Assessing Inclusively

Do strengths and skills assessments perpetuate gender bias and stereotypes? It’s a complicated question.

BY ELIZABETH LOUTFI

An article published in the 2019 issue of Management Learning, titled “‘I Always Knew I was a Little Girly’: The gendering of skills in management training,” implores users of management texts and strength assessments to learn about how gender is understood in the workplace, suggesting that they perpetuate bias and stereotypes based on gender.

In 2008, Sarah Blithe, the article’s author, was working at a consulting firm where she delivered strength-based training sessions to the firm’s clients. In these sessions, Blithe conducted assessment programs based on the Strengths theory developed by Donald O. Clifton and Gallup, which the group would reflect on in discussion afterward. During these discussions, Blithe realized the individuals in her sessions were looking at their results in a way that placed gender stereotypes on specific strengths or skills.

“They were consuming that information through a gendered lens,” Blithe said in an interview about her research. “So they were attributing skill to a particular gender, saying, for example, that harmony or empathy is a classic feminine skill, and aggression and competition are classic masculine skills.” The “gendered lens” is a part of the invisible gender binary structure that’s already present and well-ingrained in society.

The gender binary, which is the classification of gender into masculine or feminine, and gender conformity are deeply entangled in the workplace and occupational roles across industries such as technology, health care, hospitality, manufacturing and more.

This gendered structure is responsible for the stereotypes, inequalities and assumptions about gender that hold women and other groups that have been marginalized back in the workplace, Blithe said. If someone who doesn’t appear masculine, for example, was embodying masculinity, that person can sometimes be punished. “Classically, you can see this in politics,” she said. And for women specifically, she added, embracing too much femininity versus not enough can be a catch-22.

Years later, Blithe, who is now an associate professor of communication studies at University of Nevada-Reno and the chief education officer at Equilibrium, a consulting firm for training and design, returned to those experiences of delivering strengths assessments for her research.

Blithe’s research is based on analysis of the texts that make up the “Strengths” psychology, auto-ethnographic accounts and critical reflection. She looked at her notes from the sessions she conducted — 53 participants in all, across six 90-minute sessions. She said the notes she took then showed how the individuals in her group valued strengths or skills in unequal ways, and that these associations were “strongly tied to gender.”

Women in leadership are often reluctant to claim their own achievements.

During her analysis, Blithe discovered that none of the text within the Strengths theory directly mentioned gender. She said these findings were interesting to her and it was evident that people were putting the gender binary structure onto the results. “So using those assessments can never be gender-free because the people consuming them are part of society,” she said.

However, these types of assessments are intended to look past things like gender, race or age, and rather identify what makes each person unique, said Marcus Buckingham, co-creator of the StrengthsFinder and StandOut strength assessments.

Looking Beyond Gender

“Unquestionably, there is gender stereotyping in our society. We do an awful lot of stereotyping,” Buckingham said. “The strength assessments that I’ve made are obviously trying to do the opposite of that.”

Buckingham said assessments should be built to ensure that no item is more commonly selected by one gender or the other; that the “least interesting” thing about someone should be their gender, therefore destroying any stereotypes about gender created by society.

If someone taking an assessment thinks of a particular strength as being gender-specific, then the person presenting the assessment should help them address their bias. “Anybody who is presenting a strength assessment needs to understand that the point of it is to look past gender or race or age and identify the uniqueness of the human,” he said.

Strength and skill assessments are currently widely used in learning and development because they help managers and people leaders learn more about the individuals who make up their company or team. Gallup’s research on strength-based development suggests that strength assessments have a positive impact on employee engagement and productivity and that workplaces that participated in strength-based development programs also saw an uptick in understanding and respect among co-workers.

These assessment programs can also be very helpful for the individual taking them, too. For example, because they are intended to reveal what makes a person individually unique, Buckingham said assessments are tremendously helpful in helping a person know how they can best contribute within a team.

“We can basically use all the help we can get in terms of understanding who we are, how we think we’re driven and how we can turn that into contribution,” he said. “If we can use a strength assessment to help pinpoint people’s uniqueness on a team, that’s really useful.”

Occupation, Gender Stereotypes and Skills

But strength or skill assessments might not assess everyone in the same way, especially in regard to gender across different occupations. A 2018 article, “Occupational Segregation,” published by the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, suggests that nearly half of the women in the U.S. labor force would have to move to a different occupation in order to eliminate all occupational segregation by gender. The levels of segregation by gender also vary by race, the article notes.

Bias and stereotypes about gender in relation to skill has led to this gender divide across occupations, according to Blithe’s research. She isn’t the first to arrive at this conclusion: In 2014, an experiment published in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences suggested that unconscious bias — among both men and women — toward women’s mathematical skills was leading to hiring choices that favored men over women, despite both genders performing equally.

Blithe said there are occupations, such as caregiving, management work and education, that are currently mostly taken up by women. “Some people say, ‘Who cares if people do different jobs and if you can see the divisions by gender?’ Well, that really becomes impactful when you look at the wages and occupations that tend to be dominated by women or characterized as feminine, regardless of who’s doing it.” When occupations are devalued, they are paid less, she added, pointing out that a teacher’s salary, regardless of who happens to be receiving it, is an example of this.

Women advancing through the leadership pipeline also face a multitude of barriers, including the gender pay gap, paid family leave and child care offerings, according to a 2018 Chief Learning Officer article, “Women in Leadership: Surmounting Barriers and Bias.”

But there are more barriers to rising through the ranks than just those structural ones. Two more barriers that author and leadership coach Sally Helgesen said she has seen rising women leaders face are a reluctance to claim their own achievements as well as a fear that talking about their skills or strengths could be perceived as being arrogant.

This also applies to different racial or ethnic groups. “In people who represent groups of all kinds, there can be sensitivities about claiming achievements,” Helgesen said. Those who deliver strength assessments or strength-based training need to be aware of those sensitivities, understanding that it could impact the way the results are perceived.

A third issue that concerns women specifically in organizational pipelines is perfectionism, which can impact women’s own assessment of their strengths or skills in the workplace.

“Perfectionism makes it, No. 1, very difficult to accurately assess your strengths because you go in with the presumption that whatever it is, you could always be better. It’s hard to admit a strength when your standard for a strength is going to be perfection all the time,” Helgesen said. “So in that way, that can undermine you.”

Assessing Inclusively

For those who conduct strength assessments, being more inclusive can mean simply being sensitive to the way different people view strengths and weaknesses, Helgesen said, while acknowledging how these views differ among men and women, as well as race, ethnicity or age.

There’s no perfect weapon for society to do away with the gender binary, stereotyping and other forms of unconscious bias completely, but Blithe said organizations that adopt training programs or partnerships that support diversity and inclusion will have an easier time addressing them and undoing some of that binary way of thinking.

This also means that L&D leaders should make sure they are thinking inclusively about their organization and the way popular management texts, such as the ones based on the “Strengths” psychology and other similar skill or strength assessments, are used in different training programs and initiatives.

Humans are more complex than just one assessment, but it would be precarious to get rid of them altogether.

A 2019 article published by The New York Times, “To Promote Inclusivity, Stay Away from Personality Assessments,” suggests personality assessments, like Myers-Briggs, might be too broad, and don’t take into account gender, race or ethnicity, socioeconomic status or disability, which can impact how someone interprets a question, or even a score.

“While not intentionally discriminatory, these assessments tend to box individuals into a narrow stereotype, which can have a negative professional impact on those with less-desired personality traits,” writes the article’s author, Quinisha Jackson-Wright.

Humans are more complex than just one assessment, but Blithe has seen first-hand how these assessments can benefit people in the workplace, which is why it would be precarious to get rid of them altogether. “In my experience, some people have said these kinds of personal reflections are the best things they’ve ever learned about themselves at work,” she said.

