How to maximise the best skills technology

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Today’s Thoughts ☠️

Hey there 👋,

Hooray for Tuesday.

I hope you survived the massacre of sales from the weekend. It felt like a constant fight with the inbox.

Of course, I used ChatGPT to help me with that.

Our conversations of late have focused deeply on identifying and building skills. This time, we explore how the latest and greatest tech platforms can enhance your skill-building efforts.

Get your tea 🍵 or beverage of choice ready. We've got lots to discuss!

In today’s chat 👇

• Unleash workforce potential with skills technology

• Amazon ships out free AI skills training

• How to become a strategic L&D leader

Est reading time: 10 mins

THE BIG THOUGHT
Skills Tech To Unleash Workforce Potential

For many of you in the corporate world, I know you’re dealing with thousands of employees and archaic systems.

So, how can you maximise technology to support your skill-building initiatives?

→ We’ll explore this today.

Whilst I can’t provide the right advice for your context completely, I’m going to do my best to cover tools and features which could be worthwhile to investigate.

The players

Microsoft has 345 million people currently using MS 365 across 150 countries.

It feels smart to explore what this big tech juggernaut offers as I’m sure many of you are sitting in a Microsoft tech stack. Fret not if you don’t, I’ll be covering other skills tech too (I got you Google Workspace friends).

Microsoft Viva Skills

Earlier this year, Microsoft introduced a new AI-powered Skills solution in Viva.

Their view is traditional job-based talent models often fail to capture individual and organisational capabilities comprehensively. I’m sure we can attest to that, right?

It seems the big aim of Viva is to push more organisations towards that sexy buzzword of a ‘skills-based organisation’.

Of course, it leverages AI.

I mean we have to say that about everything these days. Even my tea is AI-powered 😉.

If you’re company uses Microsoft services, this tool is attractive for a few reasons:

1. It’s free if you already have the Microsoft Viva suite, which is their LMS baked into Teams

2. It analyses data from Microsoft Graph to track, assess and recommend actions on org skills

3. It connects data from the LinkedIn Skill Graph with the above to its mighty AI reasoning tools to bring you the best skills data

The holy grail here is to align all corners of the organisation under the banner of skills.

From what I’ve discovered on my investigative reporting trip (aka a s**t ton of googling and ChatGPT), MS is positioning this as the bridge to fill the gap between traditional structures and a skills-based future.

The focus is on three core scenarios:

1/ Strategic Workforce Planning

For HR and organisational leaders, it aids in aligning workforce capabilities with business goals. It includes a skills dashboard within Viva Insights to visualise skill strengths and gaps.

You can see an example of this ↓

I think it looks pretty neat.

2/ Upskilling and Reskilling

Another holy grail of our industry.

We covered the 101 of this before. This is an example of the type of tech you can use to make this a reality. With both real-time data for leaders and employees to make better performance-based decisions.

One step closer to focusing on the right skills, not more skills. I hope, anyway.

This feature is targeted at HR leaders and employees, enabling proactive workforce development. Employees can select skills to learn, search for courses by skills, and receive AI-based skill recommendations.

3/ Skill Discovery in the Flow of Work

What is it with everything ‘in the flow of work’?

Perhaps in 2024, I will coin tea in the flow of work! Stranger things have happened, friend.

This integrates skill discovery into daily tasks. Skills are suggested based on Microsoft Graph signals, and employees can confirm, add, and manage their skills.

Although not perfect, this type of transparency can motivate and engage people in their skill journey.

How it all works

There’s a slick 2-minute video from Microsoft here.

This is my TL;DW (too long; didn’t watch)

The goal of Microsoft Viva Skills tool is to help you uncover and leverage the expertise across the workforce. Here’s my non-techy explanation of how this works:

→ Viva Skills integrates two major data layers:

• Microsoft Graph: This provides access to data across Microsoft 365 services, including insights about employee activities.

• LinkedIn Skills Graph: This leverages real-time signals to map how different skills relate to each other, to jobs, and to learning content.

→ Using the data from these two sources, Viva Skills employs AI reasoning to infer the expertise of employees.

Using this AI reasoning, Viva Skills intelligently crafts individual skill profiles. It provides an updated understanding of current workforce skills and a more nuanced and dynamic understanding of emerging workforce capabilities. That’s a big win.

This information is then integrated into Viva and Microsoft 365 experiences.

Microsoft and LinkedIn Skills Graph explained

MS Graph Deep Dive

Microsoft Graph is like a big connector for various Microsoft services. It allows different applications to talk to each other and share information. Common sources of data it draws from include:

• Email and Calendar from Outlook

• Documents from OneDrive and SharePoint

• Chat and Meeting information from Teams

• User Information from Azure Active Directory

So, it's a tool that helps bring together all the data from these different Microsoft apps to create more integrated and efficient experiences. A little big brother-ish but what isn’t these days?

LinkedIn skills graph

The LinkedIn Skills Graph is a system that LinkedIn uses to understand and show how different skills are related to each other and to various jobs.

It looks at what skills people list on their LinkedIn profiles, what skills are mentioned in job postings, and what is taught in learning courses on LinkedIn. This helps to get a clear picture of what skills are popular and important in different industries and jobs.

I don’t know how reliable it is, but it sounds good.

Will it work with your current tech?

The simple answer is Yes.

While specific details about all compatible systems are not provided publicly as I write this (smart move), key integrations include:

1. Microsoft 365 Productivity Platforms

2. Microsoft Graph

3. LinkedIn Skills Graph

4. Viva Learning

5. Third-Party Apps

👀 The benefit for organisations

→ Transition to Skill-Based Organisation

Every company seems to be hot on this right now.

They should have been doing this all along in my opinion, but hey, I’m one guy with a keyboard. Reaching this goal is made easier when you have the right tech in your corner to support this push.

→ Clarity and transparency on real skills data

I hope this is a pretty clear one.

It’s hard for L&D and HR teams to get skills data, and it’s even harder to know how to convey this in the right way to an individual. The thing is we each want clarity on what skills we need to work on and how. Skills tech can facilitate this.

→ Awareness and engagement with skills and careers

Every L&D team chases the engagement dragon.

Like me, you’ve no doubt often been kept awake by the deep question of “How do we boost engagement with learning initiatives?”. Get people interested in skills and you’ll have more engagement than you know what to do with.

→ Connecting siloed systems and data

Don't you just hate tools and data which can’t talk to each other?

It’s been a constant pain in my own career. The promise of tools like this from Microsoft is to centralise access in one place. Is it good? I’m not sure. Will it actually work? Not sure about that either.

Tools for non-Microsoft companies

I’m a man of my word, so here’s an alternative for you non-MS houses.

Check out TechWolf.

I have no affiliation with them or MS btw, these are my independent views on current tech, and I like TW at this moment. They made my top 5 emerging L&D tech solutions to check out too.

TechWolf’s technology is like an AI assistant that helps understand the skills within your company.

It digs into what everyone is good at, linking these skills to projects and learning paths.

It's designed to work with the systems you already have, so there's no hassle of adding a new platform (allegedly). It sounds like a useful tool for HR teams to make informed decisions about their workforce, based on real data.

📌 Things to know

1. Integration with Existing Systems: TechWolf links up with the software you already use in your workplace. It does this through an API, which is like a bridge that connects different technologies. This means you don't have to get used to a new HR system. It just becomes part of what you're already using.
   

2. AI Technology: It uses AI to understand and analyse all sorts of job-related data, like employee skills and job requirements. This AI figures out the context and meaning, not just looking at keywords.

Final thoughts

The bottom line is measuring skills is hard!

Recruiting tech to help you with this can make it a lot easier.

There are two industry-leading pros I’d recommend you follow in this space for more insightful thoughts on skills on the frontline today:

• Simon Gibson: Head of L&D @M&S

• Caroline Ford: Director of Learning and Talent @AstraZenenca and Fmr Head of Skills @Novartis

→ Next time: How to leverage the power of connected skills to craft the best career opportunities.

EVENT
Get started with AI for L&D in 90 minutes

ICYMI, I’m running an extra special event on Thursday, December 7th.

You'll go from beginner to AI confident with a journey through:

• ​Demystifying Generative AI

• ​Why, when and how to use AI tools in your workflow

• ​The importance of human skills with AI experiences

• ​The simple L&D AI toolkit

• ​Live walkthrough of L&D workflows with ChatGPT

• ​Q&A

​🎁 All participants will receive a free AI for L&D toolkit and a discount on The Complete ChatGPT Course For L&D Pros.

Be quick as I only have a few places left!

SMART THOUGHTS

Content that will make you smarter.

🤔  Amazon is giving 2 million people free AI skills training by 2025

First Microsoft, now the biggest delivery service wants to teach you AI for free.

Considering the world is populated with 8 billion of us, 2 million ain’t a lot. Yet, I’m all for upskilling people in this space. Learn more here.

💡 How to be a strategic L&D leader

I’m finding myself sharing this monthly as I’m constantly asked about it.

Many believe being a good L&D operator & leader is about only building great learning experiences and products.

❌ They’re wrong.

It’s about knowing how to navigate your business to deliver the outcomes it wants. I unpack this in detail here.

🔥  Why knowing what not to do is essential to do your best work

A personal anecdote on running a small business.

Here I share lessons learnt on getting clear on what to focus on to do your best work. Spoiler: it’s not about doing more!

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