Full Transcript Below
[ANNOUNCER]: Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. M our hosts, James and Coby.
[COBY]: Did we lose a patient?
[JAMES]: No, that’s just my lunch.
[COBY]: Hey, thanks for joining us. I’m Coby, he’s James. And we’re going to do something a little bit different today. We’re going to answer some questions posed to us. But you are faithful listeners.
[JAMES]: Yeah, these are some great questions that have come up in conversations they’ve come up in, some of them in our client work and or they’ve been asked directly by our listeners. but just before we jump into the actual questions, I want to let you know that there’s now a really cool option in the show notes to text us your thoughts or questions. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to reply to you through the service that offers this, but it is there to give you an opportunity to kind of share your opinions or your thoughts with us.
[COBY]: Yeah. Whether it’s a thumbs up or it’s criticism of how gravelly and awful sounding James voices, it’s just an opportunity for you to share your thoughts with us. I also want to do a quick shout out for our newsletter that we’re collecting, email addresses and stuff for you. There’s a form in the show notes where you can sign up for our new quarterly newsletter, that’s going to be launching in the end of September. So make sure you check that out while you’re checking out the cool message.
[JAMES]: Option, because you need to listen to us more. Sure. That’s the takeaway here. Anyways, let’s get into some of the questions here. The first one that I want to ask you, Coby, is it sounds like straightforward question, you know, what is the difference between onboarding, ah, orientation and upskilling? But to give you a little bit more context to how the conversations have, kind of come to light, there’s often a, ah, real need or push to standardize a lot of, onboarding or orientation pieces across, businesses, especially when there’s multiple, business units or there’s multiple locations. you know, orientation is something that happens haphazardly. Onboarding is something that doesn’t happen at all in some cases. And upskilling, again, is another piece of that. But what we find is that people sometimes use those three terms interchangeably. So what’s the difference between them, I guess, is the easy place to start. But when should we be using these? And what are some best tools to use to accomplish the goals of orientation versus onboarding? Versus upskilling.
[COBY]: Yeah, it is something that comes up a fair amount, as the businesses are kind of going, because it is really good to have some. It’s excellent. Have standardized processes when it comes to things like around training, because you want consistency, you want equal access for all employees. You want everyone to kind of have the supports they need to be able to kind of quickly get into their job and start having successes in it. Right. And so kind of quickly, I can kind of give you kind of a rough breakdown of the three just to kind of make sure we’re all on the same page. I mean, orientation is really more of a general information. Like, you know, here’s stuff that you need to know while working here. And it can often be like, here’s the parking, processes and the security codes, and here’s where the bathrooms are, and here’s when your payroll comes, it’s usually more of informational pieces, just things you’re supposed to know, about working. Like, you know, it’s often scheduling. It’s very, just very more of like an information dump.
[JAMES]: Right.
[COBY]: And you know, I mean, very, very important stuff. And often, often you’re feeding people through a fire hose kind of when you’re, when you’re first kind of doing it. But, you know, having that general people to at least refer back to is a really helpful thing for just kind of being able to be oriented into kind of the work. The work, the new job and the new, and the new kind of like, you know, where everything is and everything.
[JAMES]: Really just making sure that people have the key core information that they need. about the new company that they’re joining.
[COBY]: Yeah. And, you know, some companies might want to make them a little bit more expansive and talking about kind of like, you know, here’s kind of the, our general philosophy when it comes to dealing with customers. Or here’s kind of like, you know, how, you know, the goals that we have when we’re trying to build relationships with people, almost like trying to put everyone on the same page is really kind of what orientation is as far as, like, you know, again, just giving people general information of things that they should know. And it’s really, but it’s really that more of just, here’s the things you’re supposed to know. It’s not necessarily training. It’s just, it’s just like I say, it’s really more of the information dump where, sorry, we’re onboarding is more of the preparing them to be successful in their role. Going from an outside person to an inside employee. Right. So this is really more. But this is how we do things. This is more about like, you know, changing the ways that they are doing. Kind of like how they’re used to doing the work to the ways that we want the work done. It’s really about trying to kind of transform someone from a former employee of another place to our employee. That’s really kind of what the onboarding process really is trying to do. It’s about that transformation.