Rather than using the results of an assessment in order to predict a person’s future behavior, Blithe said it could be more helpful for managers or leaders to view these strengths as the way a person feels about a certain job or task, or simply a snapshot of that person’s day. “I also think managers can fail when they rely on these tests to determine who their people are, when it’s really just one photograph.”

Popular management texts, or whatever is the biggest, newest “guru piece,” need to be interrogated, Blithe said. “Some of the stuff that is in there may be glossing right over these inequities.” CLO

Elizabeth Loutfi is Chief Learning Officer’s associate editor.

Lessons From COVID-19

BY PAUL MESKANICK

While watching some recent World War II documentaries, I was fascinated to see the chess match not only between the leaders of the Allied and Axis powers but between field generals, admirals and other commanders beneath them. Much like the WWII commanders, chief learning officers and other learning leaders are having to draw up and modify battle plans to position their organizations to win against the coronavirus.

Besides the fact that our opponent is imperceptible, it is the speed of change that makes the challenge particularly vexing. As recently as the first part of March, some public figures were downplaying the impact of the virus. By the end of April, jobless claims had soared to over 30 million, and that number continues to grow. Today, as many small businesses find themselves on the brink of financial insolvency, we are beginning to reopen the economy.

From a learning and development perspective, the impacts of workplace transitions are numerous. These include, to name a few, addressing implications of mass teleworking shifts; devising smart classroom instruction conversions and avoiding virtual instruction fails; fulfilling vast cross-training needs associated with job role changes and reboarding; and producing more and better learning with reduced resources.

So, what are talent development leaders doing to not only address current challenges, but to ready their organizations for our “next normal”?

The “Next Normal”

With more than 50 hospitals in the western U.S., Providence St. Joseph Health found itself at ground zero, having treated the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the U.S. PSJH is a leader in the response to the pandemic, operating some of the largest clinical trials in the country for drug therapies and antibody testing.

PSJH CLO Darci Hall said that while COVID19 hasn’t affected their thinking and strategy around learning, it has fostered innovation and speed to implementation. “What COVID-19 has

SNAPSHOT

While there’s still much ahead, learning leaders and their organizations have come a long way since the pandemic started.

done is help to expedite decision-making and ability to drive more innovative solutions in a much quicker fashion as we are reacting to the virus,” she said. ”We have been talking about digital learning for years — and in a very traditional organization like ours, this has given us the ability to implement nontraditional learning in a quicker way.”

TriCore Reference Laboratories, New Mexico’s largest medical laboratory, has been on the forefront of COVID-19 testing for the state. Jillian Gonzales, manager of workforce education and engagement, indicated there is an ongoing shift to the next normal. “We are pivoting to provide all of our usual classes, training and programs to virtual live or prerecorded offerings,” she said. “We also have to develop strategies to support our many SMEs who present content in many of our classes and programs.”

Thor Flosason, senior director of global learning & development at The Kellogg Co., has seen a similar change. Their transition efforts in recent years to more virtual and online learning solutions have helped ready the company for many challenges in these times. “It is pushing us to do more of what we have already started, move quickly and figure out how we can support our leaders and employees in the best way possible to acquire new skills, while paying close attention to their emotional health and wellbeing,” Flosason said.

Addressing New Challenges

In our responses to COVID-19, challenges abound in supporting how learning gets done. Adoption of remote collaboration and productivity tools becomes a key consideration. Project priorities continue to evolve. Budgets are cut and employees are furloughed or laid off.

Every business faces unique obstacles based on their industry, offerings, financial well-being and culture. For Hall, it was “the move to mobile and distributed (learning) in a highly regulated/contract/unionized organization. Implementing change and innovation can be difficult when your organization is typically risk-averse.”

Flosason said, “Not knowing what to expect in a post-coronavirus world and how we can truly prepare for that today. There are so many unknowns. How will organizations change their ways of working, policies and how they conduct their business?

“Another hurdle is the whole change-management piece of this,” Flosason continued. “Many people have a hard time with being 100 percent virtual from a learning and productivity standpoint. This includes proficiency with technology and being comfortable with establishing and maintaining important relationships remotely.”

