These are unprecedented times. Companies expect workers to be digitally competent; to produce greater quantities of products and deliver higher quality services faster with less resources. Remote working, competing priorities, constant changes, and a desire to have some semblance of “work-life balance” adds to the complexity. Delivering on leadership and customer expectations suffers when your team is stuck due to a lack of strategic direction, is confused about their role and responsibilities, and cannot make decisions to move the work forward.  A large Aerospace and Defense company recently faced this exact scenario. The Workforce Strategy and Innovation team needed to show significant value to the business and deliver on their strategic objectives, but they struggled on where to begin.

Creating an Agile Organization Design Approach

As part of the organization design consulting team at GP Strategies, we conducted a condensed organizational assessment to identify the root cause of the most significant issues. As a result, it was determined that the organization design needed a refresh; but the aerospace and defense company did not have time for the traditional organization design process that could take six months to a year to complete. To address this, we came up with a unique organization design approach that was agile, iterative, and effective for this team. Though still adhering to the basic tenants of GP Strategies’ holistic Organizational Design approach (shown below), we tailored the iterations of the organization design process to specifically meet the urgent needs of our client so they can effectively respond to the fast-paced speed of their business. Our approach and best practices shared throughout this article are strategies we used to focus on the greatest needs of the client first and iterate on all components of the organization design over time to not only meet the demand needs quickly but also to ensure the design can flex and adapt with the organization as it undergoes significant change throughout their enterprise transformation initiatives.

The modified approach included the following process steps for the first iteration:

1. Align on strategic direction and priorities; only include the top two or three in scope for the first iteration
2. Define the highest priority work that the organization will perform
3. Create an intake process to scope, prioritize, and allocate resources to perform the work on an ongoing basis
4. Create clear governance processes for decision making
5. Identify key performance indicators (KPIs), metrics, and feedback mechanisms to iterate on the organization design for continuous improvement
6. Monitor and report success; celebrate quick wins and achievements
7. Share best practices and lessons learned with other teams 

Below are a few best practices to consider when using an agile organization design process. 

1. Do Not Start from Scratch 

The team had been in existence for almost two years and were not looking to radically redesign how they operated. Instead of starting from a blank slate, we needed an approach that allowed for incremental changes while still delivering services to their customers. We conducted an assessment to identify if there was an existing vision statement, mission, and strategy for the team. A high-level expectation for the roles and responsibilities existed, but there were significant opportunities to clarify and prioritize the work. We clearly defined what would be in-scope and out-of-scope for the organization design. We also identified what needed to be done now, because future work would build on it, versus what could wait to be updated, or iterated, later. For example, the team did not have a strategy, vision or mission so we prioritized those items to discuss first. Fortunately, we already had a good idea of what the strengths and opportunities for improvement were, so we saved that discussion for a future date.

2. More Than Agile: Work with Agility in a More Agile Way 

Leading organization design activities is challenging in any environment. In this case, the team was virtual; spread across three time zones in the US. Due to other priorities that could not be deferred, the team did not have the luxury of meeting in a multi-day off-site workshop to facilitate the discussions. Also, we were under tight time constraints. We only had about a week to plan and prepare for the organization design work. The process had to finish within three weeks to meet established deadlines and respond to the needs of the business. To do this, we had to challenge our thinking and approach around how to adapt a more traditional organization design process to focus on the critical missing components first and then iterate over time. We broke the organization design workshops up into smaller sessions and activities that were scheduled over the course of two weeks. Live virtual workshops were scheduled. They ranged from one to four hours long and were scheduled three to four days per week. We focused on defining the critical organization design components needed to provide the direction to respond to customers. To supplement the short workshops, we used collaboration technologies and interactive meeting techniques, such as providing information, discussion questions, and documents to pre-read in preparation for live meetings. We asked participants to complete homework assignments to prepare to engage in collaborative discussions during live virtual workshops and within Slack, an online collaboration tool. We used silent meetings, where quiet time was allocated during the live virtual workshop, so participants could read and familiarize themselves with the materials to be discussed.

3. Use Technology as Accelerators 

Each team member worked remotely so all workshops and collaboration discussions were conducted virtually. The use of technology was a critical accelerator in completing the organization design quickly and without requiring us to be in all day in-person workshops. We leveraged several online collaboration tools to work more efficiently and add fun to our work day and the process itself. Through the use of a team channel in Slack, we were able to have real-time communications and collaborate, review, and approve materials on our own time to cut down on the need for e-mails and meetings. We set up an emoji key to assign priority to each post to help team members identify what they needed to review and action in what timeframe. Using the emojis to react to posts, we were able to show that we looked at them and completed a task, and it was a fun way to thank and celebrate each other’s accomplishments.

Box, a secure cloud-based content management tool, was used to house team documents, such as our organization design homework and in-process design work, and was also used for dynamic note taking where the whole team was able to collaborate in a Box Note at one time. This worked well for brainstorming and silent meetings, and gave us a place to document key points from a meeting to reduce redundancy and the need to sync our notes later on. 

MindManager is a creative mind mapping tool. It helped us brainstorm ideas throughout the organization design process and was useful to sketch out and organize our support model and menu of services for our customers. 

Once the organization design reached our minimum viable product (MVP), we used Confluence, a web-based corporate wiki tool, to document our newly defined intake model, menu of services, and our team strategy and goals for our customers and other internal teams to view. To help keep us on pace and promote visibility to both our team and business partners, we used Jira, a work management tool, to plan and track our organization design components across sprints. Lastly, after the first phase of the organization design was complete, we conducted a team retrospective using MetroRetro, an interactive and collaborative tool, to document what worked well, what did not, and action items and next steps moving forward.   

Even though we used a variety of tools throughout the process, each one had a distinct purpose and enabled us to collaborate, make key decisions in a virtual environment, and helped accelerate the organization design process in an agile way.

4. Our Insights

Below are a few key insights for applying this approach with additional teams in the future.

