Change--Learning--Training--Innovation and the "New Economy"

Change requires learning and learning requires change.  It's one of the cycles that are intimately intertwined.  In "the new economy" many organizations (large and small) are not funding professional support for the changes and the learning they need to make to survive.

One of the approaches I have taken to support organizations with this problem is to create a series of business tools supporting change and making them available on eBay.  These tools can be self-help tools or can be the focus for a DrM-Resources Service.

Contract recruiters have been approaching me for support in utilizing social networking services as a support for both collaboration and knowledge management.  There are many ways to use these services to support sharing and knowledge management for organizations with all levels of numbers of employees and large and small budgets.

What characteristics of the "new economy" signal that most organizations need to learn and to change?  For starters, we have close to 10% unemployment across the USA.  Millions of jobs have been lost and President Obama, in speaking about job creation, has not focused on high end jobs which have been sacrificed when organizations have had to cut back on their employees.

As in previous times, companies need to do more with less.  What is not like previous times is that the customers and providers that companies have relied on are no longer there--or are no longer there with the same resources they once were.  How many companies do you know who are living on their reserves and waiting for the economy to "recover."  We have heard that we are experiencing a "jobless recovery" in our economy.  To be honest, I'm not really sure what that is supposed to mean.

Organizations and individuals and families need income to cover their expenses--now and for the future and the past (debt).  Jobs were the way most families generated the income.  Unemployment insurance and lower-paying jobs don't generate the income needed for expenses.  While social security payments did not go up this year, expenses have continued to climb.

Organizations, families, and individuals now need to "reinvent" themselves to succeed in the "new economy."  Reinvention requires learning and change.  We are back to the beginning of this post.  It is a cycle and organizations, families, and individuals can benefit from support while going through this cycle of learning and change.

(See the follow-up posts about Learning and Change from February 20, 2010, and February 21, 2010.)

Workforce Training Needs Survey

In his State of the Union address on January 27, 2010, President Barack Obama mentioned that he wants to revitalize the nation's Community College system.  Job creation and getting the unemployed back to work is a priority for President Obama's administration.  Community Colleges have long been working partners in community education, workforce development, and job training.

In July, 2009, I began a pilot project to administer a Workforce Training Needs Survey at the Kiswaukee Community College District in Northern Illinois.  I was not affiliated with any other organization in starting this project.  I earned my doctorate in adult education and human resource development from Florida International University in 1992 and have been involved in designing this type of needs survey and collecting and processing survey results for years.

I offered my services, free of charge, to several Chambers of Commerce and to city governments in the community college district and two people joined me in working on the first half of the survey.  After July, 2009, I no longer had the free time to support the project.  I continued to develop the survey and have now made it available for purchase on eBay.

Organizations which purchase and use the survey are entitled to preferred pricing on many of the DrM-Resources services I provide in support of this survey.

Jobs in the New Economy--President Barack Obama's Messages

President Barack Obama, in his first State of the Union address last night made jobs a number one priority and asked the Senate for a job bill incorporating what the House has already proposed.  In the details below the headlines, President Obama spoke about creating new "green" jobs and talked about lots of construction, railroad, and nuclear jobs.  He did not say much about jobs for the experienced middle manager who won't have a new job to go to nor an old job to go back to.  Small Business can do much to create new jobs and the proposals of the Obama administration for Small Business are no where near as clear as the ideas for construction and energy jobs. 

President Obama stressed that he wanted to support Community Colleges--they will play a critical role in helping adults adjust to new jobs. 

A key area for growth for small businesses is for independent consultants with change management and training backgrounds to network in order to work with emerging technologies and to create the job training new employees will need for these jobs.  As they do that they can look for contracts or grants from the Federal government to provide appropriate training to help people step into these new jobs as they are created.

Steve Jobs, in promoting the new iPad, spoke about many of the innovations Apple has provided since 1976.  This kind of technology could well be the baseline for new training initiatives and for education in K-12, community college, and university systems.

What would I want to share in a Virtual World Conference?

Yesterday I was invited to think about what I would like to share (and with whom) in a Virtual World Conference.  In thinking about one of the three-day conferences I designed for Accenture (Andersen Consulting) I was thinking about what elements of that could work well in a Virtual World.  I was also thinking about how a Virtual World would have added to my experience of online learning from the University of Phoenix.