What’s Proven Effective?

So far, these learning leaders have seen success in a variety of methods and approaches to facing COVID19 head-on. Gonzales stressed the importance of keeping things simple for urgent needs.

“Not getting stuck in perfection,” she said. “Categorizing to-do’s based on triage learning and needs, projects that can still be maintained, and being proactive to what future learning needs will be.”

Hall added, “getting out to the ‘field’ and learning how our workforce works, learning about our organizational goals, so we can design truly valued added learning and development solutions because we understand the work and the workforce.”

One of the brightest spots in all this is how the learning profession has become a lynchpin in a successful response — smoothing transitions, meeting new upskilling requirements and providing for both organizational and human needs.

The amount of sharing, listening, teaching, mentoring and — above all — helping has been unparalleled. This has been evidenced by cooperation among competitors, courses being provided at no cost and sharing forums for the good of the learning community. Standing up and sharing one’s best ideas with others, while being willing to sit down and learn from others who may have a different idea or a better approach — in these times, we’re witnessing it all.

Insights for Our Next Steps

Looking forward, we will need to figure out how to best continue into uncharted territory. Hall shared a number of suggestions.

“Get to know your organizational needs and the organizational readiness,” she said. “Build strategic relationships with the ‘influencers’ in your organization to help support and drive the learning and development vision. Be bold and challenge your team to think big and broader on how learning should look in the future to support your workforce.”

“This calls for a complete recontextualization of learning. I think learning leaders are up for the challenge.” — Thor Flosason, senior director of global learning & development, The Kellogg Co.

Gonzales emphasized the importance of idea sharing, both internally and externally.

“Reach out to L&D leaders and groups outside of your organization,” she said. “Maintain those connections to share resources and lessons learned while also being a support system. Provide microlearning content to your HR and communications departments. Partner with them to support the organization.”

Flosason knows that he must focus on the here and now as well as plan ahead: “We will learn from successes and failures and then be better equipped to support and provide learning in a dramatically different environment.”

He stresses understanding and embracing the very important role learning leaders play in managing through the crisis and beyond. “It’s almost like we are resetting everything, how we operate, how we collaborate and how we add value to our organizations. It’s a huge responsibility and we must use this opportunity to help lead the way. We must innovate like never before; this is not about converting learning solutions from one solution to a different solution. This calls for a complete recontextualization of learning. I think learning leaders are up for the challenge.”

With the phased reopening of the economy, undoubtedly there will be new challenges ahead. In this dynamically changing environment, learning leaders on the front lines are now battle-tested and well-positioned to keep their organizations healthy and to prevail in this fight against COVID-19. CLO

Paul Meskanick is director of client services for Ingenuiti, a developer of custom learning solutions and ISO-certified provider of translation and localization solutions.

The Rise of E-Learning

Based on the events of 2020 so far, it’s no surprise that e-learning is accelerating. But what does that mean for the future?

BY ASHLEY ST. JOHN

There’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic — and its longer-term effects on our personal lives, work and the economy — is far from over. But as the world finds itself in various stages of reopening, what’s the initial outlook for learning and development?

At first glance, it may seem a bit grim. Unsurprisingly, learning leaders’ outlook for spending in the next 12-18 months is mixed, but far less optimistic than the past couple years. Thirty-six percent of respondents to the Chief Learning Officer Business Intelligence Board’s “2020 Learning State of the Industry” report said they anticipate an increase in their organization’s spending on L&D, while 29 percent expect no change and 29 percent anticipate a decrease (see Figure 1). In 2018, 57 percent of respondents predicted a spending increase, 28 percent expected no change, and 12 percent predicted a decrease, and in 2019, those numbers remained roughly the same.

The Chief Learning Officer Business Intelligence Board is a group of 1,500 professionals in the learning and development industry who have agreed to be surveyed by the Human Capital Media Research and Advisory Group, the research and advisory arm of Chief Learning Officer magazine.

As far as where spending will be allocated, it seems the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of trends already in place — most notably, e-learning delivery. While this has been the No. 1 anticipated area for L&D technology spending for the past few years, it jumped significantly from 2019 — when 41 percent of learning leaders identified it as an area of key spending — to 2020, with 52 percent of respondents identifying it as such (see Figure 2). Anticipated spending in most other areas declined, most notably for learning management systems, which declined from 29 percent in 2019 to 19 percent in 2020.

While instructor-led e-learning is currently increasing among organizations in conjunction with the sharp decline of classroom-based ILT, self-paced e-learning remains fairly static. This is true across business skills training, compliance training, core competencies, leadership development and onboarding/new hire training, and likely will continue if many organizations continue allowing more employees to work remotely, at least part-time. Over the next 12-18 months, self-paced e-learning is expected to increase — 65 percent of those surveyed this year anticipate this to be the case versus 60 percent in 2019 — but the most substantial anticipated change, again, relates to instructor-led e-learning: 53 percent of 2020 respondents anticipate an increase versus only 38 percent in 2019 (see Figure 3). Classroom-based ILT continued to drop sharply as an anticipated learning delivery method, with 47 percent of 2020 respondents expecting a drop in the next 12-18 months compared with 28 percent in 2019.

The use of e-learning has been increasing for years, and it’s no surprise that the events of 2020 have accelerated this trend. Will this be just the beginning of an increasingly digital future? This calls into question just how important and powerful face-to-face human interaction is when it comes to learning and development — and life in general. CLO

Ashley St. John is Chief Learning Officer’s managing editor.

FIGURE 1: HOW WILL YOUR ORGANIZATION’S SPENDING ON L&D CHANGE IN THE NEXT 12-18 MONTHS?

36%

29% 29%

7%

Increase No change Decrease Don’t know

FIGURE 2: TOP THREE ANTICIPATED AREAS FOR L&D TECHNOLOGY SPENDING IN THE NEXT 12-18 MONTHS

E-learning delivery Analytics/performance metrics/evaluation/dashboards Competency management/capability development Mobile learning delivery Social learning tools/platforms Instructor-led learning delivery Authoring tools/systems (content development) Learning management systems Data integration

16%

Content management systems

14%

Classroom tools and systems 12% Cloud-based software

12%

Enterprise portal

10% 19% 26% 25% 24% 22% 30% 36%

FIGURE 3: WHICH OF THESE LEARNING DELIVERY METHODS ARE EXPECTED TO INCREASE IN THE NEXT 12-18 MONTHS?

65%

60%

55% 53% 53% 53% 52%

37%

28%

18% 16%

Self-paced e-learning Mobile learning Coaching or mentoring Video Instructor-led e-learning Collaborative Simulations

Formal on-the-job Text-based training Classroombased ILT

I asked him what it was about joking that meant so much to the team. Through that process we were able to work through the underlying need he expressed: a sense of camaraderie among his team and a fun work environment. We talked about ways to uphold those elements of their work culture while being more sensitive to things that could intentionally or unintentionally hurt others’ feelings.

Finally, as we were wrapping up the conversation, one of the toughest-looking guys in the room raised his hand and said, “You know what, I’m so glad we’re talking about this. I hate my nickname. I’ve just never had the guts to say it because I like you all so much as friends.”

The room was shocked, and there was a huge shift in energy. Suddenly, everyone was more receptive to the teaching and realized the real-life implication this had on their colleague and friend. By not shutting down the original pushback, and instead working to draw out what was important to the participants in the room, we created a safe space for them to have a real and honest conversation — one that will hopefully have a long-lasting impact.

Case Study No. 2: Generating Excitement

Two hours after a workshop I was leading concluded, the company’s HR director called me on my cell phone. I braced myself for whatever emergency I had imagined she was having: “Oh no, everyone’s grumbling about why they had to take time out of their day to be there.” Instead, I was relieved to hear her laughing on the other end of the line.

“One of my employees just ran in here exclaiming, ‘I just used it! I was just an upstander,’ ” she told me, with obvious pride in her voice. Instead of fostering cynicism, empowering employees to be good bystanders can have a significant impact on morale and fellowship.