• Prepare your workshop participants for all activities that need to be completed upfront, with clear roles and expectations. Providing a full picture of the organization design process upfront will help orient and set the context for your team members.
• Divide up the work into smaller assignments before each meeting.  
• Be flexible and alter your agenda depending on how the discussions proceed. Work with your participants to keep their schedules flexible in case they need to make accommodations so you have the right team members represented during the appropriate workshop sessions.
• Promote transparency and supplement it with open and honest feedback to create a climate of collaboration and teamwork. Check in with your team often to ensure everyone understands the task at hand and why it is important. Provide a venue to ask questions, such as a team channel in Slack, and share the work as it is being developed.

This tailored and agile approach to organization design requires deep knowledge and application of organization design, and deep understanding of traditional Agile frameworks (we used Scrum!) in order to provide the right level of guidance to your client. 

All in all, there is never a perfect time to do organization design. However, if you take an agile and strategic approach, start with what is existing, focus on the critical needs of the organization first, and then iterate over time, you can meet the needs of the business faster. In this approach, organization design is not a “once and done” activity. It is an ongoing, flexible, iterative process to establish an effective and efficient organization that will mature over time. Decisions made during the first iteration of the organization design process should be honored, but also provided with the flexibility to adjust as the needs of the team and/or business changes over time.

About the Authors

Michelle Crowe

Michelle is a Business Consultant at GP Strategies who brings meaningful strategies and solutions to companies undergoing a transformational change. She works with enterprise leaders and managers to help drive, support, and sustain a change to lead to successful adoption within the organization.

Sarah Peacey

March 13^th marked the 1-year anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a national emergency in the United States and the beginning of a year of loss. The loss of human life, the loss of income that has yet to come back for far too many, the loss of human touch, and more than anything else, the loss of any sense of normalcy.

But amid all the loss we’ve experienced, there have been reasons to remain hopeful. The incredible advances in science over the past year, the increased awareness of the ties that connect us all, and perhaps most important, the courage we all found to carry on in spite of it all. Our 2020 engagement survey trends reflect this spirit of resiliency. The data shows that in some key areas, things have actually improved.   

As we reflect on this year of change and loss, let’s look at the positive gains organizations have made as they have grappled with the fallout of this pandemic:

Employees got clear on what mattered most. When things got difficult, organizations homed in on their true priorities and purpose. A total of 86% of employees reported being clear on their work priorities, a 5-point increase from 2019.

Leaders got serious about feedback. Working from home, wearing masks, and maintaining a 6-foot distance didn’t get in the way of managers providing employees the insights they needed to stay aligned and deliver results. Regular and specific manager feedback increased by 7 points to 71%. 

Connection became key. Managers maintained and strengthened their connection to their employees. In fact, 85% of employees stated they had a “great relationship” with their manager, up 6 points from 2019.

Executives found their voice. In times of uncertainty, we look to our leaders to define the challenges we face and to provide us with the reassurance that we can overcome them. In 2020, leaders did just that. A total of 65% of employees agreed that their executives were communicating effectively, up 12 points, the largest increase of any question in our database. 

Working conditions supported employee performance. In spite of all of the obstacles upending business as usual, employees were 8 points more likely to feel that their organization responded to their needs and created a high performing work environment.  

As we move forward, healing from the wounds of 2020 and hopeful for a new normal in 2021, let’s not lose sight of all this moment of adversity has taught us. How can we use these lessons to transform our organizations for the better going forward?

About the Authors

Colleen Casey

When I was about 8 years old, I made the obligatory pilgrimage of every born and bred New Jersey native to the Thomas Edison museum. The other children and I pummeled our patient tour guide with innumerable questions (mostly pertaining to whether or not Mr. Edison had died on the premises). Upon learning that Mr. Edison had not received much in the way of a formal education, I inquired “But how was he so smart if he never went to school?!” The simple and astute response of the guide – “He asked a lot of questions.” My career in public opinion and employee polling has led me to do just that – ask a lot of questions in order to better understand how others see the world and what shapes those perceptions. In my current role, I use the insights that I gain from engagement surveys to help our client organizations better understand how their employees view their work, their leaders and the organization’s culture in order to enable them to implement meaningful change based on employee feedback. I feel that my time spent studying sociology and living in France provided me with a unique opportunity to see the world through a different lens and understand how culture informs the way we view ourselves, the world around us, and the institutions that shape us. These academic and personal experiences have been highly valuable to me in my career, heightening my sensitivity and awareness of the necessity to bring a unique approach to client measurement strategies, an approach that aligns with and reflects their unique organizational culture.

This blog article was written prior to LEO Learning becoming part of GP Strategies.

What Are the SMCR Conduct Rules Training Requirements?

Since the first roll-out of the SMCR in 2016, there has been a regulatory training requirement.

Specifically, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) requires firms to:

• “Notify” staff of the Conduct Rules that apply to them (see COCON 2.3.1)
• “Take all reasonable steps to ensure that they understand them” (see COCON 2.3.1)
• Establish a specific requirement to provide “suitable training” that includes a “deeper understanding of the practical application” of the Conduct Rules “relevant to their work”, citing Conduct Rule 4 in relation to those in customer-facing roles and Conduct Rule 5 in relation to market-facing roles (see COCON 2.3.2)

Below are five best-practice trends for SMCR training.

1. Evolving Content

The guidance produced by the FCA on the Conduct Rules, and the wider SMCR in which they operate, is developing and maturing. Two new training topics stand out.

The role of line managers

The first considers the role of line managers. Here, content should cover such topics as:

• How line managers model and embed behaviors within their teams
• Appropriate delegation
• Oversight and management
• How to conduct fit and proper assessments
• How and when to escalate potential breaches

Non-financial misconduct

The second considers the FCA’s evolving position on non-financial misconduct. So far, the only disciplinary action for non-financial misconduct to date addresses extreme cases of such misconduct outside the workplace. However, the FCA has made it clear that serious non-financial misconduct in the workplace, like bullying and harassment, is relevant when assessing whether staff are fit and proper under the SMCR and is, potentially, a breach of Conduct Rule 1 (acting with integrity).

