Topics Discussed 

 

• Research Findings
• Inputs into research
• The 2 dimensions of content
• A new model for learning content
• L&D's focus changes by content categories
• Four trends in learning content
• What are the main challenges orgs face?
• How do I help my employees find the right content?
• How do other companies decide what content to use?
• What new kinds of learning methods (& content) are we seeing?
• How are companies tracking which content is being used?
• Are there new techniques for virtually "studying" learner behavior to really understand how they use content in the flow?

 

 

Introduction

In December 2020, we wrapped up our year-long study on the people analytics technology (PAT) market. One of our key findings from the study: PAT vendors responded quickly to customers’ needs that arose from the twin pandemics of 2020 (COVID-19 and racial injustice).

Practically speaking, this meant vendors focused much more heavily on employee engagement and experience than before. As Figure 1 shows, 67% of PAT vendors from our study reported employee engagement as a primary area of focus in 2020, compared to 60% a year earlier. Similarly, 58% of vendors stated employee experience as a primary area of focus in 2020, versus 43% in 2019.¹ (Readers can access important details on the vendors in this space, including our assessment of them, via our interactive tool.)

PAT Critical to Staying in Touch with Employees

People analytics tech has enabled leaders to keep a check on employee pulse throughout the year, especially as fatigue from the pandemic began to set in. For example, 75% of employees in the U.S. reported symptoms of burnout toward the last quarter of 2020.² Further, findings from a survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 41% of American adults struggled with mental-health issues stemming from the pandemic.³

People analytics tech that focused on employee engagement and experience helped business leaders understand what was happening with their people—both with data and at scale.

For example, orgs that leveraged this tech to boost their existing (or to design new) listening strategies were better able to support their employees as they faced rapid and unexpected changes.⁴

Today, as COVID vaccinations roll out worldwide, a sense of hope is starting to emerge. Leaders are looking to reshape the future and redesign new ways of working. To do this effectively, they must understand how employees are feeling and how their needs are changing.

Once again, people analytics tech is poised to play a crucial role.

From measuring how employees feel about returning to offices, to making recommendations to managers on how they can communicate effectively to keep employees engaged, PAT can be pivotal in helping employers redesign their workplace strategies.

PAT Market Evolving Quickly

Given how rapidly business needs have changed, it’s no surprise that the PAT market has continued to grow and evolve in 2021. In the first 3 months of this year, we’ve witnessed some big players make important moves that reflect the growth and evolution of this market.

• Workday announced its acquisition of Peakon, an employee engagement solution
• The IPO of Qualtrics, an experience management platform
• The launch of Microsoft’s Viva, an employee experience solution

A Closer Look

The employee engagement and experience market is critical and changing rapidly, and it deserves a deeper study than we gave it in 2020. The purpose of this research is to provide those responsible for employee engagement and experience (HR leaders, people analytics practitioners and managers) with greater insights on this technology, specifically around:

• The role of people analytics in employee engagement and experience
• The different vendors in this space and how best to understand their offerings

Before we dive into the specifics, we want to take a moment to define the 2 terms “employee engagement” and “employee experience”—and how they connect to each other.

Understanding Employee Engagement & Experience

Let’s start with first clarifying the definitions for both of these terms.

Employee engagement: A measure of energy, involvement, and concentration that is exhibited in work attitudes and behaviors. It is a measure of how an employee feels and behaves at a particular point in time.

Employee experience: Employees' collective perceptions of their ongoing interactions with the org. It encapsulates the ongoing perceptions of an employee’s interactions with the org through their entire journey

Given these definitions, it is clear that employee experience has a much broader scope than employee engagement. Figure 2 below highlights a few other main differences between these 2 terms.

So how should we understand the relationship between these 2 terms?

Employee engagement is an outcome of employee experience.

Basically, how an employee behaves is a direct result of their perceptions based on all their interactions with the org throughout their lifecycle. So, employees will be more engaged with their work if they have an overall positive experience with the org.

How Tech Can Help

Tech plays a critical role in helping orgs with both employee engagement and experience. Such solutions can:

• Offer tools for leaders to check-in and connect with their employees to improve their interactions with people
• Provide an internal platform for employees to communicate and share information to improve interactions with the overall org
• Enable orgs to listen to their employees in a continuous manner to understand how they feel

So, how has PAT leveraged these capabilities to help leaders with their challenges around employee engagement and experience? We take a closer look at this in the next section.

Employee Engagement and Experience Vendors' Capabilities

Before we venture any further, let’s define an employee engagement or experience people analytics tech vendor.

Employee engagement or experience technology vendor: A vendor that uses people data to understand employee engagement or experience.

In our 2020 people analytics study,⁵ we grouped all participating vendors under 9 categories, based on their tech and analysis (organizational network analysis, text analysis, workforce planning, or multisource analysis) or the talent areas they focus on (labor market analysis, learning, employee engagement and experience, employee coaching, or HCM / integrated talent management).

Employee engagement and experience was the biggest category in our study, with 36% of all vendors. PAT providers in this space offer capabilities that enable customers to do four things, as outlined in Figure 4:

Specific to current times, vendors have leveraged these capabilities in several ways to help their customers. Figure 5 provides details on each of the roles identified in Figure 4.

Customers Are Happy with Their Engagement and Experience Vendors

Our people analytics study of 2020 included a poll of 72 customers, which revealed that customers of these PAT solutions are generally satisfied with them. Specifically, customers gave an average NPS score of 61 for employee engagement and experience vendors (see Figure 6), as compared with the average score of 67 for all vendors in the study. To put that into a bit more context, the average NPS for SaaS companies in 2020 is a score of 40,⁶ making 61 a great score for PAT vendors in this category.

Some of the quotes from the most satisfied customers in this category include:

“An innovative vendor, constantly improving the product and providing excellent customer support and flexibility.”

Large healthcare company for an employee experience / engagement analysis solution

 

"Comprehensive surveying and reporting tool with good support."

Large retailer for an employee experience / engagement solution

 

"High flexibility can be used for multiple purposes."

Large pharmaceutical company for an employee experience / engagement solution

 

PAT will continue to play a crucial role in helping customers as they prepare themselves to face a new set of challenges related to employee engagement and experience in 2021 and beyond.

Employee Engagement and Experience Vendors

Let's turn to the specific employee engagement and experience vendors, which we divide into 3 categories:

1. Employee engagement (EE) vendors
2. Employee experience (EX) vendors
3. “Passive primary” vendors

In the content that follows, for each category, we provide a framework that is based on the heritage of the vendors, such as founder or acquisition history.

The origins and backgrounds of the vendors, as well as if they’ve been acquired or have acquired others, influences the capabilities they offer and how they go to market.

Each framework provides a list of all the vendors in that category, their backgrounds, details on whether they collect perception data, passive data or both, acquisition history, and a customer NPS score, if available. At the end of each category, we provide a set of checklists to help both customers and vendors think about some key questions when selecting or selling tech (respectively).

We also provide our RedThread assessment for each vendor included in this space which can be accessed through our interactive tool. Readers can use the tool to click on the logo of a vendor and read our assessment for them.

Employee Engagement Vendors

For vendors in the employee engagement (EE) category, we created a framework with the following groups:

• Professional services background. Vendors in this group were founded by people with a strong background and experience in professional services, such as consulting. Their offerings come tightly coupled with professional services (although the tech can also be purchased on its own).
• Employee engagement native. These vendors started out as engagement survey providers, and their primary bread and butter continues to be engagement surveys.
• Employee engagement via other talent areas. Vendors in this group are known for their other products, such as performance management, along with employee engagement. A number of vendors in this group have either acquired other talent solutions in the past or have been acquired themselves—which influences their approach to the market and areas of focus.

A clear distinction among these different groups is difficult due to areas of overlap and, thus, some vendors fall into more than 1 group. All vendors included in this category:

• Have a very strong focus and background in developing employee engagement and pulse surveys
• Go to market as an employee engagement platform and have traditionally focused on engagement as a primary talent area
• Have customer success stories that primarily feature examples of understanding employee feedback and improving engagement

Figure 7 below shows our framework for this category and provides key points on each vendor. (Click on the image below to enlarge it.)

Putting the framework into action

In the following checklists, we offer some key questions for potential customers and vendors to help them better understand the tech and their needs, respectively.

Employee Experience Vendors

For vendors in the employee experience (EX) category, we created a framework with the following 2 groups:

• Focused on employee engagement and experience. Vendors in this group focus on engagement and experience, and provide insights that are primarily focused on creating and improving personalized experiences for employees throughout their lifecycle
• Focused on customer experience. Vendors in this group provide capabilities to capture and analyze customer experience data, and connect that to other types of data

Given our focus on employee experience vendors, we don't include vendors that only focus on customer experience. Instead, we included vendors that focus on customer experience in addition to the other two areas of employee engagement and employee experience.

All employee experience solutions included here also focus on engagement, and provide engagement and pulse surveys. However, we included these vendors in this category instead of engagement because:

• Several vendors have a strong focus and background in customer experience, and can help users connect those insights with employee experience
• Several vendors provide capabilities that collect data from the digital exhaust and connect active data with passive data—thus, providing a more continuous listening approach
• They go to market as an enterprise experience platform

Figure 8 shows our framework for this category, and provides key points on each vendor. (Click on the image below to enlarge it.)

Putting the framework into action

In the following checklists, we offer some key questions for potential customers and vendors to help them better understand the tech and their customers’ needs, respectively.

“Passive Primary” Vendors

Recently, we’ve come across a few vendors that have traditionally swum in slightly different lanes of talent areas, but which are starting to market themselves in the engagement space. These vendors are not survey providers. They do not collect employee perception data directly from employees, and thus, do not measure employee engagement in the traditional manner.

These vendors collect passive data—created by employees through digital communications, emails, and collaboration tools—to provide insights on employee attitudes and work behaviors, and, thus, understand engagement levels. Others apply their services—such as text analysis—to feedback data already collected by the customer to identify patterns and themes that can be used to understand employee engagement.

“Passive primary” vendors are PAT solution providers that use passive data to produce insights for the purpose of understanding and improving employee engagement and experience.

For vendors in this category, we created a framework with the following 2 groups:

• Text analysis. Vendors in this group use sophisticated text analysis to understand how employees feel
• Organizational network analysis (ONA). Vendors in this group collect employee communication and network data, and apply collaboration analytics to understand employee engagement levels

This framework is helpful in introducing consumers to instances in which employee engagement can be understood through approaches that don’t involve any surveys. These vendors provide a new way of measuring and understanding employee engagement.

A big challenge that these solutions are able to overcome is self-reported high engagement levels in employee surveys. The flipside to this are the obvious legal, privacy, and security risks that such data collection methods bring along with them.

Figure 10 shows our framework for these vendors, and features key points on each vendor that include their approach to data collection and a customer NPS score, if available. (Click on the image below to enlarge it.)

Putting the framework into action

In the following checklists, we offer some key questions for potential customers and vendors to help them better understand the tech and their needs, respectively.

Looking Forward

We expect to see the PAT employee engagement and experience space change and evolve in the near future in the following ways:

• Increasing number of new players. The market is poised to keep growing for the foreseeable future for the following reasons:
  • Everybody wants more data. As companies look to reopen their offices or adopt a hybrid approach, deeper and regular insights from perception and passive data will continue to be critical for leaders and managers.
  • The personal now impacts the professional. Areas that were once considered separate from the workplace and owned by individuals—such as physical and mental wellbeing, and work-life balance—became crucial drivers for employee engagement and experience during remote work. Employers now see themselves as more responsible for these areas as they impact an employee’s overall experience with the org and drive engagement. Tech solutions in this space can help.
• Rise of nontraditional engagement and experience vendors. Users will increasingly see the value of applying PAT solutions—that use nontraditional methods of data collection, and don’t go to market as either engagement or experience solutions—to impact these areas. Similar to DEIB tech, we foresee more tech vendors offering capabilities for the purpose of engagement and experience. For example, with collaboration and wellbeing seen as crucial drivers for engagement and experience, ONA can offer useful insights to users. We’re already starting to see this growing shift with vendors as mentioned in our “passive primary” vendors section.

• Enabling action. PAT vendors within this space will do more than just collect and analyze data: They’ll increasingly provide specific and targeted recommended actions as part of their solution offerings. Additionally, they’ll also offer users more and more resources within their platforms that’ll enable them to act on those recommendations.

Conclusion

Employee listening became a strategic priority for leaders in 2020 and will continue to be critical in 2021. Efforts to understand and drive employee engagement and experience enabled companies to weather the storms, so to speak. While the pandemic will eventually come to an end and social unrest will be addressed (we hope!), lessons learned during these turbulent times will stick with us far into the foreseeable future.

Leaders must continue investing in these areas if they want to successfully survive and work through future disruptions. People analytics tech, that focuses on these areas, can help orgs care for their employees and be better prepared for the future.

Listen

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Guests

Greg Pryor, Senior VP, People & Performance Evangelist at Workday

DETAILS

“I think we have to help organizations get out of the way and let people unleash and unlock their capabilities in ways that does not require the organization to be at the center.” Sounds pretty optimistic? No surprise as whatever else he is, our guest this week, Greg Pryor, is an optimist—and we are too, given the power of the examples and the strength of the conviction he gave us in this hour of debate over the future of HR. Greg, People & Performance Evangelist at Workday, a tech firm that is shaking up the world of enterprise software and which we’re grateful to have as sponsor of this whole Workplace Stories first season, shares many fascinating insights into what he sees as a totally new age for human capital management that the pandemic has tipped us all into. These cover the gamut from bleeding-edge academic research on the future of work to the life lessons kids are teaching their parents out of playing Fortnite, and keep Stacia and fellow interviewer Chris engaged and often delighted. It’s a great conversation: use it to level up your thinking about skills. We certainly did.

Find out more about Greg and his work at Workday here

Connect with him on LinkedIn here

References

Conversations for a Changing World with Telstra and Mastercard

How Skills Unlock the Future – HR Tech Discussion with Dell

Forbes – Career Sprints using Agile Development Methods to Foster Employee Development

Webinar

Workday will host an exclusive live webinar towards the end of the season, where you can meet the Workplace Stories team of Dani, Stacia and Chris, and join in a conversation about the future of skills and skills management. Find out more information and access content at www.workday.com/skills. 

Partner

We're also thrilled to be partnering with Chris Pirie, CEO of Learning Futures Group and voice of the Learning Is the New Working podcast. Check them both out.

Season Sponsor

Key quotes:

Around 2010, we entered into this ‘third age’ of human capital management, which I very much believe will be much more around people and performance enablement. There was a very specific pivot in what was happening around the democratization of work, the availability of prediction machines, and the expectations of workers.

If you would ask anyone 12 months ago, could a vast majority of the entire workforce overnight move to remote work, people would have said: just not possible.

I'm also buoyed and excited by the resilience of people. I think this has been such a tremendous experience—that we underestimate how resilient and how agile people are… I spend time with our customers and I think they're optimistic as well. This has been a crazy challenging time, but what it's told us is, wow, people for the most part are good, thoughtful, committed, wanting to do the right things and resilient. So I'm finding the silver lining.

I think we have to help people have to help our organizations get out of the way and let people unleash and unlock their capabilities in ways that does not require the organization to be at the center. I think all of that happened much, much, much faster than we expected.

This CHRO was sharing with me that during the pandemic, they were playing Fortnite with their daughter. And finally he turned to his daughter and he said, honey, when is this game over? When do I win? And she turned to him and she said, Dad, you don't win, man; you just level up.

Stacia Garr:
Today, we spoke with Greg Pryor, who’s Senior Vice President, People & Performance Evangelist at Workday .

Greg Pryor:
But I do think around 2010 we entered into this ‘third age’ of human capital management, which I very much believe will be much more around people and performance enablement. And that there was a very specific pivot in what was happening around the democratization of work, the availability of prediction machines, and the expectations of workers. And I do believe those three things have really driven us into this ‘third age.’

Stacia Garr:
Greg is one of the smartest people we know when it comes to thinking about the future of work, but then making it practical in terms of what can be done today.

Greg Pryor:
I see five specific imperatives: we think about those imperatives in the context of ideas for a changing world. IDEAS is an acronym that stands for Inclusion and belonging, Digital acceleration, Enabling experiences (with the ‘e’), the Agile organization, and then finally the Skills imperative—all of which I believe have been dramatically, both accelerated and amplified by our extraordinary 2020.

Stacia Garr:
Greg shares with us why skills are hot, how tech is changing them and why we have to unlearn everything we know.

Greg Pryor:
My name is Greg Pryor. people call me a lot of things, actually, but some of the titles that I enjoy most, I guess, officially, I'm an executive director at Workday and also on my LinkedIn profile, I referred to myself as a ‘people and performance evangelist,’ and so maybe a little practical and a little aspirational in there.

Stacia Garr:
Wonderful. Well, Greg, thank you so much for coming on today. Welcome to the RedThread Research podcast; we are extremely excited to have you come and share your perspective, both kind of from a technology angle and also just as a follower of what's happening in the workplace and the future of work. So thank you so much for coming.