Above all, what we find in most of our workshops is that the typical employee really wants to stand up to inappropriate behavior — they’re just not sure how.

Beyond the Foundation

Telling employees what harassment is, and the many forms it can take, provides an important foundation, but HR departments can’t just leave it at that — this will only breed disengagement in a time when we need impactful cultural changes in our workplaces. Employees must be given the tools and confidence to speak up when they see something happening, and bystander communication training helps them realize that it is, in fact, “their place” to do so. CLO

Ashley Virtue is director of external relations of the National Conflict Resolution Center.

Performance data: What is happening in real life? How does the organization determine whether employees are demonstrating the right behaviors on the job? In some cases, this data already exists. For example, in safety-critical environments, auditors often record behavior observation data to identify trends and potential risks. L&D can leverage this data to determine how their solutions are (or are not) impacting real-world employee behavior. This is critical for connecting learning to business results.

Learning data: How is employee knowledge and confidence changing? L&D must expand the definition of “learning data” to include more than test scores, smile sheets and course tracking. These data points are still needed, but L&D must be able to assess an employee’s current capability, regardless of the training they completed in the past. This will help L&D proactively design and implement right-fit, persistent solutions before performance gaps appear.

This is not a comprehensive list of the data L&D needs to improve measurement. For example, some teams are applying sentiment and network analysis to determine how people interact in the workplace and learn from one another. These categories show how much the L&D data puzzle must expand so you can get the pieces you need to put your own measurement strategy together.

Moving Data Forward

You have identified the types of data you need to solve your problem. Now, you have some work to do.

Start with existing sources. Where can you already access some of this data? HR should have the people data. Business stakeholders should have the business data and maybe some performance data. L&D has pieces of the learning data. Connect with data experts on these teams to understand what data is available and how you can access it. This should happen early in the process, before you actually need to apply the data.

Next, consider evolving your tactics. It’s time to go beyond the billboard. L&D can apply an evolved perspective on data to gather more and better data from existing tactics. If this isn’t enough to solve the problem, you can evolve and augment your tactics to become more data-rich. For example, a traditional classroom session yields minimal data beyond completions, assessment scores and survey results. However, this tactic can be enriched by adding new, meaningful data collection points before and after the session. Progressive organizations are asking participants to complete assessments that demonstrate their

If you can’t tell if what you’re doing is working, what’s the point in doing it at all?

knowledge and confidence in key topics before the session. They are provided with ongoing reinforcement activities to measure how they retain important information long-term. Microlearning activities are also being applied to capture data on knowledge retention during the few minutes employees have available in their workday. This provides a real-time understanding of what employees do (and do not) know.

Consider new capabilities. Improving L&D data practices is not just about fixing learning measurement. Data is required to implement a growing list of modern learning practices, including: • Personalization: adjusting a digital learning experience based on the specific needs of an individual employee. • Adaptive learning: providing the right learning experience to the right person at the time. • Recommendation: highlighting additional resources or experts based on proven need and value. • Coaching: providing managers with specific, actionable steps to help an employee improve their performance.

Learning Measurement, Transformed

How do you fit a square peg into a round hole? You can’t. You need a new peg, one that is specifically designed to fit this particular hole. The same is true for learning measurement. One model cannot solve the industry’s problem. Instead, each L&D team must ask their own questions, apply proven, data-rich principles and develop their own measurement strategy. In addition to not knowing where to begin, L&D pros often cite prioritization as a reason for measurement problems. Why should this be important to every L&D team? The answer to this question is another question: If you can’t tell if what you’re doing is working, what’s the point in doing it at all? Stakeholders expect L&D solutions to have a positive impact on their people and their business. When L&D cannot prove impact or apply data to innovate their tactics like other functions, their value comes under scrutiny. Everyone anecdotally agrees that learning is important. It’s the way we do our jobs that comes into question — and rightly so.

