How Smart Companies Can Close The Skills Gap

“In the next ten to fifteen years, rapid change in a post-pandemic world and emerging technology will revolutionize nearly every job, eliminate some, and create new forms of work that we have yet to imagine,” says Deanna Mulligan, author of the new book, Hire Purpose: How Smart Companies Can Close The Skills Gap.

In a highly personal and reflective manner, Mulligan, with Greg Shaw, details through stories, examples, insights and frameworks, how business leaders can prepare for and respond to technological disruption. Mulligan is Board Chair and former CEO of the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.

Mulligan tackles in, Hire Purpose, education, training, the classroom, the workplace and workers.

One of my favorite learnings from the book is where she states her believe that:

The primary goal of a business is to be profitable in order to compete, innovate, and provide stable jobs, but also that there are many paths to profit – and that the best ones take into consideration financial performance and the health and happiness of the people who make performance possible.

“In the interest of our businesses, our country, and our society, we have to relearn an old lesion: focus on both profits and people,” explains Mulligan.

This week, she also shared her following insights with me:

Deanna Mulligan

Question: What did you see happening in companies that convinced you this was a book you wanted to write?

Mulligan: This really came into focus for me after the 2008 financial crisis. Companies were forced to look outside for new skills and in many cases laid off quality people whose functions had been terminated. Many, many of these people have had a hard time finding new employment. Guided by one of our company values at Guardian Life, people count, I believed that there had to be a better way.

We see accelerating change with the rapid adoption of technological advances like artificial intelligence and machine learning. It’s not just what we see in companies and new technologies. It is the entire world. The forces of globalization and the emergence of the millennial in the workforce are forcing every organization, including Guardian, to re-think how we hire and reskill our existing workforces.

Question: Why is it so important that business leaders prioritize reskilling, not just for business reasons but also for a social and moral obligation to society?

Mulligan: Companies are caught between furloughing workers whose skills are no longer needed due to automation and not being able to find the people with the skills for the present and the future. Reskilling is the clear solution. It’s far more economical for the company and far better for society to give existing workers the skills needed to do the work the company needs done.

Question: What steps should businesses take now to prepare workers to fill the skills gap, now estimated at 85 million skilled jobs by 2030?

Mulligan: The first step is to invest the time and money in workers. At Guardian, as new technology has streamlined some aspects of customer service, we launched a program to retrain call-center workers as programmers. It’s not cheap in the short run, but the cost of not reskilling in the long run is far greater. Companies need to think beyond the next quarter’s financial results and make commitments to the people they hire as well as to their customers and investors.

Question: You started work on, Hire Purpose, long before the COVID-19 pandemic and its fallout. How has this crisis influenced your thinking about the future of work?

Mulligan: I don’t think that any of us imagined the speed at which whole industries, and the jobs they provide, would be massively affected. Think of the restaurant industry or the airline industry. The effort to help people impacted by these changes is obviously bigger than companies alone can shoulder. The government has stepped in to provide income support to people who lost their jobs. Now we need to think about how to re-deploy those people, either permanently, or temporarily.

This crisis has put an exclamation point on the topic. The future of work is now! It is going to take a true public/private partnership to make the re-skilling of our workforce a success. It takes planning, deep investment, great execution, and perseverance in the face of adversity.

Question: If a company could only implement one recommendation from your book, what should it be?

Mulligan: Treat your people like the most valuable asset you have. Invest in their continuing education, and their value and loyalty will only grow.

In 2019, Fortune named Mulligan one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Business.”

Shaw is coauthor of Satya Nadella’s, Hit Refresh, and Kevin Scott’s, Reprogramming the American Dream.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of Mulligan's book.

Comments

6 Ways To Seek Feedback To Improve Your Performance In The Workplace

Getting feedback is an important way to improve performance at work. But sometimes, it can be hard to seek out, and even harder to hear. “Feedback is all around you. Your job is to find it, both through asking directly and observing it,” says David L. Van Rooy, author of the new book, Trajectory: 7 Career Strategies to Take You From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be . As today's guest post, Van Rooy offers these six tips for how to get the feedback you need to improve performance at work . Guest Post By David L. Van Rooy 1. Don’t forget to as k : One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming things are going perfectly (until they make a catastrophic mistake). By not asking, you’re missing out on opportunities for deep feedback: the difficult, critical feedback that gives you constructive ways to improve. 2. Make sure you listen : Remember, getting fee...

Sample Of Solid Business Guiding Principles

I really like these 10 guiding business principles that San Antonio, TX headquartered insurance company USAA has lived by: Exceed customer expectations Live the Golden Rule (treat others with courtesy and respect) Be a leader Participate and contribute Pursue excellence Work as a team Share knowledge Keep it simple (make it easy for customers to do business with us and for us to work together) Listen and communicate Have fun Too many companies don't make it simple for their customers to do business with them. Is it easy for your customers to: Buy from you? Make returns? Get pricing and terms? Receive timely responses to their e-mails? Quickly get answers when phoning your company? You can find more examples of companies with impressive guiding principles in the book, 1001 Ways To Energize Employee s .

Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability . They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences

The Benefits Of When Everyone Leads

It’s only January and the new book, When Everyone Leads , could likely be my pick for the best new leadership book of 2023. It’s that good. There’s still nearly a whole year ahead of us so we’ll see what other books debut. In the meantime, add this book to your must-read list. You’ll learn that: Leadership is an activity, not a position. Leadership is mobilizing others to make progress on the most important challenges. Leadership is interactive, risky and experimental. Leadership comes in moments. Leadership is always about change. When Everyone Leads , by Ed O’Malley and Julia Fabris McBride , presents a revolutionary approach to leadership; not based on position or authority, but an activity that anybody can undertake by learning to spot opportunities for improvement and taking the initiative to engage others. “It can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable, but in a culture where everyone leads, organizations start to make progress on their most difficult proble...

Good Sample Business Principles

I really like these 10 guiding business principles that San Antonio, TX headquartered insurance company USAA lives by: Exceed customer expectations Live the Golden Rule (treat others with courtesy and respect) Be a leader Participate and contribute Pursue excellence Work as a team Share knowledge Keep it simple (make it easy for customers to do business with us and for us to work together) Listen and communicate Have fun Too many companies don't make it simple for their customers to do business with them. Is it easy for your customers to: Buy from you? Make returns? Get pricing and terms? Receive timely responses to their e-mails? Quickly get answers when phoning your company? You can find more examples of companies with impressive guiding principles in the book, 1001 Ways To Energize Employees .

How To Avoid 8 Common Performance Evaluation Pitfalls

As the year comes to a close it's likely time for many business leaders to tackle the annual performance appraisal process. So, here is a good reminder from author Sharon Armstrong about how to avoid eight performance evaluation pitfalls . These are in what I consider is the best chapter of the book The Essential HR Handbook , that she co-authored with Barbara Mitchell. 1. Clustering everyone in the middle performance-rating categories 2. Overlooking flaws or exaggerating the achievements of favored employees 3. Excusing substandard performance or behavior because it is widespread 4. Letting one characteristic - positive or negative - affect your overall assessment 5. Rating someone based on the company he or she keeps 6. Rating someone based on a grudge you are holding 7. Rating someone based on a short time period instead of the entire evaluation period 8. Rating everyone high, to make you look good There's ot...

5 Tips For Generating Ideas From Employees

Your employees have lots of ideas. So, be sure you provide the forums and mechanisms for your employees to share their ideas with you. Hold at least a few brainstorming sessions each year, as well. And, when you are brainstorming with your employees, try these five tips: Encourage ALL ideas. Don't evaluate or criticize ideas when they are first suggested. Ask for wild ideas. Often, the craziest ideas end up being the most useful. Shoot for quantity not quality during brainstorming. Encourage everyone to offer new combinations and improvements of old ideas.

Use A Board Of Advisors

David Burkus often provides valuable comments to my various Blog postings, and he's a person who effectively uses a board of advisors, instead of mentors, to help him achieve success. "I've found that in my life, it was easier and more effective to set up a board of advisors," said Burkus, the editor of LeaderLab . "This is a group of people, three to five, that have rotated into my life at various times and that speak into it and help me grow. I benefit from the variety of experience these people have." LeaderLab is an online community of resources dedicated to promoting the practice of leadership theory. Its contributors include consultants and professors who present leadership theory in a practitioner-friendly format that provides easy-to-follow explanations on how to apply the best of leadership theory. Community users can download a variety of research reports and presentations about leadership and leadership versus management. For example, a pr...

Top Five Factors That Drive Employee Loyalty

A 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management shows that job security is what matters most to employees. And, having that job security helps to keep employees loyal. Okay, that's really not too surprising during these times of high unemployment. Next on the list is benefits . The unstable economy, coupled with rising health care costs, make employer offered benefits more important than ever. Third on the top five list is an employee's opportunity to use his/her skills . When employees feel good about their jobs and their abilities, and clearly know they are contributing to their organization they remain engaged and loyal. In fourth place is an organization's financial stability . Compensation came in fifth on the top five list. Employee pay often is not the most important driver for employee retention. Despite study after study that shows pay is not the top reason employees stay with a company, research results like these often surpris...

Resolve To Find A Mentor In 2011

Having a mentor is one of the best things you can do to advance your career as a leader. So, decide today to secure a mentor who will work with you during 2011. Make that one of your New Year’s resolutions. A mentor can benefit leaders new to their leadership role and they can benefit experienced and seasoned leaders, as well. A strong mentoring relationship allows the mentor and the mentee to develop new skills and talents, to build confidence, and to build self-awareness. Proper mentoring takes a commitment from both parties and it takes time to develop and to reap the rewards of the relationship. Plan to work with your mentor for no less than three months, and ideally for six months or longer. When seeking out a mentor, think about these questions: 1. Will the relationship have good personal chemistry? 2. Can this person guide me, particularly in the areas where I am weakest? 3. Will this person take a genuine interest in me? 4. Does this person ha...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog