Naivety and inexperience are essential

I came across an enlightening interview with Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei where he was asked how young people affect his work.

Rather than turn his nose up or scoff at the question, he replied that the young generation is amazing. He said “they have less of the burden of history, but a clear sense of right and wrong.” He went on to say that they have more imagination than their parents and they are naive and full of inexperience – but it is this naivety and inexperience that are essential for creativity and being brave. Isn’t that refreshing?

By 2025, this generation will make up 75% of the workforce and the important thing is not just that they might bring new ideas and values, it’s that there are going to be so many of them. They will be the largest generation ever to enter the workforce – so how do we make our products, our services and our companies attractive enough so they choose us?

From Mad Men to Math Men

2022 Skills OutlookI had a lot of fun presenting at an uplifting Pearson event in London recently and we talked a lot about millennials, their expectations, work styles and torn jeans!

The World Economic Forum’s latest Future of Jobs Report underlines the need for analytical thinking, innovation and creativity, but I sense it is important not to run down a path that promotes only the STEM subjects and instead also takes into account the significance of humanities and soft skills as part of our well-rounded future workers. Data crunching isn’t much good if the individual cannot articulate the findings with her colleagues.

I stand by what I said at the session – I don’t think the needs of millennials are wildly different to when I was searching for work in the mid-1980s. Yes, they operate slightly differently; yes, the major shift is that there are so many of them entering the workforce at once so there will be style changes (no 9-5 is one example), but the good old-fashioned needs of making a contribution to something important and a career in which they can visualise growing and succeeding remain the major motivators.

I recognise that the Don Draper character from the Mad Men world of advertising in the 1960s isn’t well placed for our times, but we don’t all have to be brilliant mathematicians like John Nash from the movie A Beautiful Mind either. There is a place for all of us.

Are things really changing?

Somebody prompted me to write this, by asking earlier this week, “Are things really changing?” I think they wanted me to say “well, not really” so they could go back to doing the same thing in the same old way, probably because it would be easier to do so.

We don’t have the space here to quote all the areas of change, but one of the most impactful will be the demographic shift. Populations in the US and UK especially are aging: in the US 10,000 people turn 65 every day.

By 2035, the number of Americans that will be of retirement age will be larger than the number of people under 18 for the first time in US history. It is a setup that has never been experienced before, plus it will be interesting to watch 5 different generations all interacting in the workplace with their varying characteristics and demands.

Sprinkle over the top some of the unchartered trends and behaviours and we have a melting pot of transformation; an experienced 55-year old protects their information and doesn’t share too much, whereas an 18-year old is upset if the public doesn’t read and respond to their weekend exploits. This change in living very public lives will be an area of contention and yet this is just one behaviour that is cascading down to organisations and forcing them to rethink.

No one quite understands millennials but they are hugely important to the future – they will have different views, ideas and work styles for sure, but more importantly they will make up 75% of the workforce by 2025. There will simply be so many of them and they are going to be the largest generation ever to enter the workforce. We need to attract them on their terms, or they will choose not to work for us.

Remember the (recruitment) ‘milk round?’ Back in the ‘80s we used to attend job fairs wearing horrid ties pleading for companies to give us a chance. Today, organisations must shift from creating an environment where they assume that people need to work there to one where people want to spend their time.

We are mobile, geographic boundaries do not exist, attitudes are disruptive and the work day is being redefined. I feel sorry for companies that refuse to change. I feel more sorry for manufacturers of mens ties!

Lifetime employability not lifetime employment

bowler hatI am currently preparing for a presentation that will look at how the acceleration of today’s market trends, coupled with cross-sector technology innovations, might affect the future of education and assessment. I enjoyed Richard and Daniel Susskind’s book The Future of the Professions and will be referencing some of their thoughts – I recommend it as a very good read.

The changes this is bringing the professional world is a far cry from a time when McKinsey consultants had to wear a bowler hat as part of their uniform as evidence of their professionalism. Today, with fewer jobs for life, much less security and very little predictability, we will see both disintermediation and decomposition of roles within the professions and a new emphasis on the ability to learn and adapt as roles change – in smaller, bite-sized pieces, learning and quite possibly assessing on the go.

