It’s all about lifelong learning in the Nexttech Revolution

An article by Marc Tucker. What “Building Back Better” Might Mean for Education and Job Training in the United States - NCEE has given us food for thought and initiated some interesting discussion amongst our “i4j brains trust!” Initiated by Miriam Freedman and Curt Carlson 

Summary 

• The education system has to change to accomodate Nexttech Revolution
• The winners and losers of the post covid era
• Other countries overtaken USA in quality of education 
• Where to from here - what we need to do to change this paradigm 

Some Questions

Is the attack on merit, hard work, and achievement. universities and all K-12 schools killing our country? 

Is the USA fiddling while the world is moving forward? 

Is the existing education system adequate? 

Do we need a New education system designed to providing competence and meet the needs for the Nexttech Revolution - and not the  industrial economy for which it was designed a century ago? 

Does the USA have a problem - and does it start at building competence at schools? Is the USA “losing the war” or merely destroying itself? 

What is competence in the Nexttech Revolution?

What do we have to teach our kids and our existing workforce? 

Is the education system of our schools that have been optimised for the industrial Revolution still relevant? 

Does our existing system achieve this competence during the precious few hours that we have in school for about 180 days a year (pre-COVID. Now, so many fewer....)?

The Solution - cater for the lifelong learners (all of us) - make them competent 

We have a choice. Advance globalization and automation and increase the skills of our workforce or have a lower standard of living.

Upskilling and reskilling our Students, Citizens and Nation  - and “making them competent” should br front and centre” when forming our educational policy.

We know there will be and continue to be massive changes in the way we do things - and what we know now will be redundant soon .... and that the average millennial will probably have 17 different jobs in a variety of “different professions”  - so what do we need to do to educate ourselves - how do we equip ourselves and make us competent for the future .

The answer , my friends, is to make you competent to become a lifelong learner . 

Teaching and learning real knowledge and skills so students become competent to cope in the Nexttech Revolution - should be a primary focus for all students--we need to get back to our roots of teaching,  learning and competence.

Doing a 4 year course at university learning a trade or profession  - when that competence will be different and superseded in a few years - needs to change

Do we need to learn how to learn?

Marc Tucker talks about the winners and the losers in the Nexttech Revolution - which will be beyond borders .

2 types of workers post pandemic the winners and the losers 

The winners

Those that work from home - seamlessly - with computers snd tech - highly educated and technically adept

Productivity up - time saved commuting 

Pollution down

Traffic better

Moving to holiday homes in country and working remotely ;from anywhere on the world)

Automation will increase the demand for the educated 

Those with a high degree of technical skill to their jobs Will  be using automation and intelligent technologies to make them  more productive. 

Health care workers, caregivers,  hair stylist—are not going to be replaced anytime soon by someone at the other end of an internet connection.

The losers 

Those with minimal education and little technical education - decimated by covid 19 

• Workers in  restaurants as cooks, servers and dishwashers; 
• clerks and cashiers; inventory takers, pitchers and packers, stickers and fitters; n malls and department stores as stockers 
• Assembly line workers in factories 
• cruise ships - bar keepers,  cleaners, crew and entertainers. 
•  Drivers - trucks, limos, Uber’s  and taxis, 
•  Carers of our kids in child care centers
• Miners 
• Farmers 
• Pickers and packers on farms 
• Butchers 

Many of these humans have been decimated by COVID-19, many lost their jobs and can’t find other ones.  

Many of the jobs they lost will not be coming back, now or ever.  

The truth of it is that this was always going to happen and covid-19 just accelerated the process - Automation , AI VR and machine learning , outsourcing to other countries - for more efficient production 

Restaurants will come back, but a growing number will have iPad terminals for customers to place their orders and automated machines preparing the food. 

Machines don’t require social distancing and special air conditioning and will not sue if the company is not strictly following CDC recommendations. 

Many that served the commuters will simply disappear. We will get self-driving trucks and self-driving cars,

Millions of workers will be put out of work by automated machines.

Will companies invest in hiring people back to do the work or buy machines that will do it?

Education and learning in the USA and the global stat of play 

According to an analysis of data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) done by the Educational Testing Service, the basic skills of millennials in the American workforce are the lowest or tied for lowest among all the countries they surveyed. 

Workers in the United States are now competing with countries in Asia whose workforces were largely illiterate 40 years ago, but whose high school graduates leave high school now with the equivalent of as much as two-and-one-half years more education than our high school graduates. 

The USA high school vocational education system has almost vanished. 

