can go into ChatGPT and I can put together some parameters of what I’d like to see, and that might give me a starting point.

So I think how do we use the tools that are available to us? How do we know what are the skills that people are going to be looking for? And again, I’m going to keep hitting on the problem solving skills development, critical thinking, so I can pull that information in there.

Malika:

That makes a lot of sense. I think the other piece that I’m hearing in what you’re saying is that it’s not a static process. It’s very much dynamic, and it sounds like employers are very much involved every step of the way in conversation with you to make sure that the training that you’re designing aligns to their job descriptions as they change over time.

Jackie:

Definitely. I think that’s going to be important. That conversation of not only talking to employers, but also trying to get a sense as to what’s happening in the marketplace and making some of those adaptations.

Malika:

Are there any tools or approaches that you’re using to try to get a better sense of the pulse in the marketplace and what employers are up to? I think you mentioned during our prep call something about job task analysis. I’d love if you could talk a little bit more about that?

Jackie:

Yeah. So VMware and particularly the IT Academy, we have certification aligned courses. And in order to get a certification created, there’s job task analysis that are completed. And that job task analysis is really asking employers, “What is a cloud architect need? What is that job role skillset that’s required overall?” And we can go at the highest level all the way down to the lowest level of information, and that job task analysis actually helps interpret it. So I think there’s the formal job task analysis. I think at some of our advisory, we have advisory boards that provide information. We work with Gartner and IDC and other organizations to also give landscape analysis of what’s happening in a particular area.

So I think when you look at all the different inputs, that helps. And then the other group that we partner with at IT Academy is we do partner with government organizations so we can get a better sense as to what are they seeing in their particular countries? Where do they see particular needs overall?

Malika:

I want to switch gears a little bit and talk a little bit more about skills.

Jackie:

Sure.

Malika:

So one of the things that I’m interested in hearing your perspective on is what is the biggest misconception you think people have about digital skills and what skills do you find are highly in need from a digital perspective, but are rarely getting the air time? They should be in media cycles about skills gaps?

Jackie:

Probably go back to, I think digital skills. People go, “Oh, that’s programming, that’s understanding TCPIP or routers and switches or virtualization.” And I think the reality is because the technology is going to change so much, I’m going to go back to it’s not only the technology, but from a digital skill, how do you use the tools that are available to you online? How are you using the tools to be able to search for information? How are you learning about ChatGPT or ChatAI at this particular time? How are you using that in your day-to-day world? Because if you can’t find the information, then you’re at a hindrance overall. So I’d say the biggest piece, it’s really easy to pinpoint, “Oh, I need to know X or Y or Z.” But my bias is that I think there’s actually a higher level.

Now, I’d also say cloud technologies and app development and security are probably going to be those three big buzzwords we hear a lot of. But to me, the foundation across all of that really is those higher level skills. And then one I haven’t mentioned that much about yet, but I think is equally important is communication. Basically the things that we’re doing here, because as we move into our world and continue to evolve quicker and quicker, if we’re not able to communicate complex ideas, if we’re not able to share that, digital skills are not going to be acquired.

Malika:

Great. Yeah, the technical can only take you so far. There’s a whole set of other skills that I think, as you’ve said to me in the past, will also be the ones to impact your employability and your productivity and all of that in the workforce. That makes a lot of sense.

Jackie:

Yes.

Malika:

We’re starting to see some companies and governments move towards skills-based hiring. And given what we’ve just talked about, about some of those more essential skills, the human skills if you will, what challenges do you think organizations are facing surrounding skills-based hiring? How would we even validate that a skillset is accurate for a given role?

Jackie:

There’s a couple different things. So as a hiring manager, as I’m looking for new talent, I’m actually asked by my company to, and it challenges me a little bit, tell me a little bit about the work, the outcome that you have? And then have people respond to how they’re going to achieve that outcome, which I think is really an interesting piece. So yes, I verify, do they have the skills, the high level skills? But more importantly, are they able to deliver the outcome that I’m looking for?

So it’s more what you expect that they’re going to be doing on a day-to-day basis from a problem solving and communications that can assess those skills at that particular time. So yes, it’s the high level skill, but more importantly, it’s how do they apply that? And then how do you put them in scenarios that maybe if I was interviewing you, it would be something that’s not in your day-to-day, but it’s something that I think is coming. So how do you think on your feet, how do you apply different scenarios to something that may not be your core responsibility, but it may be your responsibility in two to three years from now?