Knowledge and information have taken on a greater importance compared to traditional assets such as physical capital and natural resources – an educated and highly skilled workforce is among the most valuable assets an organisation has today. But because of the pace of change and progression, the workforce must continually retool its skills.

The knowledge economy is also borderless and knowledge workers are not a homogenous group; they have specialised skills and perform specialised roles, and knowledge workers do not spend their careers with one company; they change jobs frequently and with future generations the likelihood is this will increase.

Therefore, lifetime employability instead of lifetime employment is the goal of knowledge workers. Yet more and more tasks that once required human beings are being performed more productively and cheaply by machines and new capabilities are emerging on an almost daily basis. Machines can look back into data, discern patterns and make predictions (Big Data). Systems such as IBM Watson, with whom we have partnered here at Pearson, can perform tasks that we normally think requires human intelligence. Machines can interact with manual skill and dexterity via robotics and systems are getting smarter at detecting and expressing emotions.

We used to believe these tasks were the sole purview of human beings – are we just training machines to make us redundant? How do we stay in the game, differentiate and compete?

Does your company have a fusbol table?

fusbol

I read a stat recently that said 24.1 per cent of start-ups have a fusbol (football) table in their office. Is this the new silver bullet, the difference between company success and failure? Are we missing out?

We have all seen the images of the coolest offices in Silicon Valley or Old Street with young hipsters in torn jeans and suede boots, mismatched colours painted on the walls and a corner set aside for unpronounceable coffees, portrayed as the best places to work, fuelled by leading-edge technology. But how real is this?

Does a fusbol table really attract the right people? I don’t think so. Aren’t the old values of making a genuine contribution and a clear career plan still the most important factors, regardless of generation? I believe they are.

School as base camp

subbuteo

My team co-hosted a great seminar with the Professional Associations Research Network (PARN) this month, and it underlines what technology will never replace – the benefit that people gain from being in a room networking, asking questions and sharing best practice with each other – in other words learning in the real world.

In his book, Open, David Price talks about learning becoming authentic when it has a specific purpose, impact beyond schooling and supports a student’s communities.

What is school about, if it isn’t helping prepare young people for the real world, however small the steps of progress? My daughter returned from her Duke of Edinburgh trek this weekend tired, frazzled and aching from the backpack which stood almost as tall as her. But the experience was priceless and taught her how set up camp, prepare food and work in a team to navigate walks and hazards to reach their destination – the greatest challenge for them was the intermittent phone signal.

Education has to reflect what industry is looking for in skills. It has a tough time keeping up as it is, with first year degree material becoming out of date before graduation, so there has to be a genuine link between what is taught and its relevance to the real world – after all, kids are already more engaged via devices and the online world than we ever will be.

I do wonder, however, how these kids would have coped in the 70s; with just Subbuteo, a bicycle and local park to contend with.

Dispel the Myth

75 per cent of next gen

Within 10 years, 75% of the global workforce will be from the ‘next generation’, so are we prepared for a different style of management, perhaps a different type of human?

A number of studies have looked into the workplace needs of the next gen and it is reassuring to learn that they are not that much different to previous generations preparing for work. Yes, they have grown up in the digital era, and yes, they live and breathe social media, plus there is a new emphasis on corporate social responsibility magnified by social spaces and platforms (not such a bad thing) but are they allergic to being managed the traditional way?

In reality, the race for talent is no different than it always was, except that there will be fewer skilled people to take the ever increasing number of jobs, and the millennials’ attitudes to work are as conventional as they ever were.

They want to be given a chance and they want to be rewarded for their contributions. So what is the formula for the future? Combine the classic reward system with openness and transparency, help them attain skills that are relevant and give them the opportunity to flourish. And because they are so good with technology, allow them to be creative with it for the betterment of the business. And as my friend Martin Bean, Vice Chancellor and President of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, always told me – companies that ask, “What if I train and certify my people and they leave,” you have to reply, “What if you don’t train and certify your staff, and they stay!”