2. Holistic Approaches

As Conduct Rules training matures, there’s also increasing recognition that the best approach is a holistic one. One that does not simply rely on a single annual course but also seeks to incorporate the standards set by the Conduct Rules into everyday conversations and across a firm’s regulatory training program.

For example, the detailed practical application of Conduct Rule 4 and Conduct Rule 5 does not have to be covered in a specific Conduct Rules course. They can be incorporated into modules on, for example, Treating Customers Fairly (Conduct Rule 4) and Market Conduct (Conduct Rule 5). This enables these messages to be delivered consistently, enabling staff to see the big picture rather than receiving training in separate topic silos.

Holistic approaches also help to join the dots between the Conduct Rules and the firm’s own values or internal code of conduct. This linkage is particularly important for topics such as non-financial misconduct.

3. Learning Through Real Life

When the Conduct Rules were first introduced, the training scenarios were typically extreme and very clear-cut. This was driven by the need to be clear to staff at a time when there was little regulatory guidance on how the rules should be applied in practice.

Over time, firms have developed their own in-house ‘case law’ through handling reports of breaches and holding disciplinary hearings. This ‘case law’ (anonymized, of course) provides highly effective learning material for scenarios that are ‘real’ and nuanced. This enables staff to explore and better understand the standards set by the Conduct Rules and the factors taken into account by the firm (and potentially a regulator) when determining whether an individual was personally culpable.

4. Blended Learning Delivery

Although an annual course is a baseline for all staff, learning can be extended through a range of other delivery methods.

The best fit will depend on the firm, but options include campaigns and other spaced learning approaches as well as small group face-to-face (or virtual face-to-face) sessions delivered by line managers or business leaders. The latter enables participants to discuss and explore scenarios that speak directly to the participants’ day-to-day experience.

Blended learning comes with a range of benefits for learning engagement, information retention, and transfer of knowledge into the workplace. While governance, regulatory, and compliance training may have a reputation for typically being delivered through a single touchpoint (yearly in-person training or annual compulsory eLearning), a blended approach can make a huge difference. 

5. Using Adaptive and Microlearning Techniques

As Conduct Rules training becomes an established part of a firm’s annual training program, adaptive and microlearning techniques are being increasingly adopted.

Adaptive approaches, such as pre-tests that assess learners’ understanding at the start of the course, can work well for digital courses that are delivered annually. This is particularly the case alongside the holistic and blended training approaches discussed above. A note of caution here, however. In order to meet the regulatory learning requirements, learners who score well, and are therefore not required to complete the full course, should still receive summary content and review the key messages.

Microlearning modules that deliver key messages in a succinct and highly engaging way are also well-suited for Conduct Rules refresher training or as part of a blended training program.

If you want to improve and streamline your Conduct Rules training, get in touch today.

About the Authors

Renato Hoxha

Every day I talk to women who are exhausted, frazzled, or suffering from mental health-related challenges. The impact of COVID-19 on women who already juggle so much invisible labor is sobering. The pandemic has amplified the gender gap in disproportionate ways and has resulted, according to the National Women’s Law Center, in the lowest level of female workforce participation since 1988. In fact, a recent Fortune article says that without significant employer support and action, “there is a real danger that female labor force participation could face its steepest decline since World War II.”

Many women have done the lion’s share of childcare for kids who are doing school at home either full-time or part-time. Others are providing elder care for family members. Some have been isolated and alone for a year. Additionally, women of color have had the added burden of grappling with the reverberations of systemic racism that underpins this nation’s history in especially acute ways. We are, essentially, living through a moment of collective trauma. Certainly, the toll is higher for some, but we are all feeling the ripples of this anomalous year.

So how do we, as women, avoid becoming part of that staggering statistical workplace loss? Right now, the buzzword is “self-care.” A quick scan of the magazines in the checkout aisle or a Google search will produce a litany of self-care tips for a “better, more refreshed you!” But what does that mean in a moment like this when a large swath of the things we might ordinarily do to care for ourselves are unsafe, too time-consuming, or closed? There are no one-size-fits-all solutions, but here are some things you might try.

If you’re feeling overloaded:

• Make time for things that fill you up. Unabashed joy might be hard to come by right now, but what fills up your proverbial bucket? Commit to finding even just 1 hour a week for it. Block the time on all of your calendars, let the people around you know, and resolve to do it without the usual guilt that many of us feel when we take time for ourselves.
• Get outside. Up to 35% of adults in the United States and about 1 billion people worldwide are Vitamin D deficient. This can play a role in depression and anxiety. After this difficult winter, we need those Vitamin D stores more than ever. All it takes is 20 minutes outside with 40% of your skin exposed to get your daily allotment.
• Drop some balls. Are you juggling too many off-the-side-of-your-desk projects? Do your kids have too many extracurricular activities that leave your family feeling stretched too thin? It’s okay to say no, to downsize your commitments for a little while, and to carve out room in schedules that are often too full to begin with.
• Let others take on some labor. If you’re accustomed to doing all of the work, let others help. Delegate work tasks, if you can. Allow your kids to take on some new chores or cooking as life skill-building activities. Ask a spouse, partner, or roommate to own a household task that you typically cover. Off-load some of that physical and mental labor to those who might be able to manage a little more right now.
• Reach out before you burn out. Shame and feelings of inadequacy can stop us from finding help or support. After all, women have been socialized to believe that they should be able to multi-task their way to top. Before you burn out, reach out to those in your work and personal networks. I guarantee you there are people willing to help until you find your balance again.

About the Authors

April Hennessey

April is a Digital Learning Specialist who designs, develops and deploys content that aligns client goals with learner-centric design. She’s passionate about creating space for a productive learner experience, especially as it pertains to diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. In her personal time, April enjoys spending time with her three kids and her wife, reading voraciously, listening to podcasts, serving as a school board trustee, and volunteering at The People’s Market, which provides access to whole foods and food security to families across Bloomington.

