Let’s power the future ready workforce
I know I’m not alone. We’ve all felt first-hand the personal and professional impact of the past 18 months. Navigating a global pandemic and the resulting “big reset” that turned our work and lives upside down, advocating for diversity, inclusion and equality for all people, and most recently, managing through the “Great Resignation.” All these things have fundamentally changed my own life and my work. I am still trying to balance the ever-evolving needs of my family and myself as we re-emerge from the effects of the pandemic. At the same time, I work to lead, motivate and engage a team of diverse, distributed people, ensuring that we stay connected and find common ground so we can execute huge, transformational work for our customers. As a team, we’ve found new and innovative ways to maximize our productivity while staying as agile as possible. And, we are all looking to the future with excitement, as we reflect on our personal and professional goals and seek new ways to grow — both individually and together. This is the picture of our work today The dramatic changes in our lives, the tectonic shifts in the way we work, and the new things we’ve learned about ourselves and each other shine a bright light on the opportunities we have in this moment. We are all searching for new ways to get inspired and to engage and grow at work and life — in a way that aligns with our ever-changing situations, which are all so uniquely personal. And whether change is required or chosen, it’s our human nature to try to “reweave” ourselves back into our new environments. To reconnect us back to purpose, to people, to the world around us. The experience of personal exploration, development and learning have been age-old ways to help us do that. But as important as this personal growth exploration is to us as humans, we can’t forget about the essential requirements of work. Enabling our people to grow and succeed in a way that works best for them AND enabling our business to grow and transform to meet the needs of our customers and markets is not an either/or conversation. Our ability to successfully navigate at this intersection is the lynchpin to the future of work. That’s the current gap we see in the market today Experience and intelligence must go hand in hand. To navigate the future of work successfully, we need to make a fundamental shift in the way we think about talent technology. To effectively adopt “back to human” strategies and elevate the people experience we need to harness — not ignore — the value of the essential talent tools, processes, workflows, and troves of people data and intelligence we’ve worked so hard to put in place. We’ve heard this from our vast and diverse customer base, and we believe Cornerstone is in a unique position to help solve this problem. It’s why we’re so excited that our latest innovation, Cornerstone Xplor, is launching today. It’s a new solution in our portfolio, but it represents more than that. Cornerstone Xplor works at the intersection of experience and intelligence Cornerstone Xplor is the manifestation of our company’s bold vision to revolutionize how people and teams will learn, grow, connect and thrive in this new world of work. It’s a holistic people growth experience that delivers a fully integrated and hyper-personalized journey of learning, skill development, growth and career mobility for every person. Cornerstone Xplor homepage See full image of Cornerstone Xplor homepage — The Cornerstone Xplor homepage is personalized to help employees see the content you’ve promoted, the training they need to take or the content that will help them meet their skill or learning needs. But unlike traditional Learning Experience Platforms (LXP) or other similar niche applications that create “experience silos,” Cornerstone Xplor brings every element of people growth into one single destination, so every person in your organization can: Design a personalized skill development and growth plan and a path to get there. Easily find the most engaging, relevant content that matches the skills they want to develop. Explore careers that are a fit for those skills. Connect with coaches and mentors who have mastered those skills. Join communities and explore gigs where they can practice those skills. Connect to an internal marketplace of job opportunities that align with those skills. Engage with others who share similar interests and ideas that have nothing to do with skills! Market response to Cornerstone Xplor is extremely positive. And here are two examples of how Cornerstone Xplor supports a better growth experience for people: Careers Explorer in Cornerstone Xplor See full image of Career Explorer — Career Explorer empowers employees to take career management into their own hands by providing a centralized location to explore career opportunities and to receive personalized development to support career advancement. Discover tab in Cornerstone Xplor See full image of Discover — Go beyond static content recommendations with Discover, a view into learning content recommendations inclusive of in-house and on-the-web content, all curated and filtered for quality, and searchable by skill and even by content vendor. And Cornerstone Xplor doesn’t detach this people experience from the systems and intelligence talent leaders need. Because the experience is only as powerful as the intelligence behind it. This is where the foundational strength of Cornerstone comes in. Cornerstone Xplor harnesses the power of our industry-leading learning, skills, content and talent capabilities, the broadest, deepest people data lake and purpose-built AI Engines to fuel continuous personalization and optimization of the people experience while delivering new levels of depth, flexibility, scale and insight for talent leaders. Supported by an AI-powered and skills-forward talent system As Cornerstone Xplor works on the experience layer, talent leaders have access to a whole new level of intelligence under the hood. They can easily identify their experts and offer them new opportunities to grow, visualize the skills they have across the organization, create new talent pools based on skills, and more precisely