As a 22-year-old man who’d just completed his college degree, Shashank Bhushan believed at the time that he understood everything he would need to thrive in his professional life. “I thought, ‘I’ve studied it all and I know it all,’” said the chief talent development architect and VP of HR at BMC Software. “I never realized that learning is a process that really never ends.”

Bhushan, who later saw the light, made his observation as part of a From Day One panel discussion, “Focusing on Skills, Rather Than Jobs, to Meet Future Workforce Needs.” When applied to talent management today, an outlook on long-term learning such as his can be a key driver of employee retention. According to a September 2022 study from LinkedIn, companies that provide professional-development opportunities and optimize internal-talent mobility retain employees for an average of 5.4 years, which is nearly double the rate of companies that struggle in this area.

Learning, particularly in the form of upskilling or reskilling, keeps employees engaged, the study notes. But perhaps even more vitally, learning also prepares organizations for prospective shifts in production requirements and desired outcomes. “The work is just changing so rapidly,” said Carly Ackerman, director of customer experience for VIP accounts and partnerships at Eightfold, an AI-driven workforce growth platform. “It’s becoming increasingly important for us to be able to evaluate the likelihood of an individual with the skills of today to be able to rescale or upskill successfully and apply those skills that they have today to a new context tomorrow.”

Added Bhushan: “In today’s world, where the evolution of work is happening much more rapidly than before, the skills become obsolete that much faster. The goalposts will keep on moving as time progresses.”

But how can employers anticipate those skills and then align employees with opportunities for upskilling and reskilling? What are the best ways to anticipate future roles, so that career paths and succession plans can be put into place? The four expert panelists, in conversation moderated by Lydia Dishman, senior editor at Fast Company, outlined some strategies. A few important takeaways:

Fall Back on Your Company Mission

Keeping in mind a given organization’s primary goals can help ground its learning and development (L&D) programming. “It’s important that you look at: Why are you there? Why does your organization or company exist? What’s the mission? What is the vision?” said Carmen Canales, chief people and belonging officer for Novant Health, a North Carolina-based health care system. “For us, it’s quite simple: We are here to serve the patients–and that really gives us clarity around what are the things that are key.”

Canales said in the case of Novant Health workers, speed is oftentimes critical in making sure patients and their families have what they need.

Ensure Workers Produce at the ‘Top of Their License’

A worker’s rate of productivity can be optimized by bringing greater efficiency to their daily responsibilities. Canales said at Novant Health they have examined duties carried out by registered nurses, for example, and figured out how some of them can be “supplemented” by other staffers.

“Things as simple as taking out the garbage from the room takes time from the clinically talented person,” Canales observed. “It’s really using people in what we call at the ‘top of their license.’ In our brand, it’s registered nurses doing registered-nurse things, and us looking at what other roles are still fulfilling and exciting and important that don’t quite require that level of education or experience.”

Identify ‘Adjacent’ And ‘Timeless’ Skills

Having workers stay in their lanes and leverage their current skills will boost daily productivity. But in strategizing for more long-term workforce sustainability–a necessity considering the talent shortage in many industries–a broader approach is required.

A company’s employee management team wants to “certainly understand the most top, in-demand skills of today, but make sure you’re prepared to understand those skills’ adjacencies,” said Ackerman, “so that you can really help yourself and your people be prepared for whatever the next set of top skills might be.”

Jed Davis, VP of organizational development and learning at NCH Corp., a Texas-based global provider of industrial-maintenance solutions, observed that, in service to customers, businesses can easily get “stuck in a loop where you’re reacting instead of anticipating.” Too often, companies develop tools and training programs to fix the problems of today, but just as they’re being rolled out, they may not be as relevant anymore.

“So one of the things that we’ve been focused on is trying to really zero in on some of the timeless skills, those things that we feel like will help us regardless of the occasion over the next five to 10 years,” Davis said. “In doing so, that creates the space and also the credibility and the trust to talk about what’s on the horizon and do a better job partnering with our businesses.”

As Ackerman noted, these “adjacent skills” and “timeless skills” can vary in terms of desirability, as they’re dependent upon many factors, such as the type of industry in which a company operates. But one area that can be a focus for talent managers are the soft skills their workers and potential candidates may bring to the proverbial table. Soft skills are “extremely transferable” and “potentially predictive of success,” Dishman observed, while noting they are more difficult to teach.