This may sound complicated. This may sound difficult. But doing what it takes to finally fix learning measurement is clearly worth the effort. According to a 2019 study by Axonify, companies that apply modern data practices see a 29 percent average impact on business results from their learning programs. This isn’t the result of a survey. It’s not the weak correlation that comes from old-school billboards. Real impact measurement is possible. But first, we have to shatter the way L&D thinks about measurement. CLO

JD Dillon is chief learning architect at Axonify.

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Agile by Fire

How the tech industry is transforming learning • BY JULIA M. LEWIS SATOV

Julia M. Lewis Satov is manager of learning for Kira Systems. She has more than 10 years of experience in people strategy, leadership development, diversity and inclusion, learning and development and organizational culture. W hen it comes to the fourth industrial revolution, machine learning and artificial intelligence are at the center of the universe. Move aside, elite and longstanding establishments of formal education — the tech industry is advancing both theoretical and applied learning at a faster rate than Apple can push out an iOS update. It is “agility by fire” — the ability to move quickly but not easily, and still excel.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are brimming with intelligent, diverse and eager talent producing work as it defines and redefines itself. This reality accounts for a fast-paced, reactive, regulated yet boundaryless organization with silos of expertise. It’s a beautiful place to be. It is what industry giants have long written about when telling tales of their path to success.

SMEs are true front-line and onsite educators. Although conducting research and onsite training is not new to business savoir-faire; invested in-house researchers, a valued platform for customer support, dedicated customer experience leadership and a strong strategic learning culture all drive iterations of excellence in real time, obliged to become versions of interdisciplines, which in itself is innovative and a testament to evolutionary survival.

In the past 10 years, the academic demographic has transformed into a mix of highly educated university students and seasoned continuing education professionals seeking career complement. To a growing degree, this is because the workforce rewards interdisciplinary experience and applied learning. Formal education is not enough. Bryan Caplan, in his book “The Case Against Education,” argues that 80 percent of a college degree’s value comes from what the degree signals to employers, not the knowledge and experience gained acquiring it. The internet economy is creating new professions at a pace too fast for universities. These professions require two or three different skills, which aren’t taught in the same degree or even by the same faculty.

Along the same vein, student internships have taken on a competitive counterpart with coveted partnerships between industry organizations and academia. The nuance in this collaboration is that the industry is giving substantive value to education. This milieu gives agency for an employee within their own role and organization to be curious, to fail, to wonder, to try — to learn. Academia alone are not the keyholders to the new world of work anymore — they too had to become agile by fire.

The No. 1 culture peg for 2020 is agile learning, says Spotify HR Blog author Katarina Berg, who refers to upskilling, cross-skilling, reskilling and offskilling as “the new black.” Major strides in technology and a new internet-enabled economy open doors to a new model of education — one where the individual takes responsibility for their development, according to a HackerNoon.com post. Move aside, elite and longstanding establishments of formal education.

The tech sector not only inspires but requires learning by fire with interdisciplinary teams for real-world application that is natural in software SMEs. It’s the perfect storm. Industries struggle to integrate data, tech and software to keep pace, suffering with the upskilling required to use it. According to a global survey commissioned by Workday Rising, 22 percent of finance executives believe the ability to interpret and act upon predictions made with machine learning will be the most valuable skill to their function over the next five years. What will be different is that powerful planning tools will take these once-specialized capabilities and democratize them so people throughout an organization can use these skills.

The tech sector requires logical minds using a blend of technology, math and business analysis to solve various practical problems. This is sparked by a strong learning culture. To be innovative, it is important that learning continues to widen the scope and breadth of how we see what we do.

The tech sector survives from the understanding that developers need designers, designers need marketers, marketers need UX researchers and researchers need data scientist researchers. Any of those candidates who has learned the others’ value becomes more valuable to the organization. The role of learning is to capitalize and create the architecture of the hybrid-mind. This opportunity is constantly presenting itself in tech companies as agile and on-the-fly pods are created to problem solve, innovate and compete. This is also how the tech sector is implicitly impacting learning. As the sector continues to evolve, it survives by being agile by fire. CLO