Workplace Talent Growth

Louder for the people at the back 🎤 Somewhere along the line, too many companies stopped developing talent and started just chasing it. The problem? When you only hire “ready-made,” you miss out on the hungry ones. The ones who might not have the experience yet, but show up with the right attitude, a willingness to learn, and zero ego. That’s how you build greatness. Not by finding finished products - but by investing in people with their best years ahead of them. And let’s be clear: this isn’t about age. It’s about mindset. Humility. Potential. To unlock that potential, organisations need to stop being lazy and start building environments where growth is part of the culture. Here’s what that looks like: 1️⃣ Train Like You Mean It Don’t just onboard. Invest in real development — mentorship, hands-on learning, workshops. Give people tools and time. 2️⃣ Hire for Trajectory, Not Just Track Record Look past the CV. Prioritise curiosity, coachability, and drive. Use behavioural interviews and trial periods to assess mindset, not just experience. 3️⃣ Bridge the Gap with Education Partner with schools, unis, and training programs. Build pathways from education into the industry — not walls. 4️⃣ Create a Culture of Lifelong Learning Learning shouldn't stop after probation. Offer clear routes to reskill, upskill, and evolve. Make personal growth a company standard. 5️⃣ Recruit Without Bias Diversity isn’t a checkbox — it’s a competitive advantage. Use blind recruitment, set intentional targets, and make inclusion real. The companies that win long-term are the ones that bet on people early and build them up with intention. Don’t just find talent. Develop it.

Early in my career, I struggled to reach my goals. Then I implemented a concept called “Paying Yourself First.” That led to my job at Microsoft, starting my own business, and so much more. Here’s how it works in 7 steps: 1. Most Of Us “Pay Others” First We wake up and scroll our phone. Our first work activity is checking email to see what came in. Actions like this put other people’s priorities first. Your starting point is making their To Do list your own. 2. What Is “Paying Yourself First?” The concept of “Paying Yourself First” was coined by George S. Clason in his book The Richest Man In Babylon. Clason was referring to money and finance in his book. In context of your career goals and this post, we’ll be referring to time. 3. Carve Out A Block Of AM Time Adjust your morning to create a block of time for your goals. You can start small, with 10-15 minutes. Then aim to work your way up to an hour or so. Talk to your spouse, wake up earlier if you have to -- do what you need to do to set it up. 4. Choose One Goal To Focus On This won’t work if you try to cram multiple things into it. Instead, choose one goal: - Making that career pivot - Getting in shape -Writing that book - Etc. This time is 100% focused on working toward that goal. 5. Stay Consistent As Heck We’re human, we’re all going to miss a day here and there. But make it your goal to do this 5 out of 7 days every week. As James Clear illustrates, getting 1% better at something every day leads to a 37x increase over the course of a year. 6. Why This Works We all have goals, but too many of us put them last. By the time we get around to working on them, we’re exhausted and drained. But if you “pay yourself” first thing in the morning, your personal goals are done by the time everyone else is waking up. 7. How It’s Helped Me This is what I did to make my transition from healthcare to Microsoft. It’s also what I did to build my current business while working full time. And it’s what I continue to do now to grow that business with a 3.5 and 1.5 year old running around :)

AI probably won’t take your job. But someone with these skills will. Everyone’s talking about AI taking over our jobs - or our businesses. The fact is AI is creating opportunities for us to work faster and focus on what truly matters. While AI can automate tasks, the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 highlights that human skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, and emotional intelligence will be the most in-demand by 2030. The problem? Many professionals spend years mastering the wrong skills. If you're strong in these six areas, you can create opportunities for yourself in any market! Here's how to develop them: 1️⃣ Critical Thinking and Decision Making: ↳ Dedicate 15 minutes daily to reflective journalling to make better decisions. ↳ Write about a recent decision and evaluate the outcome - what worked, and what didn’t? ↳ Consider different perspectives: how would others solve the same problem? 2️⃣ Skills Gap Analysis and Continuous Learning: ↳ Regularly assess your skills to identify and fill critical gaps. ↳ Review job market trends or industry reports to spot in-demand skills. ↳ Write down your strengths and areas where you feel less confident. ↳ Focus on one skill at a time, setting clear goals and a timeline to improve it. 3️⃣ Emotional Intelligence: ↳ Build self-awareness through daily reflection to strengthen emotional intelligence. ↳ At the end of each day, note one instance where emotions impacted your interactions. ↳ Ask yourself: "What could I have done differently to create a positive outcome?" 4️⃣ Creative Problem-Solving: ↳ Take courses outside your primary field to boost creative problem-solving. ↳ Choose a topic that excites you but is unrelated to your current role. ↳ Dedicate time weekly to explore this new area and see how it connects to your work. ↳ Apply your learnings to a real-world challenge to test innovative ideas. 5️⃣ Technical Adaptability: ↳ Set aside time daily to learn emerging technologies and improve adaptability. ↳ Start with 20 minutes each day exploring tech trends or taking tutorials. ↳ Use hands-on projects to apply what you've learned and reinforce your skills. 6️⃣ Communication and Collaboration: ↳ Practise active listening to build stronger communication and collaboration skills. ↳ Focus fully on the speaker during conversations - avoid distractions like your phone. ↳ Ask open-ended questions to encourage deeper discussions and connections. Your future-ready career isn't built in big leaps. It's built in tiny steps that compound. Start now. Start small. But start. The best time to future-proof your career was yesterday. The second best time is today. ⬇️ Tell me in the comments: Which skill do you see people struggle with the most? 🔄 Repost this to build stronger teams and smarter leaders. ➕ Follow me, Jen Blandos, for actionable daily insights on business, entrepreneurship, and workplace well-being.

