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 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.

Recently, she also shared these 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

The Algorithm: The Five-Step Framework That Drives Business Success

From a former President of Tesla, Jon McNeill , comes The Algorithm —the first book written by any of Elon Musk’s direct reports—a transformative guide for leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators who want to emulate the paradigm-shattering approach used to launch Tesla and SpaceX to success. And that transformed Lululemon and General Motors. McNeill had already founded and sold six startups when Sheryl Sandberg introduced him to Elon Musk, who was looking for help at Tesla. McNeill was steeped in the lean principles that had made Toyota a global powerhouse—principles focused on achieving efficiency and optimization by incrementally improving existing systems and processes. What he learned at Tesla was an approach that required radical rethinking to explode the status quo, attack complexity, and set seemingly unrealistic goals. Elon Musk at Tesla called this five-step framework “The Algorithm.” 1. Question every requirement – “Question everything—from produ...

How To Change Yourself To Change Your Company

The book, Reinventing the Leader , is an inspiring account of the magic that can happen when a leader realizes they must undergo their own transformation in order to transform their organization. This candid and practical book by Guilherme ( Gui) Loureiro , Regional CEO overseeing Walmex, Walmart Canada, and Walmart Chile (now Chairman of the Board for Walmex and Regional CEO for Canada, Chile, Central America, and Mexico), and his executive leadership coach Carlos Marin shows how even the most successful leaders must be open to personal change in order to transform their company. The book details how the pair pioneered a data-driven, customer-centric business transformation at Walmex—Walmart’s biggest division outside of the United States. “This book is a blueprint for transformational success for leaders in any business who find themselves facing the need to retool their own company’s systems and operations and energize and inspire an entire ...

How To Achieve Real Optimism Even When Life Is Hard

“Optimism is not about believing that everything will turn out the way you want it; that everything will go according to plan, or that positive thinking about the future can stave off disaster. It’s about accepting that life is hard—sometimes really hard—but it always has something to teach us,” explains Dr. Deepika Chopra , author of the new book, The Power Of Real Optimism: A Practical, Science Based Guide To Staying Resilient, Curious, And Open Even When Lie Is Hard . She adds, “If we can stay open to those lessons, we will survive.” Why should we strive to become more optimistic? “Because, simply put, optimism improves our mental and physical health and makes us more able to face whatever life has in store while staying committed to our goals and values,” shares Dr. Chopra. In this fresh, science-backed debut, professional psychologist and media expert Dr. Chopra shows us how to build the kind of optimism that can actually withstand real life. The book offe...

Five Essential Principles For Sustaining Growth Through Innovation

Even though many companies strive for innovation, most struggle to achieve meaningful change. The largest reason for this disconnect? Playing it safe. Leaders and organizations want to implement new ideas, but too often they are held back by the fear of failure, even though setbacks are intrinsic to the innovation process. In the new book, No Fear, No Failure , by Lorraine H. Marchand (with John Hanc), readers will learn how to overcome the status quo that stifles creative thinking and how to create a culture that encourages innovation. Marchand provides a framework for sustained growth built on the “ 5 Cs ”: Customer First Culture Collaboration Change Chance She draws on more than 120 interviews with leaders across industries, real-world case studies, and her firsthand experience and shares step-by-step, field-tested strategies, tactics, and tools that practitioners can use to embed creativity within organizational cultures. Marchand is a former Big Tech and Big Pharma ex...

How To Create More Human Workplaces By Tackling Hidden Patterns

Most organizational change initiatives fail because they treat symptoms, not systems. Real transformation happens when you see and redesign the hidden patterns driving how work actually works. “Hidden Patterns prioritize principles over procedures. Each pattern is a tested, fundamental idea, not a formula,” explains Clay Parker Jones , author of the new book, Hidden Patterns, A Playbook For More Human Workplaces . Based on behavioral science and real-world case studies, the book identifies 75 common organizational problems , the core solutions to each, and connected patterns to link sustainable improvements. “If the examples or templates don’t seem immediately relevant, that’s fine,” shares Jones. “The core principle is what matters. Take the idea, apply it flexibly, and test it out. Make it your own.” “In the book, you’ll find patterns that lay groundwork for healthier, more humane workplaces rather than prescriptive tactics masquerading as guaranteed quick fixes.” J...

