Learning for tomorrow

I love solving complex problems and building great teams. To do so I need to be: continually learning new things; testing my old ideas; looking for diverse talent who are infinite learners; and spending lots of time helping the teams I work with learn.

Salesforce’s own research is suggesting the pace of change in The Fourth Industrial Revolution demands new approaches to workforce development and that learning approaches are key. Eighty-eight percent of hiring managers say that formalised retraining programs to evolve existing employee skill sets will be crucial in the years ahead. To future-proof their workforce and diversify their talent pools, many are exploring apprenticeships and training programs for non-college educated talent. A majority of hiring managers (66%) believe workforce development programs will boost their company’s preparedness for future disruptions or innovations.

I thought a podcast series from Reid Hoffman came to to an interesting conclusion in this area:

In working on the podcast Masters of Scale, I’ve come to a perhaps surprising conclusion. There are no true “masters of scale.” I believe we are all, at best, what I call “infinite learners” — people who not only enjoy learning, but need to be constantly learning on the job.

In my experience this conclusion from Reid applies not just to the Entrepreneurs he studies but to everyone trying to increase their impact in the world of today and tomorrow. And there are more signals of this as we try to unlock more and more human potential, for example:

1. Plum matches people to jobs where they thrive — enabling data-driven decision-making when it comes to hiring, learning & development, strategic workforce planning, and identifying emerging leaders. [unbundling jobs into tasks]
2. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings takes pride in every decision he doesn’t make, a unique philosophy on decentralizing decision-making. (Forbes) [breaking the bottlenecks]
3. UBS has its own internal gig marketplace career navigator. (UBS) [embrace free agents]
4. AirBNB democratizes decision making with Data University (HBR; Medium)

So how are you preparing yourself and your workforce for the future?

Please have a look some of the resources here and do: Get started with Trailhead (a free to all learning platform for the hard and soft skills needed for jobs today and tomorrow); push on and Earn Resume Ready Credentials for your career development; and Connect with Trailblazers for lots of opportunities to learn, get experiences, and find jobs in the Salesforce Ecosystem.

Originally posted on linkedin