Most employers are aware of the benefits that come with striving for diversity in the workplace, which is why business leaders are taking note and trying to diversify their organizations. But achieving diversity is no simple task. It is an ongoing and difficult process, as it requires a change in corporate culture to identify and combat inherent and unconscious bias within the organization and among individual employees. Luckily, there are many steps an organization can take to promote diversity. 

One such way to begin creating a diverse and inclusive workplace that respects differences and gives voice to all people is by implementing a diversity and inclusion training program. This requires training from employers to help employees understand corporate values and diversity, overcome unconscious bias, and build an inclusive work environment. 

New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Division of Professional and Corporate Education has partnered with Branding4Change, a leader in DEI, to develop a training program that facilitates open dialogue, collaboration, and reflection that challenges business leaders, managers, and individuals to foster an inclusive climate. This changes the culture of their workplace by breaking down misperceptions, developing trust, and co-creating transformational models of behavior. This diversity training has many benefits, including promoting the inclusion of different identity groups and better teamwork. It is a professional training program that aims to encourage positive interactions between various types of diversity, reduce prejudice and discrimination, and teach people who are different how to work together towards a common goal   on a business team. With a focus on diversity and inclusion, unconscious bias, the impact of privilege, cultural humility, and intersectionality, this training is distinctly different from others. Rather than force-feeding concepts on progressive policies, we engage audiences by combining introspective exercises that dig deep and spark courageous conversations that connect groups to break down barriers. 

There is no single set of rules for implementing a successful DEI program in your business, but you can start your journey to learn about DEI and understand the value it brings to your business by setting up a diversity and inclusion training program in your organization.  

Company practices—such as setting up a DEI training program—demonstrate a strong commitment to equality and diversity, sending a clear message to customers and employees that it cares about its employees and the general public. In turn, they positively impact the perception of their products and services. A strategic diversity plan coupled with top-line training facilitates employee satisfaction and stability while promoting retention. To begin your company’s journey to increased profitability and reduced employee turnover through the implementation of DEI training, visit www.njii.com/courses/diversity-equity-and-inclusion/ and get started today. 

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NJIT is now accepting registrations for four professional development programs which will begin at the end of January 2021.  

Each program is run by experienced experts in a virtual setting. They are all live instructor-led sessions. Participants will earn a certificate issued by NJIT and in some cases, be prepared to sit for the related industry exam. 

For all courses, enrollment is limited to ensure maximum levels of interaction and student engagement. Please register early!  Questions? Contact us.  To learn more about our professional development programs or corporate training programs visit us online here. 

Spring 2021 Courses Now Open for Registration 

Project Management Professional 

• Mondays and Thursdays 6 – 9pm 
• 1/25/21 to 03/04/21 
• Live, online, instructor-led classes 
• Fee:  $1,350 

This course is designed to provide a solid foundation on the best practices and techniques of project managers, and is ideal for new project managers, those without formal training, or anyone considering a career change. Upon completion of this course, students will be sufficiently prepared for the PMP® or CAPM® certification exam. Learn more and register here. 

Six Sigma Green Belt  

• Mondays 6 – 9pm and Saturdays 9 – 12pm  
• Live, online, instructor-led classes 
• Fee:  $1,100 
• 1/25/21 – 3/20/21 

Individuals who want to learn the fundamentals of Six Sigma and how they can be applied to achieve stable and predictable process results should consider this course. No previous experience is required to take this course, however the ASQ has certain requirements that must be met before receiving the Green Belt certification. Learn more and register here. 

Front Line Supervisor  

• Mondays and Wednesdays 6-9 pm 
• Live, online, instructor-led classes 
• Fee: $1,350 
• Starts 1/25/21  

Frontline managers and supervisors play a vital role in business. They are responsible for supervising the employees who ultimately deliver the products and services your valued customer’s desire. This course serves as an introduction to supervisory roles and functions in today’s changing workplace environment. It includes concepts, exercises and activities that explore and reinforce the supervisor’s role. Learn more and register here. 

Creative Placemaking Certificate 

• Mondays and Thursdays 6 – 9pm  
• Live, online, instructor-led classes 
• Fee:  $2.495 
• 1/21/21 – 5/13/21 

Civic leaders, planners, community and economic development professionals and artists can acquire the skills and practices to shape the character of a community through the infusion of arts and culture. The Certified Creative Placemaker Certificate is designed for those who choose to be a leading agent of change in a community. Learn more and register here. 

