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How Credentialing Programs Create Career Paths with Katy Chandler

Katy Chandler has spent the majority of her career at DuraServ Corp. Starting as an administrative assistant, she advanced through various departments, earning her MBA along the way.In 2018, Chandler started DuraServ’s first L&D department. Since then, she has launched the company’s first learning management system, designed a certification program for field workers, expanded her team, and taken on the leadership of the company’s marketing department.Chandler is a CHIEF member and an active member of the Association for Talent Development, serving on the Program Advisory Council for the International Conference & EXPO for the past three years.

Katy Chandler

How to Turn a Difficult SME Into an Ally

Adaptability is a critical skill for leadership capability, career potential, and working relationships. Therefore, it is vital for talent development (TD) professionals who face countless situations that test their ability to adapt—from reacting to unplanned modifications in the training they design, to implementing new learning technologies, to adjusting to their organization’s shifting needs. In Adaptability in Talent Development, TD expert Esther Jackson takes you through a process of raising your self-awareness and developing an adaptive mindset.What prompted you to write about adaptability?I was always captivated by behavior profiles and emotional intelligence. I heard a speaker talk about great leaders being high in the Qs. This speaker proceeded to talk about emotional quotient (EQ), but he also discussed a new one for me—adaptability quotient (AQ). EQ I knew, but what was AQ about? I just had to find out, so my research into adaptability began there, which was several years before the book was published.The Qs, or quotients, are the actual measures from the tests for one’s emotional, adaptability, or other intelligences. I was intrigued because it was used in reference to one’s leadership capability. In my research, I saw that there was an abundance of content on EQ and emotional intelligence but little on AQ and adaptability intelligence. The more I learned about adaptability and AQ, the more I wondered why additional attention was not given to it for leaders and talent development professionals. I wanted to address this gap in the field of talent development. This topic seemed like unchartered territory that was ready and waiting for me.What is adaptability?Whether you are dealing with sudden changes in client needs with remodeled products or responding to COVID changes with training for remote work, it requires adaptability. It is a way of applying skills that allow you to understand the problem(s) because of a change. Research the problem, demonstrate curiosity about what is possible, apply collaboration to solve it, and take risks when needed.Where does adaptability show up?Adaptability shows up everywhere. If you are looking for it, you will find it, and the search isn’t hard. The need for adaptability is more prevalent than ever. Maybe you are in a team meeting and an unforeseen problem arises. You have an idea. Do you share it? Do you discuss it with colleagues or a few other business areas to vet it out and see if it would work? Do you conduct research on your idea, if applicable? Do you seek out an opportunity to take a risk with it? Do you consider writing an article on it? These are actual questions I asked myself as I considered the adaptable moments I was allowing to slip away.Why do talent development professionals need adaptability?The pace of today’s changes continues to accelerate. Adaptability is the key factor that helps TD professionals expect, recognize, and process changes. Although we can’t plan for what the unexpected will be, there are proactive steps we can take. Response to change with adaptability includes demonstrating resilience and seizing opportunities as they arise. These are areas to target for development in others, but we must apply and demonstrate them ourselves first. The game changer is called “adaptability.”I often receive questions about adaptability in relation to change management, so I wanted to make sure I included the distinction in the book. You can’t say that one is proactive and the other is reactive. A reaction to unplanned conditions might be to implement a change to adapt, which may require change management.We are seeing more and more organizations recognizing the need to respond to external changes in the community and internal changes that prompt them to adapt to new policies such as DEI and working from home. Adaptability is integral to maintaining a competitive advantage. For example, let’s say your organization deems it necessary to adapt with advanced technology. Many organizations are doing digital transformation for this reason. It is still a form of adaptability. When it comes to adapting, it is not only applicable to the executive team or leaders alone. Leaders can cultivate a culture of adaptability. However, everyone has a role in adaptability. Every individual can influence others in being flexible, open, and resilient. When it’s done well, this can promote a thriving organization.What is so important about this topic now and for the future?Until the end of time, things will continue to change. What does that mean for us? We will always have a need and the opportunity to adapt. Research shows that individuals with a high AQ experience greater success professionally. They also have more success in relationship building. Talent development professionals with a high AQ survive professionally and their organizations prepare for change despite the uncertainty that comes with it. There is a growing need for TD professionals who can assist in training and developing a workforce that can adjust quickly, demonstrate flexibility, and thrive with constant change. Innovation and creativity in designing learning materials to target those needs are also in high demand. Adaptability skills will always be crucial to success in one’s profession and career