Time Marches On

???? “The only thing that stays the same is everything changes. Everything chaaaaaaaaanges.” ????

As I walked around the expo hall and attended the sessions at WorkHuman Live in Austin last month, that line from Tracy Lawrence’s iconic song kept popping into my head.? Listening to the insightful speakers and the powerful keynotes, touching on topics from diversity and inclusion to GenAI, the song really resonated - “Time Marches On.”

Now, of course, Tracy Lawrence’s lyrics tell the tale of a family growing and evolving through the years, which doesn’t necessarily translate perfectly to workforce innovation and adaptation.? However, if you step back from the literal words of his phrases and take the song as a whole, I think its overarching theme really does translate well: change is hard, it’s emotional and, above all, it’s inevitable.

That understanding of our current reality took shape throughout the week, as I attended seminars and had great conversations with some of the best and brightest human resources professionals in the world.? From nervousness to cautious optimism to downright, unabashed excitement, the responses from the people I spoke to ran the gamut as we talked about organizations embracing the skills-based revolution and what the future of work holds as GenAI takes an even greater front-and-center position in our daily lives.

While the entire event was a whirlwind of learning and thought leadership, there were a few speakers and sessions that really stood out to me.

For me, and for many I would venture to say, one of the best speakers at the event was Dr. Brené Brown .? Her wit and tenacity, combined with her amazing and unfiltered storytelling, made her a truly inspiring day-one keynote speaker.

She shared a lot of insights and anecdotes in her hour on the main stage, but there was one thing Dr. Brown said that I’ve thought about at least once a day since the conference.? When asked about the rise of AI and its adoption into the workplace, she shared a quote from Dr. Linda Hill of Harvard Business School: “The hardest thing about digital transformation is the people.”

Now, there’s a lot to unpack in that short sentence (a lot of which is covered in Dr. Hill’s work - Highly recommend her interview with Harvard Business Review for more context), but I’ll do my best to share the way I have interpreted it.? In any organization, there are people (both leaders and independent contributors alike) who often have opposing views on how and when to embrace change, in this case, a digital one.? Among the many difficulties in a digital transformation, a foundational one is getting those who want to take the slow and cautious approach to speed up and embrace the change that’s likely inevitable - while also tempering those ready to dive headlong into the deep end of that change to think about the potential pitfalls and ramifications of that transformation (which are also inevitable).

In navigating the human elements of a digital transformation, leaders have to understand that their teams crave upskilling in terms of digital literacy.? Dr. Brown talked about digital literacy like a language during her keynote session.? In order to be considered fluent in a language, one must possess approximately 30,000 words from that language.? In order to make those who are hesitant about digital transformation more comfortable, we need to offer them a chance to upskill.

Now, I hear what you’re saying as you read this: “Charlie, 30,000 words is a lot, and there’s so much heavy lifting involved to practice fluency.? I just don’t see how we can prioritize such a mammoth task like that right now.”

There’s an important thing to keep in mind when facing those fears:

You’re probably not starting from zero.? Most of your people already have a strong foundation when it comes to using and navigating the digital landscape.? The core concepts aren’t net new to them; they’re evolving to a new depth of understanding.? For instance, they don’t need to be expert Python programmers, they just need to be able to grasp the basics of how computers talk to one another.? As Dr. Brown puts it, you don’t need to be a “knower;” rather, you need to be a “learner.”? “Fluent” doesn’t mean “expert.”

The fear of not being able to achieve expert status is one of the biggest barriers to people even beginning a transformative journey.

So how do organizations overcome that barrier and begin to reach fluency in digital literacy???

There’s no single correct answer to that question, but I can share how Hive Learning has done so with our partners.? Through the Hive Learning platform, learners of all seniority levels are drip-fed microlearning content on any topic area they need upskilling on - from basic Microsoft Excel skills up to GenAI prompt engineering, and anywhere in between.? The content is curated and synthesized by our BuzzCurator AI tool to keep it relevant and contextualized, and triple checked for accuracy by our learning experience (LX) team, in the spirit of our AHAH Principle (which was named one of HR Trend Institute’s 2024 Priorities for HR and People). Most importantly, learners don’t go through this learning journey alone.? Instead, they are part of learning cohorts who experience the program together, share their ideas among one another, and develop a deeper understanding of both the content and their colleagues simultaneously.? Best of all, the cohorts of learners can be personalized to group folks with varying levels of “fluency” together, so learners get exactly the learning they need, when and where they need it.

We know adult learners don’t want to learn alone - so we break down silos and encourage them to learn and grow together - especially now that organizations and teams are spread out across borders, languages, and cultures.

Dr. Brene Brown was far from alone in having an insightful outlook on the changing world we find ourselves in.