To learn more about our professional development programs or corporate training please contact us.  

The post New Year, New Non-Degree Professional Development Programs appeared first on NJII.

I lead the human capital division here at NJII. We are responsible for delivering professional development and executive education in the form of individual and group training and programs. For this session, we asked one of our partners and lead instructors to help us cover this topic.

Our guest speaker was Dave Mitchell of the Leadership Difference. Dave is the author of The Power of Understanding Yourself, The Power of Understanding People and Peak Performance Culture: The Five Metrics of Organizational Excellence.

Over the years, more than 450,000 people have attended Dave’s “enter-TRAIN-ment” seminars on topics that include leadership, customer service, selling skills, and personal performance enhancement. His clients include Allstate Insurance, Bank of America, Universal Studios, Hilton Worldwide, Sub-Zero Wolf Appliances, Electrolux Appliances, Trek Bikes, Walt Disney World and the CIA.

Dave teaches several leadership programs which are available to both individuals and groups and offered through NJI. These programs include the following:

1. Communication Excellence
2. Customer Centric Sales & Service
3. Peak Performance Culture
4. The Power of Understanding People
5. The Power of Understanding Yourself

I interviewed Dave and asked him a series of questions that helped focus our discussion on what you and your leadership team can and should be doing to help ensure your employees remain engaged and productive during these challenging times.

If you didn’t have a chance to attend, you can register quickly and watch an on-demand version of the event or contact us for a copy of the presentation that was shared during the session.

For your reading pleasure, below are the questions I asked Dave and a summary of his responses.

What is the most surprising thing we’ve learned during this forced “work-from-home” period created by the global pandemic?

As Dave said, this is really an unprecedented time in our history. He joked “There’s not a lot of leaders who guided us through the Spanish flu and are still providing us direction.” He went on to say that it does provide us an opportunity to re-evaluate what we think we know about communications and try new things we’ve never tried before because we just didn’t have to, and it’s going to make us better.

So, what’s surprising?

Well, one of the first things you learn in any communication course is that there’s a big difference between formal and informal communication. And one of the things that’s been a little surprising is how painful and acute the loss of informal communication is.

Formal communication is more commonly vertical in nature – involving leadership directives or team member updates. Examples include things like group meetings, video conferences, formal scheduled individual meetings, emails, press releases, policy statements etc.

Informal communication is more commonly horizontal in nature – involving peer to peer interactions and includes things like small talk, lunch or breakroom conversations, texts and DMs, chat features and pre- or post-work gatherings.

In summary, informal communication is the fun part. It’s what people really enjoy about their day to day. And during this time, we’ve ensured that all our formal communication is in place and even more of it has been added. But, all the informal communication is really gone which has created a loss for people.

How can leaders encourage more informal communication between employees?

Dave re-iterated that we need to embrace small talk. And that can be a challenge for some leaders who don’t naturally lean towards small talk. Therefore, as leaders, we need to try and make time for and create opportunities for small talk and informal communication to happen virtually.

We talked a bit about ideas and ways to encourage information communication including things like:

• Strive for less, shorter meetings
• Schedule opportunities for informal communication
• Explore fun activities like:
  • Online games
  • Happy hours
  • Crafting or other virtual meetups
  • Coffee chats
  • Virtual escape rooms

80% of communication is body language, how do you read that or use your own body language effectively when everyone is virtual?

Reading body language isn’t as emphasized right now because it is harder to get that information but USING body language and leveraging the visual medium of video conferencing is increasingly important for today’s leaders and many haven’t really embraced it.

To be as effective as possible, use the camera. Make yourself big. Bring your energy level up. Do whatever you can to be as expressive as possible on that medium.

Many leaders are concerned about maintaining productivity and achieving results while employees are working from home. Should they be?

Dave’s response to this question was funny – he deadpanned “No, they should be petrified.” He then quoted some of the statistics that researchers have shared about how the work from home model has proven to improve productivity. However, he was quick to point out, those studies relied on four important considerations that had to be addressed before a work from home model would improve productivity and those four things were:

1. Are the employee’s childcare issues addressed?
2. Does the employee have space to work at home?
3. Is the employee’s workspace private?
4. Does the employee have the choice to work at home?

