Episode 19: The building blocks
of successful employee reskilling

[00:00:00] Host: Welcome to Keep It Simple, a podcast where we’re challenging business and leadership experts to cut through the noise of the corporate world and get to the bottom of what makes the workplace actually work. I’m your host, Mina Vogia. Keep It Simple is brought to you by [00:00:30] TalentLMS the training platform built for success and designed with simplicity in mind.

[00:00:36] Together, let’s uncomplicate what makes a winning workplace. You can find out more at talentlms.com

[00:00:46] On today’s episode, 

[00:00:48] Sagar Goel: One out of three workers today will find their jobs significantly disrupted just in this decade because of advancements in technology, AI and Gen AI. Now this [00:01:00] translates to a need in very rapid reskilling, which is different from the past. 

[00:01:08] Host: What does a successful reskilling strategy look like and how can companies flip their mindsets from fear and pessimism to optimism and curiosity when it comes to reskilling. Our guest today, Sagar Goel, is an optimist in a world where disruption is constant and skills are becoming obsolete. Sagar is managing director of Boston Consulting Group for the [00:01:30] APAC region and has led the company’s work in digital reskilling and leadership development for over a decade, working with companies across a range of sectors and industries, including the government of Singapore to deliver large scale reskilling initiatives. The perfect guest then to hone in on how to keep the workforce equipped with the in-demand skills of the future. Stay with us.[00:02:00] 

[00:02:01] Hi, Sagar. I’m really excited for our talk today. 

[00:02:05] Sagar Goel: Thank you, Mina. I’m also excited about this. This is my purpose and passion in what I do both at my work, but also in my personal life. So very excited about this sharing today. Thank you for inviting me. 

[00:02:17] Host: Thanks for being here and making the time. So I just want to jump right in.

[00:02:21] We want to be mindful of your time. In your recent TED talk, you say that the only solution to our skills deficit is to reskill [00:02:30] millions of people every year. Could you explain to us the idea of the half life of skills and the scale of reskilling that is necessary?

[00:02:39] Sagar Goel: Mina, you find this intuitive, right?

[00:02:42] Slowly but steadily are some of our skills that we were very proud of are becoming obsolete and redundant. Think about what Gen AI has done just in a matter of over 18 months since it’s been launched. Some of the past skills around writing and research are now becoming slowly obsolete. [00:03:00] This is the concept of the half life of skills where the number today is five years, which means every five years, half of your skills become redundant.

[00:03:11] And the not so good news is this number is steadily reducing. And in the tech domain, it’s as low as about two years. That means for a tech professional, every two years, half of their skills are becoming redundant. What this means is there’s going to be a sudden change in the need [00:03:30] for skill building, which is not just the incremental L&D that we experience as usual on the go training programs, but where there might be because of technological disruptions, huge disruptions, or changes in jobs.

[00:03:46] Some of my own data and research, but also research corroborated through other external sources says that one out of three workers today will find their jobs significantly disrupted just in this decade [00:04:00] because of advancements in technology, AI and Gen AI. Now, this translates to a need in very rapid reskilling.

[00:04:09] Which is different from the past of, uh, where we did a lot of just traditional upskilling. In reskilling, you need to have individuals pick a whole battery of skills to change or to stay relevant in their current job, which is changing very fast. But if their job is disrupted, to also move into a completely new job [00:04:30] or domain.

[00:04:31] Host: It’s amazing because the Organization for Economic Corporation and Development predicts technology will transform 1.1 billion jobs over the next decade. And as you mentioned, AI and machine learning will be behind many of these changes. So at TalentLMS we recently ran a survey that found that 80% of employees believe there should be more investment in upskilling and reskilling, which confirms what you’re saying. In your eyes,

[00:04:59] do you [00:05:00] think we’re seeing a shift in how organizations are approaching reskilling, upskilling, and are they rising to the challenge that you’ve laid out? 

