Daniela: Sure. It’s the overall driver for innovation, and it’s also the drive to create something like a corporate memory of expertise and knowledge. Because you can rally through a single entry point, a universe of learning opportunities for everyone.
You have lots of great people and organizations that can contribute with the latest insights and topics they want to position and bring to the world. We didn’t have that in the past. Imagine a company like Siemens, a giant technology company operating in many industries. It means we need to bring learning opportunities together, say, from a functional standpoint. So if you’re in finance or supply chain, we need to get it done too by, what we call cross-functional learning opportunities, topics that work for everyone. as language or communication. We also have entire learning contexts available on technology topics, on product-specific topics, on market-specific topics. It’s a vast landscape of learning opportunities and everyone needs a subset and everyone needs a specialized subset. It’s a huge benefit to be able to tailor it to that. And by such an approach, I must also say that it is much more efficient and productive as it saves time and money. Everyone has access to an entire universe. They don’t have to travel, they don’t have to meet shows, perhaps only a certain percentage of which are relevant to them. It is also really helpful to promote the overall success of the business.
Laurel: And part of that business success is digital transformation, right? Adopt and implement new technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence. This will create a new division of labor between humans and machines, which will disrupt work globally. But as these jobs evolve, new roles will be created with humans having specific advantages over machines and AI such as management and decision-making, communication and interaction – all something people are really good at. How can businesses prepare and prepare their employees for this shift away from automation?
Daniela: Yeah, I think it’s something that’s been with us for quite some years now. But there, once again, the speed and skill level required had increased dramatically. I would say it’s almost like a bouquet of things you can and should do. As a company, you need to create a unique identity and first, let’s say you really think personal learning and growth is super important. It’s a company priority and you need to give it a positive spin. It’s there for you, it’s there to support you, it starts with you. That’s why we launched a company-wide campaign we call MyGrowth.
It’s not just a campaign, it’s an overall concept and approach. But it’s really meant to inspire and engage people to try the different experiences we offer, and to help them navigate and give direction to what they should and can use. Then we also set a goal of study hours because we really want to encourage people and say, “Look, it’s important that you take your time and make it a priority. .”
Regarding the specific skills you mentioned about automation and digitization, we can then include specific strategic themes that we motivate people. We promote awareness campaigns through learning opportunities. Those people can be targeted to certain audiences because people also need different skill levels. Or we can promote it on a large scale. This is a very flexible system. If I can give you an example, we have a pocket in our business called Digital Industry Software. It is very relevant to what you are referring to. The CEO of that business said last year we were in the software business, so AI is a key driver of everything that we do. Therefore, my entire organization needs to understand first of all, what is artificial intelligence, let’s say on a general level. Also, people need to understand how we are using it as an internal technology but also as an engine for our software solutions and our business. And then we create different learning paths for different specialization classes and are therefore able to bring the whole subject in a very comprehensive way to thousands of people in the business of Engineering. our digital.
Laurel: So you’re doing two things. One, you are giving what you think people need to know and learn, artificial intelligence is a big topic. But then, how do you assess people and their skills to identify skills gaps and then align your curriculum with business strategy to essentially not just get a return on investment? private? Everything comes back to profit, of course, but also returns the investment in employee time and expertise. Because that’s also what you’re developing.
Daniela: Right. And the topic of skills is a very hot topic, I can tell you. It’s all over the place and comes from very different lenses and use cases. Technology plays an important role. A platform-based learning ecosystem with learning experiences at its core allows you to gain insights that we haven’t had in the past. We can see what people are interested in. We can see why and for what they engage in learning, what they actually learn or what they don’t, and so they leave. If then you multiply and you see that across the entire workforce, you also see what is hot topic, what skill is coming up. You can see that in certain communities. For example, we have certain communities, which we call digital talent, such as tech talent. And there you see where the next topics are going. And then we can match as a learning function, do we have the right learning opportunities for the topics being searched? That’s one thing. But it’s the bottom-up part of it that is critically important.