map and align the skills of their people to the evolving requirements of the business. They can auto-generate learning and skill development paths, create seamless skill and career journeys, deliver fresh, relevant, high-impact learning content — all surfaced by Cornerstone Xplor based on individual interests, goals and career aspirations — without all the heavy lifting. They can leverage Cornerstone Xplor to surface relevant learning and skills content, help people connect to mentors and experts, reveal options for both traditional and non-traditional career and skill paths, and connect people to an auto-matched “marketplace” of new jobs, gigs and projects. They can meet their people where they are with personalized learning, skill development and career growth opportunities – at scale and with more intelligence than ever — while keeping that experience tightly connected to their existing systems, workflows and essential learning and talent programs. Let’s meet this moment together How often do we REALLY get to shape the future of work? To inspire our people, help them achieve their goals and become their most extraordinary? To create a better world – the one we all aspire to live and work in? To empower our people to infuse their unique perspectives and personalities and strengths into work, and dazzle us with the results? It’s time to create this new world together. On behalf of everyone at Cornerstone, I’m excited to be on this journey with you, as we make our way together into the future of work. Today’s launch of Cornerstone Xplor is just the beginning of that journey, and we hope you like what you’re hearing. If you have questions, send me a message, I’d love to connect with you, even if we may not be able to do that in person, yet! To get a closer look at Cornerstone Xplor, check out this video
Let’s power the future ready workforce
I know I’m not alone. We’ve all felt first-hand the personal and professional impact of the past 18 months. Navigating a global pandemic and the resulting “big reset” that turned our work and lives upside down, advocating for diversity, inclusion and equality for all people, and most recently, managing through the “Great Resignation.” All these things have fundamentally changed my own life and my work. I am still trying to balance the ever-evolving needs of my family and myself as we re-emerge from the effects of the pandemic. At the same time, I work to lead, motivate and engage a team of diverse, distributed people, ensuring that we stay connected and find common ground so we can execute huge, transformational work for our customers. As a team, we’ve found new and innovative ways to maximize our productivity while staying as agile as possible. And, we are all looking to the future with excitement, as we reflect on our personal and professional goals and seek new ways to grow — both individually and together. This is the picture of our work today The dramatic changes in our lives, the tectonic shifts in the way we work, and the new things we’ve learned about ourselves and each other shine a bright light on the opportunities we have in this moment. We are all searching for new ways to get inspired and to engage and grow at work and life — in a way that aligns with our ever-changing situations, which are all so uniquely personal. And whether change is required or chosen, it’s our human nature to try to “reweave” ourselves back into our new environments. To reconnect us back to purpose, to people, to the world around us. The experience of personal exploration, development and learning have been age-old ways to help us do that. But as important as this personal growth exploration is to us as humans, we can’t forget about the essential requirements of work. Enabling our people to grow and succeed in a way that works best for them AND enabling our business to grow and transform to meet the needs of our customers and markets is not an either/or conversation. Our ability to successfully navigate at this intersection is the lynchpin to the future of work. That’s the current gap we see in the market today Experience and intelligence must go hand in hand. To navigate the future of work successfully, we need to make a fundamental shift in the way we think about talent technology. To effectively adopt “back to human” strategies and elevate the people experience we need to harness — not ignore — the value of the essential talent tools, processes, workflows, and troves of people data and intelligence we’ve worked so hard to put in place. We’ve heard this from our vast and diverse customer base, and we believe Cornerstone is in a unique position to help solve this problem. It’s why we’re so excited that our latest innovation, Cornerstone Xplor, is launching today. It’s a new solution in our portfolio, but it represents more than that. Cornerstone Xplor works at the intersection of experience and intelligence Cornerstone Xplor is the manifestation of our company’s bold vision to revolutionize how people and teams will learn, grow, connect and thrive in this new world of work. It’s a holistic people growth experience that delivers a fully integrated and hyper-personalized journey of learning, skill development, growth and career mobility for every person. Cornerstone Xplor homepage See full image of Cornerstone Xplor homepage — The Cornerstone Xplor homepage is personalized to help employees see the content you’ve promoted, the training they need to take or the content that will help them meet their skill or learning needs. But unlike traditional Learning Experience Platforms (LXP) or other similar niche applications that create “experience silos,” Cornerstone Xplor brings every element of people growth into one single destination, so every person in your organization can: Design a personalized skill development and growth plan and a path to get there. Easily find the most engaging, relevant content that matches the skills they want to develop. Explore careers that are a fit for those skills. Connect with coaches and mentors who have mastered those skills. Join communities and explore gigs where they can practice those skills. Connect to an internal marketplace of job opportunities that align with those skills. Engage