Greg Pryor:
Well, thanks for having me—thrilled to be here!

Chris Pirie:
Well, we always start with a rapid set of questions, just to give people a sense of your work practice and what you do on a day-to-day basis, so we'll rattle through those and then we'll go deeper on a couple of topics that I know you think deeply about anyway. So can you start by giving us a quick overview of Workday, its mission and its purpose in the world?

Greg Pryor:
Yeah, great question: thanks for asking. So Workday is a technology company offering finance, planning, human capital management solutions for our amazing customers around the world. We've been in existence for about 17 years, so relatively new on the field here, and we just feel so grateful. We have just, you know, thousands of amazing customers around the world. And I believe we wake up every day helping to create brighter workdays for millions of employees around the world who work within our customer organizations.

Chris Pirie:
Wonderful. And can you tell us about your work? What is your job title and how would you describe the kind of work that you get to do?

Greg Pryor:
So I'd probably say, you know, a long time human capital practitioner. So doing that work in various contexts for gosh, more than 30 years long time practitioner. At Workday, I have had the privilege and pleasure of looking after talent management for many years, helping our own workmates have remarkable Workday experiences; as part of that work, as well as you can imagine, I spend lots of time with our customers, and that's a part of my role that I just thoroughly love. I know Stacia and I share a friendship with our friend Josh Bersin, and Josh refers to me as a ‘pollinating bee’ taking information and ideas, and perhaps a little bit of inspiration across our customer community, and I love that.

And then I also have the great privilege to spend lots of time with various academic leaders and really understanding where the future of work is going. So whether that's folks like our friend, John Goodrow at USC who had just thought of doing some of the best work on the future of work, Amy Edmondson at Harvard, Michael Bush at Great Place To Work, my good friend, Rob Cross at Babson College looking at social network science. So I sort of swirl those three things together, sort of practitioner slash former practitioner spending time with our great customers. And then, and then just geeking out with various thought leaders on where the puck is going, if you will.

Chris Pirie:
It sounds like a pretty cool gig you have there, for sure!

Greg Pryor:
Oh, thank you; I mean, it's all the things I love, I have to say. I'm incredibly grateful. They all sort of come together and swirl together.

Chris Pirie:
And can you tell us broadly, what are the kinds of problems that you and the good people at Workday are trying to solve? And remember the frame here is skills in general, but how do you think about the kind of problems that you're going after?

Greg Pryor:
So I personally believe that we are about 10 years into the ‘third age’ of human capital management—that sort of directionally from the 1930s to the 1970s was the age of ‘Personnel, ‘ there was a particular sort of tone tenor and technology that technology may have been a filing cabinet, but maybe technology, nonetheless, I do think from the seventies until about 2010, we were in the age of HR, and I apologize to whoever I may be offending who affiliates or associates or identifies with the previous age of HR. But I do think around 2010, we entered into this third age of human capital management, which I very much believe will be much more around people and performance enablement and that there was, and happy to geek out a little bit on this, but there, there was a very specific pivot in what was happening around the democratization of work, the availability of prediction machines, and I know we'll talk a little bit about that, and the expectations of workers. And I do believe those three things have really driven us into this Third Age.

And from where I sit today and talk with, again, that group of, whether it's researchers or our amazing customers or folks like yourself to stay current on what's going on, I see five specific imperatives. We think about those imperatives in the context of IDEAS for a changing world. IDEAS is an acronym that stands for inclusion and belonging, digital acceleration, enabling experiences with the E, the agile organization, and then finally the skills imperative.

And so I spend quite a bit of my time working with our customers and we, as an organization, thinking about those five imperatives, all of which I believe have been dramatically, both accelerated and amplified by the extraordinary events of 2020.

Chris Pirie:
Yeah, well, we definitely want to drill down into this sort of seeming acceleration and what are the forces at work? I think before we do that, What's the hardest, what's the most challenging side of the work that you do today?

Greg Pryor:
Wow. That's a great question. You know, it's, and it's sort of funny, I guess you know, they say that, and this is what I share with people as well; I do think that what's been interesting and what's happened recently is, it maybe it used to be the technology that was the harder thing to grapple with and work through. And I actually believe that that has shifted, probably over this last decade, and now it's actually, I think the acceleration of sort of programs and principles and approaches on the way we work and helping people sort of, again, I use this sort of metaphor of skating to that future puck.

And so I definitely would have said that if you asked me that 12 months ago, interesting, you know, again, that the technology has now accelerated quite a bit, and those aren't the same similar sort of challenges you may have seen 10 years ago, we were seeing people embracing and adopting. And then yet, I'm completely fascinated by the events of the pandemic where, you know, if you had said, could the entire global workforce or a vast majority of the global workforce, I'm also so incredibly grateful for our healthcare workers, our frontline workers, all of the people who go to work every day to keep us all safe, to keep the supply chain going and keep them. But if you would ask anyone, I'm sure 12 months ago, could a vast majority of the entire workforce overnight move to remote work. People would have said, just not possible. And so I'm also buoyed and excited by the resilience of people. I think this has been such a tremendous experience—that we underestimate how resilient and how agile people are. And so again, it's sort of this funny cross section of three things coming together for me.

Stacia Garr:
I think it's wonderful that you called that out… kind of a funny story, Chris and Dani and I got together in January of 2020. And when we got together here at a very small church and it was raining. And I remember we were talking about maybe potentially a book idea and Dani and I said to Chris, we said, Chris change isn't that hard—it’s just having the necessary incentive to do so.

And Chris, as the wise, you know, kind of corporate executive, said, Dani and Stacy, you guys are wrong. Change is really hard. There's a whole study!And so we'd like to add this very fierce debate, not knowing what we were all just about to go into, but I think to some extent, you know, obviously this last year was very hard, but to some extent the incentives were such, there was no alternative. You know, the boats were burned, we had to work from home. We had to make this change and we all did it. So we're in the middle between those two perspectives is the reality, but we saw it in a totally different way than we would have expected ever before.

Greg Pryor:
And I, you know, but I think it has, gosh, I mean obviously if having to do again would not have wanted to do this giant social experiment, obviously in so many, so many lives lost as a result of it, which is so, so, so sad. But I do think to your point, it has told us that I think it's two things. One, I do think that digital technology enabled us to do things and in many ways, thank goodness we had the technology that we have today to stay connected, to be somewhat more productive than we were before March 11th, you know, around the world. But I do hope that it shows us that people are much more agile, much more resilient. Change is hard; I'm a recovering change management practitioner, I did spend 10 years at Accenture in the historic change management practice there. And so I do say that I'm a recovering change management consultant, but I think to your point for me, when something has that opportunity, I do think we run toward things I think, you know, and so I think too often we've framed some of the challenges as change, and as soon as we do that, as soon as we frame it as change, it does activate the anxiety in us around, around change. But I do think there's the opportunity to say, what are we going toward? What are the opportunities? How will things like skills democratize opportunities for us? Where are the upsides for the opportunity to use machine learning, to curate the future, to provide opportunities to use.

I know I'm getting ahead of myself on that, but I'm, I'm optimistic. I am, and I spend time with our customers and I think they're optimistic as well. This has been a crazy challenging time, but what it's told us is, wow, people for the most part, are good, thoughtful, committed, wanting to do the right things, resilient, autonomy, you know, have a lot of autonomy. So I'm finding the silver lining.

Chris Pirie:
You're a good man. I like it. There's one little thread I want to pull on from something you said before; I think he was saying how in the past, we were frustrated a little bit by the technology, the technology wasn't there and now there's been a shift. And I just want to see whether I understood what you said. I think what you meant was that policy, and the policy around work practices and the technologies that we use might be the drag. Now am I, I don't want to put words in your mouth…?

Greg Pryor:
Yeah, no, I think I, yeah. So I think to your point, it used to be that it was perhaps harder. And again, I'm looking over sort of, you know, the last 10 years, the technology necessarily wasn't there. It was hard to use that technology, that technology had not quite matured to the space, I think we're in today. But I do think to your point, I think it's actually our organization, the way we think about organizations, it's our own, it's sort of a, self-inflicted wound, a little bit, Chris, and the fact that we say, well, people can't do that. Or they won't, or that's too hard, or can we really trust them? I'm hoping that the last year has told us things that say, people are pretty darn resilient, and if we give them a guiding light of where we need to go, you know what sometimes referred to as you know, whether it's the commander's intent or this or what's the purpose people thrive on that they want to move to. So I actually think it's been a little bit of our, and feel free to challenge me on this, but it's been a little bit of our change management mindset that says, well, this change is going to be super-hard and people won't do it and it's to be hard and I have to overthink it and I have to go slow. The pandemic told us that wow, overnight billions of people… anyway. Yeah.

Chris Pirie:
Yeah, I've got one observation on that. And I've got a lot of friends who thought of themselves as evangelists, particularly in the learning space for digital learning and myself included; we spent 10 years, you know, trying to push the envelope and get people to embrace it and move beyond some traditional paradigms. And then all of a sudden, in seven days, everybody's online, everybody's learning online, because there's no other way. And there was a little bit of sort of like what next for us evangelists. It's like, what's our job now? A lot of people are sort of scrambling to figure out, kind of like what are the building blocks of putting things back together?

Greg Pryor:
Yeah. And I think to your point, I think what was interesting is likely, gosh, definitely, that second age of human capital management and perhaps just the last century or more in organizations is the organization saw itself as the point of primacy; everything had to move through that. Our companies were designed to control, to be controlling, to create predictability and they may appropriately put themselves in the center.

What I think we saw was this great democratization of work: we saw this great democratization of capability. And now what we see is, I think we have to help people have to help our organizations get out of the way and let people unleash and unlock their capabilities in ways that does not require the organization to be at the center. I think all of that happened much, much, much faster than we expected. But now, like to your point, we find ourselves on a new game field to be like, okay, well, that just happened: where next?

Stacia Garr:
Yeah, it's really interesting. We did a study last year—we actually started it in 2019—where we were asking about how we could build organizations that could respond to rapid change, et cetera, and mind you, it was in 2019. And we had a really hard time getting people to talk to us about this, because they're like, whatever the economy's going, like everything's going great guns, why are you guys focused on this?

We ran our survey actually December, 2019, right before the pandemic started and got this amazing snapshot of what we ended up calling ‘What responsive organizations do differently.’

Greg Pryor:
Love that report by the way.

Stacia Garr:
Thanks! But it speaks to everything you guys are talking about: the four things we found that mattered are respect, so respect for the individual and for their capabilities, distributed authority, so the center getting out of the way, not that it's not important, but not putting those barriers in place, growth and transparency and then trust. And I think that's what we saw in this last year.

This season is called the skills obsession, but we'd like to ask everyone before we dive in, what does skills actually mean to you? Because it's a very broad concept, we throw this word around. So as you think about that term explicitly, how do you define it?

Greg Pryor:
So I'll take like a half a step back if I can. So at Workday, at least for, you know, the last seven or so years, we have really thought about our talent strategy around enabling five fundamental factors. And that's helping people to understand where they can make a unique contribution, a collective contribution to our collective capability.

The second is around capabilities: this idea of how I look at my skills, my experiences, my competencies, and the energy and energy that I need, and I know you had my good friend Clint on a recent podcast one of my favorite people. And if you haven't listened to that one, stop this podcast and go and listen to the one from Clint because he is one of my favorite people, but we now increasingly know, right, our mental and our physical wellness are the energy we bring to that.

So we think about that as capabilities. The third is this idea of career; how do I think about people's career interests and abilities, and then connections. Stacia, you and I share a good friendship with Rob Cross around this idea of social network science. And then people do want to be compensated and recognized. And so our work has really been around if we, to your point, move the person to the center, and we create these five conditions for success, we believe that is this idea of sort of people and performance enablement.

So one of those five factors is capabilities. And so we really do believe that it is central, not only to people's contribution, but their career interests. And I believe that we're seeing a shift to where what we would call ‘capabilities’ is the new career currency. It's a really significant shift that what I believe we're seeing at least, especially amongst people, maybe a little bit more junior or earlier in their careers, is that they absolutely understand that their capabilities—collecting, developing maturing, progressing—is the way that they will see both success and satisfaction.

I'm not sure that I've defined it the way you asked for it, but what I would say is I do believe this idea of capabilities and skills being a component of that is the new career currency. It’s what's going to give people a democratized opportunity for jobs, and it's going to be actually what we want to collect.

I'm a big fan of Bob Johansen at the Institute for the Future—I love his work and he is just a wonderful person—and in his book New Leadership Literacies he talks about sort of this idea is especially people in younger, in their career, early in their, in their career of a gameful mindset at work. And I think he is onto something so powerful here in specifically, it's interesting. I was with the CHRO over a very US-based retailer, and this CHRO was sharing with me that during the pandemic, they were playing Fortnite with their daughter. And finally he turned to his daughter and he said, honey, when is this game over? When do I win? And she turned to him and she said, Dad, you don't win, man; you just level up.

I don't even understand what you're talking about! And I think this is the paradigm. When we look at the next generation of our workforce, they think about collecting capabilities, collecting skills, and that gives them the optionality to do amazing things in the future. Those are the superpowers that they put in their backpack and that they go and they face the next great challenge with.

And so I actually really believe we're seeing an in front of our eyes this shift from sort of promotion and an organization as this as a sort of central measure of career success, to progress. And I believe underlying progress is the ability to collect, to mature, to grow, to deepen, to strengthen this set of capabilities that gives you optionality to do things in the future.

Stacia Garr:
I love that point; it actually goes to a piece of research we're releasing next week on career mobility. And we talk about mobility is about mindset, not movement. And it thinks that captures what you just said: that’s the title of the report next week, it’s out there.

But this backpack analogy, like you said, with, with the video games, I think that that's actually really powerful Greg, because as people are moving from, you know, types of work, I'm not going to say job to job because I know that we've got a whole discussion about that, but types of work, those skills in their backpacks from the one that they pull out for particular types of work, and they're thinking about what's the type of work I want to go do and need the skills to have, as opposed to, I want this job title, you know—winning the end game, the promotion, whatever it is. I think that's a fundamental shift.

One of the questions we have is why now? Why is it skills, or why is this mindset of about skills being in your backpack? Whatever it is, why is that happening now versus five years ago, 10 years ago?

Greg Pryor:
I think it's the convergence of three things that were already in place, and are absolutely being amplified and elevated. The first is this idea of the democratization of work. And so when we think about it, I had the opportunity to work a number of years ago with John Boudreau and a group called Create, where we really looked at a 10 year forecast on the future of work. And we are seeing absolutely that the democratization of work, moving from roles or jobs as the point of primacy to work. The second thing that we see is the advancement of machine learning; we’re big fans at Workday of the book Prediction Machines, and how does that now help us predict sort of the, if you will, the ‘Uberization’ of work I can predict what's the body of that's most relevant to me that builds on my capabilities and my connections, that's consistent with my career interests?

And so we see that democratization of work is this idea of the prediction machine, along with the expectations of our workers. I'm a fan of the work that Tammy Erickson has been doing at the London Business School on this idea of the psychological narrative of generations at work. I'm a big fan of hers anyway, but she talks about this idea that especially our Millennials entered the workforce during the Great Recession, and I believe what they watched and what they saw was that unlike, maybe in my generation where there were large corporate layoffs, you'd lay off just huge numbers of people, what they saw was based on people's capabilities, based on their optionality in the organization, they kept their job or they didn't, you know, one a week, or two every Friday. And so there's this narrative of particularly our millennial generation seeing those capabilities, those people with the greatest breadth of capability have the greatest optionality to survive the next uncertainty.

And I was sharing this theory before the pandemic—that especially our Millennials group who have grown up in a very volatile, uncertain time, and obviously the pandemic has now just absolutely accelerated that. And so this is where I do think this idea of capabilities are the new currency, so you have the combination of gigs at work and the democratization of work; you have the now real availability of prediction machines to identify who are the best people to do that work based on their current skills, their connections, and their career interests. And then you have this expectation—exactly as you've described—moving sort of from, you know, promotion to progress as the fundamental principle.

So the convergence of these three things dramatically accelerated by the pandemic, I think, put us where we are today.

Stacia Garr:
Yeah. I mean, I would add a couple of points. One is, so I am technically a Millennial—you guys may not believe that—but Millennials, I felt like I couldn't say that for a long time cause but now I'm comfortable in my Millennial skin, but I think, you know, another part of this is Millennials did see their parents get laid off, many of them particularly, you know, kind of those of us who were on the older side of the Millennial phrase. And so I think there was that.

And then to add to that your capability, yes, those people who had broad capabilities kept their job, but also those people who were innovative and combined capabilities, even if they did get laid off, they were the ones who went out and started new companies. I mean, we know that actually companies that tend to start in recession often are stronger. And so those people were able to combine those capabilities and unique ways and make really big impacts, but they had to have those sets of skills that overlapped in interesting ways.

One comment I had though, you were gracious enough to share with us a framework that kind of talked about some of these things before. And I was interested in what I think is a little bit of a tension between this idea of, you know, there's this democratization of skills availability, both kind of inside and outside of the organization, but at the same time for an organization to take advantage of that, they have to be able to retain those people and retain those skill sets—even though those skill sets in theory are quite a bit more available to anybody.

