Preparing Your Workforce for the Future of Work

Today's post is submitted by Joyce Maroney, Executive Director of the Workforce Institute at Kronos. In November, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel discussion with three of our board members, Martin Armstrong, Sharlyn Lauby and Alexandra Levit. All three contributed to our newest book, Being Present, a Practical Guide to Transforming the Experience of Your Frontline Workforce. In this podcast, we focus our discussion on the chapters they authored, all of which focus on strategies for preparing your workers to succeed today and for the future of work.

Why are we talking about workforce development? Many, if not all, of our workplaces are starving for enough qualified workers.  Education as we know it is being transformed from the ground up and has a significant impact on the candidates you're seeing today and will see in the years to come.

Performance management is a related ingredient in the secret sauce that keeps your employees growing and engaged.  Yet most managers and employees dread what they may see as an annual administrative exercise.

Finally, your leaders can't drive the development and growth of your workforce unless you are helping them develop those skills.  We'll discuss effective approaches to executive development, as well as ways to hold them accountable for building their leadership skills. 

Our very talented panelists included:

• Martin Armstrong, Vice President of Payroll Shared Services for Charter Communication
• Sharlyn Lauby, President of the ITM Group and also known as the HR Bartender
• Alexandra Levit, Author, Speaker, Consultant, and Futurist with a focus on the workplace

They each come at the topic of workforce development from a different angle, but firmly believe in the critical importance of a collaborative approach between employer and employee when it comes to building successful organizations for today and the future. Following are some of the issues we cover in the podcast:

• What is learning agility and why is it such an important organizational capability?
• How does learning agility factor into performance management?
• What are the hard and soft skills required to be an effective manager of frontline employees?
• How do you measure management skills and hold leaders accountable of cultivating them?
• What's the difference between upskilling and reskilling and why will both be needed?
• When it comes to skill acquisition, what's the responsibility of the employer versus the employee? How can both sides work together and hold each other accountable?
• How can organizations best leverage technology for more meaningful learning experiences?

You can listen to our conversation on the player below.  Please let us know what you think by commenting on this post and podcast.