How does DEI fit into a skills-first strategy?

- I do want to call out that the DEI partners at your organizations are great people to learn from, because skills first has been a DEI conversation for some time, even before the pandemic when it became more mainstream. And there are a lot of lessons that that community of thinkers has as this skills first idea becomes about much more than diversifying the workforce. Maybe some examples or experiences people have about the experience that the DEI functions within orgs can bring to the table. - I mean, I think the DEI functions are often the place in an organization that can really bring the strategic thinking to the fore and bring it up into the C-suite. And, you know, it's critical, at least in large organizations, it's critical to have that C-suite leadership, which you all certainly do, and you all certainly do. But often, I sort of the strategy, the skills force strategy, can emanate out of the DEI function, then to bring it to life, they spend a lot of time educating the talent leaders about why skills first can be a good business move and really helping people understand, if you require a four year degree, you're automatically excluding huge swaths of people in this country. - I think one of the things that's so exciting about this conversation in this moment is there's such an incredible alignment of goals. Obviously, Anish, you've been talking about, we were leaning into a little bit the enterprise wide goals around this, why this is an imperative for the business. This is something that is very important from a diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging standpoint. This is also good for people, and it creates a lot of opportunity for people. So when you see that kind of alignment come together, it tends to have the opportunity to break down silos, to get people operating differently, to make this really an imperative, to create that this is a moment to do something big and bold for business, and I think that's why so many people are at the starting block right now and wanting to get into this conversation and this work. It's the alignment of incentives and opportunity and business value and value for people. - The business case is really strong. Elise, you'd mentioned, with the diversity equity, and inclusion practitioners, I think something that you said that I just want to put a fine point on it. Your DEI practitioners are masterful at change management. - Yeah. Yes. - They really are. And so this is a really great, this is another change management opportunity, right? And so using that acumen and bringing in the skills first narrative to show the ecosystem of how you're moving on these really strong business outcomes, it's really great when you could partner with those with that skillset. That's a wonderful skillset to move this throughout in the organization. - Strange thing for me to say, as in rounding out the conversation as a DEI practitioner professional, that, you know, especially for us as we're in growth mode, the business case has never been stronger. And a lot of the stuff that we're doing in this space, we're not calling a DEI initiative. It is just how we hire, it is how we look for talent. And so I am kind of behind the scenes and partnering with HR and talent acquisition and the business and building initiatives that don't have the words DEI or B on them at all. - And the businesses that do this successfully aren't going to look at it as an initiative at all. - Yes, right. - This is not an initiative, this is just the new way of going about how you think about talent, opportunity, mobility at work. So it's not a fixed point in time. You're not going to spend three months on it and be done. This is going to be your work moving forward, and... - Hopefully beyond our lifetimes. - Right, exactly! And the technology is right there, if not overtaking speed in terms of how quickly this is all moving and will be ideally supporting it by giving us better data, better, you know, people analytics are improving. They're going to ideally be able to make a lot of progress on that front too to support the shift in mindset and the shift in practice that is underway for people. - I think the inclusion and belonging piece is critical, also, as you just think to your point, what you were saying earlier, is just the pulling through effect of skills first practices across the board. We did a lot of quantitative and qualitative interviews with star talent, and once they get into companies and it's their sense of belonging that will predict whether they're staying or not. And that part of that sense of belonging is the environments that a DIB-led set of efforts can do, but it's also the talent practices that identify those pathways that make sense for all talent. And so to your point on the change management, the superpowers of the DIB function and those practitioners, they can really connect those dots to create the environments that, if we're successful in the first part of skills first hiring, how do we make sure we're successful in the next part on skills first talent advancement? - Yeah, good point. - Yeah. - Yeah, I think for all of you who are watching this, that's the key. This is not about an initiative. This is an inevitability to where the world of work is going, where talent management is going. Now is the time to get smart on it. Your DIBs partners are really smart on it already, and so there's playbooks that you can bring to bear, but really, our goal with this course is to help you all just start to better understand what's happening so that you can manage it for the better for your organization.