I also began thinking about who would be the audience for such a conference or "mini-event."  I immediately thought of my LinkedIn connections--both my personal network and some of the discussion groups I belong to on LinkedIn.  I joined the American Library Association this year and they, too, are interested in the concept of Virtual Worlds for distance learning.

Some of what I want to do for such an event will be to include some of the elements which highlight the advantages of the Virtual Worlds platform--some small-group work, access to individualized video clips, networking between participants, shared PowerPoint and question and chat features including Voice Over IP.

As always, I will follow a design for learning and need to start with a better understanding of my audience and my goals.  Then I will follow a process of learning design that will be adjusted for the vehicle of Virtual Worlds.

This is going to be a somewhat reflective piece in that I want participants to think about their experience as participants in a virtual worlds conference so that reflection needs to be built into the activities and presentations they will be experiencing as part of the design.  One of my areas for goal outcomes will be that participants will recognize the value Virtual World Conferences can have for their own learning and for their organizations. 

Now to think about more details.

Workforce Development--Determining Training Needs

Workforce development--this is a critical concept for today's economy.  What are the training needs of people in the workforce?  How are community needs assessments conducted?  In the Hispanic community, to what degree is more training in English or in Spanish important to the workforce and to the families of workers?

DrM-Resources is conducting a project on Community Needs Assessment.  There is a need for new chambers of commerce to be involved.

Chambers of commerce have access to their members and can gather important information that can be provided to community colleges, universities, and other vendors to support custom-designed workforce training appropriate to the needs of member organizations.

Workplace Training in a Challenged Economy--Community Needs Analysis

Many organizations cut their investment in workplace learning when their budgets shrink. This is especially hard when employees entering the workforce after high school may be reading several grades below grade-level.

Some organizations use technology to compensate for low employee skills--pictures on keys so that employees can enter orders in fast food restaurants, for example.

I've begun working this summer on some questionnaires to be used to explore current trends and needs in workforce training and continuing education--based on targeting geographic areas based on community college districts set by states. I have proposed a pilot project --see http://drm-resources.wikispaces.com/projects .


The idea is to work with local Chambers of Commerce and other stakeholders to gather a true "community needs assessment" that can then be shared with providers of training based on documented needs of employees and their employers.

The follow-up steps and who would be involved are in another stage of the process. Informal observation says that this is an idea coming at a good time. Who will pay for the needs assessment and/or the training--that is still something to be developed.

Some of the issues identified may well fall into the arena of public education and others into areas for community development. It is critical to realize that the responsibility for assisting the employees to have the needed skills are not exclusively the responsibility of any one stakeholder--the employee, the employer, government agencies, or private trainers.
I see a community needs assessment as having several phases--data collection will include surveys, then, based on the surveys, focus groups or (even better if people are committed to follow-up action, action-learning groups). This will allow the data to be organized and processed so that recommendations for action (including training, collaboration, mentoring, community college, K-12 education, etc.) can be proposed. There is a need for phases--and there is a tie-in with community development and economic development departments in city and county governments--and even states.

In my work with organizations, I talk about three components that are required for change--Awareness, Acceptance, and Action. The Community Needs Assessment is part of the awareness component--acceptance is often a problem--people are "in denial" about reading levels. Recent research I have been doing and reading about confirms Jean's comment about high school graduates reading at a 3rd to 6th grade level in English. Because newer jobs will require more understanding on the part of many workers--even at entry level--we need more self-develop opportunities for high school graduates so that they can bring their own reading abilities up to a level that will allow them to contribute more in the workplace.

I have observed clearly--since 2000--that human resource development (a more generic term for training and professional development) takes a hit when the economy slows. Many companies regard this as a luxury. Others try to out-source areas of competence that they do not have--and do not want to build or pay for--in house. I have also observed that some organizations and leaders have habits of mistrust that can slow or stop efforts to collect information that could lead to positive change.

Trust is a significant factor required from the onset--even to do an accurate, reality-based community needs analysis. That issue has been seen to scrap many good projects and ideas in their infancy.

In the limited work I have had with MBA classes I have not seen a clear focus on building trust--it's critical for success and is hard to measure. Often people make decisions regarding cash flow that have little to do with human-to-human trust and more to do with trusting the balance sheet.

Dialogue is part of building awareness. Change is more possible when organizations accept that they need to change and what they need to change to. Action comes after acceptance when the change is planned and well organized.

Another road-block to organizational change and learning is when executive decisions are made to "scrap the project" or to change directions mid-stream--making everyone think that the training is "just another fad." This ties to my blog post on Organizational DNA.