Change may be the ultimate paradox. While the pace of change may change, the fact of it doesn’t: In the workplace, change is our one constant.
That seeming contradiction was at the heart of the Talent Connect keynote delivered on Tuesday by Jennifer Shappley, the vice president of talent at LinkedIn. In a talk she jokingly called “Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: How Change is Changing” (the actual title was “AI at Work Is Here. What Should Talent Leaders and Teams Do Now?”), Jennifer teed up her inner David Bowie.
“If last year we knew we were facing change,” Jennifer told her Talent Connect Summit audience, “this year we can recognize that change is the new normal.”
A year ago in her address to Talent Connect, Jennifer said that talent professionals everywhere needed new playbooks. The intervening year has, well, changed her mind.
“After spending the last 12 months alongside my team and you all, this year I’m here to say: There’s no playbook for the era we’re in,” Jennifer confided. “As soon as you write one, it’s out of date.”
In lieu of a playbook in need of constant editing, revision, and rewriting, Jennifer shared three things her team is doing at LinkedIn so that the company doesn’t just survive change but thrives in it.
1. Break the problem down to its component parts
Jennifer said her team stepped back, looked at the current disruption, and tabbed AI as the biggest source of change and adaptability as the most important skill.
“As a result,” she said, “we’re upskilling our entire organization in those two things.”
Her team recognized that while every employee needs a strong foundation in AI fluency, that foundation will look different depending on a person’s role and function. So, they turned to the AI Upskilling Framework that was developed by LinkedIn Learning and consists of five tiers. The bottom tier, for example, is called Understanding and is aimed at everyone, including managers and leaders. It looks at responsible AI and GAI fluency and awareness. The top tier, on the other hand, is called Deeply Specializing and targets machine-learning researchers, DevOps, cybersecurity specialists, and data scientists.
“So, guess what,” Jennifer joked, “I’m not going to be teaching ‘AI Fluency for Cybersecurity Professionals.’”
Instead, she said, LinkedIn is using its own LinkedIn Learning content to drive AI fluency.
LinkedIn rolls out professional certifications for talent leaders and teams — for free right now
Jennifer announced that LinkedIn is launching three AI professional certificate programs for talent leaders and teams and all three will be free through December 31. On top of that, she said, the five companies that complete the most of these three certificates will get a free, tailored AI upskilling training program with a LinkedIn Learning instructor for their entire organization.
As Talent Connect made clear, LinkedIn is deeply committed to providing talent professionals with an ongoing roll-out of new AI-powered products and features. Which, as Jennifer noted, means “we’re regularly operating in the unknown.” And, she added, to be successful in that zone of uncertainty and not get overcome with frustration, you need adaptability. At LinkedIn, she said, adaptability is defined as being resilient; knowing how to lead through change; and having a growth mindset.
In pursuit of those three objectives, Jennifer said, LinkedIn will launch a LinkedIn Learning Live Tour later this year for their employees. What does that look like? The program will feature live, interactive sessions with LinkedIn Learning instructors and LinkedIn employees in key offices around the world. “Our employees,” Jennifer said, “will get the opportunity to connect, engage, and learn directly from a variety of thought leaders.”
Those in-person sessions will be followed with LinkedIn Learning paths that employees can take on their own time, at their own pace.
“We’re keeping human interaction at the center of this strategy,” Jennifer said, while noting that LinkedIn would be using technology to scale and reinforce the work.
2. Help leaders get comfortable leading without a playbook
“How many of you have heard from leaders at your organization,” Jennifer asked, “and quickly discovered they’re desperate for clarity on what to do?” They are, she added, hungering for a script.
“But there are no scripts,” Jennifer said. “At the same time, we need our leaders leading from the front and creating clarity for our teams.”
So, rather than struggling to provide leaders with pat answers and stone-cut plans, Jennifer and her team are focusing on getting them to learn how to think more fluidly and how to deal with ambiguity.
To do that, LinkedIn has launched a program called Leadership Labs, where senior leaders meet in small groups with subject matter experts and find the space to be vulnerable and learn from each other so they can lead with confidence.
“Our experts,” Jennifer said, “provide frameworks for thinking and leadership approaches that can work in a wide array of scenarios. We know there’s so much magic in people learning from each other — about real situations and in real time.”
3. Bet big on coaching
Jennifer noted that her colleague Hari Srinivasan, vice president of product, had given a demonstration of LinkedIn Learning’s AI-powered coach earlier in Talent Connect.
“So, what I’m about to tell you next might surprise you,” she said. “We’re going big on . . . human-to-human coaching this year.”
A couple of months back, LinkedIn launched a Coaching for All program, which gives every single employee access, if they would like it, to a human coach.
“We believe coaching is not a one-size-fits-all solution,” Jennifer said. “Instead, it has to be flexible — to support the diverse nature of our employees’ needs.”
To that end, LinkedIn is again pairing its human-powered solution with a tech-driven one. “I’m super optimistic about AI-powered coaching,” Jennifer said. “I don’t think these two things are in conflict. . . . Both are needed as part of a holistic strategy. One allows you to go deep, and one allows you to scale.”
Jennifer pointed to how the two forms of coaching in tandem create opportunities for flexibility and personalization.
“When we think about how personalized career development and learning needs are getting,” she said, “solving that by bringing human interactions together with technology — it’s hard not to get excited about the possibilities.”
Final thoughts: The current era of work is challenging — but definitely not boring
Jennifer noted that she has been coming to Talent Connect for many years, first as a customer and today as the head of talent at LinkedIn.
“Look,” she said, “it’s always been about change.” So, paradoxically again, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
“I’m so grateful to be on the ride with all of you,” she said. “It’s tough. It’s challenging. It is definitely not boring. And it’s worth it.”
To close her keynote, Jennifer went way out on a limb predicting, “out loud,” she said, and “for the record: If I get asked back on the main stage for next year’s Talent Connect, my keynote topic will be . . . change.”
