The Pluralsight Podcast

"Stop trying to get a seat at the table and build your own table and invite others to come and sit with you."

Most L&D leaders head into budget season ready to defend what they delivered: attendance, completions, satisfaction scores. Dr. Keith Keating, Chief Learning and Development Officer at BDO Canada and author of The Trusted Learning Advisor and Hidden Value, argues that's exactly why the business keeps seeing L&D as the team that organizes training.

In this episode of The Pluralsight Podcast, host Josh Burkhead sits down with Keith to talk about how learning leaders can start 2027 differently. He shares his unorthodox path, from a teenager told his future had already been decided to a doctor of education who now helps others learn. Along the way, he discovered that learning itself is a skill anyone can build, and it became the thread through his entire career. He also explains why reaching the executive table changed nothing for him, and what he did instead.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why L&D's value isn't obvious to the business, and the assumptions that keep it hidden

• The five levels of the Trusted Learning Advisor maturity model, and why your stakeholders decide where you sit

• How Keith's team built a learning community that surfaced business problems leaders didn't know they had

• Why evidence arrives with the reputation of the person presenting it

• The four-point value compass from Hidden Value, and how to use it in your next budget conversation

• How job titles and performance ratings quietly become ceilings, and what it takes to build beyond them

Connect with Dr. Keith Keating:

Website: https://keithkeating.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-keith-keating-1976963a/

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Companies are pouring money into AI, so why are so few seeing a return? Recorded live at UNLEASH World in Paris, Josh sits down with Pluralsight CEO Erin Gajdalo to explore the widening gap between the technology organizations buy and the readiness of the people expected to use it. Backed by striking data on where AI budgets actually go, Erin explains why tools without upskilling rarely deliver, shares what she learned building her own agent, and makes the case that human judgment matters more than ever as agents take on more work.

The conversation is full of practical guidance for L&D, HR, and technology leaders. Why L&D needs a CIO or CTO at its side from the start. Why validating skills is the step most organizations skip. Why completion metrics won't survive a CFO's scrutiny. Erin also introduces Hiring IQ, Pluralsight's upcoming platform for validating technical skills before day one, and shares her vision for bringing learning into the tools engineers already use.

Connect with Erin: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eringajdalo/ Pluralsight: https://www.pluralsight.com/

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What do you do when the talent you need isn't available in the market where you need it? Recorded live at UNLEASH World in Paris, Josh sits down with Annabelle Eggerling, HR business partner for Equans' global IT community. Picking up where the Equans and Pluralsight case study left off, Annabelle shares how Equans is bringing roughly 450 critical IT roles in-house across new regions worldwide. She explains the case for internalizing: better service quality, and keeping knowledge inside the company instead of losing it to contractor turnover. She also explains why the biggest shift was getting IT managers to stop purchasing skills and start attracting and growing people.

The conversation is full of practical ideas for HR, L&D, and technology leaders. Why Equans hires for potential instead of holding out for a candidate who matches 100% of the skills. Why upskilling begins before day one, and what early Pluralsight access signals to new hires. How "golden hour" learning time and manager-led programs build a learning culture without a dedicated L&D team. What Annabelle measures instead of course completions, from content diversity to daily learning habits. And how local sourcing partners and NGOs shaped the hiring strategy in each region. Annabelle closes with advice for any leader building internal capability: challenge the target operating model, and open every role with a three-year career path in mind.

Connect with Annabelle Eggerling: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annabelleeggerling/ Equans: https://www.equans.com/ Read the Equans case study: https://www.pluralsight.com/resources/case-studies/equans