[00:05:10] Sagar Goel: The short answer, Mina, is I’m actually amazed by the clear momentum in this space from corporates and companies. If you spoke to me five years ago, I would be quite a pessimist and tell you that many of the companies, even the large ones, aren’t really thinking of this as a strategic imperative.

[00:05:29] [00:05:30] But today, honestly, there isn’t a choice. If you have to win the game or the war of talent, which by the way, it’s always the talent that wins and not the companies, you have to be able to invest in upskilling and reskilling to not just attract the best employees, but also retain them. In the survey that we just ran, a thousand company survey, just in the US, what I found was staggering. 60 percent of the companies do reskilling in some shape or form today. [00:06:00] I would have expected that number to be in like 30–40%. But it’s amazing to see that many companies are now embracing this. Because it is a strategic imperative. If you are a large IT services company, you’re slowly finding that now increasing some of your data analysts or analysts aren’t really becoming as relevant and they need to evolve into a whole new set of skills, for instance, cybersecurity.

[00:06:25] And we have companies that are reskilling your data analysts [00:06:30] into cybersecurity professionals to meet the demand. We have another fantastic example I can share from IKEA, which I also spoke about in my TED talk. Now IKEA was reimagining the customer function where they had about 1,800 call center employees and they deployed this new AI called Billy to automate many of the transactions or voice transactions that individuals or customers had with [00:07:00] IKEA.

[00:07:00] Now, would that mean that these 1,800 workers would lose their jobs? Actually, this is where they took a revolutionary approach. They reskilled them to become interior design consultants. And that’s now a completely new business for IKEA with $1.8 billion in revenue just in 2022 alone. So what I’m seeing is there’s a huge strategic imperative now for companies to do upskilling and reskilling, which is different from the past.

[00:07:28] Host: I love that you brought [00:07:30] up that example of IKEA when I heard it on your TED Talk, I was like, wow, what security they’re creating for their employees. Now, you mentioned your study, does that also include SMEs that were surveyed? 

[00:07:44] Sagar Goel: So the survey that we ran along with Harvard Business School last year was about 1,000 companies across a whole different sizes, both SMEs, as well as, large organizations.

[00:07:56] And we do find that SMEs are also [00:08:00] starting to slowly invest in this area. So for instance, I can share here closer home for me in Singapore. We have a huge movement around small and medium-sized enterprises supported by government interventions where government would fund reskilling programs, but also incentivize small and medium-sized enterprises to do some of that reskilling in house instead of laying off these employees.

[00:08:26] And that’s what allows them to continuously [00:08:30] retain the institutional knowledge of their workers whilst training them on the next level of skills. That’s a win-win for everybody. I know it’s usual to think about small and medium-sized enterprises not having the wherewithal and the resources to do this.

[00:08:44] This is where I also think the role of the government becomes important. But beyond that, I feel like even for those SMEs, they need to start thinking much more proactively about their core critical roles and how they might want to continue to reskill [00:09:00] because the cost of layoffs or cost of losing an employee is also tremendous, even for SMEs.

[00:09:07] Host: I definitely want us to go back a little later on the government intervention that you mentioned because I find that so interesting. But before that, for SMEs, what are some simple steps they can take to identify skill gaps and then start addressing them? 

[00:09:26] Sagar Goel: Let me share a couple of examples. I would start really [00:09:30] by thinking through when the SME founders or owners think about their business strategy, what are they going to focus on over the next year or actually even over the next one year because I know many times SMEs are doing firefighting.

[00:09:45] Do they take that opportunity to think about the implications on their workforce, on their talent? Are there some specific set of jobs or skills that are slowly getting to a redundancy? Or even if they are [00:10:00] not getting closer to redundancy, there’s huge imperative of new skills, net new skills that need to be built, either because the SME is going into a new business model, or they’re expanding into new markets, or they’re just fighting against large, big players or startups who are disrupting in the tech domain.

[00:10:18] All of those require a set of net new skills. So the first simple tip I would have for the SME owner is, are you really thinking about your workforce implications and your talent implications [00:10:30] along with your business implications? The second thing I would say is it’s high time if you don’t already have one, to think about your talent and your HR organization.