“Technology skills can be learned, and [oftentimes] they die off or migrate into some other alternative skills rather quickly today,” Bhushan said. However, “if the person has the ability to adapt, there is resilience, there is the ability to persevere,” he added, that worker is probably going to prove adaptable and be someone who can remain on a team through inevitable changes in a given industry’s landscape and job expectations.

Leverage Technology

There is technology that can help companies identify needed skills of the future. Ackerman discussed how Eightfold has been able to harness the power of AI to do so. “It’s really incredible the amount of data that we’ve been sharing, capturing, aggregating across so many different resources,” she said. “We can scrape publicly available data and start to understand the shape of where there are some real skills penetration within different industries. Ten years ago, we certainly wouldn’t have had a study hitting your inbox on a random Tuesday telling you what the top skills are.”

At Novant Health, Canales said they are using AI technology to “supplement people, not replace people,” as part of an effort to “get really creative” in the face of a talent shortage. One way this initiative has manifested is in the use of tablet-based, language-translation apps in lieu of real-person interpreters on the job. “We also are taking advantage of predictive tools so that we can be a little bit more precise about staffing and understanding where our peaks are likely to be,” Canales said.

And with the normalizing of remote-work tools throughout the pandemic, Canales said the current technological landscape provides “an opportunity to even think beyond our borders, to consider international hiring, to understand what is the work involved in operating in a different footprint that you may have operated in because there’s a whole wealth of talent out there in the world beyond where you may currently be operating.”

Reexamine Job Descriptions

Repositioning hiring officers to seek out skill sets as opposed to job experience starts with a reexamination of job descriptions in help-wanted ads. “What usually happens is, when the hiring managers are filling up these descriptions, they’re looking at the skills they already have in the [talent] groups,” said Bhushan. “So we do not have a very sound methodology of forecasting and saying, ‘What are the evolution of the skills that we are really looking for?’”

When a company loses an employee and is looking to backfill the position, Bhutan said, they should ask: “Do I really need to backfill that position with the same set of skills that we had in the past, or do we need to look in the future and say, ‘This is what I really need.’ And that’s a constant struggle.”

Reformatting job descriptions in such a way that compels candidates to apply based on their skills as opposed to past experience will prove valuable and widen the pool of options. “We’re going to see more organizations thinking more deeply about the work that needs to get done,” said Ackerman, “and the outcomes that the organization is trying to drive, because that is what’s going to help you create your roadmap for where you are today and where you need to get to from a skills perspective to drive those outcomes and to deliver that value that you want to drive.”

Make the Time for Learning

If a company is going to dedicate itself to upskilling and reskilling, it must recognize that the learning won’t manifest spontaneously. At a foundational level, it will take time and resources that, on the surface, might not seem available with employees already maxed out with responsibilities. But that shouldn’t stop the process.

“You need to revisit the current workload, you’ve got to make space,” said Canales. “This shouldn’t feel like a burdensome, extra thing [for workers].” Removing tasks from workers dedicated to learning is a must if they’re going to get the upskilling and reskilling they want and may be required.

“We find time to watch Netflix, right?” added Bhushan. “Why wouldn’t we find time for learning? If learning and building your skills for the future are the fuels for your own career, you find time for it.”

Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.