regardless of any new name or label we may give it in the future. It is not enough to know what it is. You should be working to stay ahead—Adaptability in Talent Development is how you do that.What are key connections to adaptability that are often overlooked?A few key connections to adaptability we can often overlook are interpersonal communication, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), and emotional intelligence. The common denominator among these areas is the involvement of people. From my experiences, I have observed individuals who are open to diverse cultures are better able to demonstrate openness, positive thinking, and creativity. I have seen how individuals who champion equity and inclusivity develop greater levels of empathy which are evident in the way they engage with others along with the level of engagement they receive in return.In the midst of demonstrating adaptability, you depend on others to understand change situations, adjust to new teams with diverse people, involve them in problem solving, address diverse needs, manage relationships, and manage yourself in the midst of unplanned change.What was the most surprising thing you discovered while writing your book?One intriguing discovery was how rewarding it can be for ourselves and those around us when we are intentional about our adaptability climb. We tap into a greater aspect of ourselves when we can overcome our discomfort with uncertainty.**How can those who are not talent development professionals benefit from reading the book?**I focused on talent development professionals as I wrote this book, but the content and the tools have much to offer for anyone aspiring to unleash their maximum potential. There is a model, a development plan, and a career checklist that can be applied by anyone regardless of industry and role in the organization’s hierarchy.The need for adaptability is not limited to our professional lives. We face countless situations requiring us to adapt. You are forced to relocate for a job. Your child leaves home for college. You must adapt, and you also find ways to help your child adapt and adjust to some changes they did not expect. An immediate family member develops an illness, and you have to adjust to new conditions in your home. These are only a few examples of the personal call for us to adapt time and time again. The value is in recognizing that when you harness the skills you will gain from applying what’s in the book, you can experience the positive impact personally with the situations that can arise unexpectedly.What is an example of a takeaway that readers can use immediately?When it comes to takeaways, Adaptability in Talent Development is full of them from cover to cover. One I think that stands out is the A-D-A-P-T model:Assess (A) your current state of adaptability or know how you measure up.Determine (D) the desired state of adaptability for yourself.Analyze (A) the resources you have or can obtain to address the gap between your current and desired states.Prepare (P) for achievement with your adaptability goals.Take action (T) with the execution of your plan.Developed from my experiences with clients and through my training, this model applies a step-by-step process for planning development leading to a high AQ. It is an immediate takeaway that readers can implement to build their own adaptability and the adaptability of others through training that targets that skill.What is something that readers can get from the book which they will not gain from a webinar or course?If you think that a webinar or course will give you everything this book does, then you are mistaken, and you just might miss the adaptable you who is waiting to be unleashed. This book provides the level of detail and context that are not captured in a course or webinar. Unlike books, courses and webinars are designed to give you minimal pieces of information. This book takes you on a journey and sets you on a path for immediate application while giving you the ability to pace yourself. Each chapter prompts you with targeted questions and actionable items. A course or webinar is one and done while this book gives you pause points allowing for you to apply what you read then return for more when ready.About the AuthorEsther Jackson is a project manager, college instructor, instructional designer, and trainer. She focuses on the evolving learning needs and expectations of today’s multigenerational workforce. Esther has a proven track record of equipping people with the skills and knowledge to face challenges amid constant change by addressing the employee experience, workforce engagement, performance, and professional development. Esther acquired more than 20 years of combined experience in HR leadership, project management, talent development, and diversity and inclusion.Esther serves as a national advisor for chapters with the Association for Talent Development (ATD) and has held various roles with the ATD Detroit Chapter, including president. Esther has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in education from Wayne State University and a doctoral degree in higher education and adult learning from Walden University. She also holds an AQ Foundations Certification from AQai.About ATD and ATD PressThe Association for Talent Development (ATD) is the world’s largest association dedicated to those who develop talent in organizations. ATD’s members come from more than 120 countries and work in public and private organizations in every industry sector. ATD Press publications are written by industry thought leaders and offer anyone who works with adult learners the best practices, academic theory, and guidance necessary to move the profession forward. For more information, visit td.org/books.Adaptability in Talent DevelopmentISBN: 9781952157516| 160 Pages | Paperbackhttps://www.td.org/product/book-adaptability-in-talent-development/112110To order books from ATD Press, call 800.628.2783.To schedule an interview with Esther Jackson, please contact Kay Hechler, ATD Press senior marketing manager, at khechler@td.org or 703.683.8178.