So as you've thought about that at Workday, how do you think about a greater availability of skills, but keeping those skills within kind of your four walls with your current employees?

Greg Pryor:
It's a great point, and gosh, you know, I think we'll look back 10 years on this and say, this was one of the biggest drivers in the way that we all work. I think right now, they under-appreciate what an impact that this is going to have and viewpoint.

So I think two things, one, I think I do believe the new war for talent, if you will. And I've been, and I was old enough to live through the last war for talent; it very much is going to be this, this notion of the I'm going to recognize people for the capabilities they have, right? And there’s going to be a resurgence of, whether you call them skills, competence, that we use capabilities as this broad context for all of that, but I do believe that will increasingly become the currency by which we sort of look at the valuation, if you will, of human capital: so attracting, retaining, engaging, inspiring the application of those capabilities is sort of a major job—one, if you will, for talent management and for human capital professionals moving forward, perhaps outside of maybe ensuring mental and physical wellness, it may be the number two most important thing over the next five years.

I will also say, I do believe, to your point, we're also going to see that the technology and this democratization will open you to access to these capabilities beyond where you thought about historical employment. And you know, just when you didn't think wave one of that change was going to be big enough, like wave two changes the game. So it's a both/and I think; how do you attract people to your brand who say, Hey, I may not join you as an employee or, or I'll join you for a short gig; I think that the whole world is about to open up.

So yes, you have to do your point, job. Number one becomes even more important and you have to identify what that capability looks like, how that capability has value within your organization—and then, especially as we look at some of the likely movement toward more distributed and decentralized workforce, where do you have access to that workforce now, maybe anywhere in the world. Yeah. It's, it's a big—it’s a big idea.

Chris Pirie:
I'd like to drill down a little bit more on what's going on in the technology space. One thing that just occurred to me, Greg, from your conversation before was I think maybe half a generation ago, most people's access to technology was through their employer. And what we've seen with technology, it's become more ubiquitous, and people can build their own skill; they can build their own platforms, they can launch their own businesses based on access to technology that was only available through this sort of corporate structure in the past. And I think that's driving a lot of the changes, both the self-confidence in our millennials and this focus on skills, too.

What do you think are the technologies—you mentioned machine learning, for example—but what do you think are the technologies that are most impacting the conversation around skills today?

Greg Pryor:
Yeah, I will declare my bias on this. I do think that most people under-appreciate the incredible impact that specifically machine learning will have encouraged. Again, I'd coach people. If you have an interest in there to read the book Prediction Machines, written by three economists at the university of Toronto, interestingly enough, from an economic perspective of what's the change that will happen.

And I'll geek out for a second on one of the examples. I have two college-aged daughters, and they do much of their clothes shopping through a company called Stitch Fix. And if you know Stitch Fix, what you may know about them is you don't go shopping there; first, what they do is you fill out a profile and they use algorithms, augmented by people, to send you the clothes ahead of time and they believe their predictions are good enough that you won't be sending all these clothes back all the time.

Now, in fact, that's true; in my case, I don't know that we've ever sent any of these clothes back. So I don't know what's teaching the algorithm other than maybe they have a very loving father who would do anything for them, and so more and more boxes continue to show up at our doorstep. But this idea of a prediction machine—and Chris, I'll give you a super specific example, and I don't want to kick out too much on Workday technology specifically, but I do want to make it practical—I will never forget the moment I had the opportunity to use, it happens to be Workday's talent marketplace capability. And so the way that works is I type in a gig; I identify, I describe the work that I need done. Machine learning immediately breaks that description down into a series of skills I can augment and add skills to. And then I hit a sort of submit button—and I'll never forget the moment, literally a millisecond later—a list of 150 people at our organization who could do that work appeared in front of me.

And so for me, I was first of all blown away that it happened so instantaneously. And then I would say, I was perhaps both shocked and dismayed that the first 10 people on the list I had never met; I had no idea who they were. And I thought to myself, wow, I have lived in this bubble, a constrained world, where who you knew created opportunity rather than what you knew. And all of a sudden, I mean, it was overwhelming to me.

That's just for me, this democratization of opportunity; I saw a list of names of people who I did not know, and my own bias, my own sort of behavioral economic bias of what you see is all there is, I thought the a hundred people I knew at work, they were all the people who had had a capability and all of a sudden, there's this list of 10 names.

Then interestingly enough, the next 10 names were people I knew. And I was like, wow, I'm also sub-optimizing my work by limiting it to what only my brain could hold. Right? If you're familiar with Dunbar's number, I mean, I'm not smart enough to fully realize that no, the 150 people that one knows, but we've just got limits in our own brain, by how many people we can know. And I am optimistic and hopeful that specifically machine learning will help me democratize opportunity, and help us move from who we know to what we know.

Chris Pirie:
This is technology that's inferring what people's skills are based on looking at data that surrounds them.

Greg Pryor:
Yeah; and so again, that's exactly what it's doing, it is making those inferences. And, and I will also say, and I'm glad you mentioned that because I do believe what's so central and what we see in all of the research—a few years ago, I spent some time at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Labs with other HR people to talk about the implications of machine learning and technology on HR, and what we all walked away with, I believe, was this both/and: the importance of having the machine learning to do that inference, but you absolutely need to add human judgment on top of that.

And there's all sorts of really interesting studies where it's a both/and; let the machines do what they can do to find those 10 people who I hadn't thought of, then let me apply my judgment to just to talk to those people, to engage them, to find out if this is an area of interest. So I very much believe it's a both/and let the machines do with the machines, do well, and then let the humans do what are essential human skills, which is the ability to connect, to engage, to motivate, to understand whether this is a gig that, that someone wants to do and is good for them.

Chris Pirie:
So play this out, let imagination go wild; if we can really master these technologies and we can build these tools, what happens to the job description? What happens to the promotion systems that we have, because they're all based around these taxonomies that people have painstakingly glued together? And what you're telling me is that those things are artificial constructs full of bias and machines are going to do a better job. What kind of talent management future do you envisage if this plays out?

Greg Pryor:
Gosh, those were your words. But I also happen to really agree with them, by the way. I think the last 2-300 years were based on the point of primacy was this idea of the job. Again, a big fan of John Boudreau's work, where he talks about reinventing work and reinventing the job. And I do think we will shift from jobs or roles being the center of the universe to work and people being the center of this. So I'll geek out for a moment if I may on that, so the first thing to your point that I do, and I'm optimistic about, I have a, maybe I'm oversharing here, you're going to have to tell me what one of my daughters is a nursing student. And I envision for her a world in the world of healthcare—and so grateful for all our amazing healthcare workers out there in the world today—but where it can look at patient records and information and health care provider records and information, and say, this team of people is likely going to have the best success with helping this particular patient based on their capabilities, the things they've done, their skills and experience, and based on their connections.

When we look at the world of psychological safety, when we look at the importance of trust in the relationships that we have, again, a nod to the great work that Amy Edmondson has done—originally discovered out of healthcare workers and her study of things in the healthcare space—this idea of curating teams or capabilities of people that maybe the best there.

To your point, then, I do think that allows us to evolve and to elevate the work that we do as human capital professionals or HR professionals to a next generation of work that really becomes about enabling people, enabling their success. I will make a plug for one of the new capabilities that I think is going to be required is this idea of social agility, and that the ability to quickly create new relationships, to build trust, to understand the context as people move in and out of these gigs faster. And so I do think human capital professionals will play a greater role in helping elevate the essential human capabilities while also helping us transition into this future of work.

Stacia Garr:
One of the things I wonder about is what this will do to the HR profession. I think that Chris mentioned some of the specific processes that we have in place, but I can see this in many ways as being a great enabler, which I think is a good thing, right? Chris mentioned kind of job descriptions, or maybe your traditional talent or succession or promotion process. But if we're able to use tech to handle some of the basics and/or some of the recommendations that we need, I wonder if we're actually going to be able to enable our business leaders to do much more of this themselves. Because there is an HR saying, well, here's the rules on your job description? Here's the rules on this, which I think could be a good thing.

Greg Pryor:
I mean, I agree. I think there are always, and so I'm, as you know, a glass half full person, but I also don't want to suggest that they are not unintended, right? I’m a big Star Wars fan, there’s good and evil in each of us, that’s what we learned from the original Luke and Darth Vader, it's how we choose to use it. So I do think we always should be very conscious of the choices we're making of the unintended consequences, where these things can come off the rails, but I'm on the optimistic side; I hope and believe that this technology will do what technology does well, which will then allow us to elevate. And I believe one of the most important things that we will be asked to do as human capital professionals is to go upstream and to help people embrace this new world of work, to figure out what the path is that democratizes, enables, empowers versus perhaps exploit's or biases against: I think that's our work ahead.

And so it's, hopefully it's letting chatbots and other things answer questions for people. It's finding those gigs for people, it's making recommendations through technology so that we can really elevate the essential human work of empathy, creativity, innovation. What do we think about strategy? How do we help enable people using essential human capabilities to find their way in this new world of work. Much the way I think we saw it with the pandemic; the value of empathy just exploded in the past 12 months, which, which I felt I thought personally, was fantastic.

Stacia Garr:
I should clarify. I didn't mean to say that the HR profession was going to go away. That's not at all what I meant.

Greg Pryor:
But I think that's what we have to be aware of; I believe it will change faster than we think it will. One point of view.

Chris Pirie:
I don't want to be the downer in the conversation here because I'm an optimist too, but there are some things that we need to watch carefully. A couple of examples: a lot of people picked up on the story about bias in resume screening. I think Amazon had a disastrous experiment where machine learning was just replicating the past and all the biases, maybe even amplifying, the biases of the past. I mean, it's now a known problem and it's getting a lot of attention. There's a lot of ethics being taught in computer science programs now, but we do have to be careful.

And then there's one thing that you said, Greg, that really interested me, and that is the importance of trust in all this. And I think right now that Edelman Trust research says corporations and places of work actually hold a high degree of trust. People that have a high degree of trust in their place of work, more so than in their communities and neighbors even—it’s quite shocking. So I think trust is going to have to play an important part, especially if we hand over work to the robots and to technology. Have you done any thinking on trust?

Greg Pryor:
Again, I couldn't agree more. I do think that trust at the end of the day is one of these essential human capabilities; it’s one of these essential human skills. And so what I'd love to see to your point is that human capital professionals, HR professionals are able to work on those ideas of a bias, of ensuring that there's good, ethical work being done in that space, rather than answering benefit questions as an example.

I think the challenges we have as we move into the new world of work, we think about the new workplace and the new workforce expectations. Goodness, there is so much important work to be done in the HR space, but I do think so much of it is new. So I think what we're going to see is to allow us to automate and augment what we can and what we should, so that we can elevate our thinking, our capability or a human judgment in exactly into the areas that you just talked about.

I think what we've learned over the past year is that what our people in our organizations, to your point look to human resource professionals to is now two, three, four times greater than maybe what we've historically and the leadership role and responsibility that HR professionals now have is crazy off the charts compared to what it may have been a year ago.

Stacia Garr:
One of the things that you've talked about in the past in addition to the democratization of opportunity is the idea of a development divide. And I think that kind of connects in here to what we're talking about, how access to and funding for, learning could amplify the current opportunity divide that we're seeing. So as you think about what this new world looks like, how do you think we potentially address that?

Greg Pryor:
Again, this is where with all of these changes or evolution, there are consequences. And I think we need to be clear-minded about the consequences and be using again our essential human capabilities. That is one that does make me anxious, and I do think as Chris talked about earlier, that on the one hand, we have this great availability to digital learning to capabilities, but that there are so many people in the world who don't have that access, and does that amplify this sort of development divide along with the digital divide?

One of the things, a trend that I see is that organizations are increasingly thinking about development, whether that's access to more traditional college experiences—that, I think, I wonder if it's going to become a new benefit, if you will, it's going to become part of the new fundamental part of the offering that a company will have, whether it's to its employees, to its broader ecosystem or community of people who may make a contribution or to its customers, I think that's something we need to continue to watch, and we need to make sure that we see that the positive side of that.

Stacia Garr:
Yeah, it's an interesting point. We had a wonderful conversation with the former CLO of McDonald's, who was talking about using opportunity and development as part of both their retention strategy, but I think also positively impacting the communities in which they work. Another great conversation was with Matthew Daniel at Guild Education, and he also was talking about, you know, how do we get more access to opportunities for, for people who are usually frontline workers or, or people who are kind of in more traditional blue collar jobs. So, a really important topic.

Greg Pryor:
Really, really important and a couple of great organizations who are doing fantastic and important work in that space. It's got to become one of those priorities. And I would include that in this skill imperative not only how we look at skills, how we identify skills, but how we grow and develop to ensure this, you know, this democratization of opportunity

Stacia Garr:
Kind of moving us forward: we’ve talked quite a bit about how digital transformation of HR and learning and many aspects of business life really got accelerated in 2020. As you look to this year and pull out your crystal ball, if you can, what do you think is going to move to the top of the people agenda now—what are you focused on at the moment?

Greg Pryor:
From everything I read, and gosh, I think this is going to be true for at least the next year is that wellness and the responsibility to help ensure that there is physical and mental wellness, I would say is top of the list for all the folks that I talk about. How we continue to be empathetic, how we continue to understand how we continue to use listening mechanisms to understand where people are, and provide them support. So I do think that idea is going to be in a fundamentally new space. I think traditionally we've thought about that as not part of the fabric of what an organization offers beyond a benefit, and I now think that has come into the corporate tent, if you will, as something that organizations will feel a responsibility, a greater responsibility for them, they maybe have in the past.

I will also say that at the same time, one of the things that I find; our friends at McKinsey had done an interesting body of research, looking at the last recession. And to your earlier point, there were those companies who really used that opportunity to put their foot on their gas rather than put their foot on the brake, and we see now 10 years after the recession, they've done materially better than other organizations. And so I think there's going to be this duality of, I need to address and ensure that I'm addressing what's happening in the world today and this is not an opportunity to sort of put my head in the sand and say the future isn't still happening around me. We are, I think going to see more decentralized workforces, I think we're going to see new constructs in the way we think about who our workers are, and so I do believe that organizations using that opportunity now to really think about those things are going to be really well positioned five or 10 years down the road.

And unfortunately, people without the ability or the capacity to think about that today are going to fall further behind in this digital divide, or what I call the COVID chasm. I do think there is this COVID chasm that has allowed accelerators to accelerate and unfortunately, others to fall further and further behind.

Chris Pirie:
The K-shaped recovery. Are there any organizations out there that you think are doing particularly good work? I know that you get to work with some of your customers, for example, but anything that's really caught your attention recently of good progress?

Greg Pryor:
I think there's just so many… I’m a really big fan of Telstra; when you think about agility and the work that they're doing, Alex, who, who looks after that group, is crazy smart and doing just brilliant things. The folks at Dell are doing some really advanced work in this space, really thoughtful; I'm a big fan of Unilever, I love the work that Lena and Tom and crew are doing there. Now I'm going to be in trouble because there's going to be others who are going to be like, Hey, I think the thinking of Michael Arena at Amazon, I'm a big, I'm a friend of Michael’s, and I think he's doing some of the best thinking in this space right now. Lots of organizations.

And then I have to say on the other side of that, I am such a fan of Dean Carter at Patagonia. I mean, not only is Dean one of the most wonderful people on the planet, but his thinking on this both/and, he's a big user of technology, but he is tripling down on humans, on empathy, and he's got some crazy interesting ideas on this idea of applying the theories and principles of regenerative farming for the workforce that say what if our goal was to help people not to trade money for their life and for their energy, but what if our role was to actually lift them up and enable their capabilities and help them be more well and more capable and enabled to make a greater contribution? Mike Malloy at Quicken is doing such wonderful work. I mean, there's a lot of really exciting pioneers doing, I believe, wonderful work in this space. There's lots that I'm missing. I apologize to all my friends who may be listening and I forgot you.

Stacia Garr:
And I know that some of the folks that you mentioned have some links and opportunities where you've interviewed some of them. So I think we'll put on the podcast page links to those folks that Greg just listed, because we'd love to share the work of others.

Chris Pirie:
Where can people find out more about your work—is there somewhere we can send them?

Greg Pryor:
My wife accuses me of being an over-sharer on LinkedIn, and I view myself less of a sort of originating sharer, but more of a broker of other people's good work. So feel free to follow me on LinkedIn; what I try to do really, there has to be a curator of other people's great work.

Chris Pirie:
Great. Are there resources at Workday that we can send people to?

Greg Pryor:
You can look me up on Workday; I’m also a contributor to Forbes, and if you're part of the Forbes HR council, I contribute there. And then I do often provide blogs and webinars. Again, my wife tells me I overshare, but especially around inclusion digitalization, but doing a lot of work on that and yeah, you can sort of just Google me on some of those things. I have a lot to say as you no doubt discovered.

Stacia Garr:
Well, our final question—and I can't wait to hear the answer on this one—is around purpose: for everyone we talked to, we want to understand why you do the work you do? Was there a particular person that inspired you or a particular purpose mantra that you have, but why do you do your work?