The financial sector is at the convergence of multiple disruptions, all of which are changing the face of learning in the industry.

The journey toward digital transformation is a disrupter that makes it possible for the industry to increase customer satisfaction, innovate faster, collaborate more effectively, deliver more value, and drive revenue—all with less effort. Industry evolution and innovative products from upstarts are causing financial institutions to compete in ways they never have before.

And to top it all off, business changed from being branch-based and face-to-face to portal-based and virtual literally overnight due to COVID-19.

All these disruptions have something common at the core—the virtual delivery of products and services. So, it’s no surprise that the training to address all these changes is going virtual too.

This journey starts well before delivery. Design teams need to be engaged to assess what materials are already in place from the methodology, blend, and suitability. Working in partnership with customers, design architects must map out what a learning journey could look, feel, and sound like for a virtual learning approach while simultaneously looking to solve the new business problem. The key questions to ask when considering virtual learning are:

• Is content curation required?
• Could this training be research for our learners?
• Could it be self-led learning?
• Could it be e-learning?
• What is the key reason for bringing people together virtually?

Making the Move from ILT to a Blended vILT Approach

The shift toward virtual and blended learning had already begun before COVID-19 hit. The industry recognized that learners take on information in different ways and that a virtual, blended approach is the best way to provide learning at scale for today’s modern learners. So, the transition from instructor-led training (ILT) to virtual instructor-led training (vILT) had already begun. But the pandemic, which accelerated all the other industry transformations, has accelerated learning transformation, too.

The good news is that technology is meeting the moment. From virtual banking capabilities to virtual training, competent tools for digital transformation are in place.

Based on GP Strategies’ experience in transforming learning in the financial industry, the effects of transformation touch on every area of training, from analysis and design to development, delivery, and beyond.

Learning Strategy

Training in the financial industry traditionally meant a lot of time in the classroom. But industry leaders are finding it’s not the best return for their money. As they make the switch to virtual learning, they are also focusing on which courses to reengineer along the way—which courses create the most value. And the focus of those courses has expanded to include topics along the lines of How to Become More Creative, How to Interview, How to Manage and Lead Virtually, and How to Engage When the Rules of Engagement Have Changed. The goal is twofold: give learners what they need and improve business performance.

Design and Development

Out of both necessity and desire, the industry has switched to more blended learning journeys with multiple virtual modalities, each selected for the impression it makes on learners. But it’s not just taking ILT content and virtualizing it. Everything is being rethought. A 2-day, in-person workshop might become a 4-hour virtual course as instructional designers rethink each element of the workshop, its value, and the attention span of a virtual learner. Course structure that stayed relatively the same for years is revitalized as designers reconsider every aspect, including design, content, and delivery.

Delivery

Learners respond differently when they are confined in a room with their peers and face to face with an instructor than when they are seated on their sofa taking a course on their phone. Instructor-led delivery should change too. GP Strategies and our clients in the financial sector have been upskilling virtual presenters and building our producer and moderator population to greet a more social and virtual approach. We have created new standards for lighting, sound, and backdrops. There is a new competency and skill framework we use for setting the standard and assessing virtual delivery. And we are hyper-focused on things like engagement and body language. Our clients have also increased their social media training presence, sharing quotes and links that reinforce learning to bridge the gap and stay connected. 

Budgets

Financial institutions are also focusing on their spending and ROI as all the industry disruption has created uncertainty in the sector. Switching from ILT to vILT and other virtual approaches saves the costs associated with travel to training sites, venue rental, hotel costs, meals, and lost productivity. It’s also more scalable and open to anywhere/anytime learning, providing more bang for the training buck.

Fatigue

But too much of a good thing can be bad. And that is a very real risk playing out in virtual meeting spaces around the globe. People worldwide are dealing with homeschooling on virtual meeting platforms, then attending meetings and virtual training programs on the same platforms, and fatigue is starting to set in. There is less patience with learners who aren’t engaging when others are making the most of the opportunity. There’s resentment for those who are distracted. There are those who are tired of always needing to be camera-ready. It’s a sensitive time, and the industry is looking at ways to combat this fatigue.

Partnerships

One of the brighter spots of all this transformation is that it is causing financial institutions to work even more closely with their training partners to address all of the impacts above. With one client, our customer satisfaction score increased by 22%. So, the result of the added collaboration in conjunction with virtual delivery has created learning that is more in tune with learners and the in-house training organization.

Looking toward a Blended Future in Financial Industry Training

The confluence of disruptions that the financial industry faces is not unlike the challenges that every business is facing in 2021. The difference is in the details. Financial institutions are rethinking everything—from the number of brick-and-mortar branches they’ll maintain to their collections processes. All of these considerations affect their training strategy.

Moving forward, the focus will still be on virtual learning. We estimate that 70% of learning will continue to be virtual in the future. People do appreciate in-person learning, and they want to be back in the classroom. The difference now is that, instead of in-person learning being a default approach, there needs to be a very good reason to go back in the classroom. Classroom training will be centered on the actions required to do the job back in the workplace. We expect more real-life simulations led by managers and leaders in the training room who equip learners for their live environments. This is where the value will be in getting back into a classroom. Our partners will be assessing their office space suitability. The financial industry has demonstrated contact and branch queries and actions can be managed through self-serve or colleagues from home. In a recent survey of one company, 65% of workers would now prefer to work from home. A high percentage saying they would like a blend of 3 days in the office and 2 days at home, will support the employees’ view to challenge workplace and building requirements.

What changes have you noticed in your approach to training over the past couple of years? Are there modalities that leave you scratching your head? Is there a particular challenge you’re facing in your virtualization efforts? GP Strategies would like to hear from you! Leave your comments below and we’ll get back to you.