[JAMES]: So onboarding them to new to the specific software that, you use within the company, those types of pieces are really kind of standard onboarding practices.
[COBY]: Exactly. So it’s almost like, here’s like, you know, here’s what you need to do to do your new role, and here are the new expectations or the guides that we have for how, for what good work looks like. That’s kind of really the heart of what onboarding is. Whereas upskilling is more like, you know, people that have been in the job for a while and are trying to almost like, become either better at what they’re currently doing or build a broader skill set. And that’s usually more hands on, more involved, more mentorship led, or it’s like training in an application. It’s really about kind of implementing new skills is really kind of what upskilling is, having them be better today than they were yesterday at these specific things that we’re trying to kind of, improve on them and upskill them for. So the use of those three things is kind of like, you know, again, orientation, brand spanking new, you know, like your first day or your first few days. Onboarding can often take up to a month of a new employee, depending on how in depth it is. But, you know, usually they’re really how.
[JAMES]: Many specific systems or pieces that they need to learn, and a lot of that can be done in the onboarding.
[COBY]: Exactly. It’s kind of how long are they the new person? Right. Like, that’s really kind of what I’m bored, I guess. Upskilling can be any and all employee, almost like permanently, can fall into upskilling. Depends on if someone’s trying to do something a bit better, trying something a bit new, wants to have a bit of career, career trajectory. That’s really kind of where upskilling falls into. But going back to what you asked about tools or like approaches, one thing that I like to explain this when we’re talking to clients, as I like to put on my adult education hat and talk about the learning processes that you can kind of count on to have to be effective in those three stages. Okay. so when it comes to orientation, it’s about what we call rote learning or informational learning. It is really just a surface level. Here’s information that you need to know. It’s like, you know, when we. You don’t have to go super in depth into how we train people. It really is just more about here’s information. It’s kind of like how we do safety training. Here are the rules. Here’s where you find information. And this is kind of stuff you need to be aware of and stuff you need to know. It’s not about doing a real in depth cognitive process of learning. It’s that it’s the most superficial kind of learning that we can do. And that’s really, and that’s why the best orientation is more of here’s an introduction to everything, but most importantly, here’s where you find everything. When you have the questions, here’s where you go. And good orientation has good, like, you know, like, you know, books, binders, websites, whatever it is for people can go and I find the information that they need when they need it. Otherwise, you’re trying to remember everything on day one and you remember nothing.
[JAMES]: Yeah, I’ve been in those situations where it’s just an information dump and, yeah, you can use, while you said it earlier, it’s like trying to drink through a fire hose.
[COBY]: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So good orientation is really more about the introduction to information, but most importantly, where do you find the information in the, you know, for the day that you need it. Right. Whereas onboarding is something that people will often still use the route learning for. But onboarding, general information or where to find information is not what onboarding really should be about. Onboarding should be more about what we call reflective learning. So with route learning and information, road information learning for orientation, it really is very, very service level. It’s like the, the shallowest form of learning you can do, where effective learning is really about trying to spark transformation in how someone, like, you know, how they think. It’s about critical reflection and challenging the old ways that you used to do things in past behaviors and past assumptions. So part of what makes good onboarding is trying to transform the work styles, the habits, the expectations that someone had in a previous job and trying to mold them into the new realities of where they’re working. And if your onboarding process is not designed with a reflective learning approach to it, usually it’s because you’re leaning back on the rote learning that’s in orientation. And it’s probably why, you’re on board. It may not be as effective because you’re not making the person into the employee they need to be. You’re just telling them general information.
[JAMES]: Right. You’re giving them the information and then leaving it up to them to take that next step and turn it from information into actual application or learning.