Greg Pryor:
Gosh, thanks for asking. For me, what has always been so clear across my career is I really do believe in the power of people. I personally believe that so much of the structure we've historically had in the world has not allowed us to really unleash and unlock the greatest amount of our human capability, and so that's what's always driven me.

And what I see at least what I see in the research is that it's not that that has not been held back by the individual or limited by the individual, it’s been limited by the structures around us. It's been limited by the way we've thought about constraints in the world of work in the past. And I am so excited; I really do believe that we are 10 years into this Age where we put people and performance enablement at the center where we think about their wellbeing and wellness, and we think about things like now, social agility, how we accelerate relationships, because we know that the density and positivity of our relationships are fundamental to our success more so than 10 years ago in a role-based way of work.

So I'm very excited, I'm very bullish; clearly there are consequences, but I think we're at this once in a generation, if not in a once in a lifetime, opportunity to enable people to do their best work, to feel good, to feel satisfied, to feel a sense of belonging, that we've all, I can't imagine anyone who didn't discover the importance of belonging over the West, feeling like you, you connect with other people. So anyway, that's what drives me.

Chris Pirie:
I love it, Greg, thanks—it was so inspiring to talk to you; you really bring a lot of energy for the ideas that you collect and espouse and the insights that you do that you generate. Thanks so much for joining us and for your time today, and we'll send people to scoop up your oversharing.

Greg Pryor:
And thank you for all your leadership and working and sharing this with other people; it’s so inspiring. So grateful.

Stacia Garr:
Thank you so much for being on!

Chris Pirie:
We are very grateful to Workday for their exclusive sponsorship of this first season of the RedThread Research podcast. Today, the world is changing faster than ever, and you can meet those changing needs with Workday; it’s one agile system that enables you to grow and re-skill your workforce. Workday is a financial, HR and planning system for a changing world.

Workday will also host an exclusive live webinar towards the end of the season where you can meet the team Dani, Stacia and myself, and join in a conversation about the future of skills and skills management. You can find out more information and access exclusive content at www.workday.com/skills.

(transcript ends)

TRANSCRIPT

Introduction

Stacia Garr:
Wonderful. So thank you all so much for joining us today. For those of you whom I don't know, I'm Stacia Garr. I am co-founder of RedThread Research. And I'll tell you a little bit about us before we get started, but in the meantime, I want to give my co-host today, Priyanka Mehrotra chance to introduce herself Priyanka.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
Thank you, Stacia. Hi everybody. I'm research lead at RedThread and along with Stacia, we've been working on DEIB and people analytics for over the last two years. And we're very excited to talk about this kind of study that we have going on right now. Welcome.

Stacia Garr:
And so for those of you who haven't been to a Q&A call or haven't been in a while, here's roughly how we do it. This is very conversational. Yes, obviously we have slides, but the point is to answer your questions, you know, find out what you're most interested in with the research and the like. We'll be communicating primarily through chat or through Q&A, both of those are enabled and we can see both of those. If you want to do Q&A, so everybody doesn't know your question, that's fine. If you want to share in chat, that's great as well. Like I said, we are recording this call. And so we will be posting this to the RedThread site after today. So that folks who are RedThread members will also be able to view it.

Stacia Garr:
So in speaking of RedThread and members, we are a human capital research membership focused on a range of topics, including people, analytics, learning, and skills, performance, DEIB and employee experience in HR technology. As Priyanka mentioned, this study that we're working on, and we're going to talk about today is a really nice culmination of a number of different areas that we've been doing research on. So we've been extremely excited to get to it. It feels like the study we've been trying to get to for at least three quarters. So we're excited to do that.

Defining DEIB

Stacia Garr:
So I'm going to begin with just a little bit of level setting. So for those of you who maybe haven't been following our work. We talk about this space collectively as DEIB. So I know a lot of organizations use just DEI. Some use just DIB.

Stacia Garr:
We decided to put them all together to be inclusive. Because we think that all of these concepts are important, but you can see here on this slide, our definitions for each of these areas, and how would we see them as being a little bit distinct from each other.

Why DEIB & Analytics

Stacia Garr:
Now, I mentioned that this study is kind of the culmination of a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and I should say and clarify that this is an active study under process. That's one of the things that we do with the Q&A calls is that we get started on some research and then we will conduct a number of ways to interact with folks. Sometimes it's a roundtable, as you may have seen. We've actually got one on this topic coming up on, correct me if I'm wrong, Priyanka, May 27th, I think is the date for that, but the Q&A calls are a chance to kind of engage on a different level to understand what people are thinking about and getting initial reactions to the work that we've been doing.

Stacia Garr:
But, so why are we doing this study? One is when we launched RedThread, we started off with a focus on DNI technology. This is what we called it. Now we're calling it to DEIB technology. And then very shortly after that, we did a study on people analytics technology, which many of you who are here may be familiar with. And within DEIB tech, there was an analytics component. And we were seeing on the people analytics tech focus on DEIB, but we hadn't really kind of brought these concepts together. And then when we went out and we looked at the literature, which Priyanka is going to talk about, we found that there weren't a lot of folks who are talking about how do DEIB and analytics work together. What's that partnership look like? What are the metrics we should be looking at and how should we be making those decisions?

Stacia Garr:
So we started to think about all of these things. So, you know, those were kind of the underlying concepts of why we started this journey.

Why are we studying it now?

Stacia Garr:
But then there is I think a question about like, why now, like, why didn't we do it three quarters ago if we've been studying this topic for a few years. And I think there are a few things. First is we've seen a greater expectation from consumers to take action. And so if we look at things like Edelman's Trust Barometer particularly after the social justice movements of last summer, consumers are expecting organizations to make steps, yes, on social justice, but on DNI more broadly. They also are expecting organizations not just to do that externally, but to do that internally, to get their own DNI house in order.

Stacia Garr:
So that's one, one reason. The second is obviously the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on diverse employees combined with the social justice movements that I just mentioned. So we've done quite a lot of work particularly focused on the impact of the pandemic on women. We have also written about the impact of the pandemic on people of color. And so we know that those populations have been some of those that have borne the brunt of this the most. And so there's some of the ones that if we look to come out of the pandemic, we need to be focusing on the most as well. And then the third reason, again, back to this, why now is we're seeing these new SEC human capital reporting guidelines that went into place last November really starting to come into to be a factor for organization.

Stacia Garr:
So analytics teams are being asked to provide more detail on human capital metrics and often that is including diversity data. And we expect that right now. And I was very intentional in that language. Right now it's a lot of representation data usually a bit beyond what they have to report for the EEOC, not necessarily a lot beyond that, but we expect that to change, particularly as investors start to increasingly understand the impact that we've seen in research of strong diversity and inclusion on organizations, on their financial outcomes. We think that there's going to be more investor pressure to provide more data and insights as it relates to the DEIB.

People Analytics for DEIB has arrived

Stacia Garr:
So those all get to kind of this, this why now all of this is reinforced by the study that we did on the DEIB tech that came out just at the beginning of this year, January of 2021.

Stacia Garr:
And the big finding from this study was that when we asked vendors, what problems our customers were trying to solve, that issue of DNI analytics and insights went to the top. It was number four in 2019. The last time we published that study and in 2021, it was number one, it was 19% increase in the importance of addressing this lack of DNI insights and analytics. So we know that this is been something that we've seen reflected in the data. We're seeing it in the popular press, and we as analysts have seen it as being incredibly important. So that's why we're doing this now. Priyanka.

Why it's so hard

Priyanka Mehrotra:
Interesting. So let's take a moment to understand why it's so hard to do this, and we're going to talk about what were studying in through this research, but just want you to take a moment to understand why it's been so hard and what have been some of the challenges that DEIB leaders, people analytics leaders, and organizations have been facing. And I mean, this often has to do with three things as they come to our mind, the first being that there's a Gulf between the DEIB leaders and people analytics leaders that tends to exist within organizations. And what we mean by that is that there are few things that go under this, one is that DEIB leaders and people, analytics leaders often not always, but often report to different departments or heads or senior leaders. So for example, DEIB might be reporting into CEOS a lot of the times.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
And in fact, I recently came across a research that was conducted on about 500 senior diversity leaders out of which 40% have said that they were reporting into CEOs. And what we typically tend to see with people, analytics leaders on the other hand is that they're often either reporting to the CHRO or talent acquisition leaders, or talent management leaders, or even a centralized analytics team. So one of these, the gulf I was talking about is that the reporting structure might be different for them. The other has to do a little bit about the backgrounds that these two tend to come from. So again, not all, but years of DEIB teams often came from backgrounds such as social justice or diversity focus backgrounds. Whereas people analytics leaders often tend to come from data science, computer science, math, statistics background.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
Additionally we often see the DEIB leaders, might find themselves focused on activities that may not have a lot to do with data. So for example, setting up employee resource groups or managing DEIB events or collaborating with local communities. Whereas we see analytics leaders really deeply ingrained in the data side of the organizational things that they're doing but only coming in as participants when it comes to DEIB and having little knowledge about all the curies and the approaches that go behind those initiatives as when it comes to DEIB. The second reason why we think this is so hard is that there tends to be a lack of clarity around data and how to use it. And this goes back to the point that Stacia was making, but, you know, up to now, we've been seeing a lot of use of DEIB data has been for reporting purposes.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
And while we are starting to see a shift in how leaders are starting to think about this data, these are still early stages. And there are a lot of questions about, you know, what data they should be collecting, how they should be using it. What are the types of analysis that they should be running? And I think a related reason, which is our third reason under this, why it's so hard is that there's a lack of clarity around how DEIB leaders, DEIB tech venders fit into all this. So Stacia, mentioned our DEIB tech study that we ran, that we published earlier this year, and we saw an immense growth in the number of DEIB tech vendors that are coming up in the space. But along with it, we have questions and concerns from leaders. When they're asking me questions, such as when should we bring in these tech vendors, how should they fit into the broader strategies?

Priyanka Mehrotra:
So all of these reasons kind of convoluted to making this practice of bringing DEIB and analytics together, something that's challenging for organizations in they're struggling to understand how would they get started on it and actually be successful on it. And these are the factors that actually fed into our thinking on what we should study when it comes to this topic.

What we are researching

Priyanka Mehrotra:
So if you go into the next slide, we'll just quickly talk about some of the overarching questions or teams that we're looking at through the study. So the first one that we're looking at is how should the DEIB and people analytics partner. So rethink this is sort of foundational to what organizations should be doing when it comes to this, because without a successful partnership, this work can not be done. The second area that we're looking to understand is what are the important data and metrics for DEIB?

Priyanka Mehrotra:
So, like I said, there's a lack of clarity around what is it that they should be doing? What is foundational, what is table stakes? And then as organizations mature, what are some of the more novel and non-traditional things that organizations should be looking at. And then third is about the role of vendors and techs. So looking at, you know, one of the different types of technologies that organizations are using. What are the people analytics technologies? What are the DEIB technologies? When should they come in and work as a partner and in general, what is the role that vendors should play in all this? So those are some of the overarching teams or questions, if you will, that we are looking at to understand from this study.

What the literature says

Priyanka Mehrotra:
And what we did when we launched this study was we began with a literature review and which we published last month on our website.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
And we did a very exhaustive, neutral journey, where we analyzed over 50 articles, business journals, academic papers, and we found a few key findings that kind of reaffirmed our thinking around this topic as well. And kind of solidified our questions that we thought we should be asking. So I just cover some of our key findings from our literature review. The first of course that we were expecting to find was, and we did find was the, the need for analytics and analytics for DEIB is more important than ever. And, you know, given all that we've experienced in 2020, COVID19, the social justice movements, it's no surprise that really starting to look at how we can use data and metrics and analysis to support this push for the DEIB that we're starting to see from organizations. And, you know, just for an example, if you look at some of the commitments and goals that all the big organizations have put out over the last year, whether it's Facebook or Target or Starbucks, they all have these lofty goals of reaching 20% to 30% increasing their representation by X percent in the next few years are tying diversity to performance reviews.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
And then you look at those goals. It's very clear that none of this can be done without data and analytics without measuring where you are and where you're going and what needs to be done. So clearly people analytics is going to play an extremely critical part of doing anything related to DEIB moving forward. The second finding that we came across was the DEIB analytics is more than diversity metrics. So we found several articles that truly try to push the thinking beyond just looking at representation data, and thinking about inclusion, thinking about the different experiences that different groups of employees are having in the organization, thinking about belonging and what that means in the organizational context, thinking about the existing processes and how they can be made more equitable and working with people analytics leaders to really understand how can they use the existing data to think about some of these processes and kind of push forward their DEIB agenda on these things.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
The third finding that we came across was around using predictive analytics for DEIB to help plan for the future. And the articles that talked about this mainly spoke about using this and harnessing this power of predictive analytics to really avoid issues from becoming into potential problems in the future and planning for planning well ahead and avoiding certain challenges that may come up in the future. So for instance two examples come to my mind that we came across during this literature review. One was of Walmart using modeling and forecasting techniques to really answer questions around like, what could happen if we keep doing this, or how can we arrive at our desired goal much faster and using those insights from that data to really review the DEIB goals and connect regularly, to understand how, what is the progress that they're making towards them.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
The other example that we found was from International Paper, which uses predictive analytics to understand their expansion rate compatibility. And what that means is using data on past behavior, family dynamics cultural agility, global accuracy, to understand and forecast which employees would fare better in a global move if they were to be placed in international settings. So these were some of our top three findings. And I just want to touch on some really interesting ones as well. And this one was my favorite, which was around using quantitative data individual stories and experiences are an important piece of the puzzle and no work on when it comes to DEIB can be compete without taking those into account? No amount of statistics can capture what it feels like to be the only ruling on a team or to be the only black member on the team.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
And so we think that qualitative data and quantitative data forms an extremely important part of doing analytics for DEIB. And finally, another key finding that we found of course, was around, you know, making sure that you're addressing issues of privacy and ethics. So aggregating data, sharing data with employees, being transparent about what is being collected and what is the purpose that that data is being used for. So, like I said, all of these findings kind of reaffirmed our thinking around what is it that we need to study in this area. And like Stacia mentioned, and our lit review confirmed it, that there's a lot written on how and why this needs to be done and very little on how organizations are actually doing it or what they should be thinking about. And that's what's was what our aim was when it came to launching the study. And that's what we've been trying to find out through our interviews. And I'll pass it on to Stacia to talk about some of our initial findings now.

Initial findings: Building a strong DEIB & People Analytics partnership

Stacia Garr:
Great, thank you, Priyanka. And I know we've had some really good questions come in through chat, keep those coming. We will try and addresses questions once we get here into the question section. So some of the initial findings and I should clarify, we've done, what is it Priyanka about 15 interviews at this point on our way to roughly 30? So we're about halfway through our interviews. So these are very initial, so we're just going to share some of the things we have been hearing. So we've been grouping the research into two areas, the first being that DEIB and people analytics partnership, and then the second one being metrics. So focused on the partnership aspect first. The first point is around the importance of the data oriented diversity leader. So we've heard a real, and this isn't surprising, but I think it's just worth underscoring. We've heard a real difference in the interviews when people said I've got a diversity leader who really gets it, who gets the importance of this work, who supports what we do, who actively helps us think through the metrics and analytics that we should be focused on, et cetera, et cetera. That's kind of been one, one story.

Stacia Garr:
The other story has been well, I'm the people analytics leader, and I know this is important. And I've, you know, done my best so far and figured out what I think is important, but I'm kind of worried, waiting on a diversity leader to get here, to help, or in some instances, this is what I've done. And we've just hired a diversity leader because as I'm sure many of you have seen, there's just been this incredible slew of hiring of DEIB leaders since last summer. And so it's actually notable how many folks are like, well, our DEIB leader just started in September or they just started in January and now we're finally starting to get traction. But the importance of that partnership in the diversity leader being data oriented was remarkable. Second, and I kind of just alluded to this a little bit, but people analytics leaders taking the lead on data. We are actually, so I think many of you may know we're doing this study, but we're also doing a study on DEIB and skills and the skills kind of side of that is the learning team.

Stacia Garr:
And what has been remarkably similar about these two studies is how the DEIB teams in the past have either been responsible for this work or they have or the work hasn't been done quite frankly. And now as DEIB has become increasingly main stream, these corporate functions. So in this instance, people analytics, but in the other study, learning these corporate functions are kind of taking back or taking over the aspects of this work that they have expertise in. So for for people analytics, it's, you know, we know how to do the data analysis. We know how to get common definitions for the data. We know how to do, you know, basic representation analysis. Like we know how to do all this stuff and because we're already doing it in all these other ways. And we have the, the source of truth dataset, ideally you know, we, we are the ones who should be doing it and then putting it into the dashboards that we're already providing to leaders.