with others who share similar interests and ideas that have nothing to do with skills! Market response to Cornerstone Xplor is extremely positive. And here are two examples of how Cornerstone Xplor supports a better growth experience for people: Careers Explorer in Cornerstone Xplor See full image of Career Explorer — Career Explorer empowers employees to take career management into their own hands by providing a centralized location to explore career opportunities and to receive personalized development to support career advancement. Discover tab in Cornerstone Xplor See full image of Discover — Go beyond static content recommendations with Discover, a view into learning content recommendations inclusive of in-house and on-the-web content, all curated and filtered for quality, and searchable by skill and even by content vendor. And Cornerstone Xplor doesn’t detach this people experience from the systems and intelligence talent leaders need. Because the experience is only as powerful as the intelligence behind it. This is where the foundational strength of Cornerstone comes in. Cornerstone Xplor harnesses the power of our industry-leading learning, skills, content and talent capabilities, the broadest, deepest people data lake and purpose-built AI Engines to fuel continuous personalization and optimization of the people experience while delivering new levels of depth, flexibility, scale and insight for talent leaders. Supported by an AI-powered and skills-forward talent system As Cornerstone Xplor works on the experience layer, talent leaders have access to a whole new level of intelligence under the hood. They can easily identify their experts and offer them new opportunities to grow, visualize the skills they have across the organization, create new talent pools based on skills, and more precisely map and align the skills of their people to the evolving requirements of the business. They can auto-generate learning and skill development paths, create seamless skill and career journeys, deliver fresh, relevant, high-impact learning content — all surfaced by Cornerstone Xplor based on individual interests, goals and career aspirations — without all the heavy lifting. They can leverage Cornerstone Xplor to surface relevant learning and skills content, help people connect to mentors and experts, reveal options for both traditional and non-traditional career and skill paths, and connect people to an auto-matched “marketplace” of new jobs, gigs and projects. They can meet their people where they are with personalized learning, skill development and career growth opportunities – at scale and with more intelligence than ever — while keeping that experience tightly connected to their existing systems, workflows and essential learning and talent programs. Let’s meet this moment together How often do we REALLY get to shape the future of work? To inspire our people, help them achieve their goals and become their most extraordinary? To create a better world – the one we all aspire to live and work in? To empower our people to infuse their unique perspectives and personalities and strengths into work, and dazzle us with the results? It’s time to create this new world together. On behalf of everyone at Cornerstone, I’m excited to be on this journey with you, as we make our way together into the future of work. Today’s launch of Cornerstone Xplor is just the beginning of that journey, and we hope you like what you’re hearing. If you have questions, send me a message, I’d love to connect with you, even if we may not be able to do that in person, yet! To get a closer look at Cornerstone Xplor, check out this video
Learning ROI: Starting with the "Why" Questions
There has been much debate over learning ROI (return on investment). In a corporate setting, it usually comes up around content or the learning management system renewals or during budgeting time. Executives will ask, and rightfully so, "are we getting our money’s worth?" It’s a fair question. But when the question is asked after implementation or when a training program is in full swing, it often throws the training or learning manager into a tail spin. I have seen many corporate L&D departments scurrying around trying to run reports that will somehow demonstrate ROI for the learning management system (LMS). I always encourage organizations to address this ROI question from the very beginning, i.e., when you are in the process of selecting an LMS and capturing stakeholder buy-in. Start By Asking the Right Questions There are two key questions to ask when considering learning ROI -- or more specifically ROI for the LMS. "Why are we procuring an LMS?" and "How do we validate our reasoning?" It starts with why we are investing in an LMS. Many L&D professionals will argue that this is a dumb question – the answer is obvious – right? But if you are the head of manufacturing, for example, in a large corporation and you were not a participant in the original discussions when an LMS was initially selected and implemented, the answer is not at all obvious. If I were that head of manufacturing and I’m told that I must contribute to the funding of the system, I would want to know the reasoning behind why I must contribute. It is not sufficient to answer that question by simply stating that knowledge is a good thing, I’m going to need more rationale than just that. Particularly in large companies, a business plan is usually developed to justify the spend. It should include an explanation of ROI and measurable ways to quantify the investment over time (e.g., monthly, semi-annually, or annually). In terms of answering the "why are we procuring an LMS?" question, think about the possible answers: To increase productivity? To decrease costs (e.g., less travel to classrooms and more eLearning)? To satisfy mandatory training for compliance? To improve employee job performance? To increase revenue (e.g., beef up sales training to drive more sales)? To enhance career development? Some combination of the above? You get the picture. But answering the "why" question is usually verbalized and not concisely documented. My advice is to document your rationale in the business plan or whatever document you are using to justify the investment. Stakeholder Buy-In Equally important is stakeholder buy-in by function or line of business. In addition to HR, the IT department will likely be involved and they need to be a part of any implementation from the start – even if they don’t own the project. It is not always easy to see how revenue-generating lines of business, for example manufacturing, are stakeholders who ultimately fund the LMS – so they should also have the opportunity to weigh-in on the project. Unless you sell your learning content to finance the LMS, it is an indirect cost to the company. Document It Well My advice is to document stakeholder input and/or commitment in your business plan. This should help satisfy the new head of manufacturing’s concerns about why we procured an LMS. But we are not done yet. When documenting the reasons why the company procured the LMS, it needs to be followed with "how the system investment will be measured over time". See, it gets harder now. Some of the possible answers above are more difficult to measure than others. For example, if one of my reasons was to decrease employee travel costs by reducing instructor-led training and increasing eLearning delivery, then I would want to benchmark current travel and labor costs, calculate the initial system investment, track ongoing maintenance costs, and finally track employee travel and labor costs – or something similar to achieve the needed metrics to "measure the investment". Much of this data can be programmed and retrieved from the LMS – but usually not all of the data. So, a concise model for measuring the system investment over time needs to be conceived and documented for this to work. And that, my friends, was one of the easier answers to "why we procured an LMS". This is the first in a series on the ROI of learning. In the next blog, I will share my thoughts on how integrated talent management can help to answer and measure the more difficult "why" questions.
Cartoon Coffee Break: Helping employees tap into hidden skills
Careers are no longer linear. In fact, more employees are switching jobs and even career paths, and embracing the idea of their next role, gig or opportunity could be something completely different from what they’re doing right now. Having transferable skills is not just useful for employees looking to start a new line of work — it’s also crucial for organizations to navigate today’s great talent reshuffle. By helping employees develop adjacent skills or discover new abilities, you’re promoting their career growth, while also building a workforce of more flexible, adaptable and empowered employees who are prepared to confront new challenges. Cartoon by Terry LaBan, cartoonist and illustrator. Read on for advice from authors around the Cornerstone Resource Corner on how tapping into hidden or adjacent skills can help employees own their career journeys. Lean into employee capabilities instead of competencies Hiring, managing and developing people based solely on their existing competencies isn’t a responsive enough strategy to help your organization pivot to changing market conditions — and it can potentially even limit employees from accessing growth opportunities. In order to develop well-rounded employees who can be successful in today’s nimble business landscape, talent strategies need to instead focus on capabilities, writes Cornerstone’s Dream Chua. “When you shift the focus to skills and capabilities, interpersonal skills and worker potential are weaved into a holistic employee profile,” Chua adds. “The emphasis here is on high-level abilities and traits that your employees and your organization need for future success, such as communication, collaboration and emotional intelligence.” Read Chua’s full article here. Unearth skill adjacencies to upgrade reskilling efforts Another way organizations can proactively and quickly address skills gaps (sometimes even before they appear) is by locating skills adjacencies and leveraging them to develop new and necessary skills. Skill adjacencies are links between employees’ existing abilities and those they want or need to learn. By using a proactive, data-driven approach to locating and strengthening these existing skills for new roles, organizations can not only better fill in-demand roles, but also show employees that they’re invested in their careers and growth, writes Cornerstone’s Mike Bollinger. “Today, some 40% of employees aren’t confident that their abilities will be relevant in the future,” he shares. “But by directing them to skills development and training that’s aligned with their existing capabilities and their interests, employees will more easily and rapidly transition from their current roles, to emerging positions, to new needs within their organization.” Read Bollinger’s full article here. Offer "internal gigs" so employees can flex their skills To keep employees engaged and fill critical skills gaps, organizations can try out ‘internal gigs’ where employees can practice and develop their skills. At Cornerstone, we introduced Cornerstone Gigs: an internal talent marketplace where employees can post opportunities for others to take on short-term assignments outside their usual department. With more than 250 applicants and counting, the program has proven to be a successful avenue for employees to expand their skills while exploring different areas of the business, boosting employee engagement and reshaping how people think about finding “better” jobs. Read the full article about Cornerstone Gigs here. Improving employee experience and business outcomes together Today’s top organizations are tapping into career mobility, promoting employee skills development, learning and growth to engage their teams in exciting new ways. And in supporting workers on their growth journeys and providing the opportunities and resources to learn and develop new skills — or use their existing skills in new ways — organizations can not only survive, but thrive in today’s evolving business environment. Editor's Note: This post is part of our “Cartoon Coffee Break” series. While we take talent management seriously, we also know it's important to have a good laugh. Check back regularly for a new cartoon.
Future of Work Requires a Connected Experience
Work is changing. Rapidly. Dramatic shifts in human skill sets are already underway, and the need for organizations to reset for growth is critical. At the same time people are seeking a career path and an opportunity to actually change their lives – to develop new skills, new careers, and to find acceptance, purpose and belonging. The ability for your organization and people to respond quickly to changing and uncertain conditions is essential. And yet, traditional people management strategies aren’t keeping up. Nor are these strategies providing people the personalized work experience they crave. Making matters worse, the sheer volume of competing HR systems and tools are creating more silos and more complexity. There is literally a tool for every problem you could ever imagine. Yet organizations are still struggling — to get scale in their employee value propositions, and to align their people to growth and transformation. In this webinar, guest speaker David Johnson, principal analyst with Forrester Research, will discuss how to create a work experience that makes your people want to stay and grow with your organization. He’ll share how to identify systemic factors in current employee journeys that may be inhibiting the performance and growth of your people, and how to deliver individualized and self-driven experiences at scale. You’ll learn how to: Design a meaningful work experience aligned to organizational priorities Enable and empower managers to coach for growth Be intentional with reskilling Use technology to deliver rather than shape your people management strategy
A partner on your journey
Implementing Cornerstone Xplor is simple. Once you’ve configured your LMS, your branding settings, users, permissions, and content are all automatically pulled from your LMS to power the functionalities of your new self-directed development portal. From there, you’ll have dedicated support from both our services and product teams to help you configure Cornerstone Xplor for your organizational initiatives. Download this services datasheet to learn more about how we can better support your experience with Cornerstone Xplor.
Enabling career growth is your competitive advantage
In today‘s environment of unrelenting business transformation, roles are shifting quickly. Skills are becoming obsolete faster. Your organization needs to identify, acquire, and develop the skills needed to transform, compete in new markets, and thrive. So how do you upskill your people in a scalable way that keeps you competitive rather than constantly playing catch-up? In short, by providing career growth opportunities. But often, employees think it’s easier to find a new job outside their company than inside. And in many organizations, there are internal cultures holding back career growth and internal mobility. In this webinar, Global Industry Analyst Josh Bersin shares why it’s time to navigate the shift from jobs to work, and the importance of connecting skills development to a career path in order to drive people and organizational success. Companies that do this well (through a combination of technology, HR processes, and culture) are the companies that will grow, outperform, and out-innovate their peers. In this webinar, you will learn: How to accelerate career growth based on people’s skills, interests and potential How to tap into hidden talent by surfacing skill adjacency How to use holistic people data rather than instinct or unintentional bias to build a sustainable talent pipeline
What you need to get started with Cornerstone Xplor
Getting started with Cornerstone Xplor is faster and easier than you might think. With its intelligent skills AI framework, your organization can improve your people’s skill growth in record time. Here’s what you need to know to prepare for implementation. That and more is what you can look forward to with Cornerstone Xplor.
Office Hours: How to Deliver Learner Centered Programs
This post is part of our biweekly "Office Hours" video series, featuring quick career, workplace and leadership tips from talent management experts and business leaders across the globe. When it comes to employee training, large corporations are in a bit of a tough spot. According to a recent LinkedIn report, 94 percent of employees would stick around longer at a company that invests in career development. Yet, in the same report, survey respondents said their greatest learning challenge was "getting employees to make time for learning." How do you give employees something they want, but allegedly don't have time for? In this video, Summer Salomonsen, chief learning officer of Grovo, suggests a clear-minded approach. In the time-constrained reality of the modern workplace, all learning content must be relevant and engaging. It should yield clear answers to the questions, What is the point of this? and Why am I the right person to be doing it? If an employee can't identify the business goal that specific training serves, or figure out how it helps them in their own career, chances are they'll ignore the increasingly irritating reminders from their company's learning portal to complete tasks x through y. As Salomonsen says, "It's on us to deliver learner-centered programs"—programs that identify business purposes, make employees better at their jobs, and in doing so contribute to building a growth mindset-oriented organization. Header photo: Creative Commons