[00:10:40] Even if you’re a small organization, it is imperative and it is important to think of building that muscle so that you are assessing where the talent gaps are, and you have a professional who can work with you to create the right set of training interventions. And the third simple tip I would give to SME [00:11:00] owners and founders is really make learning as part of the work. When we are back at school, Mina, we spent about 1,500 hours a year learning. Do you know what that number is when we get into the workforce, on a yearly basis. Any guesses?

[00:11:20] Host: I imagine way, way smaller. I don’t want to guess a specific 

[00:11:25] number because 

[00:11:26] it’s a little 

[00:11:27] scary. 

[00:11:28] Sagar Goel: It’s 35 [00:11:30] hours only.

[00:11:31] So from 1500 hours a year to 35 hours a year is what we spend on formal learning. And if all we could do is integrate the learning into the workflow, what do I mean by that? If you’re having a weekly huddle with your team, are you keeping some space for best practice sharing and knowledge sharing? Are you institutionalizing simple coaching and mentoring?

[00:11:55] For instance, pair your best sales professionals with the [00:12:00] emerging ones or the newly joined ones so that workplace learning can happen. So those are my three quick tips for SMEs to drive learning in the flow. 

[00:12:08] Host: And how important is personalization when it comes to re skilling? Can it be a one size fits all solution?

[00:12:15] And if not, how can SMEs provide this personalization? 

[00:12:20] Sagar Goel: Personalization certainly can be very helpful because it helps you meet the learner where they are in terms of their starting set of [00:12:30] skills and adapt based on what are the learning preferences, what are the learning topics that they are interested in and help drive the behavior change.

[00:12:37] This is where I get very excited, Mina, by the whole topic of Gen AI and Gen AI tutors to be more specific. So yes, Gen AI is going to be the disruptor of the workplace, but this is also going to be the enabler to democratized learning.

[00:12:55] Host: We’ll get back to our chat with Sagar in just a second. But first, [00:13:00] what are TalentLMS’s tactics when it comes to creating a successful reskilling strategy? Creating a great upskilling and reskilling program is all about making it personal. Because as we’ve said before on Keep It Simple, everyone is different.

[00:13:15] You’ve got to think about each person’s skills, interests, goals, even their experience level. Secondly, no one wants to be overwhelmed with training when they’ve got a day jam packed full of tasks. So make [00:13:30] sure there’s actual time during the workday for learning. If people are squeezing it in between meetings, it’s not going to stick.

[00:13:38] And on the subject of not sticking, avoid content overload. Mix it up with micro learning, hands-on training, and a blend of live and self-paced sessions. Variety keeps it engaging. And don’t forget the power of peer learning. Job shadowing, mentoring, and role playing are all great ways for [00:14:00] people to learn from each other.

[00:14:01] And most importantly, make training a regular thing, not just a one-off. Upskilling should be a continuous journey, keeping your team ready for whatever’s next.

[00:14:17] So, in a previous interview we did for Keep It Simple, Eliza Filby brought up a great example of generational skill swapping. Especially for SMEs with less resources. So how important is peer to peer learning when thinking about reskilling and how can companies use the diversity of their employees?

[00:14:29] Sagar Goel: This is a good [00:14:30] example, Mina, of how do you bring learning into the workflow without having formal training programs? Because there’s just so much institutionalized knowledge and skills.

[00:14:40] But as you pointed out, they may not be all in one place. We all bring a diversity of skills. And can we have a few structured mechanisms like reverse mentoring? I do think this is quite a tangible way to drive the learning. But what I found is it needs to be role modeled from the [00:15:00] top. This is not easy to implement from the perspective of, you know, sometimes work priorities get in the way, Mina, or it could even be like barriers to learning in terms of say, I’m really not sure I’m a good teacher or I can be a good coach or the barrier in terms of why should I transfer my knowledge, which is my growth vector to somebody else. Those are all the barriers to make sure this is implemented well. And this is what [00:15:30] organizations and SMEs must address. And it starts from the top. How do you get the senior leaders role model this and show that it is possible and it can work.