[COBY]: Yes. And one thing that we find when we’re talking to kind of clients or kind of partners about onboarding is a lot of them. And this is kind of where the confusion between orientation and onboarding kind of come in because they’re usually thinking about, well, you know, we can just have some general information, some like, you know, some posters, some, some easy to watch videos, and that’s their onboarding and worries like, whoa, whoa, pump the brakes here a little bit. You’re talking about orientation, you’re talking about rote learning, talking about, here’s some, some general information. And that is not going to onboard them to be the employee you need them to be in a month. And that’s really the kind of the key to think about. You need to have a reflective learning environment or process which will allow the person to be different. How do you do that is kind of a much larger question and I don’t really have a time to dig into that. But, but there is, but there are a lot of strategies that kind of, again, start to really kind of have them think about the work that they used to do and what are the assumptions that they think are going to hold them back? Like, you know, the benchmarks that they were held at their old job, are they challenging those benchmarks that they will probably default to in this current job? That’s kind of a reflective question that will help you transform the way that they think to make them successful in their new role and under the new expectations.
[JAMES]: That’s good. So go ahead.
[COBY]: And then the last one is upskilling.
[JAMES]: Yeah.
[COBY]: So upskilling is really about like. So the kind of learning we do in upskilling is experiential learning. That’s really where you’re going to have the most impactful upskilling, which can experiential learning can be, you know, providing information upfront, providing opportunities to do research or to read and kind of learn something. But it’s about the application, the implementation of it. Upskilling cannot be done through book learning alone. Upskilling has to have either a mentorship or supported implementation or practical hands on getting the experience, experiencing the learning firsthand, experiencing the use of the new skills firsthand. And this is one of the problems that we often see with a lot of training programs, is they don’t realize the difference between rote learning, reflective learning, experiential learning. They often just default to rote learning. It’s like we have these videos for you to watch and then you are now upskilled.
[JAMES]: Yeah.
[COBY]: And that’s often a very common approach, but it’s a incorrect approach and it flies in the face of all adult learning principles. Understanding that the right tool for the right job is really important when it comes to learning. But even when you’re just talking about the differences between orientation, onboarding and upskilling, knowing their difference in the type of learning that’s needed will be key in having you be successful in all three.
[JAMES]: Awesome. why don’t we jump into the. I think that was a pretty full answer. Why don’t we jump into the next question?
[COBY]: Sure. Yeah. So I’ll ask this one of you, James.
[JAMES]: Sure.
[COBY]: This one’s really interesting. how can we address labor gaps due to retirement?
[JAMES]: Yeah, so this has come up for us quite a bit recently in kind of, rather than individual client work, more from a sectoral, you know, our industry is facing a significant number of retirements over the, in the coming, you know, two to five years and we’re worried that our the businesses that we serve, within this industry aren’t prepared for it. so it’s really, it’s a, ah, very common, issue when you’re looking at industry or sectoral, problems or gaps. And I think the big. There’s, so there’s a lot that we could say, but I think there’s two things that are probably the easiest places to start that aren’t going to require a significant amount of explanation, to kind of dig into. And so what I’ve seen in this type of situation, is that first of all, many companies have not updated their recruitment practices in 2020 or 30 years, depending on the industry. So one of the first things that has to go is false equivalencies. I seen it time and time again, especially in industries that have traditionally had a very stable workforce, that are now experiencing either huge amounts of retirements or they are starting to be affected by the same recruitment attraction, retention challenges that seems like every other industry is, facing. And what I mean by false equivalencies is these are kind of the artificial standards or measurements that we use in place of having good questions or having a good screening process. So, for example, I’ve done, we’ve done a lot of work in the manufacturing sector, and in sectors that rely on, labor positions, general labor positions, for a large segment of their workforce. One of the most common false equivalencies or artificial standards that I’ve seen is the requirement for people to have a grade twelve or grade twelve equivalency. And it’s not that having a grade twelve equivalency or putting that into your job description is a bad thing or into your recruitment process. It’s that you are autumn. If there’s not a specific job requirement that requires somebody in order to do this job successfully, they have to have something in that grade twelve, high school graduation equivalency, that without it, it will prohibit them to do the job. That’s what I mean by a false equivalency. An artificial standard that is limiting your labor pool and is cutting out a large swath of potential applicants based on a standard that you’ve created that isn’t actually reflective of what the job entails.
