Bridging the Skills Gap: Insights from The Kraft Heinz CLO- Ekpedeme M Bassey
It’s a red-hot marketplace. Today every single company executive is worried about skills. If you are in corporate L&D, this is the time to make a case to your executive team to start thinking about what skills are missing among your workforce. You need to drive skills development at scale.
Bio
Ekpedeme “Pamay” M. Bassey is Chief Learning and Diversity Officer for the Kraft Heinz Company, where she drives a culture of continuous learning, bold creativity and intellectual curiosity.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamay/
https://my52wow.com/
Transcript (Abridged)
Doyin: Pamay, kindly introduce yourself.
Pamay: I am a lifelong-learner, I love big ideas and I love serving my community and those are some of my passions. I am the Chief Learning and Diversity Officer at the Kraft Heinz Company.
Doyin: It is good to have you with us. To start with, we know that the pandemic has upended lives and work. Can you share with us the challenges you learnt during the pandemic period as it relates to work, learning and generally?
Pamay: Every family, and organisation experienced the pandemic at an enormous amount. Due to this, we had to make learning virtual. We had to connect without the benefit of being in the same room or area. As a learning professional, I had to take all the courses in progress and plans we have for other organisations and form them into full virtual experiences. Certainly, it was a challenge, but my team and I decided to do things differently and we made everything into a virtual format. Personally, in times of crisis, you have to learn your superpower and determine your way through it. Decide who you want to be in that storm and that would guide the process of learning.
Doyin: What should business executives focus on in helping the organisations deal with and also help their organisations emerge as a result of this pandemic?
Pamay: I think that trying to focus on how to continue to produce, and how to adjust your routines to work effectively matters. One of the things we learn and would continue to learn is the importance of communication. The ability to be resilient, to determine how to practice resilience, decision making especially when you have incomplete information frankly how to manage your energy is important because we need to deliver as humans and organisations.
Doyin: What is the skills gap and why should organisations care?
Pamay: There are certain skills to help deliver in this world; every company, organisation or business. Research has it that there are not enough people with those skills to fill the jobs/roles. One of the aims of my company is that we champion great people and great teams are what drive the work. So, companies who are aiming to drive their aims, need people who are skilled to fill the gap.
Doyin: We have identified skills and why should companies care? How about individuals?
Pamay: I am passionate about helping people take ownership of their skills and development. People should care about the skills gap because it takes a belief and knowledge that you can embrace learning as your superpower and if you find yourself in a place where you are being disrupted even intentionally or unintentionally, you need to get skilled or a new job. People are looking for people who can step up into different roles to transform themselves professionally and continue to be lifelong learners. What you know today how valuable will it be tomorrow? As individuals, there is a huge opportunity if you are a learner and can embrace that. I will say I learned my way through growth and career to develop myself.
Doyin: People/Scholars would also say that the short life of skill is between 1-5 years. How true or real is this when we look at it from what people do within our organisation essentially?
Pamay: It looks real and if you make it very personal you think about the technology that you would use now and just like everyday compani