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Is AI really coming for jobs at scale, or is the real constraint on growth something else entirely? Recorded live at UNLEASH World in Paris, Josh sits down with Josh Bersin, founder and CEO of the Josh Bersin Company and author of the upcoming book Superpowered. Drawing on nearly 30 years of labor market research, Bersin argues the opposite of the headlines: with workforces in developed economies set to shrink, companies will have to get more out of every person, and AI will prove to be a growth technology, not a cost-cutting one. He explains why there's no such thing as an AI strategy, only a business strategy that leverages AI, and what history suggests about today's infrastructure spending boom. The conversation is full of practical ideas for HR, L&D, and technology leaders. Why talent density is replacing the traditional talent management pipeline, and why hiring is only one of five ways to grow capacity. Why the decline in early-career hiring is a red herring. How L&D must evolve into what Bersin calls dynamic enablement, and why skills data is a corporate asset. The four stages teams move through as AI copilots become part of daily work, and why the "super manager" acts more like a re-engineering consultant than an operator. Bersin also makes the case that agents need boundaries just like employees, and that the business owner should be accountable for their behavior. He closes with one message for every leader: believe in your people. Connect with Josh Bersin: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bersin/ The Josh Bersin Company: https://joshbersin.com/about-the-josh-bersin-company/ Preorder Superpowered on Amazon: https://a.co/d/01GKWkcc Stay up to date on everything happening in cloud, AI, and security. Sign up for our weekly newsletter: https://www.pluralsight.com/technews/

Where does bias actually enter an AI system, and what happens when organizations move fast without a plan to catch it? Recorded live at UNLEASH World in Paris, Josh sits down with Dr. Lyron Andrews, Pluralsight Author Fellow, ISO 42001 Lead Implementer, and author of Pluralsight's Prompt newsletter. Drawing on more than four decades in tech, Lyron explains why AI doesn't fix broken workflows, it accelerates them, and why most bias is unconscious, shaped by who is in the room and what data gets collected. He also shares how a biometric airport system repeatedly failed to recognize him, a failure later traced to training data that lacked diversity. The conversation is full of practical guidance for HR and technology leaders. Why hiring is often the first place AI amplifies bias. The difference between responsibility and accountability, and why executives ultimately own AI outcomes. A simple mission, strategy, and product test for evaluating any AI vendor. How LLMs can create an echo chamber inside an organization, and why scheduled self-audits matter. Lyron connects his doctoral research on critical thinking to spotting bias and closes with two steps every HR leader can take next week: build baseline AI literacy and define what "human on the loop" looks like in their organization. Connect with Dr. Lyron Andrews on Linkedin: Dr. Lyron Andrews | LinkedIn Stay up to date on everything happening in cloud, AI, and security. Sign up for our weekly newsletter: https://www.pluralsight.com/technews/

How do you prove that upskilling actually pays off? In this episode, Josh sits down with Molly Poeschl, Director of Enterprise Supply Chain Product Management at Kimberly-Clark, who stood up a brand-new product management organization inside one of the world's most established consumer goods companies and had to build the playbook as she went. Molly breaks down the three things her team measures to show learning ROI: engagement, user adoption, and movement on real business KPIs. She also explains why the hardest return to capture is the one that matters most: frontline workers who no longer fear technology and now treat it as a partner.

The conversation is full of practical ideas for L&D and technology leaders. Why one-size-fits-all training is the biggest mistake leaders make when presenting learning outcomes, and how role-based learning tracks fix it. How to resolve competing definitions of success across plant managers, planners, and executives by telling the story behind the data. How Kimberly-Clark tied learning paths directly to its product roadmap. And Molly's take on the AI headlines: it is not eliminating jobs, it is taking the mundane clicking off people's plates. Molly closes with two practical steps any leader can take today to tie upskilling to measurable outcomes.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:10 Molly's journey to Kimberly-Clark

03:16 Why product management over project management

04:36 Launching the Enterprise Product Management Organization

06:15 Writing a new playbook from scratch

08:48 What ROI actually measures in upskilling

10:40 From solution-first to value-first thinking

12:15 The return that doesn't fit in a spreadsheet

13:52 How different stakeholders define success

15:25 Resolving competing KPIs by telling the story

16:55 Communicating value to learners

20:01 Turning a business outcome into a learning path

22:47 Meeting people where they are

25:31 Communicating ROI to executives

27:40 The biggest mistake leaders make

30:27 Why skills investment survives budget cuts

33:46 What the AI headlines are missing

35:54 Human qualities that matter most now

38:22 Two practical steps to prove ROI

40:11 Connect with Molly and closing thoughts

Connect with Molly Poeschl: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollypoeschl/ Kimberly-Clark: https://www.kimberly-clark.com/

Stay up to date on everything happening in cloud, AI, and security. Sign up for our newsletters: https://www.pluralsight.com/technews/

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"Budget tells me what you intended to do. Activity tells me what people did. But neither tells me whether the organization is now more capable."

