The Edge of Work – Details, episodes & analysis

Ana Maria Sencovici is the Chief Talent Officer at Royal Caribbean Group. In this role, she oversees talent management, career development, and leadership strategies for the organization. 

During this conversation, she shares her approach to career development, focusing on empowering employees through a systemic approach to career development that goes beyond traditional roles and promotions. Ana Maria discusses how Royal Caribbean’s 'My Career Journey' platform enables employees to take ownership of their growth by emphasizing skills, feedback, and personal aspirations. 

She also explores the evolving nature of careers, stressing the importance of adaptability and the development of career 'meta skills' to navigate today's dynamic work environment. 

Finally, Ana Maria offers insights into how leaders can create a culture of development that supports meaningful employee growth and engagement.

Links

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asencovici/
• Al: https://al-dea.com/leadership-offerings/

This is an episode that features 4 interviews from key leaders and speakers at SIOP’s Leading Edge Consortium in late October 2024. In this episode, we speak with four key leaders including Shonna Waters, Trish Vassar, Sophia Lamuraglia, and Richard Chambers.

During the conversation, we explore key topics including what it means for leaders to lead effectively in a changing workplace, the role of AI in leadership development, and what’s top of mind for those in the organizational psychology profession in today’s workplace. 

This episode also explores key leadership development practices, including AI-driven coaching tools, simplified competency models, and the critical role of learning agility in preparing leaders for an uncertain future. 

Links

• SIOP Leading Edge Consortium: https://www.siop.org/Leading-Edge-Consortium
• Trish Vassar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trish-vassar-phd-96aab1/
• Richard Chambers: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-chambers-phd-aa680a56/
• Shonna Waters: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shonna-waters/
• Sofia Lamuraglia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sofialamuraglia/

Charlene Li is an Entrepreneur, Consultant, Best-Selling Author and Keynote Speaker. As a longtime expert in studying emerging technologies and their impacts on society, business and leadership, Charlene has a keen eye for what’s new and next and it’s implications for business.

In this episode, Charlene shares her insights on AI, emphasizing its role in commoditizing knowledge and fostering innovation. They delve into the challenges of digital transformation, comparing it to past shifts driven by social media. Charlene also offers insight into where she is seeing organizations make progress in incorporating AI into their work, and highlights the importance of how leaders can think about leading during uncertain and evolving times. 

Links

• LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charleneli/
• Website: https://charleneli.com/

Noah Rabinowitz is a VP of Learning and Development at Moderna Research, and The Head of Moderna University. As a company with a mission to impact the lives of people through medicine and with an organizational culture that values thinking and doing things differently, learning, and creating a culture of learning is the fuel for innovation at Moderna.

As a result, Noah and his team are taking a unique approach to learning, from everything from creating Moderna University, to looking for ways to make their knowledge accessible and open to the public, and making time and space for employees to learn ast part of their jobs.

During our conversation, Noah spoke about the role that Moderna’s culture plays in fostering this culture of learning at Moderna, as well as why they decided to build a university, and how that is fueling their own learning and outside the organization

Links

• Noah’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahgrabinowitz/

Jen Collins is a learning strategist, and currently the Senior Director of Client Experience at Learn In. As a passionate talent and learning facilitator, Jen uniquely understands the importance of meeting learners where they are, and providing them with opportunities to learn and grow. In her current role at Learn In, Jen partners with leading edge companies who want to invest in their talent by providing them with programs to learn and grow, and ultimately, drive business results.

During our conversation, Jen spoke about the importance and emergence of employee talent academies, and how they help employers upskill talent, and employees develop and grow the skills they need to be successful in their roles. Jen also shared some of the observations she’s made about companies who are prioritizing investing and thus retaining talent, as well as sharing her advice for how leaders can prioritize the development and growth of their people

• Jen’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/learningwithjen/
• Learn In: https://www.learnin.com/
• Betterwork Labs: https://betterworklabs.com/ 

Melanie Naranjo is the VP of People at Ethena, a global compliance training platform based in the United States. As the VP of People at a fast-growing startup, Melanie and her people team have made career development a critical priority of the company, and have codified a definition along with programs, resources and support for career development that helps their employees identify opportunities for career growth as the company grows. 