Malika:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there’s a piece that’s very essential for the hiring manager to see and hire for potential as opposed to what’s already on the paper and use those critical thinking and problem solving and communication skills themselves and some of that assessment. I wonder if you have anything to share as well on the work that governments are doing? I know that you just mentioned governments in one of your earlier responses.

Jackie:

Sure, I’d be happy to. I participated in a great conference with the National Governor’s Association this past October, so almost a year ago now. But what was interesting is all the states in the United States, or many of them have been creating skills repositories. So from the basic skills of somebody who may be putting salt on a sidewalk, all the way through your more complex nursing skills or skills that are required to become a doctor, they’ve created these skills repositories.

So you could bring your own digital wallet or digital skills validation from your state to an employer, which I thought was really interesting that the states are trying to figure out how do we take those skills and translate them in a way that employers could understand them? Some are aligned to certification, some are not. Some are basic tasks, but I was pleasantly surprised that the government is making that investment in that particular tool set, if you will, so that you can have that license as you go forward with the skills that you’ve obtained. Outside the US, I’ve seen similar situations, not everywhere in every country, in more of your mature markets, but we’re seeing countries and governments are trying to figure out, “How do we do skills development as a whole?”

Malika:

I think it’s such a big question when you think about the change that’s coming at such a large scale with the amount of people that may have significant percentages of their tasks being completely changed by technological advancements or even just needs that are changing over time. So I think having that ability to help individuals themselves translate what they’re doing in one job and be able to translate it into something else is really important. And it also speaks to, I think pointing out two individuals where there may be opportunities for them to upskill themselves instead of saying, “Okay, you’ve been doing this job for 20 years. Now suddenly go try to figure out how to do something completely different,” helping them along that pathway.

Jackie:

Definitely. And it’s interesting when you think about the COVID time period we just went through. I think there was a lot of people who were in that same spot, but it was forced like, “Okay, now the world has changed overnight, seemingly overnight, and now I have to change it and evolve my skills.” I think now how do we get that into our ethos as individuals that skills development is something that happens not in a period of crisis, but it should happen all the time? Whether it’s the assignments that you’re taking on, the opportunities that are coming in front of you, reading the newspaper or listening to the news and connecting those dots. That’s going to be something that we’ll continually have to do through the rest of our life. It’s exciting when you think about it. You can continue to grow and expand your way of thinking, which is fun.

Malika:

I love that, and I think that’s the teacher in you that sees the excitement in that, which is amazing.

Jackie:

It’s a little tiring too, I’m not going to lie, because it’s always scary, but it is also pretty exciting.

Malika:

Yes, absolutely. And I think you feel that sense of momentum and the challenge that comes that brings about fear, but it also brings about excitement.

Jackie:

Definitely.

Malika:

Clearly, there’s a need also for employers to develop that into their own DNA, that idea of lifelong learning, as you’ve mentioned a couple of times, and offer employees themselves opportunities to upskill and develop. So our own research at D2L found that while more than 80 plus percentage of working adults expressed an interest in upskilling, only about a third are actually currently doing so, that was over a year long period. So how do we incentivize training and learning for working learners?

Jackie:

Sure, and I wish there was one answer, but just because there are all kinds of different people, there’s all different ways to motivate them, and I think as an employer, a couple of different things come to mind. One is, how do we personalize the experience for that learner? So recognizing just the two of us on this call, probably learn and approach, improving our skillset in a different manner. So as an employer, how do we go, “Okay, a lot of employers offer training and it’s just here in this spot?” Well, how do you create a culture of learning that maybe there’s resources and that person who’s motivated and can go by themselves can go and pick that up? But maybe there’s opportunities for stretch assignments or maybe there’s an opportunity for group projects, or maybe I’ve seen some companies, they do innovation days where people can create and learn and work together to create something that never existed before as part of their job.

Well, that’s pretty cool. If you can have that culture of learning that, it’s encouraged, how do you then design your reward systems that people get rewarded for continuing their skillset, whether it’s through a certification or skills acquisition or badges? Are there ways that you can do that? Gamification, is there challenges that can occur? So for me, when I think about how do you motivate that employee, well, how do you get that excitement? When you were a kid, everybody wanted to learn and you had Montessori philosophies and you’re building things and you’re creating things.

From a technology space, we know that most technologists like that hands-on component or they like to build things and create. I think I just saw an article this morning, it was anywhere  from 60% to 90% of people, depending upon which statistic you’re going to buy into. But from a technology perspective, people don’t want to just read about it. They actually want to do it and apply it. So for me, when I think of how do you as an employer do that, you create a culture of continuous learning, which is the resources available to you as well as the reward and recognition for people doing that.