Before he built offensive security courses at Pluralsight, Matt Lloyd Davies regulated the UK civil nuclear sector — the skeptical stakeholder whose job was deciding whether the capability an organization claimed was really there. In this episode, we apply that standard of proof to L&D.

We cover why the easiest things to measure are the least useful, the three questions that turn learning into a business case, how to answer the "correlation isn't causation" objection, why the "train them and they leave" fear gets it backwards, and how to get executives to define the standard of proof up front.

Matt Lloyd Davies is a Principal Security Author at Pluralsight. He holds a PhD in mathematical chemistry and worked in explosives safety research, London 2012 Olympic security, and UK civil nuclear regulation before moving into learning.

Chapters:

01:22 From Chemistry to Nuclear Regulation to Pluralsight 03:15 What "Proof of Capability" Means to a Regulator 06:48 Why Proving L&D ROI Feels So Hard 08:32 Start With the Business Problem, Not the Program 11:19 Three Questions That Prove Learning ROI 14:34 Handling the "Correlation Isn't Causation" Objection 17:12 "What If We Train Them and They Leave?" 18:21 Hands-On Labs as the Evidence Layer 19:28 Winning Executive Buy-In Before the Program Is Built 23:56 Security as the ROI Wedge 25:16 Measurement Cadence and Course Corrections 29:24 Two Practical Changes to Make Right Now

Connect with Matt Lloyd Davies on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-lloyddavies/ Pluralsight courses: https://www.pluralsight.com/authors/matthew-lloyddavies How to measure and prove upskilling ROI (Youtube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLs1F7Ydn-E

Stay up to date on everything happening in cloud, AI, and security. Sign up for our weekly newsletter: https://www.pluralsight.com/technews/ #PluralsightPodcast #Pluralsight #AI #Upskilling #LearningAndDevelopment

Why do learning programs stall even after the licenses are bought, the announcement is made, and people start completing courses? In this episode, Josh sits down with Alice Meredith, culture strategist, Pluralsight author, and certified change management instructor, to answer a question every L&D leader eventually faces: we have the platform, so why isn't it working? Alice's answer is direct. The platform is infrastructure. What's missing is the humanness behind it, and the single biggest factor is the direct leader. In her words: a leader drives learning, period. L&D does not drive those KPIs.

The conversation is packed with usable ideas. Why every learning rollout is really a change management project, and what change exhaustion demands of leaders when pulling back isn't an option. LQ, the learning quotient, and why Alice argues it now matters more than IQ or EQ. Her GAS framework for low engagement numbers: give grace, assume positive intent, seek to understand. And a reality-sorting exercise that separates facts from emotional statements like "no one values training." A must-listen for any L&D leader staring at flat utilization numbers and wondering what to change first.

Chapters:

01:02 Why Learning Programs Stall

03:30 "We Need to Better Utilize What We Have"

04:58 Where Change Management Fits In

08:04 Change Exhaustion Is Real (No Excuses)

15:22 LQ: The Learning Quotient

20:21 How to Assess Your Team's LQ

29:08 Culture of Learning: The Spa Metaphor

31:35 Why Mandated Learning Hours Backfire

33:15 Inclusivity, KPIs & the GAS Framework

37:21 Three Factors of a Successful Learning Initiative

40:31 Advice for L&D Teams: Grace & Reality Sorting

48:30 Two Practical Changes to Make This Quarter

Connect with Alice Meredith: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicemeredith/

Pluralsight courses: https://www.pluralsight.com/authors/alice-meredith

Stay up to date on everything happening in cloud, AI, and security. Sign up for our weekly newsletter: https://www.pluralsight.com/technews/

Music licensed through Soundstripe.

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What happens when you don't just ask one LLM to check your work, but three, and then make them vote?