Stacia Garr:
So this just makes sense for it to be part of this, this group. Of course though, there is a side of this, which is around selection of metrics around problem identification, hypothesis identification, and I'll get to that more on the next slide. But the big thing is just this idea that people analytics, this is firmly now in our remit, and we need to go with it. The third point, and this seems maybe obvious, but is the importance of the alignment between the two. So we've heard a lot of instances where there are either, you know, Priyanka set up the, the challenge that we see with reporting relationships. And so we're seeing when it's really effective, DEIB and people analytics reporting into the same leader is one instance if that doesn't happen, we're seeing kind of pretty formalized, dotted line relationships between people on each of the teams.

Stacia Garr:
So a DEIB team member who is, you know, sort of informally connected to the people analytics team or vice versa. The point being that there has to be a strong level of communication between the two, because DEIB is basically the, the subject matter expert when it comes to the sorts of data and analysis that let me rephrase come to the questions that should be answered. And then the people analytics team is the expert when it comes to the data and analysis that can be done. So there has to be that clear alignment. Moving, I'm sorry. Priyanka, did you have something to add there?

Priyanka Mehrotra:
I think I would just underscore the point on the alignment. I think what you said was exactly right, like having that either direct line or reporting into the same head or having that dotted line, what it does is it makes sure that both the leaders are aligned on priorities through those communications and constant check-ins, and they're aligned on priorities and goals that are connected to the overall business strategy. And I think that also gets to the point about there being trust between the two of them. And I remember you spoke about that, that the DEIB leader, as well as the people analytics leaders have to trust each other, that they know what they're doing and that this is the right data, or this is the right approach that they're going to be taking and work together as a partner on those priorities and goals.

Metrics that matter

Stacia Garr:
Yeah, great point. So if we move on to the, the metrics aspect, and I know that there, there are plenty of questions in here. And so we'll, we'll start to work our way through them now in terms of metrics, what we saw is that, and this is just consistent across pretty much every interview that we did. You need the foundation and that foundation is basic diversity representation metrics. And I say basic, but it's a little bit less than just basic because it also includes intersectionality. So meaning that you, aren't just looking at, what is the experience of black employees, or what is the experience of Hispanic employees, but you're looking at what's the experience of black women, for instance and, and that sort of basic representation data is something that everyone said you need to just get your hands on from the very beginning there was a question in here in the chat, and I'm going to go ahead and grab it now around approaches and measurement at a global scale, especially regarding ethnicity. And we actually have a really fascinating conversation yesterday with the global fortune 100 organization. And what they were saying to us is one, and this is something we've heard consistently. One that ethnicity is something that tends to primarily be measured here in the United States. There is some measurement of it in places like South Africa, in some Asia, but almost more of a country approach within Asia. And then some in Brazil, because she made the point that a lot of people in Brazil don't necessarily identify as Hispanic, though they do identify as Latino or Latinas. And so when then, but then obviously within Europe, there is no ethnicity data that's being collected. So we think, you know, the point is, is that they are, what she said was that they worked with kind of local representatives to make sure that they were getting the right information so that they could be culturally appropriate in all these different locations.

Stacia Garr:
Yeah. the other component of this is we heard a lot in discussions about doing self ID campaigns. And so, you know, that because there's obviously sensitivity in terms of what information you can collect on ethnicity particularly in the EU, it wasn't as much focused on ethnicity there, but it could be focused on things like disability or on LGBTQ status or some of these other types of information that you might want to be collecting on folks in using as part of your kind of foundational diversity representation analysis. So we've heard that quite a bit. The government collection data often is, you know, initially collected by the companies, but, you know, not necessarily in all instances but yeah, looking at what's what's externally available and then also using that potentially to help inform your benchmarking strategy so that you can be comparing apples to apples. If you're looking at what external data is out there is an important thing to consider too.

Stacia Garr:
So diversity representation, metrics being foundational. Second looking at inclusion and equity. And so the way that I have been framing, this is almost like a model. Well, you know, that's part of what we do. So in an initial model is like diversity of representation is, is kind of step one. Step two is what we're calling kind of inclusion and equity one Datto, which is basically looking at things like engagement data by representation, information. So engagement and inclusion, potentially inclusion, indices and other belonging metrics that may be being captured and looking at those by by diversity representation numbers, and also including intersectionality, like I just mentioned. That's kind of inclusion one Datto, inclusion two Datto, which is what we're seeing some of the more sophisticated companies look at is saying, okay, we've identified for instance, that we have a problem with, or we we have, you know, variances with black women in this area.

Stacia Garr:
Why might that be happening, maybe black women in finance, just to pick something, why might that be happening? And then actually, and this is where it's really important to have that strong relationship with the DEI team and pulling in hypothesis on what may be happening. So sure it could be compensation, but maybe instead it's, you know time to promotion rates, which obviously also impacts compensation, but this is a slightly different issue. It might be the, that these people are being brought in from outside, maybe because there's been a diversity effort for the last few years and these people aren't getting they're from outside and they're not getting effectively connected into the network. So it's kind of an opportunity for the people analytics leader to work with the DEI leaders and increasingly the HR business partners to understand what could be happening here and how can we actually design a study to truly understand using some more sophisticated analytical approaches.

Stacia Garr:
So that's kind of the inclusion and equity two Datto approach that we're seeing. And then the third is the importance of understanding employee voice. And so this is, I would say it's kind of related to both inclusion, one Datto and two Datto, but it's a little bit different because it's not just employee engagement and experience, but it's, you know, what other things are employees feeling? So we've seen a rise in for instance, in harassment technology this come available particularly after me too. So are we looking at that and are we taking that seriously? And are we looking at other ways that employees might be not being heard in the organization? So this is kind of in the inclusion two Datto type of capability, but if we're looking at, for instance metadata that on who's going to what meetings are certain populations being included at the same, you know rate as others in terms of important meetings or are they being connected with others via Slack or Teams or whatever. So there's kind of all this more sophisticated analysis we can see are these people's voices literally being heard to the same extent as other groups, voices. Priyanka, did you have anything to add there?

Priyanka Mehrotra:
Yeah, I think one interesting example that comes to my mind. I think we heard this from a couple of interviewees was using wellbeing data, and I think that might fall under inclusion 2.0, as well as we're starting to understand it is looking at wellbeing data for underrepresented groups and seeing how is that different and getting to that feeling of belonging and inclusion for those groups as well. And I think also what, another thing that we heard from a couple of interviewees, what guests to employ voice is quantitative data. So we heard about focus groups and collecting stories. I believe from one of the vendors that they're doing that, and that I think was a very interesting add to the data that organizations already have and, you know, like creating environments where underrepresented groups and people are comfortable enough to speak up and collecting that data. In addition to all the surveys and pulses and metadata that they might be already collecting.

Stacia Garr:
Yeah. Great point. Great point. Okay. So that's the kind of presentation sections such as it was today. We're going to go to your questions and there've been a number of questions that have come in through chat. So I'm going to go to the chat questions first and then come back to the questions that were submitted in advance.

How do you get HR to use analytics to drive change?

Stacia Garr:
So one person asked about how other organizations are getting HR to use analytics, to drive change with DEIB strategies. And this question, I love it because it kind of hits on, on all the challenges, right? You have at least three different groups. So you mentioned we've got HR, we've got people analytics, and we've got DEIB strategies. And the magic fourth group that didn't get mentioned is legal because legal is in all of these conversations. So how are organizations actually, you know, making this happen?

Stacia Garr:
So I think we've heard a few things. One is it depends on the maturity of the organization and the maturity across all of those different groups. So does your organization, for instance, have a strong HRBP organization, which has strong connections to business leaders and does the organization have a strong DEI leader and what is their influence in the organization? How sophisticated and mature is the people analytics function in their ability to kind of imbibe and respond to requests when it comes to this. And then also, what is the risk profile of the general counsel? Are they, you know, we talked to one organization kind of more of a tech enabled organization. I would say tech enabled retail organization, where they said, we got to fix this, do what you need to do all the way to an organization where it's like, we don't want to share anything.

Stacia Garr:
No, data's going to anybody except for a very small few. And so all of that makes an impact on to your, this question, how do you get HR to use analytics to drive change? And so I think the key is figure out where your strengths are, where the maturity is. So if the maturity is for instance, with HR business partners and they have a strong, strong relationship with the business, you know, use your, hopefully you have at least a initially small people analytics team, if not kind of a more sophisticated one to start with providing that initial foundational data, you know, here's, here's where we have differences here's in the experiences of different groups. So start with that, that education and then working with HR business partners to understand what are the levers that we could pull in these different businesses to start to drive change, where is their appetite for this to do something different? Priyanka, do you have something to add?

Priyanka Mehrotra:
Yeah, I think I would just add to that education piece that you mentioned, because I remember one of the interviews that we recently spoke to a very large company. They mentioned that they're working with their vendor as a partner to broadly educate senior leadership and HR teams to not just use the data, but also understand and interpret that data. So, one, I think the role of vendor can be crucial if the vendor is willing to work with you as a partner in education and educating them. I think the other one, which might contradict my point actually, was that one of the leaders that we spoke to mentioned that they had set in place a learning requirement for people, for senior leaders before they could get access to the data. And it kind of backfired because nobody wanted to take that learning, but what it help them understand was that they needed to approach it in a different way that this was not going to work. It was clear to them that they could not force this learning course on them before giving them access to the data or getting them to use analytics, but they needed to figure out a different approach. So that, that was kind of a failing when approach that they kind of worked through. So I think those two are some of the interesting examples that come to my mind.

Stacia Garr:
Yeah. And I think that the point is experimentation, you know, to what you just said, you know, that, that organization figured out that, you know, kind of a one hour long learning on how to use DEIB data didn't work. But so they said, okay, well, how can we actually use the dashboards and the data to teach? And how do we do it in a way that maybe we don't give everybody everything at once, but we roll it out in a way that kind of through the rollout process, we're actually educating people on what it is certainly that they need to know, but also how they might use it. And this is, I think also where either vendors or people analytics teams can really come in with potential suggestions that are embedded within the dashboards and in the offerings to help people say, okay, well, given this, what, what might I do? And those suggestions obviously should be based on the data.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
Exactly.

Stacia Garr:
Okay. We're getting some more questions in here. That's great.

Which groups or identities to prioritize as they're all important

Stacia Garr:
So there was a question about, and we've kind of addressed this, but I want to come back to it, but there's its about understanding which groups or identities to prioritize as they're all important. I think that's, that's absolutely true. What we have seen organizations do though, is just kind of just similar to what we do with all people, analytics data, or really ideally, you know, our HR efforts is to say, okay, where's the business need here? Where's the need the greatest. And you know, that you can do once you have that representation data and you can kind of overlay what's important to the business in terms of business goals and strategy. And then where are the biggest gaps in that data? But using those two as initial ways to make a decision about what to prioritize, and then the overlay on that is who is going to be open to trying something new.

Stacia Garr:
So we've, you know, we heard, for instance in one of these organizations, they were talking about how most of their metrics are, you know, externally facing, and that's what leaders care about and any of the internal stuff that can actually maybe help you make decisions about actions to take, they were less interested. And so we asked that leader, we said, well, how do you find the interested leader? Like you've got great insights. How do you find the interested leader? And you know, some of it had to do with finding people who felt personally connected to DEIB and felt, you know, whether that was through their own experience or through someone that they loved. We can't tell you how many people, how many to be Frank, how many white men have said, I care about this because of the experience my wife has had, or I care about this because I'm a dad of two girls. Like, it's almost, it's remarkable how many times we've heard that. So find those people who have that connection. And then secondly hopefully people who have that connection to DEIB, but then also have influence over their peers. They're respected by their peers and using them giving them an opportunity to kind of shine and be the exemplar of the changes that are possible. Then that's the other way that I think about prioritizing.

Impact and accelerating the integration of DEIB & People Analytics

Stacia Garr:
Okay. another question here, does architect, the alignment of career planning, pathing and skills, capabilities, and experience have a role in this arena and impact on accelerating the integration of the DEIB and people analytics more broadly. So yes, yes. So I mentioned that we're doing a study on DEIB and skills. These two studies are running in parallel. That study is really trying to understand what are the skills that contribute to a culture of DEIB. So that's one component, but the other angle on skills and DEIB is using skills to potentially address any biases that may be happening. So under understanding of people's skill sets and what they want to achieve and using that to help us with people, better understanding career path opportunities, better understanding things like availability of opportunities to internal talent marketplace and that kind of thing. So I think that there is very clearly an overlap between particularly understanding skills, data, and leveling the playing field for diverse populations. So I think this a really important thing. We're seeing people just beginning to talk about this. But it's not I think its something that's going to have to be driven from the learning side of the house, because we're not, we're not really hearing anything on the people analytics side of the house on this, but we think it's an area of opportunity.

What are some of the challenges to building a partnership between DEIB & People Analytics?

Stacia Garr:
Okay. I'm going to turn to some of these questions that we received. We're going to go with this one first Priyanka about the challenges to building a partnership between DEIB and people analytics. Do you want to talk about that one?

Priyanka Mehrotra:
Yeah, sure. So I think we already touched upon some of these things when we spoke about our initial findings. So I think one of the biggest challenges that we've heard, especially as it pertains to people, analytics leaders is when DEIB leaders don't believe in data or don't come from that data background and are not open to receiving that data or looking beyond data for reporting purposes. So I think that's one of the main challenges that we heard coming in from people analytics leaders. The other one has been about lack of our missing a data culture in your organization and resistance to changing that mindset of really going with the data and being open to experimenting on middle and trying to find out what is, what is it that they can do and what is it that can be done with this data?

Priyanka Mehrotra:
And just a general lack of data literacy and awareness. And there are ways that we can, that organizations can work work on this. As we've talked about, the people analytic leaders tech can take a lead, the vendors can come into play as a partner in spreading that education broadly across the organization. But in general, I think so CDO is not believing in data and a lack of data culture in the organizations would be, I think the top two ones that we've heard. And I think connected one to that is lack of support from the leadership in general. And you know exactly to your point, what you said earlier, we've seen a lot of push come from people who are personally impacted by it, or see it around them have experienced it. But if that is missing at the top then there's a general lack of support for this kind of work that, that, that can be challenging in building this kind of partnership between DEIB and people analytics. What else would you add to this?

Stacia Garr:
We mentioned it a little bit earlier, but the issue of trust, I think in general is comes through. So maybe a little bit less with the relationship between DEIB and people analytics, but certainly with HR in the broader organization. Somebody we interviewed recently talked about how the HR organization didn't want DEIB and people analytics to release data broadly because they were afraid of getting called out or others knowing something that HR didn't and this idea of we have kind of an adversarial relationship. We own the data, we should know everything, and then we can control and communicate it. That is problematic. And you know, the mindset needs to shift to more of a more eyes on the data are better than fewer we're in this together. We're gonna figure out solutions together. We're going to distribute decision-making to make things better at scale, et cetera. And that mindset shift is very hard. And so that's not necessarily something just between DEIB and people analytics, but it requires a strong perspective between those leaders to then go, wow, and kind of push this broader agenda of, we need to share data so we can make change so we can measure what's happening. And people will know if we're making progress and if we're not, then we can make changes that will drive that progress.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that also speaks to something that we heard about fear of data being released without the context. And we heard a lot of people analytics leaders talk about how the other ones who take the lead when it comes to framing the data in the right context and putting that communication in that right frame before it's published externally or internally. And it's been interesting to see that it's the people analytics leaders who are taking the lead on this when it comes to communicating the data and putting that right context of DEIB to work.

What is the role of legal?

Stacia Garr:
Yeah, definitely. Cool. Let's move on to the next question. What is the role of legal? All of our folks, whether they're people analytics leaders or DEIB leaders sort of chuckle when we get to this question, because they're like, Oh, legal. So, you know, obviously the role of legal is to keep all of us out of trouble. You know, this is sensitive data, it's important to treat it with the due respect, et cetera. So I don't want to underscore that or, or undermine that, excuse me. That said what we also have heard is that there is great variance in what you can do based on the risk profile of your general counsel. And a lot of times what happens is the general counsel needs just education. You know, their job is to find the problems and there are always going to be concerns when it comes to DEIB data.

Stacia Garr:
And so the question is how can we work with general counsel to reduce the risk to a level that makes it acceptable and, or to make it clear that this level of risk is acceptable versus the risk of us not doing anything? So, and I think part of that is also helping them understand how others might get to this data. If the organization isn't controlling the message to some extent. So for instance, we had one interviewee who's general counsel said, I don't want you to publish anything, not nothing out there. And the people analytics leader went back and said, look with this set of data, we are, that we provide to the government. Employees can legally request the right to this data to have access to this data. So all it's going to take is a smart employee asking this question to get this information out, by contrast, we could share it and we could put some context around it. We could put clarity around what we're trying to do, and we could head that off. So there's this risk that already exists out there. And actually by releasing the data in this way, we are reducing that risk. The general council eventually agreed, right? So it's about thinking through sometimes very creatively. How do we work with legal to help them understand the appropriate level of risk Priyanka? What else did we hear?

Priyanka Mehrotra:
I think one of the best advice that we heard come out of our interviewees was don't look at legal as compliance. You get them as a partner. So like the way you partner with the DEIB, or if you're a DEIP leader the way you partner with people analytic. Work with legal as a partner, because they are the ones who are going to help you put the data, the right context, made sure that you're being able to continue sharing that data. And just in general, they're going to be helpful along the way. So I don't see them as putting barriers to the work that you do, but actually supporting you just by pushing you to be more clear about it, by being more intentional about it. And by thinking about it from all perspectives.