Unfortunately, during the shift to a work-from-home model due to the pandemic, in many cases, none of those considerations were addressed and we have people working at home who are trying to balance their kids educational needs, they may be set up in a modest environment and they have no choice, their offices are closed.

So, the result is that productively is compromised and as leaders we must be mindful of what our employees and colleagues are experiencing. We can’t’ and shouldn’t require our employees to go on video. We can’t or shouldn’t make huge demands of them right now. For example, a mandate like “no one should take video calls from a bedroom” might not be appropriate since for many people that may be the only space they have available to them that affords them any sort of privacy or quiet.

Bottom line – leaders need to be empathetic and compassionate in considering the challenges facing their employees. The good will forged now will pay off in increased productivity long term.

What are the most common mistakes leaders are making related to managing and communicating with employees who are working from home?

One of the most common mistakes is failing to pay even closer attention to the differences in terms of how people communicate with one another and making sure that their “intrinsic needs” are met.

There are tons of assessments out there that analyze people’s communication preferences or personality types to provide a framework for approaching communication. In Dave’s book, “The Power of Understanding People” he puts forth the below framework for identifying what people’s performance styles are and their corresponding sensitivities, values, intrinsic needs and communication preferences.

Performance Style

In the chart above, you can see for example, that if someone is a romantic, their intrinsic need is appreciation. As leaders, one of the things we may be overlooking right now is the fact that our romantics aren’t receiving the same amount of appreciation they would typically receive if we were all face to face. A romantic who’s used to hearing “thank you so much”, “great job” and “couldn’t have done it without you” at work might not be hearing that as often or even at all when their interactions are all virtual and distributed. The romantic person is suffering because of it and his or her productivity and level of satisfaction with their work life is negatively impacted.

The bottom line is that as leaders we need to make sure we recognize the communication preferences of those on our team and cater to them as much as we can. Pay especially close attention to their intrinsic needs and try to make sure they are met.

Is there a specific tactic – something leaders can start doing right now – that will enhance performance in this environment?

Yes!

One of the approaches that’s touted as best practice even before the pandemic, is something Dave calls “People Preventative Medicine.”

The idea behind this is to create a continuous feedback loop from the employee to the employer. It should be casually executed but formally administered. Meaning, you, as the leader or the employer, should schedule it to make sure it happens, but to the employee it should feel like a casual check-in.

It’s a highly effective approach and mechanism for uncovering employee frustrations, inefficiencies and even customer concerns.

What strong leaders do is make sure they check in with their employees at least monthly and have a minimum of a 15-minute conversation with them in an informal setting and unstructured way. Feedback is solicited through open-ended questions such as the following:

• What things are frustrating about your job?
• What do you need to make it easier to do your job?
• How can I better communicate with you?

And the key is to both listen and respond. Fix the things that are fixable and if they can’t be fixed or addressed, explain why. It takes time. Don’t expect immediate results, but after a few months, you should see enhanced performance and improved job satisfaction.

Do you want to learn more? Contact us with your questions or to learn about our courses for individuals or groups and other ways to get the advice and insights you need during these challenging times.

The post Leading from a Distance: How to Achieve Peak Performance When Everyone’s Working from Home appeared first on NJII.

I decided to ask them just that, and their responses were overwhelmingly consistent: they weren’t sleeping because they were worried about their futures—about what job they would get, if they would even get one, and how to find the best career for the future, one that will keep them employed for the next 40 or more years.

Job Insecurity in the Age of Automation

There are a lot of things that make my students unique, but their job insecurity is not one of them. In fact, according to a Cowen Washington Research Group survey, 52 million workers suffer from job insecurity, and a Brookings Institute Report shows that 37% of workers are worried about losing their jobs specifically because of the impending age of automation. But while the threat of automation to jobs is real, it’s not what people tend to imagine.

No Profession is Immune from AI and Automation

Many people believe that only blue-collar jobs are being threatened by the rise of automation, because they think about robots working alongside human workers in Amazon warehouses, autonomous shuttles running loops around the Brooklyn Navy Yard, or even the ATM machine.

What is less spoken about, and therefore less understood, is the fact that artificial intelligence (AI) is also making its way into white-collar fields of work. Take, for example, law.