Are You Aligning Your Strengths with What Your Organization Values? A few years ago, a talented professional, came to me feeling frustrated. Despite her hard work, she wasn’t moving forward in her department. After a core competency analysis, we discovered the reason: She excelled in technical skills, but the company placed heavy emphasis on leadership, initiative, and innovation—areas where she wasn’t fully demonstrating her potential. To fix this, we crafted a plan to develop these core competencies. We assigned her small team projects to build leadership experience, and encouraged her to share her innovative ideas. Within six months, she was recognized as a natural leader, and new opportunities started opening up for her. 🌱 📊 Here’s How You Can Assess Your Organization’s Core Competencies: 👉Review Job Descriptions: Look at the required skills for your current and aspirational roles. Companies often include key competencies in job postings. 👉Pay Attention to Company Culture: Observe what behaviors are praised and rewarded—this is often a reflection of the core competencies the organization values. 👉Engage with Leadership: Ask for feedback and guidance on what the organization sees as vital for success in your role. 👉Study Performance Reviews: Look at what’s being measured in performance evaluations—this will reveal the competencies your company values most. 💡 Key Action Points: 🔆Assess the core competencies your organization values most. 🔆Identify where your strengths align with those competencies. 🔆Take proactive steps to develop in-demand skills like leadership and innovation. Feeling stuck in your role? It might be time to reassess your competencies and align your strengths with what the organization values. Start today and unlock new opportunities! #Leadership #CareerDevelopment #CoreCompetencies #Innovation #Initiative #ProfessionalGrowth #LeadershipSkills #CareerAdvancement #SkillDevelopment #LearningAndDevelopment

Your best people are about to quit. And you don't even know it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I've placed hundreds of professionals. Every exit interview? Same story. It's never about the money. (Well, not JUST the money.) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ High turnover isn't inevitable. It's a choice. And replacing your stars costs: → 6 months salary → Team morale   → Client trust Ping pong tables won't fix this. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Here's what actually keeps talent: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1) PAY PROPERLY Stop lowballing. Match market rates. Reward performance. Your competitor is one call away. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 2) ACTUALLY SEE THEM That project they crushed? Notice it. Say it out loud. In front of others. Recognition costs nothing. Invisibility costs everything. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 3) TRUST THEM LIKE ADULTS ❌ "Butts in seats by 9am" ✅ "Get the work done" They're professionals, not children. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 4) TELL THE TRUTH Bad news? Share it. Future uncertain? Say so. Big decisions? Include them. Secrets kill loyalty faster than layoffs. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 5) INVEST IN THEIR GROWTH No budget for training? You'll pay for it in resignations. Stagnant people leave. Growing people stay. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 6) LISTEN, THEN ACT Collecting feedback to ignore it? That's worse than not asking. They're telling you how to keep them. Are you listening? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 7) RESPECT THEIR LIVES No boundaries = No loyalty Midnight emails = resignation letters Weekend "emergencies" = LinkedIn updates ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The brutal truth: People don't leave companies. They leave managers who: → Steal credit → Micromanage → Ignore wellbeing → Give no growth path ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ask yourself: Are you why they stay? Or why they're secretly interviewing? Your answer determines your team's future. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Which one hits closest to home? 👇 ♻️ Repost to save someone's team ➕ Follow Shulin Lee for more hiring truths P.S. That superstar who "suddenly" resigned? They've been unhappy for months. You just weren't paying attention.