[COBY]: The one thing to catch up, the one thing that I think is, is interesting about the whole grade twelve thing. We talked about this, I remember years ago, Washington, I’m going to, I remember reading again, reading recently that kind of like society newspapers, like, you know, the, the reading level required to function in our modern society only requires like a grade nine reading level.
[JAMES]: Yeah.
[COBY]: Because that’s one thing that the common comes up when we, when I remember, you know, you would talk to employers, well, why is this on here? They’re like, well, to do the job, you know, they have to be able to read at a grade twelve level. Like, well, no, they don’t. Like, you know, like that. Like, you know, but you assume, oh, well, that’s the highest level of schools. That must be the highest level of like reading ability or math ability. But no, we’ve, we operate societally. I’m pretty sure it’s it was either a grade eight or a grade nine reading and math level.
[JAMES]: Yeah, I’ve heard those types of statistics for years and years and years that it’s, and I mean, I, I totally understand why we would use the benchmark of, you know, the high school graduation, because that’s a key benchmark and it shows that you can follow through and complete things. I mean, yes, there’s, there is value there, but what the problem is, I’ve seen, and where this becomes a problem is, especially in industries that are experiencing a large number of current, or expected labor gaps. if you’re already experiencing challenges recruiting people and you’re expecting that to continue or even, God forbid, get worse, and you have these types of artificial standards in there, you’re limiting yourself in a situation where you have way more qualified applicants than you could ever need. Yeah, sure. Have a standard, in there that raises the bar, because you, as the employer, are in a very fortunate position of having an abundance of, excellent candidates. Tends not to be the case. People tend not to be in a situation where they have, you know, hundreds of extremely qualified candidates to fill a position. often it’s, I’m desperate for more people. How do I fill these roles in order to keep my operations going? And that’s why the, the equivalency piece is something that really needs to, that false equivalency piece is something that really needs to go. It’s. There’s value at times, but be cautious of kind of shooting yourself in the foot and so to speak, of creating these standards that just cuts out a large swath of potential applicants. The other thing that I want to mention is something that I don’t think happens nearly enough, across the board with recruitment, and that’s to rebuild your audience profiles. Do you actually know and understand who you are trying to attract to your job? I really like the analogy of, comparing the labor market with the consumer market. there’s a lot of really good correlations there that we can draw from. And what we do really, really well in the consumer market is we create audience profiles. We get drilled down really well into the behaviors of our target demographics, who they are, where they live, what type of education, skill sets of, you know, we, we really do an excellent job from a marketing perspective of, understanding our customer profiles. We do not take that same type of learning and intention to the labor market to create our employee profiles. And that is something that can really, once you understand and drill down into who is that person who we are trying to recruit? What is that ideal candidate look like? What are, where do they hang out? Where do they, live? Where, you know, where can we actually get our, information in front of them? And importantly, how is what we are offering aligned with what they are expecting? What’s our value proposition to that target demographic? Employee profiles can be such. Yes, they are work to set up, to create, and you should be revisiting them and making sure that they’re accurate, year over year. But they, that understanding, and being able to target people who actually fit your target demographic and profile will make you more successful in your attraction efforts?