Support the Change: Why Menopause Should Be Part of Your Women’s Health Strategy

Did you know that signs of perimenopause can start appearing in women of childbearing age? Many of us are lacking crucial knowledge that can help us or our women colleagues navigate this time in their lives.Offering solutions to improve and support needs specific to women can also be an important factor to retention. But a new survey reports that only 1% of US women have menopause support as part of their employee sponsored benefits. What’s more, according to a new survey, 85% of women said they don’t know enough about menopause, and 83% experiencing menopause report that their symptoms impact their ability to work.During a From Day One webinar, panelists shared how employers can better support women experiencing the change, and the impact it can have on productivity, medical spend and retention.Often, the concept of “women’s healthcare” ends with postpartum. But Dr. Leslie Saltzman, chief medical officer at Ovia Health, says health care support for women of all ages is vital. “It’s so important to support women who are experiencing perimenopause and menopause because the symptoms aren’t just a nuisance. Evolving evidence is showing that severe menopausal symptoms, which impact a great portion of our population, also have long term health effects and accelerate cardiovascular disease and impact brain health. They’re having lots of negative impact in terms of quality of life and performance at work. We see women dropping out of the workforce just because of the symptoms that they're having,” Dr. Saltzman said.Juliet Vestal, corporate vice president, total rewards at B. Braun, says 50% of their workforce is women. “As our workforce continues to age, these are issues that we know are not being supported within the community by providers. And so we need to find solutions to help,” she said.Even younger employees are starting to ask about these topics, despite perceived taboos, says Melanie Baxter, director of global well-being at Alorica. “As a collective we stop women’s health awareness at motherhood. Opening a space of easy dialogue about any health issues when we're in the workspace can create a much happier workforce, can create longevity and can increase retention. It’s also just the right thing to do,” Baxter said. “It’s a way to communicate with our employees that, ‘Hey, you matter to us.’”Lisa Hammond, CHRO at Veradigm, says that she is answering the relatively recent call from employees to address this issue by providing webinars on the topic. “For me right now, it’s thinking about, how do we articulate menopause to our leadership, which is largely male, and help them get context for this in a way that’s not overly clinical or overly emotional, so that they can gain an understanding and become allies with us as we move through this next phase of our benefits programs and our culture internally,” Hammond said.Breaking Barriers to Healthcare AccessThere are a few issues that make it hard for women to get accurate and helpful information about menopause, says Dr. Saltzman. She cites a study from the Women's Health Initiative that “has been widely criticized [and] created a lot of fear” around the standard of care for menopause.The panelists spoke about the importance of menopause support in the workplace (photo by From Day One)This includes hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which is again now generally considered to be effective, though the stigma remains. Doctors also primarily experience “hospital-based training” tied to birth, and are less prepared for the one-on-one intimate office conversations necessary to discuss menopause. And lastly, the current shortage of primary care physicians means “we don’t have enough providers who are trained to be able to support the needs of women who are experiencing these symptoms,” Saltzman said. And when they do find a provider who can help, Vestal added, “there’s a six to eight month waiting period to get in.”Another part of the problem is the stigma and discomfort associated with simply talking about menopause. “For so many years, menopause and the symptoms were seen as, “a part of life and you just need to get over it and deal with it,’” said moderator Alice Park, senior health correspondent at TIME. “Are we getting close to really treating it as a medical condition in the same way that we treat conditions that affect men?”The unfortunate answer: yes and no. “Anyone who has experienced these symptoms themselves knows that this is not a psychological thing, and this isn’t something to be solved by dressing in layers or using a fan at night. But I still think that there’s a huge gap and lack of appropriate research,” Saltzman said. “As long as this market continues to grow, [with] more and more data supporting how important it is to treat women, there will be more and more solutions.”That means employers can help move the cause forward simply by being willing to address it. “The less we talk about something, the less people are likely to research it. My simple advice is to talk about it,” Baxter said. Since employees may be ashamed to bring it up themselves, leaders need to be proactive in making the service available to employees first, so they feel comfortable coming forward.Providing the Appropriate SupportProviding inclusive healthcare support that addresses menopause can make a workforce happier and more productive. “By not addressing these issues, people are suffering in silence and people are missing work,” Vestal said. The more employees and leaders are educated about the topic, the more they will be empathetic in their responses and in providing adequate support and planning. Additionally, Hammond says, the information will even be helpful to male employees whose partners or family members may be experiencing symptoms.A single point solution may not work for most organizations. “The experience of menopause varies dramatically from individual to individual, even when it starts,” Dr. Saltzman said. For some, it starts in their 50s, but others in their 40s, even those trying to conceive may experience symptoms. Therefore, raising awareness in general is most helpful, as is making sure there is access to healthcare providers with the appropriate training, including telehealth for easy access.Bringing in speakers is also beneficial. But be wary, as there’s a lot of misinformation. “If you’re looking for those resources, if you’re looking on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, make sure this is a licensed physician,” Baxter said.Especially given recent political developments in the U.S., panelists agree women’s healthcare education is more crucial than ever. “It’s a perilous time,” Hammond said. “We want to do everything we can within our organization to support women in making sure that, no matter what political party we are, we’re all humans. We all have bodies. We all should be able to maintain and enjoy power over our own beings.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Ovia Health, for sponsoring this webinar. Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