About the Authors

Nick Williamson

Nick is senior leader in delivery management with 18 years of experience. Nick has built delivery and leadership functions in the Middle East, South Africa, India, Hong Kong, and the UK. His experience spans automotive, communications, banking, and utilities industries. His key skill is the creation of learning delivery teams and governance that supports the consistent approach to having the highest-quality, right-sized faculty in the right location at the right time, to deliver the right course. Nick aims to achieve the right balance between customer satisfaction and business commercial drivers through a relationship and partnership focus.

What’s the value of celebrating Black History Month?  Recognized in the US and Canada in February and in other countries, such as Ireland and the UK, in October, Black History Month provides us with opportunities to share, acknowledge, and honor how the contributions and presence of Black people have undeniably enriched our world. During February, GP Strategies recognized Black History Month by showcasing a variety of themed communications that included Black historical figures, GP Strategies employees, thought leaders, and culture. We also launched an email signature campaign to show our support internally and to our clients and highlighted Black History Month along with a panel of Black business owners in our Black + Allies Employee Resource Group. Lastly, we encouraged open discussions via Yammer not just about Black history, but our present as well, which spanned topics from favorite Black centered films to soul food and even Black-owned businesses. 

Maya Angelou said, “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”  The energy of this quote speaks to a personal journey, but we can apply it to why we collectively celebrate Black History Month as well. When we make the choice to learn more about what it means to be Black in this world, especially during Black History Month, we can then start to consciously grow together into doing more and being more than we were before as human beings. This is what connects us. This annual event is not just about understanding and valuing the past, our common history.  It is also about our present, and how we can use that history, although experienced differently for each of us, to create a deeper awareness of how our shared evolution brought us from what was to what is, the dynamics of past and present, and all the good and bad that comes with it. That’s the true power of Black History Month.  That’s the real value proposition: awareness becoming action for change. Awareness is a full-time gig, something we can’t undo, but can easily forget. So, knowing must turn to doing, not just for one month, but always. 

We can cultivate our awareness by continuously verifying that we are exposing ourselves to the Black experience itself. That requires proactive effort. Reflect on your social networks, personal and professional; are they diverse? Do you read books, watch movies or television shows, or listen to music that is a direct product of Black influence and culture?  When was the last time you researched and discovered a new, and perhaps shocking, truth about Black history? We must evaluate where we are currently to move forward with the right intention. So, it’s about taking that first, next step on your awareness journey.  What’s one thing you can do today to connect to a stronger understanding of the Black experience, no matter where you are in the world? That one thing does not have to change the world overnight or even exist on a grand scale. Start small and mature from there. 

To help with that next step, we offer a set of lists produced from our collaborative, online Yammer interactions, curated by GP Strategies employees this February. Our hope is that this compilation serves as a conduit for awareness, connection, and positive change. Each section comes with reflection questions to consider, so that we can possibly start to move from surface appreciation and recognition to a deeper level of comprehension and critical perspective taking. We are in this journey together, but it is critical that we each stay accountable to how our individual actions and presence contribute to the greater good. Enjoy and explore the lists, learn, and act. Remember, our growth is our responsibility. Make the investment. Take the time. Do the work. It matters. 

Black Centered Films

Films, like any other form of art, connect us quite a bit. We can gain insight into a character’s lived experiences just by sitting on our couch or in a theater.  Here is a list of some our employees’ favorite Black movies with reflection opportunities: 

A Raisin in the Sun
Blackboard Jungle
In the Heat of the Night
The Help
Bookmarks
They Call me Mr. Tibbs
Crooklyn
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?
Green Book
Selma
Moonlight
BlacKkKlansman
The Temptations Documentary
Hidden Figures
Glory
To Sir with Love
Mahogany
Waiting to Exhale
Antwone Fischer
Marshall
The Hate You Give
The Mighty Quinn
Hitsville: The Making of Motown
The Color Purple

REFLECTION: With so many great movies, new and remembered, listed above, how can we move from enjoying a film to applying what we learned from the movie to better create a call to action housed within empathy, inclusion, and the human condition? How many of these life lessons resonate and stay with us? What does representation in film do for the Black experience?

Soul Food

Just like films, food is a universal connector. For many cultures, our food is an integral part of our ancestral legacy, with recipes passed down from generation to generation. Soul food is no exception.  See what our employees shared as some of their favorite soul food recipes in the list below, including an article on the history of soul food, with reflection opportunities afterward.

Favorite Soul Food Recipes

The Humble History of Soul Food via Black Foodie

Vegan corn bread recipe via Allrecipes

Baked homemade macaroni and cheese recipe via Allrecipes

Southern fried okra recipe via Taste of Home

Here is a family recipe submitted by Stephanie Wedgeworth, Product Trainer, GP Strategies:

Mama Wedgeworth’s Best Pecan Pie

3 tablespoons butter

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 tablespoons flour

1 cup dark or white corn syrup

1-2 cups pecans (up to you if you want chopped or whole)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 unbaked pie crust 8” (not deep)

Cream butter and sugar first. Add remaining ingredients and pour in unbaked pie crust. Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. Cover with foil and parchment paper to prevent over-browning and lower to 350 degrees and cook for approximately one hour. Let it cool and dig in!

REFLECTION: How can you discover more about the origins of soul food? How do family recipes shape your own culture and experiences? How has soul food evolved over time? What soul food dish will you introduce to your table?

Favorite Black Owned Businesses

Part of supporting our communities also includes supporting Black owned and minority owned businesses. At GP Strategies, we continuously strive to partner with minority owned vendors to help support diversity and inclusion in procurement, but there are things we can do as individuals, as well. This is where awareness turns into action. Our employees shared their favorite Black owned businesses in the amazing list below. Don’t forget to check out the reflection questions.