[COBY]: And I think one, one good question for people to ask themselves if they’re like how accurate is our current audience profiles for our target demographics, traffic for who you want to hire? Is your still, is your ideal employees still in your mind, are they still the same as they were when your retiring labor force was hired? Right? Are they just your exact, are they the people that are retiring in five years, only 30 years younger? Is that still your ideal audience? Your maintain focus? If that’s the case, that’s a great sign you need to start rebuilding your audience profiles. And a good example of how powerful it can be was I remember we had a conversation fairly recently with a client. it’s a transportation organization and they require all of their new employees to have a class four driver’s license to transport, drive the minibuses and the minivans and everything like that. And a big part of their recruitment for a long time had always been so the driver’s license in their province, it was called a class four. Allowed them to drive taxis and twelve passenger vans and that kind of that. And that was a minimum requirement. And that was a huge focus of the recruitment was have to have a class four. Have to have a class four. And when, and they’re like recruitment issue, labor, shortage. And so when talking to them we’re like, well we need to revisit your audience profiles, you know, because you’re going, because if your, if your main target audience is the same as it was, you know, ten years ago, like, you know, retired bus drivers or former truck drivers or you know, former former military who drove trucks, if that’s really who you’re going after, you know, that that pool is drying up. And we said, and so part of it was how important is the, is the class four license? Like how big of a deal is it to have that and to get that? And it was kind of funny because like, you know, I didn’t really know what it was to actually get it. And all required for someone to go from their regular, what’s called a class five, which is just driving any kind of car. Like almost everybody has one of those. To upgrade to a class four was like an eye test and a physical from your doctor. I was like, are you serious? That’s all that it is? Then don’t make that the focus because anybody can pretty much get that. It should be the, it should be.
[JAMES]: Just how many people are they turning off? Because the perception of what’s required to get oh, well, I need to go through it. I need an entirely different license.
[COBY]: Yeah, we make a lot of the road test.
[JAMES]: Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it was bad enough when I was 16 doing my road test.
[COBY]: Yeah.
[JAMES]: but no, it is a really interesting example, and I think it’s a really excellent example of how the language we use and the standards that we set, they are very clear to us because we have the depth of knowledge of what that entails. But does your target demographic understand it the same way as you?
[COBY]: Exactly.
[JAMES]: Do they actually understand that to get a class four, they just need to do x, y and z, and then they will, be able to do that? I mean, that could be the last question that you ask in an interview of are you willing to do and to pursue a class four license by getting an eye test and doing the. Whatever that actual requirement is? I think you said a physical.
[COBY]: Yeah.
[JAMES]: Right. You are…? Wonderful.
[COBY]: Yeah. And that’s just it, because. Because what they. And that’s exactly what they were, have been doing is they’ve been putting out an expectation of an ions profile that. That a vast majority of, potentially ideal candidates are self selecting out of.
[JAMES]: Yeah.
[COBY]: Because, like, for me, I am surprised, even to this day, that a, license upgrade doesn’t require a road test. I know. For me, I, at, you know, whatever, I am mid forties, would definitely not want to do another road test. Like you said, it was awful. At 16, I’m definitely not doing it again. So I would be like, no, next job. But. But if that. But, you know, I didn’t know. I didn’t know. And the layperson wouldn’t know that. So if your audience profile is. Is unintentionally having people self select out who would be ideal candidates? Because you’re. You’re putting out the messaging of either an outdated, expectation of people, or you’re just, you know, not thinking about it through the lens of how your. So how good great candidates might be perceiving your. Your, job posting, then you’re in trouble.
[JAMES]: Yeah. And I mean, it goes with, the use of jargon in your. Like, it’s. It’s really just. Is your target. The more you understand your target demographic, the better you’ll be able to answer the question of, will this language mean anything to them?
[COBY]: Right? Yeah, exactly. So. So, yes, I think so. I think that those are two really great things for people to take away from. How do I address, again, like, you know, labor gaps specifically, you know, and they’re not specific to retirement, but they’re definitely, you know, often kind of Motivated by a lot of, you know, you know, soon retirements for people is again, are you, do you have those false equivalencies or do you, or do you have an outdated audience profiles and that you’re. You’re creating a situation where people are self selecting out, even though they would be excellent candidates, and it’s arbitrary, reasons or miscommunications that are causing them to not consider your positions. That’s good. All right, so I’ll Yeah, so actually, once you ask me the last question.