[00:15:41] Host: And just leading off from that, as you say, it starts from the top, but how important do you think it is that there’s like a company-wide reskilling program rather than smaller ad hoc initiatives within an organization? 

[00:15:58] Sagar Goel: Actually there are many, [00:16:00] many models when it comes to reskilling and I’ve also written about this in one of our HBR publications where we said reskilling takes a village.

[00:16:09] Reskilling is different from the traditional upskilling in the sense of there is a lot of change management to do. It’s the individual who’s going through a whole set of almost going back to school and transitioning into a new job. It’s the current manager letting go of this person. It’s the new manager assimilating this person.

[00:16:29] And what we are [00:16:30] seeing is it’s not a challenge for one particular company. Technology is disrupting many companies and we found that upskilling and reskilling gaps pretty much exist across different countries and across different sectors. And some of the interesting models I’m seeing when we’re going back to the point of reskilling takes a village is I’m seeing a lot more collaborative models where companies are coming together as an industry to address this. For instance, the automotive [00:17:00] industry there’s a huge challenge with mechanical engineers and you need now a lot more electronics and electrical engineers who understand the EV electric vehicles domain compared to your internal combustion engineers. And this is not an issue for one company alone, but it’s for the entire industry. And we have this model in Michigan, for instance, where many different companies are coming together to solve the reskilling challenge by collaborating with their universities in the ecosystem. You have a similar [00:17:30] example here in Singapore, where the financial services industry finds a dearth or challenge hiring and retaining tech talent. And they’ve come together to form an industry program where you know, they attract people from financial services, but also non-financial services.

[00:17:46] And they put them through six months reskilling program with an on the job component. And that helps the entire industry. It’s not one company alone. So that’s some of the power of rethinking the models. And this is not just stand [00:18:00] alone companies fighting the war for talent, but an entire industry or ecosystem.

[00:18:05] I would also go back to the role of government and I am seeing many governments, whether it’s many of the Asian ones here, like Singapore, Malaysia, India, but also in Europe and, and parts of, and some of the States in the U.S. taking an activist stand around, how do you ensure the workforce of my state, of my city are still relevant?

[00:18:26] Host: I’m glad you brought up the governments again. You said in the [00:18:30] past that the share of responsibility for reskilling is equal across governments, companies, and employees themselves. Could you tell us more about how governments can influence organizations? And do you think there’s space for organizations to also influence governments on setting this as a priority.

[00:18:49] Sagar Goel: So from the government’s perspective, I think the one important thing that governments can step in is just removing the information asymmetry. What do I mean by that? Today [00:19:00] there is no good way to identify what are the skills of an individual worker and what are the skills of the industry and bringing them together, creating a matching process around this, you know, if you think about it like more one in five people do not end up working in the domain that they studied and also many people change careers over time and this is only going to become more and more prevalent.

[00:19:26] So that’s why we need to move from the traditional model of education and [00:19:30] degrees and jobs I have done to skills that I have and then also have a mechanism for companies to be able to assess people on those skills and do that matching. And this is where governments can come in by creating a platform where you have learners who can get their skills assessed and credentialized and create a matching engine where companies can post a job and there’s a matchmaking process using AI.

[00:19:55] Companies can also on the similar platform for skilling, bring in the training [00:20:00] providers, bring in the banks and the financial institutions to provide a funding. So this is what I call a digital skilling ecosystem that countries can create. Another direction they can take is providing the right set of incentives, whether it’s in terms of funding support.

[00:20:15] For instance, in Singapore, every citizen has a learning account or skills credits that they can use to offset for any training programs that they do now, going back to the other part of the question, which is what can companies do [00:20:30] to influence? I would say a lot because governments are not close to where the action is.