Adaptability in Talent Development: Q&A With Esther L. Jackson

The following is a Q&A with Ben Bisbee and Kathy Wisniewski, the authors of The Unashamed Guide to Virtual Management, an ATD book about how to address the unanswered and critical questions that arise when managing virtual teams.What, from your own virtual management experiences, prompted you to write this book?Ben: We were experiencing a variety of daily challenges and frustrations in our own virtual management efforts. We both started in the virtual management landscape in 2009 and were shocked by how little information you could find when it came to typical daily management issues and how they should be or could be best experienced in the virtual workplace. At one point, I was asked to provide employee engagement and team building opportunities for more than 80 virtual employees to help repair morale and build community. With no funding and just a few weeks’ notice, this felt like an impossible task. Another time, Kathy was trying to figure out how to build a strong new virtual volunteer orientation model that didn’t rely solely on written web documents or phone conversations. We weren’t even that deeply interested in innovation; we were just craving some best practices to do our jobs in that moment and could not find resources on Google or Amazon.Kathy: The tools and resources addressing real daily issues did not exist. Discussions were focused on the possibility and costs of virtual workplaces and on how to move offices online. There wasn’t a community of virtual managers talking about daily, classic experiences and solutions. Best practices did not exist—nothing anyone could point to, anyway. And, so we started developing ideas and found them to be successful. We knew we needed to share them with others who found themselves in the same position.Where is virtual employment in 2019?Ben: Virtual employment is one of the fastest-growing professional areas in just about every white-collar industry. We needed to move past the idea of virtual management being novel. It’s 2019. People need real tools about real topics to help them be the best they can be as managers behind a computer, leading one or more people to success.What were some of the challenges you were facing as you started to manage virtually, and how did those struggles lead you to write this book?Kathy: When we began managing virtually, we did not realize that communicating virtually could be such a challenge. We assumed that email and telephone would be fine mediums for communicating with remote employees. We quickly discovered that email has limits and shortfalls. It is a terrible medium to talk one-on-one about heavy issues. And there were better mediums than the phone as well. We realized we had to get comfortable with new technology— namely, the medium of virtual video for complex or difficult meetings. In fact, video meetings are essential because these meetings need a “human touch,” requiring some eye contact and face-to-face interaction.Ben: Knowing how to leverage a variety of technologies is critical. Elements of that realization absolutely made it to the book in a wide variety of ways. We wanted to explain that tech needs to aid you, not allow you to evade important management moments.What answers were you looking for that you could not find out there?Ben: Most of them, honestly. It was often like trying to convert a recipe from U.S. measurements to metric measurements. We found standard day-to-day management struggles, successes, answers, and policies but nothing that helped us figure out how to convert those strategies and successes to the virtual landscape. Topics like hiring and firing may sometimes discuss about virtual models, but they often would start with suggestions like, “If you can fly them out to your offices, we recommend you do . . .” And in many cases, there wasn’t some model of “headquarters” and everyone else. It was all just everyone, everywhere.Kathy: Or when we wanted to try to learn more about topics like managing effectively across multiple time zones—not just trying to schedule an occasional or standing meeting but truly managing people across a variety of time zones with different ideas of a workday or bandwidth. There are a ton of topics and issues that are unique to the virtual workplace that were literally impossible to find information on. For example, how to tackle online happy hours; how to handle digital awkwardness in text, print, or on camera; how to handle random power outages; what to do when you know someone is taking a meeting from the bathroom. These were issues related to personal, cultural norms or issues for which we did not find anything to support our daily needs.What seems to be the hardest issue to address with virtual employees or the greatest challenge in managing virtually?Kathy: This is less of a universal thing and wildly varied based on the employees or manager at the center of it. For more introverted virtual folks, the hardest issue may be teambuilding or work parties. For the extroverts, their challenging issue may be building the landscape for equitable meetings where it’s not just the same three people talking over each other on a conference call. For managers, perhaps the challenge is getting comfortable on camera or having to fire someone thousands of miles away.Ben: In many ways, the hardest issue is knowing how to leverage the technology or tech-driven process based on whatever is already feeling burdensome as a manager or for the employee at hand. It’s about gaining a virtual management intuition as much as it’s about knowing the rules or most effective process. That takes time and experience. Even if you grew up as a digital native, there are still the skills and experiences necessary to blend classic management effort to the virtual workplace.How do diversity and inclusion