[JAMES]: Yeah, I’m gonna pose another one to you. This one is a bit more specific and kind of came from, came to us. And it’s along the lines of a lot of our kind of new initiatives. People and culture initiatives never really take off or gain ground. How can we generate buy in for anything new?
[COBY]: So that is a very good, very tough question. and again, I think that the best way to kind of give some type of, you know, helpful answer is probably just going to be to maybe provide a simple tool or a simple way of viewing kind of the concept of buy in. Now, me, I am a big fan of, we brought those up before of psychology and kind of some of the processes, that either individuals or groups kind of go through, as part of how they understand the process and kind of ah, work with information and something that we find helpful when we’re teaching change management or we always use as kind of a guide rail when we’re organizing. And kind of managing change with clients is something called the diffusion of innovation theory. Now, the future of innovation is. It’s kind of, it’s been around for a long time. Lots. I’m sure some of you going, oh yeah, I’ve heard of that. others might be. It might be a brand new thing. What it basically is, and this is going to be a bit hard to describe because there’s a great visual that you can find, about it, but it’s essentially, it’s a bell curve. So it’s like, it looks like kind of a brontosaurus with it, with his head and tail down. And that’s always how I remember bell curve. Yeah.
[JAMES]: No, I mean, it kind of does. I just wasn’t, wasn’t ready for the analogy.
[COBY]: Yeah. so the idea of, you know, like this is. So this bell curve is the Is kind of your population and at the smallest. At the, at the, at the head kind of. That’s down. This is very small little group that we call innovators. And innovators are, some small group. It’s like 2.5% of the total population are. They’re down for it. You got something cool going on. They’re in like, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re not, risk averse. They’re like, sounds fun. Let’s jump in with 2ft. And they’re usually pretty easy to get on board. Basically, anything that has any kind of progression or innovative element to it, usually.
[JAMES]: They’Re the ones who are looking, they’re actively looking for something new and they’re eager to adopt something new. They’re like you said, they’re a very small percentage, but there’s generally about 2.5% of your population generally fall into that innovator category. yeah.
[COBY]: And then the next category, which is kind of the like, mid head, kind of like the base, the base of the neck for the rhinosaurus is what we call the early adopters. So that’s about 13.5%. They’re someone that’s not going to jump in with 2ft, you know, without really knowing what they’re getting in for. There’s some, they’re a group that could be swayed by kind of like, you know, by like some, some signs of success or, or even, you know, a really good plan. There’s someone, they’re a group that will take on the, you know, something new that would pilot something, with a good business case or with a good logic case or with some signs of success. And between the innovators and the early adopters, that is kind of your core 15% of your organization that you really need to get on board with anything because they’re going to be the 15% that you can probably convince through a pilot program or through some type of, like, you know, beta testing or whatever it is. And if you can get that 15%, that’s when the dominoes start to fall. Because once you hit that 15%, you hit a tipping point, which is the next section of the bell curve, kind of the, the front mid of the brontosaurus, which is your early majority, which is 34%. Their group that will take something new, but only if it’s proven, only if it’s something that, you know, yeah, we’ll jump in. It’s.
[JAMES]: There’s risk. It’s been de risked. They, they see the success that other people are having, or, they see that there’s value has already been demonstrated and they’re like, okay, I’m not going to be the person to test out. Test it out. But as soon as there is success, I want to be involved. I want to be on board.
[COBY]: Exactly. And. And so, you know, and that’s when you kind of hit kind of, you know, you’re. About almost half of the organization is. Is. Is pretty much there. Then once the early majority works out, then you’ve got the next section, which is kind of the back, brontosaurus, which is the late majority. And they’re like, well, if everyone else is going that way, we’ll go that way, too. I don’t really feel like it or want to. It might take a while to get there, but, yeah, you can get me there if you give me enough.
[JAMES]: Time, because the majority of people are doing it, I guess I will do it, too.