The USA community colleges have adjusted to the poor performance of their  high school graduates by offering a curriculum that would be regarded as a high school curriculum by the standards of any country leading the OECD league tables. 

The quality of the technical training available in most of USA community colleges is far behind the quality of vocational education in Switzerland, Singapore and many other countries.  

USA firms are investing much less in staff training than they used to. 

The US Army, which was once a major source of middle-level technical skills for the whole country when young people were being drafted, now keeps the people it trains, so they are no longer available to the civilian economy.

Competition from off shore 

Young people in countries on the other side of the world are better educated and more than willing to work for much less, because their wages will go much farther there than they will here. 

The internet has made  it possible for well-educated people in those countries to work for American firms without leaving either their country or their home. 

Those people in those other countries who are better educated will be coming for USA  jobs - And they won’t have to move.

Competition from automation 

There have been stunning advances in natural language processing, machine learning, sensing, the ability of the machines to handle things that are fragile and more. 

Machines  can now write music, stories, and news reports and invest money and destroy military targets and drive trucks and mine ore and cook food in ways that rival the best that humans can do

But the American education and job training system. And the performance metrics has stayed the same  while one country after another plows right past us.

What the USA needs to do to change this paradigm 

Marc Tucker’s conclusion

“My message to the Biden administration - 

Make it possible for millions of unemployed people to get the training from the nations’ community colleges and other providers that will make them more attractive to employers offering jobs and, while you are doing it, give them the income support they and their families will need to stay afloat while they are in training.”

Almost all the growth in employment from now on will be in high- skill, high-wage jobs. That is impossible to do with the education and job training system we have.  

We need to create the kind of education and training system the country needs in the long-term to build widely shared prosperity for everyone.

Put in place the  key elements of the continuous lifelong learning system that we will need to move forward. 

Tags: education policy, globalization, politics, system design, workforce

So Why is it so important to have a culture of learning in your organisation

I was reading the latest mckinsey newsletter - and the theme threading through is the future of work, capability and the importance of lifelong learning - 

This is some of the  takeouts 

Developing talent is job one for every leader in an organisation. 

Why is Capability Building so important for an organisation? 

The winning organisation needs to create a culture of continuous improvement and capability building and should be aligned to a university or a learning institution . 

This will be a major factor of why the brightest and best would want to work in your organisation! 

When you’re talking about the war for talent, when you talk about talent being a differentiator for companies and their performance, what’s the investment you’re putting into people? 

Lifelong learning and capability building is a key piece of the puzzle in the #nexttech Revolution and the #futureofwork 

The successful organizations will be those that capability build as part of their core values - making talent development a CEO-level priority. 

Building capability builds value and grows your asset base . 

So what is capability building 

Capability building - (learning in an organisation ) is about continuous reinforcement and constant application of the new skill, so that it’s not just something that’s understood but it becomes part of their behavior and DNA 

Capability  building is about building  resilience and adaptability, topical training, executive coaching, and a whole swath of things that makes your workforce a lot more effective.

How to capability build 

Michael Park - a partner at  McKenzie say learning should not only be event based training - but needs to be blended and continuous  - with  technology, remote learning, more microlearning as well as event-based learning - learning needs to include  more simulations that truly immerse the learner as they do their job versus as a separate action.

Instead of flying all the way to see a plant, you’ll have AR/VR [augmented/virtual reality] technology that will help you do virtual visits.

The courses and the capability-building workshops of the future are going to feel a lot more tailored to the person, a lot more captivating to the audience, and a lot more effective as a result.

Liz Hilton Segal says that  Capability building and Learning needs to be incorporated into employees’ daily routines and made relevant to their day-to-day success. 

Instead of taking place in a separate classroom, make learning part of continuous routines , sometimes in small huddles of ten or 15 people, with a snack-size lesson, maybe 15 minutes. People could share information with one another and then combine that with things they learned through working one-on-one with their supervisor or manager.

(Our BBG knowledge share and thinktank )

It’s about bringing the skill to their day-to-day jobs—

The benefits of Capability building in an Organisation 

Employees directly and tangibly saw 

• their own performance improve, 
• their compensation increase as a result. 
• that they had grown in terms of personal fulfillment and enrichment; 
• they believed they were able to live up to more of their potential. 
• that they increased their overall sense of happiness and their loyalty to the organization. 
• that they felt a sense of personal growth—feeling equipped to do the best possible job they can.
• that it has a direct result on your financial performance, on your ability to compete more effectively for customers, and on employee satisfaction

Spending too much time in the classroom - Is there a better way ? 