What is the role of vendors?

Stacia Garr:
Yeah. That was a good, that was a great point. Yeah. Cool. I'm gonna keep us moving so we can get through a few more of these. So what's the role of vendors? So there were, I think there are a few, one is vendors can broadly educate folks about data. We've already talked about that. Second, depending on the vendor they can certainly enable self-service for the access to the data, which is, which is a powerful one. Third vendors can help get up to speed quickly for small teams. So particularly if it's a vendor that the people analytics team is already using and they have a DEIB offering. So think like what Visier offers or what Workday offers in the context or cruncher in the context of their overall offering. Those are, those are ways that they can that they can, they can support.

Stacia Garr:
That said, we have heard from a number of people, analytics leaders, deep frustration with some of these vendors, because they're like the DEIB leader just went to the vendor. Like they didn't even talk to us about what data we could offer or the capabilities we have. Like we were just completely cut out of the loop. And then when the data that they had was different than the data that we have, senior executives came and were frustrated and said, get it right, et cetera, et cetera, you can kind of see where that whole train goes. And so, you know, there's an opportunity that vendors can offer some really good things, but it's really important to make sure that you have that alignment and clarity on first the data set itself and what's going to be used. But then two, how it's going to be leveraged back in the organization is, are the insights, the vendors producing, going to be integrated into existing dashboards or reports that leaders are already getting, what's going to happen. You can't have the vendor out here as an island is the point. They can really help you, but they can't be an island over here when all your other data stuff is over here.

Priyanka Mehrotra:
I think the only thing I would add too, is that they can also help share data broadly where it's appropriate. So one of the questions that we had asked our venders in our people analytics tech survey last year was, do you share insights collected on employees for themselves to help them take actions on them. And majority of the vendors said that they do. So I think that's another place, another area where vendors can enable organizations to help employees gain value out of the data that is being collected on them. And I think more and more organizations are starting to do that, especially when it comes to things like their sense of belonging and inclusion to better understand, okay, where is it that they are lacking in what is it that they, maybe the kind of behaviors that they should be working on to enable that culture of belonging and help people feel like they're included part of the teams. So I think that is another rule that vendors can play in helping just sharing that data and providing that access to those insights that that organizations are collecting on employees.

What analytics are being used for DEIB?

Stacia Garr:
Yep. Great. Okay. Next question. We received, what are some of the types of analytics being used for DEIB? So we've, we talked about some of these particularly kind of the, the basic representation data the representation data applied to engagement or inclusion and belonging, indices, that's some of the more kind of common analysis that we're seeing we're increasingly seeing in terms of more novel approaches, we're increasingly seeing the use of ONA. So particularly to understand the strength of networks of diverse groups and how those might differ. So for instance, looking at maybe looking at the networks of women and how these differ from men, particularly by seniority and organizations, we actually wrote a study on that a couple of years ago on women networks and technology. We also see them using ONA to understand if there are kind of hidden stars in the organization.

Stacia Garr:
So people who senior leaders may not know could be high potentials or be making an outsize impact on the organization, but who are highly connected within their network kind of indicating that, that outsize impact and then using that to help with potential hypo identification practices and in putting people into leadership development programs and the like so there's, those are a couple of ways we've seen ONA. We're also seeing more use of natural language processing and used in this kind of gets at that qualitative data aspect that Priyanka mentioned at the very beginning from the lit review. So using that to identify themes within certainly within engagement or belonging in our inclusion indices but also using that when we are looking at performance reviews looking at to what extent are certain groups may be having certain types of themes or texts being written about them that others are not. So for an example of this might be again, kind of going back to some of the research we've seen in women versus men. Women's feedback often tends to be more about their behaviors. Whereas men's feedback often tends to be more about their actual outcomes for business impact. So those are the types of differences that you might be able to use NLPM. Priyanka, what else have we seen?

Priyanka Mehrotra:
Something that was very interesting was tying wellbeing data DIN data. So seeing that, cutting it across, slicing it to see how different groups underrepresented groups, different cohorts might be fairing when it comes to wellbeing. I think the other thing that stuck with me that was pretty interesting and you've just heard that from one company was, they were, they were doing was counting high-fives on a watch on the watch with internal communications back from that they have to understand allyship and sponsorship amongst employees and managers and senior leaders. That was something interesting. That'd be hard as well.

Stacia Garr:
Yeah, so we we've actually seen that also. We saw it with high fives in this research, but also I've seen it with recognition platforms. So like a work human or an achievers Work Human themselves have actually done some analysis to see if there are differences by demographic background in terms of who recognizes whom and at what amount, cause I do like points or, you know, dollar amounts associated with recognition. And the theory there being that those recognitions are much less you put less thought into them than you do a performance review. So they may reveal biases that exist a bit more. And they do show differences by all the demographic groups that you might expect. So anyway, I see we've just got two minutes. So I just wanna see here. I want to go to the question that is in the chat, cause I think this is, this is a really good one.

Evidence of accountability via reward, accelerating progress or being effective in general

Stacia Garr:
And this is about, have we seen evidence of accountability via rewards, accelerating progress or being effective in general? So this is such a hot topic right now because we see all these organizations now coming out and saying, you've got to tie DEIB numbers to some sort of accountability metrics in order to get people's attention. There was when I first started doing research in this space and like 2013, that was like the thing, the thing that everyone was trying to get to and the 2013 version of myself would probably be cheering this hugely. The 2021 version of myself is not so sure. And particularly given some of the things we've heard in these interviews. The the reason for that is well, while tying metrics to accountability can be really powerful and it absolutely can.

Stacia Garr:
What it can also do is get people to focus on the wrong thing. And right now people are really worried as they should be that as they proliferate the DEIB data, that people will see it as a quota or a target, and that is illegal. And so there is a real concern about people misinterpreting what is trying to happen and kind of going after the wrong things. And the accountability makes that even more, more public. I think that if done well, accountability is a good thing. So if, for instance, you're tying to behaviors that we know drive certain types of outcomes. I think that the accountability can be a good thing. The devil is in the details on the measurement, of course. But I guess I would say my perspective is that it can be good, but use it with caution.

Stacia Garr:
I have not seen any holistic research studies that look at this. And even if we did, I would be concerned about like what correlation and causation researchy things. So that's it, if you want to talk more about it, I'd love to talk more about it. I think it's an important topic, but that's kind of my off the cuff.

Conclusion

Stacia Garr:
We're at time. So I'm just gonna real quick flip through to our last thing, which is next Q&A call. Maybe not relevant for folks here, but for anybody who maybe is watching the video, it is on learning content. So we did a study to understand how do we deliver the right content at the right place, right time, right person right modality, et cetera. And we're going to be discussing some of our early findings from that. That study will be coming out itself in mid-June. So that one will be further along than this study. So if you're interested, I'm sure it'll be really great. It'll be with Dani Johnson and Heather Gilmartin Adams. All right. Thank you to everybody so much for the time today. Thank you, Priyanka for your co-host on this session. And we look forward to seeing everybody again soon. Have a good rest of your day.

We've been following the learning tech market for years.

One of the most striking trends we've seen is the shift to ecosystem thinking. Learning leaders no longer see learning tech decisions as a single exercise—an LMS purchase made once every 5-10 years. Instead, they are thinking about learning tech as an ongoing series of decisions to build and maintain a network of learning technologies that collectively enable employees to learn and grow.

We wrote about this trend in a report, The Art and Science of Designing a Learning Tech Ecosystem, which found that learning leaders are asking themselves questions like:

• What tech should be in my org's ecosystem, and what should be eliminated?
• Who should we involve in learning tech decisions?
• What data do we need to make informed decisions?
• What's the best process for engaging vendors?
• How do I select the right vendor(s)?

Building on this report, we've created a tool to guide leaders in building and maintaining their learning tech ecosystems. Use this tool to do a custom analysis of your org's needs, evaluate vendors, and make informed decisions about what to build, buy, borrow—or get rid of.

Download Learning Tech Ecosystem Tool

As always, we'd love your feedback! Shoot us a note at hello@redthreadresearch with questions, comments, and insights.

In March 2021, we launched a new study on DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging) and skills. As part of our ongoing research, we recently gathered leaders for a research roundtable focused on this topic.

The focus of the discussion was to understand the skills critical for fostering DEIB and how orgs can effectively develop them.

Some of the specific questions we discussed include:

• What are the skills crucial for DEIB?
• How might we scientifically identify those critical skills?
• How can learning leaders make sure DEIB-critical skills are being developed?
• How can DEIB leaders make sure skills is a focus of their DEIB efforts?

Mindmap of DEIB & Skills Roundtable

The mindmap below outlines the conversations that transpired as part of this roundtable.

Note: This is a live document. Click the window and use your cursor to explore.

Key Takeaways

Our extremely engaging conversation helped us understand how leaders are thinking about and approaching skills identification and development for the purpose of fostering DEIB. While several interesting insights were shared, we identified these 5 key takeaways:

1. Certain skills are crucial for DEIB at all levels
2. Skills need to be pragmatic and teachable
3. Employees can help determine which skills are important for DEIB
4. DEIB should be an organizational priority
5. Consistency is key to skills development

The following sections offer an overview of the major points for each key takeaway.

Certain skills are crucial for DEIB at all levels

General consensus among our leaders: Certain skills are needed by individuals irrespective of the levels they might be at within their org.

Skills—such as listening, empathy, and self-awareness—are consistently seen as foundational for building inclusive and equitable orgs. Such skills can be instrumental in enabling people to develop other skills as well. As 1 leader pointed out:

“People need comfort with differences. People cannot approach intermediate and advanced concepts if they cannot get past the innate challenge of difference (those who don't look, sound, or act like me). That applies to people of all levels.”

Because these skills are foundational, they should be embedded in all aspects of the talent lifecycle and the org’s culture, instead of creating separate trainings for them. This can help individuals apply those skills in the right context, when they need them.

While all agreed that certain skills are important for all individuals, participants also shared about the role of different levels in enabling these skills.

People leaders must play the role of cultivator for DEIB skills within their teams, while senior leaders need to create the conditions to enable skills development.

Leaders also need to create a vision and shared purpose, and manage their team’s energy and mental health. Managers, for their part, should create a psychologically safe environment for all.

Skills need to be pragmatic & teachable

Leaders agree that DEIB initiatives can’t be tokenistic: DEIB initiatives should focus on skills that are teachable and practical, and can be applied in the workplace. As such, leaders should be able to help managers understand, for instance, how they can:

• Create psychologically safe environments
• Bring in different perspectives

Some of the ways leaders can do this are by:

• Making skills into real actions, behaviors, and rituals by thinking about the everyday practices of inclusion that can be incorporated in meetings, for example, always reading the room during meetings (to gage attendees’ actions and reactions), and asking questions such as who’s in the room, who should be there, and who’s at the decision table; as 1 leader noted:

“That’s where inclusion is first experienced and where those practices can be embedded.”

• Developing exercises that can help create awareness, such as writing down any time someone says a questionable word and noting how often they use it

Employees can help determine which skills are important for DEIB

When it comes to identifying skills that are important for fostering DEIB, leaders were clear: Ask the employees.

In order to determine DEIB skills, orgs should have employees identify instances in which they felt included and what actions enabled them to experience it.

Some of the ways orgs can do that include:

• Surveys to ask employees about their perceptions
• 360 assessments for employee feedback
• Talking to employees (i.e., interviews, focus groups)
• Leveraging employee resource groups (ERGs)

Beside engaging the employees, another helpful way to identify DEIB skills is to leverage external perspective by, for example, having leaders talk with clients and customers. External thought leadership can also be a great source for clarity and knowledge around such skills.

Tech and data can help in identifying opportunities that drive these skills. For example, organizational network analysis (ONA) can be used to identify:

• People who might have DEIB skills
• Who they’re connected to
• Their areas of influence

Leaders also suggested using platforms like Glassdoor to understand why people leave the org and to look at data from exit interviews.

DEIB should be an organizational priority

When asked about how orgs can make sure that DEIB skills are included in employee development efforts, leaders believed that DEIB should be an organizational priority. Everybody needs to be responsible for driving it and be given the means to make it happen. As stated by 1 leader:

“Give individuals and teams the autonomy to DO DEIB, not just learn or talk about it.”

Which is why, as leaders shared, all skills learning should incorporate a DEIB lens. A shared example from the leaders: When orgs create learning to help people managers deliver better feedback, they should ensure that they talk about delivering feedback to different personas, age groups, races, etc.

Some of the ways orgs can ensure that skills learning as part of employee development is impactful include:

• Encouraging interaction and interpersonal dialogue to give feedback on skills learned (as opposed to it being a siloed experience)
• Creating conversations, sharing each other’s stories, and learning from one another across different levels (i.e., national vs local settings, manager to employee, peer to peer) instead of an “instructor” teaching the concepts.

Consistency is key to skills development

An essential part of the successful application of DEIB skills is consistency in practicing and making them an integral part of daily activities, rather than something to learn about once in a while. For example, constant driving of DEIB vocabulary into the org can help develop those skills as it promotes and encourages inclusive practices.

An essential part of the successful application of DEIB skills is consistency in practicing and making them an integral part of daily activities.

One leader shared this: Too often, development programs provide information with little / no follow-up and evaluation—or opportunities to practice and apply the lessons / new ways of thinking, doing, and being. Change in behavior and mindset requires continuous practice.

This consistent approach and practice can also help overcome one of the biggest challenges to the application of DEIB skills: It’s ultimately up to each individual to apply them. As 1 leader put it:

"The individual practice and application is where the change really takes place. Ultimately, this is very individualistic and how we shift culture.”

A SPECIAL THANKS

We're extremely grateful to the attendees who enriched the conversation by sharing their thoughtful ideas and experiences. And, as always, we welcome your suggestions and feedback at [email protected].

Listen

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Guests

Satnam Sagoo, Director of Learning and Organizational Development at the British Red Cross

DETAILS

For some reason, we don’t listen enough to what our peers in the non-profit world can tell us about skills. But when a practitioner there says something like, “We see anybody joining us as an empty vessel: a bit like in Men in Black, someone wipes your brain out at Reception, you come through and then we up-skill you. That means we forget you come with a commodity of a vast array of skills; that’s why we hired you, that's why you're supporting us—all of those things that we so much want, but we don’t have a way of actually capturing that and supporting that as a network,” we think a lot of ears will prick up in corporate L&D! If you agree, check out this deep dive into everything from skills frameworks (their seductions and their perils) to credentialing with Satnam Sagoo. Satnam works at British Red Cross, where she’s accountable for developing and delivering the organization’s learning and organization development strategy—creating an L&D offer that meets the need of all 5,000 permanent staff but also what can be at times of crisis 100,000 temporary and external volunteers. Is this the most heart-felt of all our looks at The Skills Obsession? We’ll leave you to judge—it certainly moved (and inspired) all of us.

Find out more about Satnam’s employer British Red Cross

Connect with her on LinkedIn

Webinar

Workday will host an exclusive live webinar towards the end of the season, where you can meet the Workplace Stories team of Dani, Stacia and Chris, and join in a conversation about the future of skills and skills management. Find out more information and access content at www.workday.com/skills. 

Partner

We're also thrilled to be partnering with Chris Pirie, CEO of Learning Futures Group and voice of the Learning Is the New Working podcast. Check them both out.

Season Sponsor

Key quotes:

Anybody joining us as an organizer, as an empty vessel: you come to us, a bit like the Men in Black pen, someone wipes your brain out at Reception, you come through and then we upskill you. We forget you come with a commodity of a vast array of skills; that’s why we hired you, that's why you're supporting us—all of those things that we so much want to look for people, and we don't have a way of actually capturing that and we don't have a way of supporting that as a network.

L&D,we're all building frameworks—I’m sure all of you are— ultimately, we need to address how we are treating our people: are we empowering them, or taking that power away? Anybody who's in the people space of that HR family never says ‘no’ to the leaders, because we're so scared that if we say no, they won't come back to us, and this is the first time that top tables are talking to us. So we want to say, yes, we want to give them what they want to give; but we want to also say, actually now is the time to have that conversation. We're scared to push back—myself included.

Within our metrics, the things that we're using is obviously the kind of who's done it and not done it, that sort of stuff, but also the engagement and the repeated engagement. The mechanisms that we're using are also around the connection to wellbeing as well: are there measures that we haven't looked at to support individuals? We're doing wellbeing checking every quarter, which I think many organizations are doing, but we kind of connect it to the L&D portfolio because obviously I lead on that as well.

Teaching people to learn rather than teaching people the thing, and making sure that they're agile enough to adapt to their environments and find out what they need to know in order to deliver what they need to deliver. I think that’s pretty forward-thinking; I think organizations are getting there, but not as fast as they probably should.

It’s kind of emotional, but I'm really inspired by some other things that we do as an organization.

