Even Younger Employees Come In With a Skills Gap

Even Younger Employees Come In With a Skills Gap

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

One of the things I have talked about for years regarding college education is that, by its nature, it will always be behind. Think about it. You start a four-year degree program to learn technology skills. By the time you complete the four years and maybe even an advanced degree, everything you’ve learned is outdated. Technology changes that quickly. You enter a workplace using the next versions of everything you know. A version you don’t know much about because it’s so new that college programs haven’t even started incorporating it yet.

And by “so new,” I’m saying it’s been updated within the last few years.

Linked – 6 Problems L&D Can’t “Out-train”

Linked – 6 Problems L&D Can’t “Out-train”

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

I’ve also spoken to some in-house trainers who see this up close. People come to them because they lack some knowledge and hope the training will help them because their manager hasn’t given them clear direction. They don’t realize that they haven’t been getting a clear direction. They assume there is some skill or knowledge they are missing. Where do you go when there’s a skill you need? To Training and Development!

But the trainer can’t give you that clear direction about your job. That has to come from your manager.

Linked – Filling the Recruiting Gap With Growth and Development

Linked – Filling the Recruiting Gap With Growth and Development

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

This is true. If you’re struggling to find new hires, you need to grow the people you have to take on more, and you don’t grow them without a plan on how to do that.

It would help if you had a talent development plan. Without it, you’ll find increasingly essential roles in your organization with no one to do the work.

That doesn’t seem like a good situation.

Linked – The Art of Storytelling: A Guide to Becoming a More Effective Storyteller

Linked – The Art of Storytelling: A Guide to Becoming a More Effective Storyteller

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

I was part of a conversation at work recently about giving good presentations, and the art of telling a story was a big part of the discussion. Stories matter. Whether giving a presentation, pitching a new idea, making a sale, or training customers, the story brings people along to what we’re trying to tell them. The story puts everything in context. When I’m training, it’s the stories about how we used that technology to make things easier or what happened when we failed to properly use the technology that helps people understand the “why.”.

Linked – Managers Should Encourage Employee Development

Linked – Managers Should Encourage Employee Development

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

The article below mentions something we’ve all seen way too many times. The manager who gets promoted, but never developed any of their reports to do their job, and winds up having to continue doing it. In the worst-case scenario, since the culture was not to develop people to replace you, that person is probably also learning the new role from scratch while still doing a large chunk of their old role.

What a waste of time and talent.

A Cursor is a Small Thing you can Change to Make Online Training Better

A Cursor is a Small Thing you can Change to Make Online Training Better

ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

Jim Calloway shared a tip about changing your cursor color and size on his Law Practice Tips blog, and it reminded me of a little bit of a pet peeve that I often have with people doing technology demos or training remotely. They move too fast.

Rather, they move as if we all saw the screen exactly as they do. When you’re doing remote learning like that, you have to account for two things when it comes to your cursor. One is video lag. The other is how small it may appear in the shared-screen environment.