Time away from technology

boots at lake photoThis post is something of a rebellion. I am going to make a case against technology and was inspired by my friend Richard Tubb to write this.

I describe technology as the oxygen of the net generation, but Richard took a day away from tech and found it to be a “revelation.” I am short of breath at the thought, but I think I understand.

According to a study by the United Nations of the world’s 7 billion people, 6bn of those have access to a mobile phone but only 4.5bn have access to toilet. Furthermore, 1.3bn still lack access to electricity. Technology has connected us and extended our reach but in many cases it has also cocooned us. Tech is a tool that should empower us to reach more people and bind us closer together, not separate us from our friends and families and colleagues. We must remember that social interaction is a basic need, a fundamental part of our humanity, so I welcome walking into a café that outwardly proclaims, “No Wifi Here.” Meet people, talk to them, share ideas – that is how real friendships are born and businesses are germinated.

Historically great cities were built around resources – water (harbour), minerals and fuel. Today, and certainly tomorrow, great cities will be built around people – it isn’t about ‘B2B’ or ‘B2C’, it’s about ‘H2H’ – human to human.

 

 

Everyone is worried about skills

The ShardI have traversed three continents these last few weeks, from Europe to the west coast of America, then back and across to the Middle East.

The trips all centred around assessment and skills events – culminating in apprentices week in the UK. “Everyone is worried about skills” said the BBC’s Steph McGovern at the CITB Building Futures conference. The challenges are different but the concerns are the same – whether you sit in the US or UK with their growing economies or the Middle East with their large numbers of young people, a shortage of the right skills to meet the needs of employers and their evolving industries will impact progress.

I believe technology doesn’t always help – young people make choices based on cultural changes and technological influences, and yet industries, jobs and the needs of employers are not the same. They must be aligned.

We do have a solution – young people learn from other young people, so let’s showcase our stars and use technology to promote them as case studies of success. In other words, a career in IT can mean working at Sky TV or motor racing, a career in construction might give somebody the opportunity to be in the team that builds the next Shard or Premier League football stadium. Let’s create success stories of young people who love their work and promote them as role models – then use technology to spread the word.

I close with real hope – I was very impressed by the enthusiasm and desire to succeed shown by the apprentices at the JustIT learner awards night where I shared my thoughts on the fusion of technology and education – I will continue to shout from the rooftops, that if you wake up with the attitude, desire and motivation to do a great job, invariably you will do well.

A story for this time of year

CCALast week I presented at the CCA Annual Conference at the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms. An excellent event. Despite all the noise around technology – big data, wearables, the internet of things – our audience created more conversation around my stories and emphasis on talent. I liked that. This was a crowd of deep thinkers.

The greatest mix is that of old and new. Whilst I implore companies to give young talent a chance and to watch how the net generation will flourish if we attract and engage them on their terms (normally with technology in mind), I equally underlined the value of the older worker. The more experienced employee has a lot to offer, they are committed, they know the ropes and their experience is telling; and they are staying in post for longer, so the younger generations need to be better skilled to displace them.

Here is a summary of a story I told last week where two generations didn’t quite gel, or understand each other: a young lady beat off other applicants to make it to the final stage of interview and meet the CEO of the hiring company. She arrived on time and was immaculately presented. All good so far.

She was invited into the office of the CEO, a gentleman with years of success on his sleeve and decades her senior. The interview was progressing well, as planned, and then her phone start buzzing in her bag. The young lady pulled out the device mid-interview and started texting in reply, oblivious to the sudden stop in proceedings. This is what she was used to doing. The CEO waiting patiently for her to stop and then ended the interview, thanked her for her time, and saw her to the door. The interview process was about to start again, for this lady did not get the job.

I can see that the net generation does things in its own way and communicates differently, but there are certain rules of etiquette, respect and simple good manners that stand the test of time. I hope those things will never change.