Full Transcript

Satnam Sagoo:
We often, as organizations, forget that people come to us with a massive skillset. And for us it's really about going, how does it work for you as an individual? How do I respect what you already bring? and we're working on a mechanism where we can support that and capture that. So for us, it's really about you come to us as a full suite as a person, so let's utilize that.

Dani Johnson:
That was Satnam Sagoo, the director of learning and organizational development at the British Red Cross. Satnam is accountable for developing and delivering the British Red Cross’s learning and organization development strategy; her role includes creating a learning and organizational development offer that meets the needs of all of their people, which has 4,000 staff and 100,000 volunteers.

Satnam Sagoo:
The difference between a humanitarian organization is that you find your way to our organization through a connection of the heart. Value to an organization like the Red Cross brings is that connection to the heart; to me, fundamentally that is the difference—that there is such a strong connection to your personal values and your heart. That's what a humanitarian organization offers outside of the normal organizations, and we have the same issues.

Dani Johnson:
We met Satnam in 2018 as a part of our engagement with the International Federation of the Red Cross: we were taking a look at their learning strategy, not just for the internal learning that happened at the Red Cross, but also how they educated their volunteers to do the most good. The most amazing thing that I think we learned is that an organization of that size with mostly volunteers had some of the very same challenges that some of the organizations that we talk to.

I think Satnam brings a really interesting perspective from a skill standpoint, but it was also an incredibly inspiring conversation.

Dani Johnson:
Satnam, welcome to Workplace Stories by RedThread Research; we’re thrilled to have you this morning.

Satnam Sagoo:
Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here!

Dani Johnson:
The first section of questions are just rapid fire questions, just to give us a sense for what you do and give our audience a sense for what you do. So the first question is, can you give us a quick overview of the British Red Cross, its mission and purpose?

Satnam Sagoo:
So the British Red Cross is one of the Red Cross and Red Crescent national societies; it’s one of 192 across the globe. We are one of the oldest we've been in formation for 151 years this year. Our overarching statement is that we connect human kindness with human crisis. Our configurement, it really is about 5,000 staff and about 20,000 volunteers who give us up to sort of 35 hours a week, if not more. Then in addition to that, because of the sort of circumstances we live in, we have really grown our light-touch volunteers, which we call ‘community reserve volunteers,’ probably around the 80,000 mark. Our kind of overarching connection with the global movement is very much that we all around the corner and across the globe.

Dani Johnson:
What do you do specifically for the Red Cross—what’s your job title, and how would you describe your work?

Satnam Sagoo:
So I am the director of learning and organization development; I am responsible for the learning and L&D aspect for all of the British Red Cross, that's from everybody who's working with us to our light-touch volunteer. So we do all of the L&D offers. Yeah, so that's kind of us in a nutshell.

Dani Johnson:
Okay! And what problems are you trying to solve?

Satnam Sagoo:
What problems aren't we trying to solve is the question, I think. We do everything from introducing the kind of basic suite for mandated training all the way to that sort of expert level of learning and specifically role-specific learning, everything in between and the developments that we have.

It's been an exceptional time for us globally. So for us at the moment, it's very much about ensuring that we are reaching out to everybody that we can reach to, and that we are supporting them. So programs that we've been involved in have been very much around that voluntary within your national community, to your domestic environment, around supporting food deliveries, vaccination, all of those things—they’ve been passed the new kind of portfolio that we've been supporting people with.

We're doing a lot of work around building that, bringing our motto about connecting human kindness, recognizing that all of us are going through crisis in a different sort of way, so our very much our training framework has been about supporting yourself first and then supporting others. And that's where we've been in the last few months and the space that we've been in the last year, definitely. Parallel to that, we are also supporting every initiative that comes out, because every initiative seems to have a learning angle attached to it—whether that's the kind of very proactive Zoom and virtual learning environment that we're all in down to bite size and down to supporting our CEO, our leadership with how to take that in. And in addition to that, I'm also the wellbeing lead for the organization, which again, brings a lot to that narrative forward.

Dani Johnson:
Right on—so you're not busy at all! Just a quick clarifying question; are you responsible for the 5,000 employees of British Red Cross as well as the 100,000 thousand volunteers there that are learning? Okay, great; what do you find the most challenging aspect of your work is?

Satnam Sagoo:
It varies on a day-to-day basis, and we've got lots of things and constantly the business's appetite to have change and continuous improvement, which often means that you need to be connected at some point. And I would say in the last couple of years, we've got much better off me being in part of that conversation, so I'm actually currently leading a change program in the people space which is looking at culture, it's lifting up skills and capabilities, it looks at retention, so it's good to have been part of that question from the very beginning.

But the other challenge, as people know, is that any development still seems to be seen as ‘training' in some aspects, which won’t be new to any of your listeners. It's not new to anybody else, our culture’s growing to accept that that's not the case. So it's supporting that, and hence very much that conversation of leading my peers and our executive leadership through all of that.

But I would say there has been a challenge within 2020 and the kind of portfolio of work that we want to achieve going forward is one of the things that is probably imperative in many people's lives, but more so within the Red Cross is what we call digital poverty. That's been a substantive part of our organization, and how do we support people who are volunteering with us and who actually don't have access to broadband—all of the areas that come on digital poverty, and in particular, the conversations that we're now having by education, you know, people, children that are able to succeed are because they’ve got those available, but that is also recognized in our work and not just volunteers, our staff.

So if you think of what we do in the refugee space, how do we support people who don't have that? We've got a quote that says, you know, we're asking people to survive on 22 UK pence a day [$0.30], and what does that look like? So that is the humanitarian challenge, and that challenge is also there for our people; our people are also at home, and any humanitarian organizations, we are not renowned for our paycheck. So again, how are we supporting our infrastructure, and we don't want to create layers of those that have technology and those don't. So it's been the one that's been our biggest challenge.

Dani Johnson:
I love that because you're supporting volunteers as well as full-time people. And sometimes we think of communities like yours, NGOs like yours, as completely different from the business world. But I'm actually hearing that challenge from a lot of business leaders as well; like not everybody has the same access to bandwidth, not everybody has the same access to technology. And so how are we solving that problem? So we're really excited to get some of your insights on that.

Let's switch gears just a little bit and talk about skills more broadly. You mentioned skills and knowledge; you know, it's a pretty broad concept, we’re doing some research on it right now—skills are just very broad. What does that word mean to you?

Satnam Sagoo:
I think in the classic sense, if we were to draw back, it's the kind of thing I wrote on my CV is probably still in a, in a version of my CV or my LinkedIn, you know, the skills that I have. And the reason I start with that is because that's probably how the world perceives skills, and when you're in this world of learning and development, it's a complete game changer, and we all know it's a multifaceted layer of how we support.

And that's where having that element of organization development is really keen to me. So I've just submitted a product page that goes to our board on Tuesday on the skills and capabilities that we need
to support our strategy for 2030, but also how do we continue to evolve in this world that is asking so much of us?

So there are portfolios of capabilities in the first instance, and they have great grand was like deductibility, empowering leadership, all of those fantastic titles. But in essence, what's needed is the infrastructure and cultural mindset to support that. And so our work is really about, we recognize that we need to be in the adaptability space and within that, there's a portfolio of skill sets. You know, there's a portfolio of skill sets from agile leadership, growth mindset, design thinking, critical thinking, you know, decision-making—all of that, that suite of things that we as L&D professionals would put under that, but what does that actually mean for everybody? And what does everybody need to know?

And if I was to really take something like adaptability, our biggest thing that we need to do is build that digital literacy in our organization. And that comes from the conversation we just had, which is around how do we support everybody, understand that level? And a great insight that we're doing is, almost to kind of say, this piece of training or learning is supported by—you know, how you're on your phone, it says is only supported by if you've got an app on iOS or Android, we want to do that kind of simple language for people, so that everybody knows. And that also from my kind of higher-up organizational perspective, we get the funding to support that, we can get the funding, that people can go and get what you're not going to have all of this old tech that doesn't support.

So that's the real granular level. And that's what we will call building sound foundations. And then we've segmented it into three phases, so building sound foundations is kind of like, just let us get the face line, right? And then there's maturing the baseline—so where do we need to be? And too often we found that skills are often something that ends up on your appraisal, you’d make tenuous links and connect it through adaptability strain.

But what we want to do is, you know, say, forget about it for year one. We're going to build the infrastructure you need year two, we need to assess you and kind of say, where are we? And it's no bad thing to be a novice or beginner. And where do we need to be as an organization ? Do we need to be at an expert level or are we effectively at that sort of beginner level?

Then that's maturing that baseline, so for us that skills portfolio has been stretched into understanding how do we implement that kind of development at infrastructure level at a cultural mindset level. And that's really when you'll get that buy-in and too often in the past, what we've done is sort of said, you need this course con decision-making. So go and do a course, tick the box. You've done the decision-making… Oh, nothing's changed in the organization. So this is really turning it on its head and kind of going, where are we culturally? Are we ready culturally? What cell culture now, what is it? If this is where we need to be, how do we get to the ‘B’?

Dani Johnson:
I liked that—I like the fact that you're flipping it on its head. It seems like a lot of organizations are able to identify the skills that they need, but they put those skills in a culture that doesn't support it, which causes it to fail.

You talked a little bit about skills and capabilities; we’ve heard a lot of conversations about skills and competencies as well. Is there a difference between those for you, or are they one and the same?

Satnam Sagoo:
I think in classic L&D language, there is a difference. Capabilities, that kind of family skills is more of that kind of, one of the elements of growing that capability. And in fact, we've got so much literature that covers that approach, so capability is very much seen—if you could grow it capability, you would grow it through the 70:10 methodology. If we were to talk about all our CVs and all our portfolios, most of us will put on a personal point, I learnt less through my academic qualification and I've learned more through my on the job experience. And so a capability has grown through that methodology just genuinely around that whole kind of area.

And even each other’s skills are broken down; so for example, if you think of something like decision-making, which we focus on quite a lot in the British Red Cross, is very much about what does that mean? What does that mean to you as a leader? What does that mean to you as an individual? And so for us, anything around equality, diversity and inclusion is part of that decision-making, and so those portfolios, each of those skills, is even broader, but for us it would be the capabilities that is the kind of overarching family that skill belongs to—and that we will endeavor to do it, deliver that through a much more blended approach.

Stacia Garr:
So I went in to connect the dots between what you're talking about, kind of broadly with skills and specifically the mission around human kindness with human crisis. So what role do you see skills playing in the operations and mission of the Red Cross specifically?

Satnam Sagoo:
Ultimately, we're an organization that's supported by donor funding. And what we see is that, as with every organization, we want to be able to deliver more with what we've got. We've been fortunate that during this time that we’ve been supported continuously from our donors and government, but we still want to be able to do that, and ultimately the goal of the organization is that purpose is efficiency in its broadest sense, but the reason behind that is so that we can reach more people. We need to be more aware of how many people we can reach, and as we go into the kind of fallout of what 2020 and 21 has seen to be, we know that our services will continue to be needed more and more. So for us, the whole upskilling and supporting our people is very much around how much more are we able to do with that resource—we want to make the organization efficient, so that doesn't necessarily mean in different ways, but we want to be able to utilize our resource. So really for us, it is being able to be the best we can to support those people in crisis.

Stacia Garr:
And to maybe build on what I think I heard you say, it sounds like there may be a sense that with Red Cross, particularly because you can have so many volunteers who are donating their time, that there may not be kind of a big focus on, for lack of a better term, it's almost skill efficiency, which we certainly do have in the, in the private sector. But it sounds like they're very much so because, you know, just like any other organization you're constrained by resources and you're also constrained by people's sense of impact. And they want to be making an impact with the skills that they're contributing, so it sounds like there's some of the same constraints around skills and aligning to mission that we hear kind of in the traditional corporate sector.

Satnam Sagoo:
Yeah, definitely. And I would say that we're no different from any other large organization of our size. The difference between a humanitarian organization is that you find your way to our organization through your connection of the heart, that value like an organization like the Red Cross brings is that connection to the heart.

And we have so many applications and I could talk about, you know, I was helped by the Red Cross I've met and my team takes pictures of wherever they see a Red Cross sign. So again, I think to me fundamentally, that is the difference—that there is such a strong connection to your personal values and your heart; that’s what a humanitarian organization offers outside of the normal organizations. And we have the same issues.

We also have some areas that, you know, we are supported by volunteers, but one of the things that we do as an organization is often think of them or anybody joining us as an organizer, as an empty vessel: you come to us, a bit like the Men in Black pen, someone wipes your brain out at Reception, you come through and then we upskill you. We forget you come with a commodity of a vast array of skills; that’s why we hired you, that's why you're supporting us—all of those things that we so much want to look for people, and we don't have a way of actually capturing that; we don't have a way of supporting that as a network. We have a phenomenal amount of people that come join us.

So a classic example of late, where we began to turn that around in the head is we've had to make all our buildings, which is not, I'm sure it's the same for many people, COVID-safe, and we have a very small health and safety team. So what we did was we actually wrote to people and said, is there anybody in the organization, within our staff and volunteers who has health and safety background, current kind of accreditation, all of that. And we had all 40 volunteers who had, who had run health and safety teams, and we were directors of health and safety, and they just said, of course I'll do this!

So we often as organizations forget that people come to us with a massive skillset. And for us, it's really about going, how does it work for you as an individual? How do I respect what you already bring? And we're working on a mechanism where we can support that and capture that. So for us, it's really about you coming to us as a full suite person—so let's utilize that.

Chris Pirie:
Can I ask a question here? I'm really fascinated about the difference between if there is a difference between engaging and working with volunteers versus employees—and you do both, so you have a sort of unique view into that. There's something from the corporate world that makes me anxious about the lack of command and control, and I use those words very advisedly! Do you get volunteers who just say at the end of the day, look, I'm sorry, I can't do this, I'm walking away: what’s your observations on the different modes of engagement between a volunteer workforce in a paid workforce?

Satnam Sagoo:
I think in the paid workforce, you always have the carrot and stick kind of approach that you can do. Thankfully, we do very little of the stick, I would say in the BRC which is always a positive; we can reach those people and we can get to them, we'd get information out. And then with volunteers, each individual is different. Some join us because they want a spirit of community and they want to be part of a team, some join us because they have a small amount of time available they want to use up, and then we have these layers of infrastructure people who fall in between.

What we have found, particularly because I'm analyzing my space, is we are looking at what we call collectively the people experience or the people's journey into the organization. And that's where we have the things that apply to everybody; it doesn't matter if you're a volunteer or a member of staff, and then the things that are sort of slightly different, which is the volunteer experience and the staff experience.

And what we have found is that through the organization, in what a volunteer wants from us is one point of contact, which we don't do; sometimes they might get 18 emails from different people in an organization where it says, do this, do that. In the learning experience, point to gate, they get lots of handoffs, and if you are already giving one day of your time a month, what you don't want is a deluge of stuff—what you want is one connection.

And that's what we get the most; we get please, make it simple, relevant to me, and then give me some sort of platform or an opportunity where I can go in and learn better. And our volunteers vote with their feet; If I don't like something, I can just go, I will go—I‘ll write to the CEO and then go, that’s a different conversation in its entirety—but I think it is what we all want; we want that great customer service, and we are growing, and that's one of the must-do skill sets that we want to ensure is that everybody gets a good customer service, internal and external, but recognizing that people have come to you as a volunteer because they've got an allegiance above anything else to this wonderful organization. And some will only want to learn a little bit; they’ll only want to know what's specific for their role; others will want to grow, and want to be part of that team. So it's really individual, but it's very much for us it’s supporting that people experience.

Dani Johnson:
I think it's a really interesting sentiment. I know we've talked about this before, we were all in Switzerland a couple of years ago and we talked about some of the similarities between the Red Cross and working for a volunteer organization and working for the private sector, but kind of what you said, just drove that home.

We also work with organizations who are trying to provide a single point of contact, as you said through a lot of them are doing it through technology, but that's what individuals want and their learning experience is, Hey, tell me what I need to know and make it easier for me to find stuff and let me learn on my own. And I'll rise to the level that's appropriate for me and my role, or I'll rise to the level that's appropriate for me in my career. I think it's really interesting that even though the Red Cross may not use all of the technology that a lot of these organizations do to accomplish the same thing, the need is the same, which is striking to me.

Satnam Sagoo:
And I think it's that there are words that we now use too much, and I think it's that having that empowered individual and often what we do is our infrastructure takes away that power, and then people begin to lose that instinct. So we go from a kind of very much a proactive learner, to a much more culture of can't do/won’t do, because we haven't supported people on that journey. Nobody turns up at your doorstep in an organization as an empty vessel, and nobody turns up to work intent to do a bad job. And in essence, that’s the heart of it, and we need to build as organizations, we need to build on that and to empower people and create a culture of that empowerment and where people can sustain, but often all organizations put in these barriers that disempower people, and we get a culture of helplessness.

Dani Johnson:
That's really interesting, and I’m not sure I've ever put it together exactly like that, but some of the ways that we've done learning in the past have disempowered people; they've come to depend on the organization and expect the organization to spoon feed them, whereas most people learn naturally. And so if we could feed that from the beginning, we wouldn't have some of the problems that we currently have.