How to Use Skills Data to Power Development and Achieve Business Objectives

The skills required for success are constantly evolving and organizations are struggling to adapt without clear visibility of the strengths and skills gaps in their workforce. This uncertainty leaves talent management and employee development journeys to guesswork, resulting in lost opportunities and strategic missteps. Being armed with skills data and then acting on it is a key strategy to keeping employees happy, loyal, and developing.Organizations that utilize data about their talent's skills, or catalog and organize the skills workers currently possess, as well as identify the skills needed for future roles, are actively preparing their workforce to tackle new challenges as they arise. During a From Day One webinar, leaders discussed how talent skills data can transform your approach to talent management.As a first step, companies must identify which skills are the most relevant to their business’ present and future, the panelists shared. This decision should not be made just by HR, senior leaders, and stakeholders, but by employees at other levels too, says Marquisa Nash, Head of HR, performance materials at BASF. “[There might be a gap between] what leadership thinks is important and what people think is important,” Nash said.Tomislav Vujec, director of learning at Red Hat, says it’s easier for HR to get a buy-in from business leaders when discussing employee skills as opposed to competencies. “We get to be closer to their problems and we open a door to validate what we can actually do, which is develop a skill. As opposed to risking too much by promising a business change, which often does not only depend on the skill being developed, but other factors,” he said.The rapid changes brought about by the pandemic also emphasized the need to focus on skill-building, says Didem Onem, Head of TA operations and programs at Eaton Corporation. “That made us look at our talent and skills availability and ask ‘where are we headed – and are we ready for that?’ It meant bringing a new type of talent into the organization,” she said. For Eaton, this meant an initiative for upskilling in digitization techniques so that employees would be more prepared for a digital way of doing business. Her team mapped out the new skills plan based on manager feedback, honest self-assessments, and forecasted what would be needed down the line.Those self-assessments, though, can be tricky. “Oftentimes people are not terribly good at assessing their own levels of facility with certain things,” said moderator Lydia Dishman, senior editor for growth and engagement at Fast Company. “Is there a way to make sure that what people are reporting is actually where they are?”The panel of industry leaders spoke about "How to Use Skills Data to Power Development and Achieve Business Objectives" in a session moderated by Lydia Dishman of Fast CompanyLarger companies, especially, must work hard to not lose track of each individual’s growth. “With 600,000 employees all around the globe, it’s hard to know who can do what and what they are good at,” said Abbe Partee, VP, head of global certified learning at DHL. So DHL created a Career Marketplace, which integrates both its learning and performance system. It includes an individual’s skills data not just from self-assessment but also manager feedback, succession planning meetings, and the combined skill profiles of their current and previous roles.“We want to build a culture of learning and continuous education,” Vujec said. That begins at onboarding and continues throughout an employee’s entire career journey, regardless of their level. It’s also important to recognize, he says, that “the foundational skills of today might not be the foundational skills of tomorrow.” In turn, the onboarding itself should serve as a mindset shift to prepare employees for continuous learning, rather than the expectation that development will stop after a few months on the job.Skills data should be something that is embraced by employees. “We know employees want to grow with the organization, and skills is a great conversation to get that going,” said Lucy Beaumont, solution lead, manager and leader at SHL. The biggest shift she is seeing is that the skills conversation during reviews is less about how employees are succeeding in their current roles, but rather where they want to go in the future. “What is your skills potential, and therefore, what is the right career path for you where can you lean into those strengths? If you do have those gaps, and they're relevant to the job you're doing or the job you want to do, how can we get around that and support that?” she said.Post-pandemic, individuals are more acutely focused on whether they are happy in their current position, so it’s important for employers to facilitate those conversations early and help workers move and grow internally, rather than externally, to boost retention.Beaumont says organizations should not only be measuring skills as they stand, but also tracking how those skills gaps are then bridged over time. While pulse surveys are helpful, they can sometimes have a tough time measuring soft skills, such as leadership. Therefore, the hard data must then be analyzed with a human approach. “We do take broad strokes, but then that aggregate view allows us to prioritize and see what it’s hinting at,” Vujec said. HR can allow the data trends to drive what areas will require a deeper, more complex dive.Nash notes this “human skills” area is, ironically, where emerging technology can be the most useful during employee surveys. “We use AI to go back into the comments to extrapolate, to see what other additional data points we can obtain to understand what skills employees are looking for,” Nash said. Then those themes are linked back to the organization’s business strategy and core values.What skills do the panelists see as most valuable going forward? All of them are tied to transformation. They include data analytics, to boost agility in reacting to needs; digitization, to make business more efficient; a digital mindset when it comes to problem solving; and an overall change in agility. And lastly, the skill of learning itself is vital. “Re-skilling potential: what does it take to be willing and able to learn new skills,” Beaumont shared, is integral in today’s rapidly evolving workforce.Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