The  physical classroom where people come in for a week or two to learn in a concentrated way that is separate from their day-to-day job - is not time well spent; It’s not an efficient way to have someone absorb new skills and new content and then directly apply them. Nor is it necessary. 

We’ve surveyed people about their level of satisfaction with virtual programs. More than 80 percent said they found the virtual programs as successful as an in-person experience. 

Another benefit of digital programs, of course, is flexibility—there’s no need for a physical location, and companies can make any of their domain experts accessible to any employee in the world at any time.

What’s next in capability building

Leveraging virtual reality [VR]—for example, using VR to practice dealing with a difficult customer. 

Adaptive learning, where the digital curriculum unfolds differently for each participant based on how that participant performs on quizzes or tests offered along the way. 

User-generated content: participants add their ideas and the curriculum is constantly updated to incorporate those ideas, making the learning curriculum more emotionally engaging and more relevant to each person.

Here’s a thought for the Accounting profession 

Should investment in human capital be capitalised over a period or written off in the year it is incurred ?

Does The tech industry need to be disrupted ?

Why does the tech industry suffer from a  lack of diversity among employees, executives, venture-backed founders, venture capital firms and board members which still remains predominantly white and male.

Is it because  there is not enough qualified talent from diverse backgrounds? A pipeline problem?

Just this month, Facebook’s global head of diversity once again blamed the company’s meager amount of black and brown employees on a lack of available talent. This was met with criticism and anger among diversity and inclusion advocates across the tech industry

Is it a recruiting process challenge? Asks Uber Chief Diversity Officer Bo Young Lee told TechCrunch.

Do we need to change the narrative in tech when it comes to to diversity, equity and inclusion ?

Is the lack of diversity in tech 

A. because of a lack of what is in the recruitment pipeline 

or 

B. because of a deep seated prejudice or preconceived ideas on who should be controlling the industry?

Catriona Wallace suggests that this needs to change by removing inequalities, structural racism, mysoginy and micro-inequities from the tech companies themselves.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drcatrionawallace_examining-the-pipeline-problem-activity-6769363797011501056-4m9z

Courri Brady, director at diversity, equity and inclusion consulting firm Paradigm, suggests that there are preconceived ideas that  only certain schools, programs or other companies are the only places that produce good talent, and those people are not diverse, causing “narrowcasting”  in the recruitment process 

It’s all starts with  the equality of education says 

Dr. Joy Lisi Rankin, a research lead for gender, race and power in artificial intelligence at the AI Now Institute, suggests that it is not about getting a SAT score or a GRE -  but that it’s about privilige and “credentialing”

Decades of research have shown SATs correlate in no way with how you’re going to do in college or how you might be as a student, but correlate everything with how wealthy your family is, which also then correlates with race and access to all other sorts of things like tutoring and etc. 

The education system seems to have functioned as a gatekeeper to knowledge through credentialing, she said

“Credentialing is a form of gatekeeping and protecting who has access to power and who doesn’t,” she said. “There’s this term that I think was coined a few years ago about how Silicon Valley tech companies are not meritocracies, but ‘mirrortocracies,’ so you’re hiring people who have similar credentials to you, had the same sort of schooling, etcetera. 

There is evidence that diversity often yields better work and better outcomes in a variety of situations. 

 Focusing on certain types of qualifications and credentials, prevent diversity from happenning.

Is it because computing is so economically and politically important that computing has become so exclusive to the priviliged ? 

Disrupting for good

How do we rechannel the pipeline to allow a more diverse group of humans to collaborate, learn and grow together? 

There seems to be pipelines to prosperity 

And 

Pipelines to prison 

We have a criminal justice system that is inherently infected with racial bias

The number of black people under the control of the correctional system is staggering.

The lack of legitimate job opportunities in low-income black neighborhoods, combined with the infusion of illegal drugs into these neighborhoods, created an incentive to sell drugs.

Getting more technology and the tech industry involved in criminal justice efforts pays dividends. On so many levels — Justin Erlich, special assistant attorney general, office of AG Kamala Harris

how do we change this paradigm? 