[COBY]: Yeah. And then after that is what we call the laggard, which is the last 16%, kind of the. The main tail of the brontosaurus. And they’re the ones that they’re not going to change unless it’s mandated. They’re not going to adopt the innovation unless they absolutely have to. They’re the people right now still using flip phones in 2024, like, you know, they’re not upgrading to the iPhones, the smartphones. So, I mean, so the only, if they have no other option, are they going to be into it. So. And what’s interesting about this diffusion of innovation theory is we’ve seen it play out, and it’s so kind of, it’s so predictable in a lot of sense, because you can hit that 15%, that’s when the tipping point really does happen. But where the mistakes we run into is when we try and do something new. If we don’t realize this whole idea of this innovators and early adopters, this early 15%, who are the easiest to convert, if we are nothing tactical and going after them, we tend to think, well, if we get the late majority involved first, then the people that are the most issues with it, if we get them on board, everyone else will fall into place. And that’s just not true that it seems like it might be the case, but that’s how you set yourself up to fail.
[JAMES]: Well, it makes sense. And, you’re right. This is what this is the problem that we often see is that when we’re crafting communications about anything new, we are anticipating, and rightfully anticipating what the objections are going to be. But we target our communications to try to convince the late majority or the laggards that this is something that they should be, that they should work on or that they should participate in. And we almost take for granted the innovators and the, early adopters. Early adopters. Thank you. Because we know that, oh, well, these people, they’re the, they’re more. They’re probably just going to get it. They’re probably going to be on board anyway. So let’s try to address the problems with this really large group when, if you focus your communications on generating buy in to hit that roughly, you know, between 15 and 18% is where the tipping point happens, and you start seeing those early majority going, okay, other people, you know, Coby, I see Coby using this new system, and he’s, you know, his work is easier, it’s less stressful. So now for myself as a. Or I want to be part of that early majority because somebody else has already de risked, has already taken on the process of, validating it, I guess, for lack of a better word. And it’s. It really makes a huge difference if you can focus, your efforts on, well, first you need to be able to identify who’s going to be in those camps, but focusing your efforts there will absolutely generate a better buy in for change.
[COBY]: Yeah. Yeah. And again, and this is kind of, again, the, and the problem with us kind of giving this to you in a podcast is we’re really giving you a theory, and then you have to figure out how to apply the theory to your real life situation. But what’s great about this particular theory is that it’s broken up in stages, it’s broken up in components. So you don’t have to, again, try to take the giant bite out of the elephant at the very beginning of the brontosaurus, I should say. you’ve got small steps that you can work yourself towards. You, know, towards completing it. So it’s, the idea of, part of it is changing your approach and not trying to go after the. The hardest to convert first is going to be about building some success with the innovators, validating it with the early adopters. And then if you can get the early majority on board, that’s when stuff will start to pick up its own steam and kind of almost like, be its own, you know, like the. The ball is rolling down the hill, things are starting to have. Momentum’s already there, and then the laggards, it’s going to have to just be, you know, once everyone else is on board, they’re going to have to change just based on, on a mandate. You’re going to just have to make them.
[JAMES]: Don’t. Do not waste your time, energy and effort in trying to convince a laggard. It’s just, it. You might as well just be beating your head against a wall.
[COBY]: Yeah. So, I mean, again, is this all it takes to generate buy in? No, but again, is this something, is this a practical method of, or practical approach that can increase your odds of having success during buy in? Absolutely. It’s tactical, and it needs to be intentional, and it’s, and it’s, again, more complex than just the way we described it in the past. Again, ten minutes. But it is something that can give you a place to start and a bit of a process.