factor into virtual management?Ben: Diversity and inclusion factors into virtual management powerfully and dynamically if done correctly. In the virtual workplace, talent isn’t held to a specific geography, worldview, background, or ethnicity. On the one hand, the virtual workplace can quickly level the playing field when it comes to new, diverse, inclusive hires. On the other hand, it can also “wire-wash” the idea of diversity and inclusion, which means we almost disvalue (or devalue) the need for diversity and inclusion because we start to look for only individuals with the privileges, background, and experiences of virtual employment—an area that is still highly white and middle class given its requirements for modern technology and environmental temperament.Kathy: The note here for virtual managers is that smart, equitable technologies afford a wealth of advantages to help level the playing field for employees of all backgrounds, types, and experiences. They can create a way to address issues such as workplace inclusion and diversity with a fresh set of tools and approaches.What is something that every virtual manager must adjust to or do to be successful?Kathy: To be a successful virtual manager, you do have to be tech savvy. This doesn’t mean you need to be the tech expert; it just means you need to be comfortable enough for both advancements and daily tech struggles.Ben: Your virtual staff will come to you often with questions or problems—like they would for any workplace issue—and your technology knowledge and comfort will give you a stronger sense of virtual workplace empathy when things are broken or confusing.Is there something within virtual management that we will never get right? If so, what is it and why is it problematic or elusive?Ben: This is all in the eye of the beholder. Do you love the smell of someone else’s burnt popcorn on the breakroom? Do you miss being able to walk down to an employee’s cubicle to talk quickly one-on-one about something pressing? Do you miss having to physically gather everyone into one room for a meeting? In many ways, just about every management and workplace experience can be virtually replicated successfully.Kathy: Virtual management will not be experienced or felt the same way by every person. For some, that will be refreshing, maybe even the new normal. And for others, they may be forlorn or frustrated by this new reality. It just depends on their expectations. On the other hand, virtual employment may not be for everyone. And that’s OK.Does it cost more (or less) to manage virtually?Ben: No matter how you lay it out, running a virtual office is far less expensive than running a stationary office. In virtual management, there are no expenses for leasing or buying office space, building supplies, utilities, or office and breakroom equipment. There is no need for security staff, cleaning, or administrative or office management.Kathy: There is the cost of the technology itself and upgrades when necessary, but those costs are still likely going to be present in a stationary workplace. The overall costs for virtual offices are far less than the costs of a stationary work environment.What about the future? Will managing virtually get easier? Or, with more of our workforce working remotely, will there be even greater challenges?Ben: We believe that managing virtually will get far easier. There are innovative, cool, wild technologies coming out to help us work better together no matter where we are in the world. With stronger, hands-on collaboration tools, in-real-time language translation tools, the daily advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR), this is an exciting time to be in virtual management.Kathy: It’s already fairly easy for a good manager to be a great virtual manager with the right instincts and efforts, even with slightly outdated and limited technology. It’s about blending classic management skills to match existing technologies to make virtual management successful. As more and more digital natives join the workforce, working and managing remotely will become the norm and become second nature.The Unashamed Guide to Virtual ManagementISBN: 978-1-949036-55-8 | 248 pages | Paperbackhttps://www.td.org/product/book--the-unashamed-guide-to-virtual-management/111911To order books from ATD Press, call 800.628.2783.To schedule an interview with Ben Bisbee or Kathy Wisniewski about their book, please contact Kay Hechler, ATD Press senior marketing manager, at [khechler@td.org](mailto: khechler@td.org).

Q&A the Authors of The Unashamed Guide to Virtual Management

Holly Maurer-Klein is a vice president of HR/Advantage Advisory. She has worked extensively in the human resources field as a senior-level practitioner and adviser to both large and small businesses. She handled all aspects of human resource management in her previous role for a rapidly growing relocation services provider for five years.Prior to joining HR/Advantage Advisory, Holly was president of an HR consulting firm that focused on providing strategic advice and day-to-day HR support on recruiting, compensation, and employee relations to a variety of corporate and nonprofit entities. She also served as managing director of the Human Resource Management Group at the Pittsburgh Technology Council. Holly is a frequent presenter, including being selected as a speaker at the 2006 national SHRM conference on the topic “Introverts and Extroverts: How much Space is Too Much Space?” A graduate of the Entrepreneurial Fellows Program at the Katz Graduate School of Business, Holly has a bachelor’s degree from Penn State University and holds both SHRM-SCP and SPHR credentials. She is also a winner of the PA Department of Community and Economic Development’s “Best 50 Women in Business” in Pennsylvania.

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