Lawyers have always been the epitome of white-collar work, and yet, AI is now advanced enough to conduct research and create contracts – typical work skills of those practicing law. Likewise, journalism now utilizes natural language generation software systems to create stories. Even a medical diagnosis may be handled by AI.

As machines become more advanced and the emphasis is placed on machine learning and algorithm creation, we face a reality where machines out-perform humans in many common work skills.

What Work Skills Will be Relevant in the Age of Automation?

The question then becomes, how do we stay relevant during the age of automation? How can we ensure that our work skills can never be replaced, and that we adapt with the changing needs and demands of our respective industry, rather than get booted out of it?

The answer may lie in what Dr. Aoun, the President of Northeastern University, calls humanics and the notion of hybrid jobs. Let’s break these terms and ideas down.

What is Humanics?

Humanics is defined as the study of human nature or human affairs, but according to Dr. Aoun, it is also a skill set that includes three essential literacies, namely, technical, data, and human literacies.

Technical Literacy

Technical literacy is the ability to understand how machines function on the back end. Anyone can use an app that’s designed to be user-friendly, but those with a competitive edge in the evolving workforce know what’s going on behind the scene to make that app work.

Data Literacy

Data literacy, on the other hand, is the ability to manage, analyze, and synthesize data so that it can be used to achieve goals, make decisions, and advance.

Human Literacy

Finally, there is human literacy—the most underrated skill of all, because it is exactly what sets us apart from machines.

Human literacy is the ability to empathize, communicate, and engage with other people on profound and genuine levels. It is a form of emotional intelligence that allows us to act ethically—something that AI will never be able to do like humans. And whether we are aware of it or not, we want the interactions that result from human literacy.

That desire for human understanding and interaction will never go away. But, at this point, neither will automation. That’s why the three literacies that Dr. Aoun discusses are so important, because they are all necessary for the modern worker to possess, and they intersect in every field of work.

Three Cognitive Abilities Are Also Key

What’s equally important as the aforementioned literacies, are three associated cognitive abilities: creativity, critical thinking, and entrepreneurship.

Dr. Aoun and others—including Burning Glass Technologies, a company providing real-time data on job growth, in-demand skills, and market trends—claim that these three cognitive abilities are essential to maintaining career relevance in the age of automation.

Creativity

Creativity is listed as LinkedIn’s most sought-after skill, and is the driving force behind innovation, adaptability, and solutions to all kinds of problems.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking allows people to see the small details at the same time as the big picture, so that one can make decisions, apply solutions, and make progress.

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship, of course, is always needed and is responsible for the creation of new jobs, companies, concepts, and more.

What is a Hybrid Job?

When we combine the three literacies composed in humanics (technical, data, and human literacies) with the cognitive abilities (creativity, critical thinking, and entrepreneurship), we are then able to fulfill what’s known as a hybrid job.

A hybrid job is one that is complex and interdisciplinary, requiring a combination of skill sets across various areas. And workers for these jobs are in high demand, a demand that will likely increase.

Let’s go back to that journalism example from earlier. Sure, AI may be able to utilize natural language generation software to tell us that uncontrollable wildfires are burning California. But can AI interview a grieving family who lost their home or a loved one, and portray the pain they face? Analyze the different methods available to help battle the fires? Compare the statistics of historical wildfires in the region to give insight into what’s happening today? No. It can’t. Not like a human can.

A journalist who can do all that, plus operate their newspaper’s online hosting site to publish their own posts, and brainstorm different ideas for creative stories, is a person who would not be replaced by automation. A journalist who fits that description will also command a much higher salary than someone who only possesses good writing skills.

The Best Careers for the Future are Hybrid Jobs

Burning Glass Technologies calls these hybrid jobs “the secret of career success in the digital world ahead.” People who wield the necessary skill sets to fulfill hybrid jobs will find themselves in great positions as the age of automation continues to evolve.

So what I suggested to my students that morning, and what I continue to suggest to anyone else who is suffering from job insecurity, is to develop your technical, data, and human literacies as well as your creativity, critical thinking, and entrepreneurship skills in any way that you can.

And while you do that, seek out complex, hybrid jobs that will inherently maintain your career relevance in the digital age. If you do, you’ll find that no machine can take your job.

To learn more about how NJIT can help you develop the work skills of the future, visit https://www.njii.com/human-capital/.

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