Vegan Fine Foods – Vegan market, beauty care, and cafe

Kery Kay Candle Co – Vegan aromatherapy, candles, and other goods

la Peach Cobbler – Homemade peach cobblers

Online cooking classes by Chef Brother Luck

EyeSeeMe – African American Children’s Bookstore

reel paper – 100% bamboo toilet paper and paper towels

40 Acre Candle and Gift Co – Candles and gifts

Brown Women Wellness and Podcast Well, Honestly – Holistic health and wellness

Kinetic Bodies Fitness – Online fitness classes and personal training

Neighborhood Fiber Co – Hand-Dyed yarns

Paisley Paper Co – Cards and paper goods

REFLECTION: How can you support Black owned businesses in your own community? What’s the next purchase you will commit to buying from a Black owned business? What’s the value in buying from a Black owned business? What challenge(s) might Black business owners face today related to social injustice or discrimination? 

This is a movement, not a moment. As one of many moments, we recognize Black History Month each year, and then build our movement towards collective awareness, action, and change every single day.  

Check out more ways to celebrate!

About the Authors

James Garza

James Garza (he/him/his) currently serves as a Leadership and DE&I Consultant at GP Strategies. With 20 years in leadership, organizational, and content development, James helps organizations and leaders first understand the power behind belonging, fulfillment, and purpose at work, and then supports their journey in creating environments that produce those same ideas. He follows a fully consultative approach by clearly understanding current organizational objectives and identifying ways to align those goals against culture and leadership development, process efficiency, and overall future potential. Starting out in operational training, James has held leadership and consultant positions in the areas of customer experience, employee engagement, technical training, leadership development, and quality assurance. He has assisted companies in creating global leadership development programs from the ground up, with a continuous focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I). James has led organizational DE&I initiatives related to Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), diversity and inclusion training, policy and procedure equity review, and executive communication and coaching. He recently designed the GP Strategies DE&I product portfolio in partnership with a peer expert, Dwight Bailey, Owner of FirstServe Leaders, and most recently designed and hosted webinars on the topics of: Bias & Microaggressions, Impact of Racism, and Creating an Anti-Racist Organization. He brings a unique perspective to the world of DE&I as a gay, bi-racial man who is also a father to two special needs sons. Those life experiences motivate him to always work with others using empathy and kindness, believing that we are all more alike than we are different.

This blog article was written prior to LEO Learning becoming part of GP Strategies.

We’ve heard a lot about the challenges of the pandemic in every area of our lives. But at iVentiv Learning Futures, USA East 2021, GP Strategies Senior Director of LX Strategy, Andrew Joly, and Senior Director of Content Design, Sophie Miller, discussed the positive changes we’ve seen in the industry. In addition to focusing on the positives themselves, they asked members of a breakout session to explain their top learning goals for 2021.

Among all of the challenges we’ve seen over the course of the pandemic, one thing we’ve seen and heard consistently is how adaptable people are. Of course, this applies to adapting our way of life outside of the workplace, but L&D has been rapidly transformed in many organizations.

At the start of the global lockdowns in 2020, we saw our customers’ needs fall into three primary categories:

• React – companies urgently needing help converting face-to-face training into virtual or distance learning
• Optimize and Enhance – organizations that are comfortable with virtual, but want to deliver meaningful, powerful learning experiences
• Scale, Sustain, and Transform – those that need to expand their virtual learning offerings in a scalable way

At the time, we saw many organizations, understandably, in the React category. We helped organizations of all sizes move their learning strategy online and for some, it was the first time they had done this kind of digital transformation.

While at iVentiv, Sophie and I took part in a number of interesting breakout sessions, one of which asked the attendees: What is your mission for 2021? If you haven’t got one, what do you hope to achieve by the end of the year? 

From the responses, we saw three keys trends emerge:

• Evolving learning strategies
• Measuring the business impact of learning
• People and culture

Theme 1: Evolving Learning Strategies

The first theme to emerge from the responses was evolving and, in some cases, overhauling current learning strategies. With the major pivots necessitated by the pandemic, a large number of organizations are still progressing with the initial adaptation of learning content to virtual-only. These are the organizations that sit within the React and Optimize categories we spoke about earlier.

Some of the responses in this area focus on digitizing the learning they currently have. In this case, we’re looking at the initial conversion from face-to-face to live-online learning or virtual classrooms and workshops. Other responses focused on bringing in more modalities and technologies into their learning design. This could be things like virtual whiteboards, breakout spaces, group chats, or more social learning practices.

Overall, in this area, we saw a focus on reimagining learning in their organizations. This is where organizations step into the Optimize and Enhance stages of the model discussed earlier. For this cohort, the initial conversion to online learning is complete and now it’s time to reassess priorities and transform learning strategies in line with business needs, learner needs, and the technology ecosystem available to them.

Theme 2: Measuring the Business Impact of Learning

Measuring and proving the business impact of learning was a popular response. In a year that has seen L&D adapt and pivot so successfully across a wide range of organizations, we’ve seen an increase in need across both our clients and the wider L&D community to focus on measurement strategies.

Responses from attendees in this area focused on both proving the business impact as well as the learning impact. They also spoke of balancing meeting business objectives and needs with managing resources in the L&D function. It’s our experience that ‘resources’ refers to both staffing and the tools and technologies available to them.

Measuring the business impact of learning has been a key strategic priority for many of our clients, especially in the last year. And it’s great to see this priority among other senior leaders in the L&D profession. In this year’s LEO Measuring the Business Impact of Learning survey report, 94.9% of respondents said they want to measure the business impact, and 60% said they feel executive pressure to do so.

Theme 3: People and Culture

As well as measuring impact, we saw some respond with hopes of increasing impact and expanding the reach of learning initiatives. A key underlying theme here is changing the learning culture within their organizations. From focusing on people and community to unlocking the potential of their people through learning, driving cultural attitudes and behaviors are a top priority for a number of organizations in 2021.

Creating a genuine shift in learning culture is one of the more challenging goals for any L&D department. It’s no small feat. However with the right top-down and bottom-up strategy approach, and oversight of the bigger picture, transforming learning culture is definitely achievable. We’ve seen shifts in learning culture from our clients over the last few years and with the events of 2020 (and, I’m sure, 2021), circumstance has created a definite ‘moment for change’.