In this episode of The Pluralsight Podcast, we sit down with Tim Warner, Principal Pluralsight Author, Microsoft MVP, and author of more than 200 Pluralsight courses, to talk about what it takes to stay current through three decades of tech disruption, and why gen AI is just the latest wave to ride rather than fear. Tim breaks down what technology and L&D leaders get wrong in the AI gold rush, why shadow AI is the new shadow IT, and how to pair training with guardrails and sandboxes your teams will actually use.

Then Tim takes us inside GitHub for a live demo: a GitHub Actions workflow that hands agent and skill definitions to three different LLMs, which scan for prompt injection and other vulnerabilities, then vote on a verdict through a simple quorum mechanism. It's a practical look at defense in depth for AI-assisted development, explained in plain language. Chapters:

01:42 Eternally curious: 30 years in IT

05:07 Know yourself, do your best

07:11 The eternal student persona

09:04 Learning in public

10:57 Underestimated fundamentals and agentic AI risk

13:00 AI councils, not fear-based reactivity

15:24 Shadow AI is the new shadow IT

17:09 Closing the upskilling gap

19:41 The skills leaders underestimate

21:05 Prompt vs. context engineering

22:29 What GitHub actually is

26:17 GitHub Actions explained

29:32 Tim's multi-LLM research workflow

32:53 When LLMs disagree

35:15 Multi-model on a budget

38:30 Is on-prem AI coming back?

39:52 Getting started responsibly

43:38 Demo: LLM quorum security scanning in GitHub

53:29 Security risks and data handling

56:14 Enterprise guardrails and orchestration

59:47 Advice: curiosity over fear

1:02:06 Where to find Tim

Connect with Tim Warner:TechTrainerTim

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothywarner/

Website: https://techtrainertim.com

Pluralsight courses: https://app.pluralsight.com/profile/author/tim-warner

Stay up to date on everything happening in cloud, AI, and security. Sign up for our weekly newsletter: https://www.pluralsight.com/technews/

One leads technology. One leads learning. Same bank, same transformation. In this episode of The Pluralsight Podcast, Josh sits down with Kimberly Lejonö, technology leader inside SEB's corporate credit process, and Gabriela Almonacid, L&D Partner for Global Business Services, to trace how two functions inside one of the largest banks in the Nordics are shaping the same AI transformation from entirely different vantage points. What surfaces is a series of connections neither had fully drawn before: where their work already overlaps, where old assumptions don't hold up, and where the real opportunity sits waiting between tech and L&D.

We explore:

• Why 80 to 90 percent of an AI transformation is people work, not tech work, and what that demands from leaders on both sides of the business

• The calendar move that put a weekly learning hour in front of 3,500 employees at once, and why it had to clear four boards to happen

• SEB's step-by-step path to AI fluency for non-technical roles: Tech Foundations, hands-on workshops, ideation labs, and a role-based AI Academy

• How a developer with zero agent experience shipped to production in one month, and why your first use case should be finishable, not flashy

• Why manager engagement in learning nearly tripled in three years (hint: people don't listen to HR, they listen to their manager)

• What tech leaders and L&D leaders consistently miss, and why consensus culture pays back ten times at the end

Connect with Kimberly Lejonö: https://www.autogram.id/kimberly

Connect with Gabriela Almonacid: https://www.autogram.id/gabriela?card=open

Chapters:

02:02 Meet Kimberly and Gabriela of SEB

05:32 Two roles, one goal: democratizing technology

09:17 The hardest part of scaling AI is people

12:31 Automating the credit process

14:18 A learning hour in 3,500 calendars

19:21 From proof of concept to production

21:39 Skills planning for 20,000 employees

24:04 Ideation labs and the first agents shipped

27:06 Building AI fluency step by step

28:56 What we wish we'd known about AI adoption

34:00 The future workforce

36:13 Will we lose the basic skills?

40:23 Logged hours vs. real learning

42:52 Why manager engagement nearly tripled

44:59 Risk, experimentation, and intentional mistakes

49:05 The Tech Foundations story

52:32 Consensus culture and the mirror exercise

56:20 Leading distributed teams through change

1:00:55 What tech and L&D misunderstand about each other

1:04:47 Measuring what matters

1:07:29 What winning looks like

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