Innovative and Engaging Approaches for Leadership Development

“The war for talent is over, and talent won.”This was a quote that resonated with Miguel Oliveira, senior HR director supporting the brand management and marketing teams at Danone North America, he said during a recent From Day One webinar.Leaders are now being evaluated “not only on the results they bring to the business, but on results from engagement, well-being, and retention,” he told moderator Lydia Dishman during a From Day One webinar about supporting tomorrow’s leaders.Amanda Grow, director of customer success for ETU, says the company has leadership training programs centered on skills related to values such as authenticity and courage, emotional intelligence, and psychological safety.“I always want to see inclusive and emotionally intelligent leaders, because that really does have a major impact on every organization and your culture and what you're trying to instill in your employees,” said Grow.Things have changed tremendously in the workforce in recent years, which impacts what leadership looks like, says Johann Laville, the chief learning officer at Merck.Remote work is becoming more commonplace, the workforce is younger and more diverse, and “technology is driving our future at light speed,” he said. As a result, leaders are listening more and focusing more on leading with humility, he says.Tips for Training Future LeadersEarly talent programs are a way companies can develop future leaders, says Minh Pham-Costello, vice president of business management at Santander. Employees can get an endorsement from their manager when applying.It’s crucial to make sure the employee is committed to the program “because sometimes you push programs to people and they either don’t have the capacity or the desire,” Pham-Costello said. It is also important to have programs that cater to senior leaders’ professional development needs.Programs for future leaders shouldn’t be one size fits all, according to Grow.“It’s great to have a global skill set that we’re trying to adhere to, but we also need to dig down and go to the level deeper and really understand how those skills show up at different role levels, different proficiency levels, and more, so that you really can personalize some of the training,” said Grow. For example, a senior leader who takes a junior-level course probably won’t find it engaging.The panel of leaders spoke about "Supporting Tomorrow's Leaders: Innovative and Engaging Approaches for Leadership Development" (photo by From Day One)Oliveira compared leadership training to trying to teach someone how to ride a bike. You can have trainees watch a movie on how to do it or “put them on a bike and have someone hold the bike to let them understand how it works,” he said.When exposing employees with leadership potential to management fundamentals, “It’s really important to create ways and mechanisms to give them visibility to what it looks like without the responsibility of leading someone directly,” Oliveira said. “I still see today many people stepping into their first managerial leadership opportunity and they still lack those fundamentals, and unfortunately, those suffering are those reporting to the individual.”How Employees Can Demonstrate Leadership SkillsAlthough organizations are investing in leadership development more than ever before, individuals still need to take the initial steps toward getting to the next level, says Pham-Costello.“Of course, other people can help you, but when you take the initiative with your career, you are not only developing your skill but also showing the organization that you are committed to the company and to your growth,” she said.Business resource groups (BRG) are essential when it comes to leadership development, says Pham-Costello. A BRG “gives you that visibility. People see you leading and influencing.”Laville said Merck has a true gig economy. This means if an employee wants to demonstrate their capability of being an effective leader and there’s something they are passionate about – whether it’s a topic, division, or product – they can apply internally, be interviewed, and be selected.That employee would then have support from the leader who releases them into the gig and the leader who would accept them “to come in and provide a new value,” Laville said.Seeking mentorship is another way for those who wish to be leaders to get to that level. Mentors are “subject matter experts that you can have some really open conversations with to help guide you on that path,” he said.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, ETU, for sponsoring this webinar.Mary Pieper is a freelance writer based in Mason City, Iowa.

Focusing on Skills, Rather Than Jobs, to Meet Future Workforce Needs

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