Earning a Seat at the Table in 2042

Speaker A: Wonder about the future and how you'll be working and learning. Welcome to you in 2042, the future of Work with your host, Danielle Wallace.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome to another edition of you in 2042, the future of work. Joining me today is Cindy Plinkett.

Speaker C: So I am the senior director of talent development and HR Technologies at uh, Point Click Care. I am also one of the executive directors for the Canadian Learning Conference.

Speaker B: Fabulous. That is a must see. We'll sell out, which I'll uh, uh, put a plug in there for you. So Cindy, with that lens of technology and talent enablement and even the sense of this industry as well, can you think ahead even to like 2042 and how do you envision this future workplace, especially when it comes to technology's impact on uh, learning and development?

Speaker C: Yeah, so it's so interesting when you think about the future, if you're kind of paying attention to cues that are happening now, you can sort of see how things are evolving and unwrapping for the future workplace. And what I already hear from leaders externally is rumblings around. You now have AI tools that can create a video. You now have AI tools that can do the voiceover. You now have AI tools in rise, like name an authoring tool where you can just put in a PowerPoint or a script and it generates an elearning video for you within seconds. Right. Quality. Let's go there like after. But realistically, from their point of view, there is now the ability to do all of these learning and development and from their perspective tasks. Right, that can now be done in seconds. And so thoughts are around can that FTE count be replaced by AI? And then you just have someone that's managing the AI. And what does that look like for reduction of a department on a whole? Because if AI is doing it, can we just have our subject matter experts? Do we need an L and D function at all? And so what I envision for 2042 is that those L and D leaders or talent development leaders that are actively strategically aligning themselves with the business, not asking for an invite, creating the table of where they sit with those individuals. So they're looking at the corporate goals that come out each year. They're aligning what they do specifically to those corporate goals. They're creating that call with each of the functions C suite and directs to let them know this is how we've aligned, this is what we're going to be doing this year. Are there additional things that we need to align to your specific functions? Function direction? If people aren't strategically thinking in that way, they're not going to have a place in the company, let alone at the table. And then I also think that there's been a huge opportunity from the learning and development lens. And I did it without thinking about it strategically a year ago. And now I look back and go, pat yourself on your shoulder. That was smart. And then I've kind of dug in a little bit deeper. But there's an amazing opportunity from an L and D perspective that if you're not feeling like you're in a sandwich, you're not in the right position. And what I mean by that is L and D is feeling like they need to ramp up an AI. They need to understand how AI impacts their work to stay relevant, et cetera. But if they're not also thinking about how they help their organization understand AI skill up in AI, et cetera, you haven't put yourself in the right position. So when we think about AI, there are some places that are going to lag. Insurance companies, banks, hospitals, they're always a little bit more behind when it comes to tech. But it will come. And when you think about other companies, startups, tech companies, et cetera, they don't have the privilege of not thinking about AI. Their board of directors is going to be pushing, how are you using AI? Investors are going to be pushing, how are you using AI? And so in learning and development you have this amazing opportunity to think about what is our place and our strategy around how we enable our talent with the AI skills that they need to help propel the organization forward in the way that they want to go forward. And it doesn't mean that you need to have all of the skills. And that's where I think some of the people are like, well, but I'm not an AI techie person. Like, how do I have a space at that table? You are a person that understands talent development. You are a person that understands how to grow skills. You understand how to take someone from a beginner level to an intermediate level to an advanced level. You understand all the mechanics of that. You don't need to know all the technical tidbits. What you need to know is find out who you can partner with. Like we knew in point. Click care. When I rolled out our strategy this year, we didn't have all the answers. We work with Microsoft. I explored our partnership with Microsoft. They offered to run virtual instructor led classes for our entire organization. We're currently four months in and 88% of our. And um, this is talent development leading this 88% of our workforce is now certified with foundational AI literacy. And we pushed that forward. And again, it wasn't us leading everything like we did the sections on our policy and our lens on ethical use, et cetera. But we relied on partners to then do the deeper technical training where we needed people to know more about machine learning, LLMs, et cetera. Like, not my wheelhouse, but I can help make sure that happens. I can help you understand what skills you need to sort of bridge the gaps that you have. And I can play a role, a critical role in how our talent within our organization becomes an AI ready workforce.

Speaker B: Wow. So you didn't just wait to be told, oh, uh, you know, maybe the organization use AI or alluding to what you said earlier. Well, actually, why do we need L and D? Cindy, it sounds like you took the in your team, took the steps to create that table to be at the table and had the foresight to realize, hey, what a fabulous opportunity. And like many of our listeners, what a fabulous opportunity to be able to take the reins, to actually, yes, drive the right strategy, which we can uniquely do is learning and development, drive the strategies so people gain the skills they need, bringing in the pieces to support that. But you didn't just wait, you took action.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I think if you're an L and D and you're waiting for somebody to give you direction, you will become redundant in 20, 42, 100%, because that's an order taker. And order takers are not going to have a place at the table if you can't pair strategically. And this is something that is interesting with AI and it sort of bleeds across all areas of excellence. If you can't level up how you think about what you do, you will be replaced by AI because the lower level tasks, whether you're in finance, whether you're in marketing, M, whether you're on learning and development, even software engineers, AI is rapidly being able to do all of those lower level tasks. What they're relying on humans to do is do what we do best, the critical thinking, the problem solving, the strategy and forward. Like where do we need to go? That's what we do. That's our value. And we need to show how we're bringing our value to the table.

Speaker B: And you have such a practical example of that, of imbuing the organization the skills that are needed that you and your team can uniquely do. That is the criticality of this in thinking of that. Are there other changes that other talent development leaders could make to Support their paths.

Speaker C: I mean, I think, honestly, if you're looking to support your role in your organization, there's a few key things that you can be doing. I think if you're not already looking at how what you do aligns, uh, with your organization's direction, that's step number one. Because if you're not doing that, you're a cost center, and cost centers are easy to cut. So you need to understand how you're aligning. You need to be able to prove. And so, you know, this is an interesting piece that comes up a number of times, but what metrics are you capturing? Quantitative and qualitative. To prove that what you're doing actually has had effect. And it can't be like, when you think about the initiatives that are at that corporate level, those bigger ones, things like our enablement strategy for AI, we're thinking about, like, if you're using Kirkpatrick, like Kirkpatrick level three, four, like, this is not a level one. Two. Did you like this session? That's not going to cut it at that table. So. And I'm not saying that every intervention that we do needs level three and four. But what I'm saying is you need to critically think about, here's where the company's going, here's what I can do, here's how I can measure that at that higher level, that impact, and make sure you're thinking of all of that, uh, before you even take your strategy in front of somebody to say, this is what I'm looking to do. And then, like I say, if you don't have a seat at the table, you don't have to ask for a seat at their table. You can create your own table. And so that's where it is, a great opportunity. Again, you're building your brand, you're building your visibility for you, your team, etc. You're creating valuable connections. You're helping the key people in the organization see your value. So then you create that seat at a table where you bring in those leaders to show them. And again, they don't connect the dots if you don't connect them for them. You have to tell them what you're doing. Like, this is like the show your work stuff couldn't be more important than right now. Show them. Here's where you wanted to go, here's what we're doing to align with that. Here's where we're going to measure that. Do you feel like there are any gaps? Is there anything we've missed? And it's A great opportunity to have that dialogue one and done is also not going to cut it. Now with really high level executives, you're not going to get a seat at the table like every single month. But what you can consider depending on size of organization is, is it quarterly for we do semi annually. So at midpoint we come back and we let people know what we've done. So here's how we've progressed, here's how we're still aligned against this, here's the measurements that show what we've done and here's what we have coming for the next part of the year. What that also allows us to do is if there has been a pivot in company priorities, which happens, then we have the opportunity to pivot with the company, realign some of our priorities for that second half of the year and carry on. And then end of year you're showing what you've done right. And then that ends up giving you a whole different level seat at the table where like we now have a couple of slides on the deck that goes to the board of directors around what we're doing in talent development, talent management, it's important to show your work

Speaker B: and in those examples you're clearly demonstrating ways to show value that you and your team would now become that integral part of the organization. That's brilliant, Cindy. What a fabulous example and with some practical tips for all of us to take advantage of. Cindy, where can people hear more about you?

Speaker C: I mean anyone that wants to connect, you can find me on LinkedIn. Dr. Cindy. And then my maiden name, Leach, L, E, A, C H in brackets Plunkett. You can find me on LinkedIn. Feel free to connect on LinkedIn DM me through LinkedIn. Always love connecting with other learning and development professionals and geeking out a little bit.

Speaker B: This is so amazing. Just thank you so much for the fabulous insights, examples, the practical uses of this and how we all can really bring the value to be that critical piece within this talent development journey towards the future. Thank you so much, Siddhi.

Speaker C: My pleasure.

Speaker A: Thank you for being a part of the future.

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