[JAMES]: And what’s good is that there is a lot of information out there on the, diffusion of innovation, not a lot specifically on how to use it in terms of internal communications and generating body. We, love kind of pulling these theories that have worked elsewhere and seeing them. I mean, it’s another example of a lot of what you would, if you want to learn more, a lot of what you would be learning is how this is used from a product development or consumer acquisition standpoint. But if you understand the base theory of it, applying it to an internal communications internal buy in, the process can be very, very valuable. So do not sleep on this. If this is the first time that you’re hearing about the diffusion of innovation, check it out. It is a really cool, framework for understanding how, new technology, new ideas, new processes are adopted by large groups of people. And just understand that you’re probably, the vast majority of what you will see will be based from a external consumer, standpoint or a product development standpoint. But the lessons can be applied to how you roll out anything new.
[COBY]: Exactly. And if you want specific help on how do you make this work in your workplace, we have the new text message feature on our podcast. You could reach out to us and let us know, and we could see how we could help. All right. so I think. I think.
[JAMES]: I think that can’t end without a shameless plug. Come on.
[COBY]: Absolutely. I mean, yeah. And I’ll also have to promote. Don’t forget about the newsletter. so I think I’ll just kind of give a quick summary. But I think there were some, there’s definitely some great things for people to kind of pull out of this episode, and I really hope that, we’ve given people, again, some tangible pieces to allow them to kind of address some of these, because these are all major issues that people are dealing with every day. So it’s good if we can at least give something to another tool to add the toolbox so they at least have some new approaches to kind of help, address problems that might have been persistent. All right, so let’s go back to the first question. What is the difference between orientation, onboarding and upskilling? Well, largely my answer to that is mostly about the type of learning that we use with those three things. Orientation is usually something that happens in the first few days to week of, a new position. And largely it’s about using the rote learning method of just being provided information and, being able to have a reference point of how to go back to it. About seems like the general things that people just kind of need to know, or the kind of clarifying access, to information of when they have questions, where do they go? That’s really kind of what orientation largely is about, where onboarding is really about a reflective learning approach, trying to spark transformation from how they used to work to adjusting to their new roles and the new expectations on them in their new position. And upskilling is really about experiential learning. So it’s about that hands on experiencing the learning firsthand and being able to kind of being shown and have the opportunity to practice skills in order to develop them. The next question was, how can we address labor gaps due to retirement? Well, the two points that James brought up were, first was false equivalencies need to go, which is the idea of placing kind of arbitrary or misunderstood kind of limitations on who is a good applicant, without really kind of having a clear understanding about what that means. The example he used was putting a grade twelve education requirement on, like, entry level labor positions, which is something that largely, there’s probably no practical need for that type of educational standard, but something that a lot of businesses think should be there, or think they have to have that in order to operate and hire good people, but really they’re looking at false equivalencies. The next one was about rebuilding your audience profiles. This is largely about, do you really understand the workforce today and who you are looking to target to come and work for you? Sometimes? We have, been in sector, some of our sectors that have been largely immune to a lot of the ups and downs of the labor market over the years. And recently, many of them are now for the first time in decades, looking at labor shortages. So part of it is realizing, okay, maybe we’re outdated in who we’re looking for, and maybe we need to have a more kind of, you know, holistic or a more inclusionary approach to stuff. But also it’s about maybe rethinking about what are the prerequisite and transferable skills that will allow people to be successful in our positions. And then the third question was about how do we generate buy in for anything new? And our major answer for that is really about learn more about the diffusion of innovation theory and look at a more tactical way to try and build momentum for change. Because if you look at idea about, you know, describing the new ideas or practices or products, they kind of, how they kind of are, adopted and picked up by, different segments of the population can allow you to have a kind of clear path on where do you start and will have the most impact. And how do you build that momentum for it, because. Because eventually you can hit a tipping point by only 15% to 18% of the population if you do it. Ah, well, and then, and then it will start to build its own momentum. So part of it is just, this is a piece of a puzzle for a much larger kind of strategy around generating buy in and change management. But it’s something that is a great thing for people to be aware of, even if you’re just trying to figure out what’s going to be kind of a method or methodology that will allow us to start to again build that momentum. All right, so that about does it for us. For a full archive of the podcast and access to the video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit www.roman3.ca/podcast thanks for joining us.
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