[00:20:36] Governments can at best be orchestrators, not activist program managers. This is where we need the industry to take charge for on reskilling. We need industry to shape and tell the government where are the areas that there are gaps in terms of skills in terms of jobs and ensure that there is a very tight alignment between the economic agenda of the industry [00:21:00] as well as the skilling agenda and priority for the city, state or nation.

[00:21:04] Whatever that be. 

[00:21:05] Host: It really brings us back to what you were saying that reskilling takes a village and by industries having to get involved with governments, they have to be very active in creating that village that you mentioned before. So I really appreciate that. I know you’re an optimist, but I would like for us to sort of talk about the [00:21:30] limitations of reskilling programs.

[00:21:32] If there are any, how can companies ensure that they’re reskilling the right people in the right roles? 

[00:21:39] Sagar Goel: Yeah, before answering that question, Mina, uh, you triggered some thoughts I’ll, I’ll do a sharing on. I feel like our traditional education system needs to change dramatically. And I do see some forward-looking ideas from ministries of educations globally.

[00:21:57] I mean, it’s also a space that I work a lot [00:22:00] with. I mean, those are also some of my clients and it’s heartening to see the shift, but it’s far from where we need to be. But the ones where I’ve seen, uh, where there’s best practice is for instance, my son, he’s introduced to concepts like resilience and growth mindset at this age.

[00:22:17] And the fact that it’s very important to invest in your learning. And I, I keep saying this, the most important skill today is learning agility, which is our ability to continuously unlearn, relearn, and learn [00:22:30] new things. And that’s what we need to teach our children to ensure that they thrive in the future that we leave behind, uh, for them.

[00:22:39] Now, back to your question on, are there any downsides or challenges of reskilling? I would say there are, if not done well. For instance, many of the reskilling programs that I’m seeing out there take a very narrow approach of teaching folks the functional and the technical [00:23:00] skills. Now back to that example of say IKEA, where they’re helping call center employees pivot into interior design consultants. Now that’s a complete shift in the mindset and the approach. A call center is all about efficiency. It’s about operations. A lot of times they work as individual contributors, whilst interior design is all about collaboration. It’s about innovation. It’s about understanding your customer needs.

[00:23:27] That’s a very, very different space. [00:23:30] So if IKEA only focused on teaching them technical skills around interior design and how to use all the great tools for design, that’s less than half the battle won. Where I see reskilling not done well is not focusing on some of the core critical skills.

[00:23:47] Some of the soft skills, which actually I like to call higher order skills or the more advanced skills, because the soft skills are always the hardest and yet they are the ones that drive most impact. So reskilling when [00:24:00] not done well is when companies do not think holistically 360 about all the entire set of skills required to be successful in the new job domain.

[00:24:11] The second challenge could be around integrating the reskilled employees. So you can’t just train them and expect them to wa-lah start on the new job day one, you have to make it a smooth and seamless journey. You have to be able to provide the right coaching support, the [00:24:30] mentoring support of the managers who assimilate these reskilled employees.

[00:24:34] And the third is that companies can spend a lot of time and effort and money behind this, but if they don’t treat it as a strategic initiative where they’re tracking what are the KPIs for reskilling, are we hitting them or not? Are we actually working along with our employees to design and then track and run these?

[00:24:53] Those are some of the typical challenges that I see when reskilling is not done well and you will not get the ROI that you [00:25:00] want. 

[00:25:02] Host: We’ve heard in the past that people can often be resistant to reskilling programs as it sort of confirms a suspicion that their roles are at risk. So how can leaders change this mindset from suspicion to curiosity?

[00:25:17] Sagar Goel: My personal feeling being an optimist, but now also corroborated with data. So we ran this survey a couple of years ago where we asked people, would you reskill? And they said, yes. 60% of [00:25:30] people, more than 60% of people said, yes, we are willing to reskill as long as the why is clear. I feel this is a little bit of a myth.

