10Eighty were happy to welcome friends and guests to our partner Fuel50’s London FuelX 2022 conference where HR professionals and industry thought-leaders gathered for a celebration of those who implement best-in-class talent experiences for their people.
Lisa Rapolas, Head, Global Talent Management Operations and Design, at Johnson & Johnson told the conference that for over 135 years, Johnson & Johnson has maintained a tradition of quality and innovation.
Ms Rapolas started by outlining their Credo. The values that guide their decision-making are spelled out in their Credo. Put simply, this challenges them to put the needs and well-being of the people they serve first. They believe that this is more than just a moral compass. It’s a recipe for business success. The fact that Johnson & Johnson is one of only a handful of companies that have flourished through more than a century of change is proof of that.
People first
Putting employees at the centre of their own learning journeys is crucial to the employee experience at Johnson & Johnson. Lisa described a ‘career playground’, characterised by convenient and accessible programmes, integrated learning alongside career development and experiential real-world learning (designed for affordability and available in local languages).
Employees are empowered and encouraged to chart their own career paths and take advantage of the opportunities throughout the Johnson & Johnson family of companies. Lisa believes that L&D is a differentiating factor in supporting talent priorities. J&J Learn is the first step to upgrade their L&D ecosystem. With a focus on addressing skills gaps with upskilling and reskilling so that employees can embrace new responsibilities driven by AI and new technologies.
The aim is to design better, more relevant and personalised solutions that engage employees and leaders in a fast, intelligent and easy to use continuous learning process that enhances internal mobility.
Best in class talent management
The Johnson & Johnson Learn initiative is concentrated on creating a best-in-class experience for employees engaged in learning initiatives.
Going forward, this will enable Johnson & Johnson to attract and retain diverse talent, provide employee leadership development opportunities, and advance a culture of belonging by fostering employee engagement, positively impacting business outcomes.
The new age of talent experience
In a session addressed by Nick Holmes, Global Head of Career Experience, at Fishawack Health he talked about why the talent experience matters. Fishawack aims to attract, retain, and develop the best talent by being the best place to work, learn, and grow in their industry.
At the centre of the Fishawack people-led culture, is a Career Experience team whose mission is to provide every employee – from new hire to alumnus – a purpose-driven career. By investing in development and career progression opportunities at every level, they ensure every employee feels valued.
Experience promotes happiness
“Spending on doing promotes more moment-to-moment happiness than spending on having”, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2020.
So L&D design is facilitated by a Talent Experience Platform (TXP) which is based on:
- Culture – it starts with mindset, skillset and organisational toolset
- Experiences – big or small, just different is okay. New work, gigs, relationships and jobs
- Learning – the TXP world only lasts when skills are being acquired, retired, or inspired
- Stories – “Maybe stories are just data with a sole”, Brene Brown
Fishawack knew from research that the number one reason people left the company was as a lack of a progression pathway; the number two reason was that skills weren’t being stretched or used. However, they also knew that 71% of employees joined for career development and career opportunities and 57% of their respondents wanted opportunities to develop skills relevant to their interests. Nick and his team set out to address this disconnect.
Personalised solutions
Fuel50 was a catalyst for enabling cultural change within the organisation and revolutionising the learning experience of their employees. They mapped Coursera learning to all the skills identified in their talent platform. These tools were aligned with a communications system and peer to peer recognition platform.
Nick and his Career Experience Team focus on high touch, personalised responsive help for users with an ethos based around a “what can we do?” approach to problem-solving for learning and skills development.
Fuel50 allows them to focus on 5 core areas:
- Learning, growth, and professional development
- Onboarding, performance, and talent management
- Career pathways, succession, and mobility
- Engagement and recognition
- Team design, leadership, and connections
Coursera offers more than 20 live courses and 2,000+ on-demand courses available on subjects ranging from leadership and negotiation to unconscious bias and facilitation, so Fishawack learning opportunities can be designed to improve the skills employees needed to advance their career.
How does it work?
It’s people-centred – mindset, skillset, toolset are what count. The starting point is Beginners mind, a Zen concept, and really empowering in terms of the learning journey. There are no preconceptions; failure is your best friend; feedback, no matter how hard to take; is a gift.
Openness to learning transforms the L&D experience. Using feedback in a responsive rather than a reactive way is another key to success. Use the tangibles from feedback to build for improvement.
Nick emphasised the importance of a focus on direction rather than speed. You need to talk about what your utopia looks like – experience, beliefs, actions, results. The most important thing is where you’re going.