Hoe do we channel the pipeline - from prisons to prosperity ? 

https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/31/the-other-pipeline/

Instead of relying on the pipeline as an excuse, 

Let’s work to make education truly equitable 

People who are interested in this -  from Dr Catriona Wallace post 

Courri Brady (he/him/his), MBA Joy Lisi Rankin, PhD Ifeoma Ozoma TechCrunch Meredith Whittaker Aerica Shimizu Banks Kate Crawford Tim Heasley

Ethical AI Advisory Dr Joy Townsend 

Roslyn Hames Andrew Lai Matthew Clunies-Ross Boab 

https://lnkd.in/gVCRD6M

Clive Smallman - Better enabling leadership teams to accelerate the value of their business

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John Cooksey talking Organiisational Excellence at our Nexttech Transformation Forum on 16 Feb 2021

John Cooksey talking Organisational Excellence at our Nexttech Transformation Forum

 

Unpacking The Think Tank with Rob Nankervis, Cassandra Parton, Craig Saphin, Hendrik Lourens 

Big data and the recruiting process

This article was inspired and sourced from an amazing article by Nicolas Babin . One of 200 thought leaders to follow in 2021. Here is the source https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/artificial-intelligence-recruitment-two-peas-pod-nicolas-babin

People are the most important part of your business and AI can ensure the right candidate is recruited for the right job. 

When recruiting how do you know that  your new employee will fit within your company culture, create value and stay for the long term?

Matching all your requirements (business and human) is key - and big data will play a big part in getting that information.

Velocity, value, volume, variety and varsity of data (the 5 Vs of Big Data) are key to the recruitment process . Once the data lake is organized you will be able to collect all data formats. From emails to photos, videos, text, numbers, maps, CRMs, real time information, social networks, NLP, facial recognition, AR, VR, MR… all data formats will be collected and analyzed.

Algorithms will be able to cross-refence all information on all platforms and in all formats.

1.       Sourcing information 

Much of the information will be found n social networks - where you will be able to automatically cross reference information from a CV that will be scanned and analyzed in order to ensure that it tells the truth about the candidate’s experience. 

An AI algorithm will be able to source and analyze hundreds of millions of profiles. This is obviously something a human would not be able to do. 

AI is about human augmented and here the mundane task to source and check is taken care of as well as the communication with candidates whilst the process is ongoing. This will ensure engagement from all.

2.      The screening process will improve. 

You will be able to  identify valuable candidates based on your criteria, Candidate ranking will be more efficient. Facial recognition will ensure that you are talking to the right candidate and false identity will then be a problem of the past.

3.      Candidate experience will be matched to your own needs. Finding someone with 5 to 10 years’ experience with strong skills, network and know-how will become an easy task because the variety and varsity of data will allow detailed and precise analysis and extract of data. 

For example - If you are looking for longer service you can exclude candidates who changes jobs every 3 years and you will be able to predict and offer something new before he/she reaches that critical timing.

4.      Checking references will be simpler. Your AI algorithm will use all types of data available. It will be able to cross reference people and build a network with starfish type of connections. You will then either contact their references, if possible, or check what has been written or said on social networks and make your own opinion.

5.      Once all these steps have been completed, the legal aspect will become automated. The legal team will have all data available automatically gathered during the recruitment process. Contracts will take into consideration all information discussed during the recruiting process and will be written with human input to ensure it matches all legal requirements.

AI will not replace but augment the process 

AI will not be used to replace human interaction but augment it, as in all recruiting process it is essential that empathy, values and human behaviors will be the differentiators. 

AI and recruiting – two peas in a pod for the benefit of companies and candidates. 

The Future of Work - lifelong learning and strong leadership is key

The future of work is really about the future of humankind — and its impact will be a game changer 

      

When machines become workers, what is the human role? 

The key word in the Nexttech revolution will be human augmentation. 

The way we work is being redefined

The future of work is more than technology: We are exploring how work is being re-invented, not just by technology, but also by demographic factors (e.g., millennial workers) , cultural drivers and distributed workforces, not having to be in same office or even in same country as your co-worker , 

The Life  Long Learner 

Learning and education: is a key part of the future of work -  front-loaded educational systems such as 3-5 year full time university degrees - will be a thing of the past - a relic. 

The future of work will be all about the lifelong learner -  where people will choose to work at a firm to gain a specific skill. Corporations will align to universities - so tenure in a job will earn a diploma or a degree. 

Leadership

Leaders in both the private and public sector need to plan and prepare for the future of work. 

Companies need to have a solid Human Resources policy and programme - incorporating  talent, employee motivation, recruiting, training and skills development. 

Governments need to explore safety net solution, such as a universal basic income or a permanent Jobkeeper programme .

So the question for you is 

Where to from here?

What do you need to do to be at the forefront and on the right side of the #nexttechRevolution. 

One thing I do know - is that to survive and thrive - everyone of us - in whatever role we play - will need to embrace change - and we all need to “learn how to learn”