[00:25:37] And just a mental model that we carry that our employees are really not ready, and sometimes we feel there might be a correlation with age, and I can tell you in the program that we run here in Singapore, it’s called RISE for mid-career upskilling. We’ve had 50-year-olds, 60-year-olds who learned how to code, and they’ve also pivoted into new

[00:25:58] technical job roles [00:26:00] as well. So this is a little bit of clarifying and also co-creating. One of the best practices of reskilling done well is when you treat your employee as a partner and co-create and co-run these programs along with the employees, make the ‘why’ clear. And they would be very open because then they realize that it’s not just a risk for them, but they realize that my company is invested in me.

[00:26:28] And they also need to see the role models [00:26:30] who are the early ones, early success stories that we are showcasing to create that network effect and that chain effect.

[00:26:37] Host: You know, I’ve yet to meet an individual, a professional, an adult who hasn’t wanted to evolve. After a while, we become stagnant when we get into a role that we’ve done over and over again.

[00:26:51] If we don’t find a way to reinvent it, we look for something else. So, I can also see the fact that, [00:27:00] you know, at the end of the day, it’s sort of nature for us. And you mentioned this earlier regarding qualifications and how they’re changing what’s needed. So what do you make of the idea that qualifications, as we see them, are redundant?

[00:27:17] Should the future of learning and education more broadly be solely skills-based? 

[00:27:22] Sagar Goel: Yeah, well, some call it the death of the degree. I’m not sure if that’s happening immediately because we are so [00:27:30] obsessed with degrees and titles. But what I do see, Mina, happening is the nature of degrees changing into more micro credentials or shorter modules or courses which are stackable to earn you always on degree or a degree that you get over a lifetime. I think that is the change that we’re going to see because going back to the half life of skills before, by the time you pass out, maybe 20, 30% of your skills are redundant and frankly, that’s the challenge, right? We all need to [00:28:00] embrace.

[00:28:01] Host: Perfect. And now we’re reaching the end of our time together and my own personal favorite part of the podcast is we always have this tradition where we ask our guests to give us a one-sentence answer on how to keep things simple. In your specific case, it would be in one sentence how can we keep things simple when it comes to creating a successful reskilling strategy. [00:28:30] But, we found out that you are an improv theater enthusiast and you like to pen a poem. So instead of a one sentence, could you perhaps give us a poem?

[00:28:44] Sagar Goel: Oh my goodness. You are really putting me on the spot here.

[00:28:52] Host: If it’s too much, we understand, but we had to try. 

[00:28:55] Sagar Goel: Okay, we will try… Okay. Here we go. Do [00:29:00] you feel there is something missing? Well, all you do is take a pause, take a step back and think about what’s missing? What is that one thing that if you wish you could learn and if you really be able to learn it, that you could conquer that day?

[00:29:21] Just go learn that one thing.

[00:29:24] That’s perfect. The best ending I think we’ve had. Thank you so much for taking [00:29:30] that risk. 

[00:29:31] Sagar Goel: Yeah. No, I jumped into it, Mina, because I think of everything as an opportunity and a chance to experiment. It’s okay if I got that wrong. I tried. Yeah. And, uh, I like to say this a lot nowadays.

[00:29:47] We have this traditional notion of being a thinker or being a doer. Right and we say, don’t be an overthinker and overanalyzer and then don’t spend your time in overdoing [00:30:00] or just in action, right? I try to think of the world more in the space of tinkering today, which is experimenting and trying and testing because the world is moving so fast.

[00:30:14] You can’t really think a lot and do a lot. Based on your old knowledge, experiences, mental models, you have to be in the moment and just try it out. Just tinker. Maybe that’s another take at a one more than a one line summary of [00:30:30] my message to everyone.

[00:30:36] Host: Thanks for tuning in. In the next episode, we’ll be discussing how to keep learning a constant in your company’s culture with Andy Lancaster. You can find Keep It Simple on all podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. This episode of Keep It Simple was brought to you by TalentLMS the training platform [00:31:00] built for success and designed with simplicity in mind.[00:31:03] For more resources on today’s topic, visit talentlms.com/podcast.

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