How To Be A Servant Leader

Check out the definitive book on servant leadership . It's a curated collection of incredibly insightful and motivational perspectives on servant leadership via essays by 44 servant leaders. Edited by Ken Blanchard and Renee Broadwell , Servant Leadership in Action , includes the personal stories from some of the most well-respected authorities on leadership: Patrick Lencioni John C. Maxwell Marshall Goldsmith Stephen M. R. Covey Plus, you'll read keen advice from celebrated sports coaches, company CEO's, pastors and retired military leaders. Each of the 44 stories/chapters stands strong on its own. However, Blanchard and Broadwell group them within six parts : Fundamentals of Servant Leadership Elements of Servant Leadership Lessons in Servant Leadership Examples of Servant Leadership Putting Servant Leadership to Work Servant Leadership Turnarounds Get your pen or highlighter ready. You're sure to take lots of notes as you capture advice...

Teach An Employee Something New Today

Take the opportunity today to teach an employee something new. Nearly everyone likes to learn and is capable of tackling a new challenge. Teach your employee something that expands their current job description. Teach something that will help them to get promoted within your organization at a later date. Teach them a skill that uses new technology. Or teach them something that will allow them to be a more skilled leader and manager in the future. You can even teach something that you no longer need to be doing in your position, but that will be a rewarding challenge/task for your employee. The benefit to your employee is obvious. The benefit to you is you'll have a more skilled team member who is capable of handling more work that can help you to grow your business and/or make it run more efficiently. Be a leader who teaches.

How To Play Bigger And Be A Category King In Business

"The most exciting companies create. They give us new ways of living, thinking, or doing business, many times solving a problem we didn't know we had -- or a problem we didn't pay attention to because we never thought there was another way," explain the four authors of the dynamic new book, Play Bigger . They add that, "the most exciting companies sell us different. They introduce the world to a new category of product or service." And, they become category kings . Examples of category kings are Amazon, Salesforce, Uber and IKEA. Play Bigger is all about the strategy that builds category kings. And, to be a category king you need to be good at category design : Category design is the discipline of creating and developing a new market category, and conditioning the market so it will demand your solution and crown your company as its king. Category design is the opposite of "build it and they will come." Key traits of category design...

Best Reasons For Doing Employee Exit Interviews

Don't be the guy in the picture when an employee leaves your company. Instead, conduct exit interviews and surveys. Leigh Branham explains in his book, The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave , what the most favorable conditions are for conducting the interviews and surveys. And, if you need convincing to read the book, take a look at these 11 best reasons for listening and gathering the data when an employee leaves : Bringing any "push-factor" root-cause reasons for leaving to the surface. Alerting the organization to specific issues to be addressed. Giving the employee a chance to vent and gain a sense of closure. Giving the employee the opportunity to provide information that may help colleagues left behind. Providing information about competitors and their practices. Comparing information given with the results of past surveys and employee data. Detecting patterns and changes by year or by quarter. Obtaining information to help improve recruiting. Possibly heading off ...

Five Crucial Actions That Build Unity And Foster Performance In The Workplace

“Given the research-validated outcomes and demonstrated financial impact belonging offers, organizations should make cultivating belonging a personal leadership imperative across the world,” says Brad Deutser , author of the book, Belonging Rules: Five Crucial Actions That Build Unity and Foster Performance . Furthermore, belonging predicts job satisfaction, engagement, and effort over and above employee’s perceptions of organizational culture or strategy, explains Deutser. So, what exactly is belonging? It’s: Belonging is where we hold space for something of shared importance. It is where we come together on values, purpose, and identity; a space of acceptance where agreement is not required but a shared framework is understood; where there is an invitation into the space; and intentional choice to take part in; something vital to a sense of connection, security and acceptance. As you read the book, you’ll discover vital information about the...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog