IBM DIGITAL SKILLS ACCELERATORS FOR HR IBM LEARNING WHITE PAPER SERIES FEBRUARY 2018

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1 IBM DIGITAL SKILLS ACCELERATORS FOR HR IBM LEARNING WHITE PAPER SERIES FEBRUARY 2018

2 Accelerating Digital Skills with the premier IBM Digital Skills Accelerator February 2018 Executive abstract Creating digital capabilities is fast becoming the minimum expectation in many organizations. Many executives are reviewing their talent base with angst. The C-suite today is concerned about resolving skill gaps to deliver on digital objectives. In fact, for the fifth year in a row (1), IT executives have pointed to a skills gap in their organization as the top barrier to achieving their objectives. According to a survey (2) by CompTIA, 46% of executives believe their workforce lacks the skills needed to work with technologies such as AI and IoT. At least half of our workforce, if not all, will experience a completely new role in the near future, which will require a commitment to retraining and life-long learning. It will require a growth mindset. providing a consumer-grade experience that can be created and deployed quickly, adapting to many different types of skills growth initiatives. This enables us to respond to the needs of employees with urgency while creating an engaging experience. Neuroscience principles, digital credentials, and cognitive technology underpin an economical approach to learning digital skills that combines Agile practices, content curation, and design thinking. This is how we keep IBMers at the top of their game. This paper is third in a series of publications from IBM Learning Digital Press. IBM is using digital skills accelerators to close skill gaps and create a growth mindset for HR employees. The digital skills accelerators provide the next level of digital literacy learning for our employees, 2

3 Highlights This white paper describes a rapid enablement solution to evolve IBM s digital skill set in HR. Content Overview 1. The Digital Skills Accelerators for HR 2. Learner Advocacy 3. Digital Credentials 4. Digital Cloud and Cognitive Technologies 5. Neuroscience Principles 6. Conclusion and Outlook 3

4 Digital Skills Accelerators When we use the term accelerators in IBM, we intend it to mean both fast and impactful. The digital skills accelerators do just this. They are built fast and have enormous impact. The accelerators are modules of content. Each activity (or tile) covers a topic area. When you access the tile, several small, micro-lessons teach the underlying concepts. What makes this upbeat, fast and appealing to learners is the embedded cognitive tracking. The tiles combine to create learning journey that manages content for the learners. 1. Learners easily keep track of where they left off with built-in checkmarks and management 2. Game-like assessments to ensure learners are absorbing the right level of detail 3. Leaderboard displays individual level of completion and is designed to encourage social recognition 4. Badging incentives upon completion to show digital credentials The accelerators are assembled using a digital cloud process. Both the design team and subject-matter-experts co-create learning content using digital tools and Agile practices. This process of co-creation is at the heart of digital transformation and allows us to create this rapid enablement. Launched on IBM's Your Learning platform, Digital Skills Accelerators are divided into Foundation Bundles and Discipline Bundles. Foundation Bundles focus on common, core capabilities and mindsets that support and enable our business strategy, such as IBM Design Thinking, growth mindset, and Agile. The Discipline Bundles provide focus and context with in-depth learning content for each HR discipline, illustrating how the strategies are implemented in across HR to guide and inspire transformation. 4

5 Learner Advocacy To inspire teams to accomplish the accelerators, we used IBM s cognitive (or artificial intelligence) Watson. Through an automation cognitive campaign, we distributed personalized newsletters and Watson Analytics has been used to analyze the massive learning data and learner comments and testimonials to discover the patterns, correlations, and insights about learner behaviors and interests so that learning designers and HR leaders can adjust the contents while further earning learner advocacy. During the first 9 months of deployment, the Digital Skills Accelerators maintained a high net promoter score, or NPS, that stayed within the positive range, peaking at 66 and averaging around 55. A change towards growth mindset has been revealed in the learners comments, which indicate that they can now embrace challenges and are willing to put more energy into learning and focus on their capacity for growth. Nurtured by the culture of continuous learning, professionals are able to adapt to the ever-changing business environment. With growing skills, stronger business acumen, and enhanced influence, HR professionals are no longer the traditional supporting function, but are partnering with business functions to create tremendous business value. The content is excellent, including both internal and external resources, so we understand the IBM priorities as well as overall HR trends. Best HR learning since I joined IBM 20 years ago! Very relevant and engaging! Very informative and designed to be helpful and not your usual compliance courses that you have to suffer and endure and have to do. These are the courses that we want to do. Easy to access. Self-paced training... anywhere, anytime, any device. HR disciplines are a great support to learn and wonderful sources of information. Clean and clear interface. Love the recommendations and interactions inside the learning areas. HRDSA provides us with a good idea of the different areas to upskill, especially a lot of neuroscience skills. Really this is a gold mine of information. 5