Dr. Raffaella Sadun , of Harvard Business School, shared her research and insights on the reskilling revolution that has already begun, where it’s going, and how AI can not only reshape organizations to survive, but thrive in a new landscape.

Dr. Sadun’s session provided a look at innovations past and what the current research around modern innovations tell us about where we’re going.? She opened with stories of the electric dynamo and the first computers, two incredible innovations that were well ahead of their time (I didn’t know the dynamo - an early form of an electric generator - was first introduced in the 1880s) but took decades to be fully realized for their potential and for productivity to scale and transform businesses through their use.

This is where we find ourselves with GenAI: an incredible innovation with massive potential to completely change the way we humans live and work, that’s still in its infancy, and waiting for us to catch up and figure out how and where to apply it effectively.

So where do we start putting this tool to use in businesses through an HR lens?

Let’s take a look at learning, training, and upskilling.

GenAI gives us the opportunity to create, deliver, and measure learning and training programs more efficiently and effectively than ever before.? And the timing for this ability couldn’t be better.

Dr. Michelle Weise of Rise and Design LLC spoke on this extensively in her session on reskilling for today’s workforce.? She shared data from Oxford Economics and Cognizant that 90% of jobs will be impacted by the rise of GenAI by 2032 and the future of working in that environment is directly related to embracing a future of learning.

She shared that workers, both those currently employed and those seeking work, are starving for upskilling and reskilling.? People know that there’s a role out there for them, that they would be good at and excited to fill, but they are desperate for a clear roadmap of how to get there - what skills do they need, what skills do they already have that they can sharpen, and how do they share with employers and recruiters that they’re ready for that role. (Path-goal theory of leadership, anyone?)

One statistic Dr. Weise shared in this session stood out most to me, and hammered that point home:? According to Accenture research, 44% of organizations offer ZERO upskilling opportunities to their employees.

I wondered to myself, “How, in the day and age where we have the wealth of all human knowledge literally in our pockets everyday, do nearly half of this country’s businesses offer no chances to improve their skills for the jobs their people want tomorrow?”

More importantly, how do we change that?

This is where GenAI comes in.? We can use GenAI to intelligently map the skills people within an organization have, as well as map the skills any given role needs in order to be filled effectively, and then build customized content and learning plans that meet people’s unique needs.? We can steer them to the skills they need but don’t have, we can help them sharpen the skills they have and will need and, equally importantly, we can steer them away from spending time and money learning skills that they don’t need!

Now this isn’t to say “Throw caution to every warning sign,” when it comes to adopting GenAI. (Sidenote, my toddler has been obsessed with the new Disney movie, Wish, and that line is in one of the songs that’s been stuck in my head for over a month now - If I have to hear it everyday, you get to read it here!)

Kasara Weinrich, MBA spoke on this during her session at WorkHuman Live - there are very real risks that come with the adoption of GenAI, even beyond the scariest prompt-injection attacks and data theft that you’ve heard about, either on the news or from your IT team.? GenAI can exhibit bias in the content it creates.? GenAI can be inaccurate with what it presents as fact.? GenAI can hallucinate entirely!

However, there are ways to mitigate those risks.? Just as with social media and general cybersecurity, knowledge and understanding are the foundation of safety.??

The depths of this topic in particular are enough to warrant its own article, and I realize I’m already four pages deep on this article, so I won’t wax poetic on it here (if you’ve made it this far, I appreciate your readership!). But look out for my next article in this series where I’ll go into more detail… ??

I will, however, leave you with a few questions to ask in regards to GenAI adoption and implementation in your organization.? Whether your organization is building a GenAI tool internally and you’re curious about how it works, or you’re exploring partnering with a vendor to bring GenAI into a specific function of your business, these questions are a good place to start:

• Is the GenAI tool open- or closed-instance?
• What processes are in place to limit bias, inaccuracies, and hallucinations in the content provided by the AI?
• How is intellectual property protected and who retains ownership of IP generated by GenAI?
• Does the GenAI functionality allow for opt-in/opt-out for users?
• How has the GenAI tool been trained?

Asking questions like these, and finding others pertinent to HR, learning, and talent, help ensure that human resources, and by extension humans in general, keep their seat at the table as technology advances.? Dr. Brene Brown said it in her keynote address, “This is [Human Resources’] time.”??

To wrap up a long article in a concise way, my experience at WorkHuman Live was a truly transformative one.? I met and learned from some of the best folks the HR space has to offer.? I found new ways of looking at the problems we face in L&D today and where the future is headed to help us solve those problems.??

The world of work is changing, and the technology available to us is making the rate of those changes go faster than ever.? We have a chance to lean in, have a say, and shape the future by embracing technology to make work human again.? Now, it’s up to us to either step up and play our role in the skills revolution, or sit on the sidelines and have it dictated to us.

Either way, as Tracy Lawrence sings, “Time marches on.”