And then we have to hold employees accountable as well. Fortunately or unfortunately, things will continue to change at a fast pace, and in order for us to continue to grow our business outcomes as well as ourselves, we’re going to have to invest some time in that as individuals and employers overall.

Malika:

Absolutely. I think that piece you said about the three components, the infrastructure being the resources, the rewards and recognition, and then the expectations being clearly communicated to the employee make a lot of sense. And it also creates a culture of this is part of your job and it’s part of your job at this company in order for you to see a future for yourself here.

But it’s also on the flip side, I think an investment on the part of the employer to say, “We want you to continue working here and see paths upwards for yourself in terms of mobility,” and these also align to the skills that we need to run our business.

Jackie:

Definitely. Well, I think it’s always interesting because sometimes as an employee, you expect things. As an employee, we should also expect things of ourselves in terms of our own growth. Whether we stay at the same company or we go to another one, how do we make sure we’re continue our own growth overall? So meeting the needs of the business and meeting their own needs, I think are going to be important in this whole skills development piece.

Malika:

Absolutely. I’m wondering, I’m going to go off book a little bit and ask you a question about employees. I was initially going to ask you a question about what actions employers can take to future-proof their workforces? But I want to  flip that because if you’re an employee who isn’t necessarily currently undertaking training or hasn’t maybe engaged in any form of upskilling for several years time, where would you recommend they start in terms of restarting their learning and development journey?

Jackie:

Sure. So I will give you myself as an example.

Malika:

Perfect.

Jackie:

So I’ve been in high-tech for 25 years, and I’ve started to hear more and more about this whole AI thing. And quite honestly, I was like, “Yeah, whatever. It’s AI.” I wasn’t particularly interested in it or not, but I kept hearing it. I heard it in every company meeting I was in. I saw it on the news, I saw places. So when I was doing some self-assessment of where do I need to grow and to be more relevant to the conversation and to understand things, I really just did a pause and said, “Okay, AI. Let me just take that one topic. Let me do a little bit of research online. What does it mean?” I did some hands-on, I used ChatGPT because I wanted to see what it was.

Well, then I heard there was some more conversations happening internally within the company about projects and AI and what that was. So I joined a couple of webinars. Then I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Now I’m using AI to try to help my own job of, “Oh, okay, what does this mean for me? Or what does AI tell me about workforce development or trends in that particular space?” So using myself as an example, it’s more I was listening to what was going on around me, not just in one source, but in other sources, not just what I knew the company was looking at because as a cloud company, we’re going to be looking at AI and the changes, but I also applied it to what was relevant to me and what I cared about and what my job role was.

So it was a full spectrum of what was happening, and I’d encourage people, regardless if you’ve been in the industry 25 years or two years, if you’re in meetings and you consistently hear a theme and you yourself have not invested in that topic, ask questions, pursue the online resources. I’ve had conversations now with my boss about it to understand what they were thinking about related to that topic. I manage a team, so I’ve shared those resources with my team.

So those are the pieces. As an employee, I’d encourage you to think about overall, what do you hear? What’s in it for the business? What’s in it for yourself? And then just do it. Nobody told me to do AI. Nobody told me to study that, but they did if I listened and that’s the piece that we had to do.

Malika:

I just want to highlight that again for our listeners. No one told you to do it, but they did if you listened. It’s so interesting to look back on the decisions that you’ve made when it comes to learning and development or even career progression and think, “Oh, of course there was a complete strategy the entire time. There was a process and I had a grand master plan,” but although it’s not as easy to do yourself, it sounds like there was an intrinsic motivation, which was a general sense of curiosity and exercising that curiosity, as well as that extrinsic motivation, which was, “Oh, I keep hearing about this and I don’t know if I know enough about it. I don’t want to be left behind. I don’t want my team to be left behind. So let me take on the ownership of doing that myself.”

I think that was a fantastic example and it makes it a lot less scary because I think to your point earlier about how different people may learn differently, if you automatically assume, “I need to get a certification in something because I don’t know what it is,” well, maybe you can actually take 15 steps back and say, “Maybe I should just read about it or try a free pilot or something like that, get my feet wet and then go forward.” And I think that’s an important message to L&D professionals as well, is that as much as you want to think about the grand master strategy for the big ticket credential, there’s a lot of other steps and other resources that you can provide along the way to help your employees along.

Jackie:

I really like that because if somebody said, “Hey, Jackie, you’ve got to do this AI certification,” I’d say, “Oh, no, that’s not me. That is not what I do.”

Malika:

Right.

Jackie:

But the fact that I was able to figure out, I’m probably now closer to thinking about an AI certification than I ever have or cloud technologies. I never really thought about cloud technologies, but again, listening, let me do a little bit more reading. So I love what you’re suggesting.

Malika:

And understanding even that terminology, even what you said earlier about AI is just math. I tried myself to start that University of Helsinki AI, massive open online course, and I was shocked at how much… So I’m up in Canada. We have a course in the senior year of high school, I think you say grade 12 for us, called Advanced Functions. And I was shocked at how much was pulling from that time of my life, and it was statistics and probability and things I hadn’t used in years as a social scientist, and it was fascinating. It was a bit scary. It took me a lot of missteps to get it right, but it was almost taking a calculated risk to invest in something. And you don’t have to do it perfectly, but you just have to get started, which I think is important.

Jackie:

Yeah, get messy.

Malika:

Yes.

Jackie:

It’s okay to get messy. It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to ask questions. Those are all critical as we continue to move forward in this new world of skills.

Malika:

A 100%. You work in an area that’s especially impacted by the speed of changes in skills, but as we’ve covered, technology is impacting every industry. What recommendations would you give to an L&D professional in another industry who is maybe experiencing this ramp up of skills evolution for the first time?

Jackie:

Take one step. That’s it. It just requires one step and then another step, and then another step. Don’t get too far ahead of yourself. If you take one step at a time, it’s reasonable, it’s doable, and know that there’s going to be mistakes as you continue to go through this. But if you take that one step, that’s still moving forward. If you don’t take that step, you’re never going to move forward. So I would say take that one step and learn. And then as an L&D professional, as you’re thinking about how do you bring a whole organization on board and learning new things, recognize that everybody is different and how they learn is different. So you’re going to need to take a multi-pronged approach because it may not be just sticking up a video and saying, “Everybody do this.” It may actually be some hands-on. It may be some stretch assignments, it may be mentoring. It may be different pieces to get people engaged.

Malika: I think that’s great advice. That change management piece is there too, right? It’s that top-down, “You must,” versus, “Here’s an idea, what do you have to say about it?” And to your point about employer partnership earlier on, making sure that it aligns with what managers are capable of and interested in doing and being open to that iterative experience as well.

Jackie:

Definitely.

Malika:

So we’re coming to the end of our episode. It flew by. I’m wondering before we close off, is there anything that you wanted to get to that you didn’t get a chance to speak about? I’d love to give you the platform to bring anything up right now.

Jackie:

I don’t know that there’s anything specific other than I’m really excited when you think about how the workforce is going to change and continue to evolve. The possibilities are endless and the opportunity for teaching and learning or L&D enablement, whatever you want to call it, is going to be there for the rest of our lives, which I think is really exciting. There’s a quote I love, it’s one of my favorite, it’s by Shane Lopez. And people go, “Well, Jackie, you sound so hopeful.” And I said, “I am,” and Shane Lopez gave me the words as to why, and his definition of hope is a belief the future will be better, and the power to make it so.

And I think as L&D professionals, as professionals in the teaching and learning space, we create hope because we believe the future will be better, and we have the power to make it so through the lessons that we provide, the education we provide. Even having this conversation on skills puts it to the forefront. If you’re listening, you’re taking the time to develop your own skills and to create your own thinking about that. I just get really thrilled and excited because we get to create hope.

Malika:

I love that. That’s such a mic drop moment. I wish I could drop this one to show people, but I think that’s such a positive note to end on and really encapsulates the spirit of our discussion today, which is there is fear and anxiety, but there’s also so much excitement about the opportunity that lies forward. So for folks who would like to follow along with you as you go along your hopeful journey, where can they find you?

Jackie:

Usually in front of my computer with my dog right underneath. Or you can check me out on LinkedIn, Jackie Barker. I think it’s Jackie Barker-Weeks on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out.

Malika:

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jackie.

Jackie:

Thank you.

Malika:

Thanks for listening to The Skill Shift. This episode was produced by D2L, a global learning innovation company, helping organizations reshape the future of education and work. You can find links to the resources we discussed in this episode on our website, d2l.com. There you’ll also find the video version of this podcast related content and more. You can also find other episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Thank you for joining us.

Resources Discussed in the Episode

• Employment Projections – Information Security Analysts (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• National Governors Association meetings
• Enabling Learning for Life: New Realities for Work and Education (D2L)
• State of Cloud: The cloud skills vs. Expectation gap (Pluralsight)
• University of Helsinki AI courses
• Shane J. Lopez, Making Hope Happen (Simon & Schuster)