During this conversation, Melanie spoke about how reviewing the employee engagement survey date gave her and her team an opportunity to really dig into employee’s challenges with career growth to identify how they might be able to come up with a solution.

Melanie spoke about how she and the team were able to work with the rest of the organization to articulate and define a definition around topics like career development and growth, the types of programs and systems they’ve put in place to make it happen, as well as the responsibilities of key people in the career development process including employees and managers.

Links:
- Melanie's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanie-naranjo/
- Ethena: https://www.goethena.com/post/career-development-employee-satisfaction 

Nick Holmes is the Head of Career Experience at Fishawack Health, a healthcare organization based in the United Kingdom. 

As the head of Career Experience, Nick’s role is to build an organization that not only attracts great employees, but develops them, retains them and provides them opportunities to grow so they can contribute to Fishawack Health. Upon taking the role, Nick had a bold mandate, which was to develop and implement a new strategy around career development and the transformation to enable it so Fishawack Health could compete for top talent in a very competitive labor market.

During this conversation, Nick spoke about the “why” for going under this massive transformation. Nick also shared some of the feedback that employees provided on the new programs, technologies and pathways, how they were able to change the culture and behaviors around career development in “drumbeats, not lightning bolts.”

Nick also spoke about how the various technologies and programs that were a part of the transformation engage and interact with employees, Nick’s own learnings to date from leading the transformation, as well as his advice to others who are thinking about developing and implementing a career development strategy for their organization.

Links: 

• Nick’s LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickholmeslandd/
• Profile on Fishawack Health: https://fuel50.com/2022/11/talent-experience-fishawack-health/ 

Jeremy Schifeling is a Marketing Director at Khan Academy and a Career Development author and instructor.  After starting his career as a teacher, Jeremy has since worked in marketing roles at various tech companies including Apple and Linkedin. Through his work, Jeremy has coached, advised and mentored thousands of early career professionals to learn more about their attitudes, preferences and aspirations for what they are looking for out of their jobs and out of their careers.

During our conversation, Jeremy spoke about some of the insights and trends he’s seeing from the early career & Gen Z talent who have recently entered the workforce. We spoke about some of the implications of entering the workforce and a professional job throughout the pandemic, challenges and opportunities around onboarding, employee experience, mentoring and learning, and professional development in a hybrid workplace, and some of the ways in which Jeremy hopes the workplace can evolve to empower early career professionals in the workplace.

Links:

• Jeremy Schifeling: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schifeling/
• Jeremy’s Book: Here 

Ryan McCrea is the Head of Learning & Leadership Development at Ameren. Throughout his career, Ryan built and scaled career and leadership development programs successfully across multiple industries and functions. 

During our conversation, Ryan shared with us his experience around developing a career development function and strategy at multiple companies, and how career development can be successfully implemented in an organization. 

Ryan also shared some of his thoughts on the future of leadership development, and his ideas for how organizations can evolve their thinking on how to lead in the changing world of work

Links

• Ryan McCrea’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rmccrea/

Matthew Daniel is a Principal of Talent Strategy & Mobility at Guild Education, and an experienced talent strategist. With deep research and practical experience in career mobility and talent strategy,  Matthew has extensive experience in understanding the importance of career mobility and what career pathways can do to unleash the potential and create economic opportunity for professionals. In his work at Guild Education, he leads a research team that works each day in thinking about how they can find more ways to help their clients create better career outcomes through career pathways and development.

During our conversation, Matthew spoke about his perspective on the current state of career mobility, the progress that has been made, as well as the challenges that lie ahead. He also shared some of his examples of where he’s seen companies who have made strategic investments in talent strategy and career mobility that have led to greater business outcomes, and offered some thoughts on how we collectively can embrace new thinking on career mobility to create better opportunities for our talent.

Links

• Matthew’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewjdaniel/ 
• Matthew’s Articles: https://www.talentmgt.com/articles/2022/10/11/its-time-to-treat-internal-talent-like-campus-hires/
• Guild Education Website:  https://www.guildeducation.com/