6 Digital Credentials IBMers earn a digital badge upon completion of the Digital Skills Accelerators. IBM established the IBM Open Badge program to enable documentation and sharing of credentials with a digital image containing verified metadata of qualifications that can be shared in the digital marketplace. Completing the HR Digital Skills Accelerators Foundation learning activities earns a Disruptive HR in a Cognitive Era digital badge, the first-ever in IBM for HR professionals, to prove the digital literacy achievement. Digital Badge: Disruptive HR in a Cognitive Era This badge ensures an understanding of the transformation taking place in the HR profession, and how that is being executed at IBM. The badge sets a baseline on key business transformations impacting HR such as Cognitive, Digital and Data, and how to address and leverage these areas within the HR function. Additionally, it focuses on the key skills and attribute required of HR professionals to lead and head up key practices in a cognitive era, and stay relevant in a rapidly changing market. 6

7 Digital Cloud and Cogntivite Technologies To complement the Foundation and Discipline content, the learning team created modules on digital cloud and cognitive technologies titled, Cloud and Cognitive Priority Patterns. Every job will require some technology, and therefore we ll need to revamp education. Lifelong learning systems will be even more important for business success." Ginni Rometty Chairman/CEO, IBM "Cloud and Cognitive is the new core of IBM. And so for us, as HR professionals, we need to live it, breathe it, use it, and be able to talk about it." Diane Gherson SVP and Chief Human Resources Officer, IBM These learning activities help the non-technical IBMer understand the strategy and application of cloud and AI business solutions at a deeper level. Topics include blockchain, how to use analytics, and how our clients are achieving success through the internet of things and sensory technology. Each one of these IBM solutions are changing industries like healthcare, government and financial industries. But these are different than standard foundational style of lectures. They are specially tailored for the HR professional to understand and appreciate how digital technologies change the way in which our business and clients achieve success. HR is using cognitive technologies (or artificial intelligence) to fundamentally change the way we do business every day. For example, a career coach is available to employees using artificial intelligence to identify job profile skills and match learning solution to career pathing. Another example of using artificial intelligence is CogniPay, a cognitive compensation advisor to automate and articulate compensation to employees to speed up and manage direct recognition pay. 7

8 Neuroscience Principles Research suggests when we see something new, we see that it has a potential for rewarding us in some way. This motivates us to explore our environment for rewards and the brain learns through this stimulus. After the stimulus is familiar and no reward is associated, it loses its potential. This should inform all stakeholders, sponsors, and squads to keep enablement and learning fresh and new. The IBM digital skills accelerators does just this it is a novel learning environment that inspires learning and rewards the learner with a badge upon completion. One additional neuroscience principle applied and worthy of mention is the notion of management. David Rock suggests learning must ensure the learner has an appropriate level of autonomy, and the learning experience is a managed learning environment, live, virtual or digital. The digital skills accelerators uses a robust mini-content management design. This management feature tracks individual progress, and creates usage reports for managers to track completion status at the team operating level. 8

9 Conclusion and Outlook The IBM HR digital transformation has been noted by senior executives external to IBM as a role model of transformation, reinvention, and cognitive and digital adoption. The Digital Skills Accelerators is one of the many exemplar commitments our HR senior leadership has invested in to fast-track our digital transformation. The accelerators fast-track digital literacy in 2 ways: First is Agile practices in less than 3 weeks we had our very first iteration available through co-creation using cloud and digital tools; and second, creating a consumer-grade experience. IBMers expressed real enthusiasm about the experience we received rave reviews on the bite-size, engaging approach to content delivery. This digital breakthrough for curating content in a fast delivery method is simple and can address key C-suite concerns. The accelerators method of co-creation with experts and its digital platform for delivery can be widely adopted and applied to a variety of content areas. IBM Digital Learning Press Our squad is a team of technologists, educators, consultants and brand and communication experts who envision the next generation of a digital learning experience platform revolution. Our Executive Sponsor is Guillermo Miranda, VP Global Learning & Enablement Connie Cassarino, Learning Strategy Gordon Fuller, Director Learning Delivery, Operations & Technology Leader Joel Greenberg, Offering Manager Your Learning Shawn Jones, Global User Experience Designer Natasja Mol, Learning Marketplace Transformation & Communications Leader Tiffany Scheel, Digital Skills Accelerators & Learning Science Lead Mary Tang, Global Learning Communications & Partnerships Leader 9

10 Additional Contact Information North America, David Larson, North America, Tim Shriver, Europe, Toby Barnard, APAC, Cynthia Gee, Global, James Cook, Corporate Learning, Gordon Fuller, Resources 1. Reinventing corporate learning with a digital marketplace strategy. IBM Corporate Learning White Paper. January, IBM s Your Learning and Watson together a game changer in learning. IBM Corporate Learning White Paper. June, An agile construct for learning. TD Magazine. Leanne Drennan, Your job as CIO is changing, here s how to master the new one, from 5. IT skills gap appears to be growing, from novation/comptia-it-skills-gap-appears-to-be-growing-/d/did/ ?_mc=rss_iwk_edt 6. Bunzeck & Duzel (2006). Absolute coding of stimulus novelty in the human brain. 7. Rock, D. (2008). SCARF: a brain-based model for collaborating with influence & others. 10

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