Upskilling Strategies: Yesterday we looked at the Upskilling for business success and today we're going to look at customizing learning pathways for your Tech team. In today’s tech landscape, a one-size-fits-all approach to training just doesn’t work. To build a high-performing, future-ready tech team, upskilling programs need to be personalized and role-specific. 🔍 Start by assessing your team’s current skills: Use skills assessments, 360-degree feedback, and project performance reviews to understand the strengths and gaps within your tech teams. 🔑 Tailor learning pathways to meet the needs of specific roles within your organization. A few examples: ·       Cloud Engineers can benefit from certifications and training in platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud. ·       DevOps Teams should focus on tools like Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, and CI/CD pipelines to streamline workflows and improve collaboration. ·       Cybersecurity Specialists need continuous learning in threat detection, encryption, and certifications like CISSP or CEH. ·       Software Developers could advance their skills in languages like Python or Java, or explore microservices and API development. 🎯 Personalization matters. When you align learning paths with individual roles and career goals, your team is more engaged and motivated, and the impact of upskilling is much greater. To create a successful upskilling strategy: ·       Set clear development goals based on current and future business needs. ·       Leverage e-learning platforms that offer customizable learning paths and assessments. ·       Encourage mentorship and peer learning to reinforce new skills within the team. ·       Investing in personalized learning paths doesn’t just future-proof your workforce—it drives innovation, improves retention, and keeps your tech teams agile and ready for the challenges ahead. Are your upskilling programs tailored to the unique needs of your tech team? #upskilling #personalizedlearning #techtrends #cloudengineering #DevOps #cybersecurity #continuouslearning #workforcedevelopment

Most people think learning stops after training. That's really step one. The most successful people share one habit: They find learning opportunities in every role. While others wait for training budgets and programs, these professionals turn ordinary workdays into skill-building experiences. They understand that every job is a classroom if you know where to look. Here's how to extract growth from any role: 1️⃣ Identify skills gaps in your team or department ↳ Volunteer to research solutions and present findings ↳ Position yourself as the go-to person for emerging challenges 2️⃣ Ask to shadow leaders during important meetings ↳ Request 15 minutes monthly with senior leadership ↳ Study their decision-making process and communication style 3️⃣ Take on cross-functional projects ↳ Collaborate with teams outside your usual scope ↳ Build relationships while expanding your skill set 4️⃣ Become the bridge between departments ↳ Translate technical concepts for non-technical teams ↳ Develop your communication and leadership abilities 5️⃣ Document and share what you learn ↳ Create resources that help others solve similar problems ↳ Build your reputation as a thoughtful contributor Your career growth is your responsibility. Make it happen. ♻️ Repost to help your network ➕ Follow Carmen Morin for more developmental leadership insights

I have already talked about the potential for AI to create efficiencies and increase productivity in the workplace. But to realize and retain these benefits, business leaders need to ensure the talent they recruit understand how AI works and how to harness it. According to a recent Fortune article, 63% of hiring leaders say it's more challenging to source candidates with AI skills than applicants for other tech roles. To meet demand, organizations need to rethink their hiring strategy in three key ways: 1. Shift to skills-based hiring: it is likely that the jobs candidates are applying for did not exist when the candidates were in education. At Capgemini we’re removing traditional barriers to entry level jobs and considering non-traditional skills and experience. 2. Broaden the talent pipeline: community workforce programs, for example, offer diverse, under-tapped talent pools that bring fresh thinking and practical skills into the tech workforce. 3. Develop internal talent: invest in upskilling existing employees to fill AI-related roles. This is something we are already doing through our Capgemini University and its digital campuses focused on Gen AI, data, cloud, cybersecurity and more. Our commitment to lifelong learning is key — in 2024, our employees benefited from more than 25.7 million hours of learning, reflecting a culture of “learn-it-all” and continuous development As roles evolve, so must our approach to hiring and nurturing talent. By focusing on capability, adaptability, and continuous learning, we can build a workforce ready to harness AI’s full potential.

Supporting Gen Z in the world of work is no easy feat... ...especially when employers miss the mark in their talent acquisition practices and supervisors are underprepared to support the youngest generation in the world of work 💼 It is no easy feat to support an intergenerational workforce. As someone committed to workplace success, I've noticed three critical areas where organizations must invest to effectively integrate Gen Z talent into the intergenerational workplace ⬇️ ➡️ Transparency in job descriptions Gen Z professionals prefer clarity about what a role they're interested in will truly entail, including growth pathways and compensation structures. This transparency builds immediate trust and sets the foundation for long-term engagement. ➡️ Comprehensive onboarding structures Many organizations still treat onboarding as a checkbox exercise rather than a crucial developmental period (I've been there, and it was rough). Gen Z thrives when given proper context, clear expectations, and direct access to resources to help them thrive. A well-structured onboarding program helps curb future misunderstandings and demonstrates your commitment to intergenerational success. ➡️ Intentional feedback frameworks The absence of consistent feedback leaves young professionals vulnerable to imposter syndrome and uncertainty. By implementing regular coaching-oriented conversations, supervisors can help new talent build confidence while ensuring alignment with team needs. What strategies has your organization implemented to better bridge generational divides? Have you seen success with any particular approach to supporting Gen Z? 🤔