Building a learning culture, specifically in response to recent events, involves considering and centering learning deeply within the overall working experience. It’s often about finding ways to create blended learning journeys that work at a distance, which can integrate easily within the flow of work. 

These organizations are looking to include more social learning practices, perhaps pivot towards a more coaching-led culture, or create a culture of recognized and rewarded continuous learning. We’ve already seen how much both L&D professionals and their learners have adapted in the last year, and look forward to seeing how our clients and the wider L&D community continue to do so.

Some Thoughts on What Positivity Means for L&D

In the webinar, Sophie and I discussed how we each see positivity and the good things we’ve seen come out of mass working from home and sudden pivots in L&D strategy. We came at it from two very different perspectives but I think both are valuable.

Sophie explained how she sees positives in this for the learners. There’s a real focus on trust-building and vested interest for facilitators to get their learners into a positive mindset in the early stages of a session. Virtual learning is providing an environment for people to connect with each other and prioritize creativity and teamwork.

I looked at it from an organizational perspective. We’ve seen an overwhelmingly optimistic and adaptive response to the events of 2020. Organizations of all shapes and sizes have adapted marvelously to all of the challenges we faced. Last year, we heard stories of L&D professionals successfully rolling out social learning initiatives, using learning experience platforms (LXPs) to enhance their virtual learning and tales of innovation in learning across countries. 

So if you ask me, I think we have stepped into 2021, despite everything, with a real sense of optimism about the future of digital workplace learning.

If you’d like to speak to any of our other learning experts about your virtual learning strategy, get in touch.

About the Authors

Andrew Joly

Andrew leads the strategy and consulting faculty in the Learning Experience team, which is at the frontline of delivering creative, innovative and effective learning solutions. He focuses on his personal passion: how technology-enabled learning experiences and communication blends can transform behaviors and performance in the workplace. Andrew has a passion for exploring how new modes and strategies for learning and connection can make a real difference to people, teams, and global organizations.

What is Stories in People Analytics?

SAP SuccessFactors Stories in People Analytics (Stories) is the next generation of SuccessFactors reporting included with all SuccessFactors modules. It has been generally available since the H1 2020 release, and key features include:

• A toolset to create dynamic, interactive visualizations and tell stories with your data
• A single data model for modules across the SuccessFactors suite
• Integration with Role-Based Permissions (RBP) so that story consumers see only the appropriate data for their role(s)   

Stories will be the eventual replacement for the existing SuccessFactors reporting tools, which include Table/AdHoc, Canvas/ORD/Advanced Reporting/Detailed Reporting, and Tile-based Dashboards.  

Why is Stories in People Analytics so important?    

There are three big opportunities:

1. Simplify, simplify, simplify

Going forward, Stories in People Analytics will be the single tool used for SuccessFactors transactional reporting: list reports, charts, dashboards, and other interactive visualizations will be created in this tool.      

Chances are you have created dozens or even hundreds of reports in your existing reporting tools. With Stories, you have a two-pronged opportunity:

• Analyze and understand your existing reports to determine which ones your report consumers absolutely need going forward.
• Re-imagine how you can meet your organization’s HR data needs with this new toolset.

2. Become a more data-driven organization

A data-driven culture is a critical component of a modern HR organization’s success. And for data-reluctant individuals or teams, list reports or data dumps into Excel are a significant impediment to becoming data literate. Interactive visualizations and dashboards like those you can create with Stories can be a key driver to spurring data literacy in your organization.  

3. Reduce visualization rework in other tools

With Stories’ visualization tools, you now have the ability to create great visualizations directly with your live SuccessFactors transactional data. As mentioned previously, RBP integration enables you to increase the reach of your data so division heads, directors, and line managers see only the appropriate organization data in these reports.

The best run businesses use real-time data to make important decisions quickly and efficiently. Stories in People Analytics offers the ideal visualization toolset to do just that.

If you would like to learn more about the capabilities that Stories in People Analytics offers, visit us at www.gpstrategies.com or leave a comment and I will respond to your questions.

About the Authors

GP Strategies Corporation

GP Strategies is a global performance improvement solutions provider of sales and technical training, e-Learning solutions, management consulting and engineering services. GP Strategies' solutions improve the effectiveness of organizations by delivering innovative and superior training, consulting and business improvement services, customized to meet the specific needs of its clients. Clients include Fortune 500 companies, manufacturing, process and energy industries, and other commercial and government customers.

Build a Thriving Culture of Career Growth 

Career development is a bit of a dance. It’s about getting people to where they want to be and where the organization needs them to be. The benefits of getting it right go beyond turning around low employee survey scores, reducing turnover, increasing engagement, or becoming an employer of choice. Career development can yield sustainable high performance and organizational agility, powered by a line-up of top talent who can be successful in new roles with minimal learning curves. 

Creating a culture of continuous career growth improves the odds that your workforce will be willing, ready, and able to move into the roles that you need them to assume. 

Here are four strategies to make it happen. 

Strategy 1: Cultivate Continuous Learning Opportunities 

Research consistently shows that people don’t find inanimate resources and tools particularly valuable. (In fact, well-intentioned libraries stuffed with career resources can be overwhelming.) Instead, when people talk about pivotal career influences, they mention former managers or mentors, colleagues, career coaches, family members, and even training sessions where they’ve exchanged ideas and received advice. 

How can you encourage the type of career-focused dialogue that people need? Start with your managers. Your managers, by the nature of their jobs, sit at the intersection of what employees want and what you need. They should already be having goal setting and performance conversations with their teams. Encourage them to add career growth to the mix. Those conversations don’t need to be formal sit-downs or result in buttoned-up plans. They do need to explore questions like: 

• What are your interests and goals? 

• What type of work engages you? 

• How do you want to grow? 

• What do you enjoy most about your role? 

• What aspects of the business do you want to learn more about? 

• Where do you think you can add more value? 

The outcomes: Managers can better align employee interests with organizational goals and employees will gain clarity on their career drivers. 