Satnam Sagoo:
We've probably all been guilty of developing products like that, as well as just click here, do that three times over. It's also very human nature; we had a team of people who was supporting Reception, and someone would say, where are the bathrooms? And you'd get one of my Reception people would pretty much take you there, walk you to it, and then another would sit back and go you go down there, turn left, and you realize the different type of person they were.

And actually I would use that; that was one of my fundamental examples I used because it's so easy besides that one was empowering. One was seen as the most helpful because they took you there, but you wouldn't find your way again, cause you have to go through multiple layers of doors. So it's that style that we naturally fall to as well. We talk about empowering our people. But too often, we have created a culture of learning helpfulness because we've said, let me make it that easy for you that you don't even have to think.

Stacia Garr:
Yeah, I like that a lot. I'd love to turn us a little bit back specifically to this skills topic, and maybe kind of raise this up a little bit. I want to kind of begin at one level and then we'll maybe dive down a little bit more deeply; we’re obviously doing this podcast called The Skills Obsession, and I have a question which is your take on why skills as a topic is so hot right now. Why are we talking about this—all of us in the industry, not just us here on the podcast?

Satnam Sagoo:
I think it's because we've hit that wall of helplessness. So we've now got to this notion that actually what they're missing is this still, we haven't addressed the culture, but saying what they're missing is a skill. So of course, L&D that's your game, isn't it, that's what you do. So what you're going to do is you're going to give me a skills framework, you're going to take into that culture and you're going to build this skill for me because in two years time, they'll all come out and it’ll be fantastic. Won’t they?

But nobody’s spoken to L&D, but we're all building frameworks—I’m sure all of you are—and we're going, what? This is how we're going to fit in. Ultimately, we need to address how we are treating our people. Are we empowering them or taking that power away? And these obsession with skills is because five people can't work Zoom, they can't do this, or they can't do that, and now all of a sudden we've had this pandemic, it's requiring us to work in an agile and growth mindset: you’re hearing those words, aren't you, my skills, my looks at the same, you know, decision-making, design thinking or design thinking is another one, critical thinking, strategic thinking,—you know, all of these great titles and why are we doing that? Have I suddenly lost all ability to do any skills? Have we lost the ability to suddenly do online shopping. We've all done it, we’re all adapting, so I think it's really about how do we well skiing because of the recent kind of pandemic, which is only really, if you think about it, it's been a 12 month journey and we're all asking people to change their ecosystem, their behavior, their culture, by upskilling them. Now some will be ahead of the curve and already up-skilled, but actually you're not going to get to the majority, and you're going to have to say, the skilling is there, we will support you, but there is an element of change that we need to bring for everybody. That’s my kind of thinking,

Dani Johnson:
Can I ask you, Satnam, do you think sort of the skills thing is a trend, or is it just relabelling a problem that we’ve always had?

Satnam Sagoo:
So it's the Trojan Horse, you know, that's what it is; it’s been there always, you know, the growth for the people's family, HR learning and development has been massive, but what we didn't grow is the ability to say no. And we've always said yes—anybody who's in the people space of that HR family never says no to the leaders, because we're so scared that if we say no, they won't come back to us, and this is the first time that top tables are talking to us. So we want to say, yes, we want to give them what they want to give.

But we want to also say, actually now is the time to have that conversation. Is it a skill—and we know that skills are changing rapidly, what we were learning two years ago is now not needed. So how are we gonna address them? So, yeah, I think there is a trend and we're scared to push back and myself included. I'm not gonna say I do that, but I think we need to bring that I'm joyful that we have organizational development as part of my role, but we need to bring that bedrock with it.

Stacia Garr:
Where I was going to go is maybe a little bit of a pushback on that. Not that I disagree with anything you've said, but I think there may be something bigger also happening, which is through the example of the Receptionist, right? I think that for many years—decades, really—our thinking has been, particularly as it is with regard to skills, we'll show you what to do. Then you just do it, like the Receptionist who takes you to the bathroom. And fundamentally, we've kind of moved to this economy where we need people to give them some direction and for them to go find the bathroom.

There’s only a small portion of the population that we've focused on, on developing that capability, and so all of this stuff, I think may just be a proxy for enabling a broader portion of the population to find the bathroom on their own. So maybe it isn't just relabelling it—maybe it is kind of more about this enabling of what it is that we're asking people to do. And if we haven't been asking them to do it and to have those structures in place for 20, 30, 50 years, however long, they're going to need some guidance—potentially.

Satnam Sagoo:
I would fundamentally agree with you. And I think I use marketing analogies quite a lot in the work that we do, because I think they know how to target you all. When we all walk into a shop or when we do walk into a shop for the online mechanisms that we used for, we want to be signposted. But the click that we do to buy, to put in our shopping trolley or the patches that we do physically is where we are empowered ourselves to do it, but what we want is that lovely signposting that says all of the books on, I don't know, geography or in this area that's labeled well, you know. A lot of people have talked about that curated learning experience to me, that's, you know, that is the signposting—and what our people experience tells us is firstly, when you overs signpost or tell me that, tell it puts me off because you're not treating me like I've got my own initiative, but then I turn up in a room, there’s no signposting, so you do too much in the beginning and then you leave me stranded.

I didn't know why that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to help all people be that signposting, that curated journey. And the nudge approach is also working with us. And so I can tell you that we had a piece of work, which was just looking at our mandated training and we weren't able to get the compliance high and we couldn't understand why everybody needed it. And then we got to go out to people and said, why isn't this working for you? You know, why aren't you doing it? And I would say that the majority of people, about 70% said, I thought I had done it. So I know I once told me what the suit was. And I think it's almost thought that bit of work that you do use, you read it so many times that you can't see your own gaps. And in a way, we also need to take a sight of what is our role, my role and my team's role.

So again, I think that signposting is really important, which is, you know, the experience we should get from anything that we do in all our lives, really.

Stacia Garr:
One of the themes that we've seen in the skills discussion is kind of her and we've talked about now is around supply and demand—so this idea that we do have some deficiencies in some skill sets and over-abundance and others. How do you think we should be kind of thinking about this holistically?

Satnam Sagoo:
There's something that we did this year, which I'm happy to say more of the data with you, which was that when we went into the UK first Lockdown, there was an appetite to support people with wellbeing, support people with their learning, support leaders, support their managers, you know, you can see the portfolio growing. And what we did as my team was flooding the market—we gave them every option they could possibly want and we allowed choice, but we allowed that choice, we allowed a streaming of trimming it down to what was really needed. And we didn't become precious about our material, because we got someone else to build the initial first round. Often when you're a small team, a learning and development team, you spend months developing something—and when it doesn't work, it's kind of pride and ego in a way that takes over because you don't hours of hard work that you do not want to, what you really want me to remove that slide that I spent 15 hours trying to save so much emotional attachment with all our products.

And in a way, we removed the emotional attachment. We bought in an expert in that area, and he created a portfolio of products that they had, that they could create, and we created a choice. And then those that were the most high-hitting we did in-house, we built those and we built, we kind of continued to evolve them. Each of our sessions is supported by what we call the Living Program. So the living program is very much around evaluation, both immediate off the sheet, got the happy sheets kind of process, and then kind of a couple of weeks and like, have you applied for it? If you haven't, why haven't you applied it? So the Living Program is almost that need not to kind of visit a product in two years time, it's more need to do it here and now, but we took to it, the product development side of it because we needed a menu very quickly so that people could pick and choose, and then when we got that menu a bit more refined that's when we took it in-house.

And so my experience of this is bringing in someone who doesn't have the emotional connection to it, get them to do that early work so if it didn't work, it didn't work. And then you can have a much stronger connection with the relevant products.

Chris Pirie:
That's interesting—it’s sort of easier to experiment if it's somebody else's work, and you can observe dispassionately, measure the data and see what happens. I have a quick question where you said you'd submitted your paper on your skill strategy for 2023, I think you said: how do you think the conversation is going to go with leaders? And have you had any feedback yet? These are questions that we're all struggling with a little bit. Do you think leaders are in a position to engage in really useful dialogue around this topic?

Satnam Sagoo:
What I'm submitting next week is the kind of completion of the change design phase; our overarching change program is called Fit for the Future. And I would say the fact that we're doing this, that we're looking through that microscopic lens, and in particular, the focus that we beat on what is the as is, is that our leaders may not necessarily be comfortable, but they are happy to investigate it. They’ve said, we know there are areas of improvement. So we need to hear this, as is because some areas aren't working some phenomenally good at this.So yes, I would say definitely the British Red Cross, our board and our executive leadership is very keen to have this. They've seen versions up until now So they know where we're coming. We even did a kind of, we applied the Dreyfus capability model to kind of give them a level of maturity as well, recognizing the limitations of that product.

And again, we've been talking about change for a long time, but there is an element of that we really want to get it right this time around. And not really sings true cause I lead a wellbeing, so we've had lots of feedback about how our managers are feeling. And we had 93% of managers tell us that they were having check-ins, that they felt the organization was more honest than it's ever been through it's communications, and that people are sharing more about their life, and that was really useful.

And you know, people were talking about how my child has cut my hair, so excuse what it looks like to the kind of, you know, I've had something really horrendous happen in my life, or I need to take time out. And in a way this world that we've lived in that's allowed us to go into your home, has allowed us maybe to drop that guard—that you know, that kind of, I need to be a certain way. So I would say that through this journey, we've learned a lot of that positive feedback about just being real, tell me as it is, has really helped. And I think our leadership is very much like how do we capitalize on that, because that did really work. So come and tell us where the barriers are and we want to learn and work with you.

Dani Johnson:
One of the conversations that always comes up when we talk about skills and capabilities or competencies or whatever you want to call them, is the data surrounding those, because the data helps us make inferences and it also helps us sort of intersect with some of those other things. And one of the things that we're seeing, interestingly, that skills are intersecting with is diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. So I’d love to understand how you're thinking about skills in the access to the data about skills and how that impacts diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Satnam Sagoo:
Oh, you didn't use my favorite sentence that comes with that normally, which is return on investment: don’t you just love that one?

I’m an epidemiologist by background, that’s a different life long time ago, but I love data. So it's not something. And often when we think about metrics and what we're measuring, my question is why are we measuring it? And that's what I always say to my team. My team dreads it. I say, don't tell me that you've got great Excel skills because Oh, you can do power BI. Everybody loves a power BI dashboard up to my minimize anymore. You know, you can do a great dashboard, but what are you telling me?

And within our metrics, the things that we're using is obviously the kind of who's done it and not done it, you know, that sort of stuff, but also the engagement and the repeated engagement. The mechanisms that we're using are around also the connection to wellbeing as well. Are their measures that we haven't looked on to support individuals? We’ve now introduced that airport checking, you know, you go in or you have pizza today, so we're doing wellbeing checking every quarter, which I think many organizations are doing, but we kind of connect it to the L&D portfolio because obviously I lead on that as well. So we're trying to connect where that journey is, our happiness connected to the metrics that we're measuring, so that we've layered that happiness metric, but how are you as an individual feeling how you supported and how does that connect with how much learning and development that you are able to do at this very moment?

I'm sure in many parts of the world, we've got people who are now homeschooling managing three of the people in the office, and if I expect them to suddenly go off and do their whole suite of mandated training because they didn't do it. And of course we've had those emails being sent to them, you know, thou shall do this or thy system will be disconnected, but way we've found that we've got a small percentage that we, we need to find out why, and could they have a huddle, which is someone just calling them. We’ve also tried to connect return on investment; one of the things we've also set up an in-house support nine for all Red Cross people to understand how they're being impacted by the pandemic. So again, we ease different layers of metrics. So we want to give you the complete picture of an individual and the complete picture of the organization.

Dani Johnson:
Well kind of along with that, one of the other big conversations we're hearing is this idea of skills credentialing or skills verification—like, you say you have this skill, but do you really have this skill?

Lots of organizations are struggling with that, and I wonder, two questions, first of all, how is the British Red Cross handling that? And the second thing is, does it vary between your employees and your volunteers?

Satnam Sagoo:
So it's good because we're going to introduce a digital passport this year. There's two facets to that; firstly, we kind of had so many old systems that we're bringing together, so record loss and everything else. And also in the wider UK kind of context is we've got lots of volunteers who volunteer for many different organizations, and there are significant transferable skills. What happens is they'll go and volunteer for say Amnesty, and then they'll come to volunteer for us, and we'll make them do the same thing—we’ll make them do like an information governance, we’ll make them do all of that. So we've got an ask within the organization around looking at what that means. So that's all kinds of first approach to it. And our first approach to that is going to be you itself telling us what you've got, all my stock, not LinkedIn's approach of kind of being what you've got: if you've got a certificate, as you put that in. And then our view is the moment. This is our view that as it is, when we need a bit, like I said, the example of the health and safety question, and that's to staff and volunteers, we may have credentials that point when we ask for it, so that's all first kind of interpretation. We haven't drilled down any farther on the kind of key skills and capabilities that we want to support. We will have different markers, but on that kind of passporting, we want to empower individuals, but that in, and when those opportunities come, we then could they to the level they're at and kind of go, you've turned up really keen, and so we all testing that approach with a group, for people that we are going to call the change influences, and that's thought to take forward the change program.

Dani Johnson:
That's really interesting, so right now you're using some sort of self-verification. Talk to me a little bit about this digital passport you mentioned; is it for the British Red Cross or is it BRC, or more broadly?

Satnam Sagoo:
So for now we're going to be testing it in the British Red Cross. We are working as an organization to test it within ourselves, but in the UK, so outside of the kind of Red Cross family; we're going to test it within the voluntary sector so that volunteers across the UK don't feel like they have to duplicate. So there are layers, which is a kind of national level that we're doing with the volunteer board, but all of the UK. And then there's obviously us testing out in the organization.

Dani Johnson:
I think we're getting close to time. So in the British Red Cross, sort of broadly, what are some of the skills that are quite unquote ‘hot’ right now?

Satnam Sagoo:
I think definitely that sort of agile mindset—it’s really having that. And there is a change in capability build which we're looking at and we’re looking at the narrative of that. And then area of that, we've done a commitment to, so the British Red Cross has committed to being at an anti-racist organization, and that has meant that our portfolio of equality, diversity and inclusion has grown and I can send some stuff through you about that, but that's been really inspiring to see challenging all of the above—it’s been really interesting to see that growth.

Adaptability as our kind of whole thing is massive now about how do we kind of bring that in? And then we are still at the ground, we’re still doing that whole kind of digital data literacy. What does it mean? And one that's coming up that we haven't seen for a while, but it's revisiting and I've heard from other colleagues in different organizations is about succession planning—that kind of whole driver around succession and developing professions as well. So those are kind of our hot topics.

Dani Johnson:
I think it's interesting that you mentioned agility, and the kind of the way that you're handling learning within the organization seems to speak to that. So you talked a lot about, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but teaching people to learn rather than teaching people the thing, and making sure that they're agile enough to adapt to their environments and find out what they need to know in order to deliver what they need to deliver. I think that’s pretty forward-thinking; I think organizations are getting there, but not as fast as they probably should.

So just to wrap up, is there anything else we should have asked you about that we didn't?

Satnam Sagoo:
My portfolio has grown so much that I kind of feel like there's areas that we could talk about different elements on this so much. We all still growing; as I said, the EDI portfolio, the wellbeing experience, the fear that if we send out a survey now that we've gone into our third lockdown we won't get the high results we got in the last one one—you know, all of those things that are the kind of worry of a person who leads on any of the learning stuff. So yeah, I mean, I think we've covered a lot.

Dani Johnson:
Yeah, we definitely have. Two more questions; how can people connect with you and your work?

Satnam Sagoo:
Quite simple. They can either go through my LinkedIn profile, which is readily available, or they can even contact me at British Red Cross: that's fine.

Dani Johnson:
Perfect. And then the last question, and this is a question that Chris taught us to ask that we love, and it's one that I think is particularly pertinent to you: why do you do what you do?

Satnam Sagoo:
Because I'm a lifelong learner. and where else would I want to be? And that's really it. I'm a classic 45-year old person that is in that kind of area of life where I've done my two career changes—I’m textbook! But ultimately I'm a lifelong learner, and where would we want to be but leading this journey?

Dani Johnson:
Thank you, Satnam, so much for your time; it's been a fascinating discussion.

Chris Pirie:
Thanks for everything you do, Satnam—thanks for all your work; I can't imagine how busy you've been over the last 14 months!

Satnam Sagoo:
I was up till three am like Monday and Tuesday just finishing this thing off. It’s kind of emotional, but I'm really inspired by some other things that we do as an organization.

Chris Pirie:
We are very grateful to Workday for their exclusive sponsorship of this first season of the RedThread Research podcast. Today, the world is changing faster than ever, and you can meet those changing needs with Workday; it’s one agile system that enables you to grow and re-skill your workforce. Workday is a financial, HR and planning system for a changing world.

Workday will also host an exclusive live webinar towards the end of the season where you can meet the team Dani, Stacia and myself, and join in a conversation about the future of skills and skills management. You can find out more information and access exclusive content at www.workday.com/skills.