Strategy 2: Foster Transparent Career Pathways

Part of the dance aspect of career development is that many people want a clear idea of what’s next, but organizations don’t work that way anymore. If you try to create defined career paths, today’s rapid pace of change may force a redesign as soon as you’re done. 

What’s the alternative? Share career journeys. Encourage people from different backgrounds and at all levels of the organization to describe the motivators, twists, turns, and setbacks of their career journeys. Their stories can be posted as videos, podcasts, or written profiles. In-person or virtual career panels, employee resource groups, and other types of career communities can provide forums for sharing. 

The outcomes: Employees realize that every career journey is unique. They obtain ideas for taking control of their own career growth and they expand their thinking about career possibilities. 

Strategy 3: Promote Regular Feedback and Mentorship

When people express dissatisfaction about career opportunities, the need behind the need may not be a clear path, more money, a new title, or their boss’ job. Instead, it may be about new challenges, more flexibility, or skill development. Our career research indicates that most people are comfortable staying in a role if they keep adding to their portfolio of skills and experiences. And our engagement research suggests that people care most about the work itself—how it challenges them, provides meaning, and fits into their personal lives. 

What’s the implication for you? Refine your career narrative. Define your organization’s career point of view (and related roles and responsibilities). Underscore your commitment to providing employees with opportunities to grow and make a meaningful impact. Publicize all forms of talent mobility, not just promotions. Recognize achievements and growth, not tenure. 

The outcome: More conversations will focus on helping employees find the work they want to do while making sure it’s the very work that will move your organization forward. 

Strategy 4: Align Development Goals with Company Vision

What metrics do your leaders track? Do they talk to their people about project timelines and deliverables alone? If career development isn’t a part of those conversations, it won’t happen on the scale that you need. The workplace is transforming at too rapid a pace for you to rely on a buy-not-build approach to your talent pipeline. 

The good news? There are many options for professional development besides classroom training: eLearning, collaborative digital learning, and facilitated virtual workshops. Of course, those are formal development examples. On the informal side, you should set team development goals for your managers. Equip managers to coach their people, provide stretch assignments, enable peer coaching, and share talent with other teams in support of career growth. 

The outcome: Development will move up the list of priorities and actually happen, instead of being constantly set on the back burner. 

The Impact of Career Growth on Employee Engagement

Culture is the way we do things. It’s not an initiative. When the strategies above are in place, conversations about career growth happen regularly. Employees will be more aligned with what the organization needs, and leaders will understand employees’ values, interests, skills, and goals. The result: people will be better prepared to take ownership of their careers in a way that fuels the organization’s success—not just their personal goals—and leaders won’t be making talent plans in a vacuum. 

Learn how we can help you unlock the full potential of your workforce.   

About the Authors

Mary Ann Masarech

Mary Ann Masarech spent the first third of her career writing, designing, and marketing skills training for top-notch consulting firms. She acquired a broad Mary Ann is the Lead Consultant for GP Strategies’ Engagement Practice. In this role, she leverages her extensive experience with instructional design and client experience to create practical tools and strategies that clients apply worldwide to create successful businesses and thriving workplaces. She is also co-author of The Engagement Equation: Leadership Strategies for an Inspired Workforce (Wiley, Oct 2012), and a founding member of the Norma Pfriem Urban Outreach Initiatives, a not-for-profit that addresses food insecurity and education for underserved adults and children. Mary Ann is a graduate of Wesleyan University. 

Two topics on everyone’s minds are COVID vaccinations and how to protect yourself if you have to go into the office or to a work site.

Vaccination distribution is picking up speed and, as of the time of this posting, is mostly available for the at-risk population and essential workers. As 2021 marches on, though, individual businesses and countries may be installing local requirements for vaccination.

Transportation providers, communities, large population event venues, business offices, and other places may require proof of a vaccination to be admitted into a building or a meeting or to interact with employees face-to-face. If you and your family members get vaccinated, be sure to obtain proof of vaccination from the provider(s) for both the initial and booster inoculation when two shots are required.

TIP: Personal Privacy

For information privacy purposes, have separate proof of vaccination documents that aren’t a part of your regular home health records. If it’s an all-in-one record, you may not want to provide all of your personal and family data to requestors.

If it is a combined record, make a copy and redact as much of the other personal information as possible. Create a PDF version, scan, redact (if needed), and save all vaccination verification documents (record of vaccination/appointments/completions). Travel with paper copies and an electronic version as well.

TIP: Computer and Office Personal Hygiene

When you enter a work office or site, it’s important to maintain a high degree of personal hygiene, such as frequent and thorough hand-washing, covering your face while coughing or sneezing, social distancing, and wearing face coverings that can help mitigate the spread of disease. COVID prevention is likely to be with us for most of 2021.

Exclude or limit sharing office machines and IT equipment—laptops, notebooks, phones, touchscreens, and writing utensils—as well as touching shared surfaces, such as IT tables and places that require employees to perform hand and surface touching. Think hygiene before and after contact. Use wipes or wear gloves.

Do not use bleach to clean electronic equipment, especially keyboards. Keyboards and equipment can be lightly wiped with an alcohol-water (60-90%) solution. Allow it to sit for a short time (30-60 seconds) on surfaces and keys and then gently wipe dry. Do not saturate or allow ponding when spraying keys and surfaces. Read labels for proper product use.

When using a disinfectant, it’s important to follow the contact time found on the label.

A few more tips for disinfectant include:

• Avoid excessive wiping and submerging items in cleanser.
• Unplug all external power sources and cables when cleaning.
• Do not use aerosol sprays or abrasive cleaners.
• Ensure moisture doesn’t get into openings.

We’ll all be healthier if we follow these hygiene and safety tips. If you have any questions, please contact us at info@gpstrategies.com.

About the Authors

Joe LaFleur

Joe LaFleur, Director of the GP Strategies Corporate Crisis Management Program, has been with GP for 10 years. He holds the distinction of being the first person in history to be a gubernatorial-appointed state emergency management director for two states: Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He was also a senior executive with the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency.