FUTURE TALENT November - January 2019/2020 | Page 35

ON TOPIC
E
“They’re different things, not
really substitutes for each other,”
he states. “With an MBA, the level,
duration and the range of topics
covered is much greater. There’s a
re q u i re m e n t t o g e t o n t o
programmes and places are
scarce, plus there’s an element of
examination to make sure a certain
quality is achieved.”
Business consultant Tracey
Groves, who works with Duke CE
to design and deliver executive
education, agrees that MBAs
and executive education serve
different purposes.
“Business-orientated executive
education, where it’s part of a
programme involving cohorts
across an organisation at different
levels, is very topical, relevant
and on point in terms of being able
to challenge the contemporary
issues that business is facing,”
she says.
“It has the agility to reflect
disruptors in the here and now. You
also benefit from having people
from across your whole business,
in different functions and divisions,
who are part of the system and
know, first-hand, why ‘this’ is
working and ‘that’ isn’t.
“On an MBA, you don’t get the
real-time impact. What you do get,
however, is the value of hearing
things from different organisational
perspectives.”
ven the best MBA will
not permanently future-
p ro of t h e m o d e r n
career. The frontloading
of professional education is a
thing of the past; today’s pace of
societal and technological change
requires ongoing, lifelong learning.
(The World Economic Forum
predicts that the average worker
will need an extra 101 days of
learning by 2022 to prepare for the
introduction of AI.)
Anna Gowdridge, who runs the
charitable organisation ‘100%
Human at Work’ on behalf of Virgin
Unite, attests that “where we’re
seeing change is in this idea that
you can’t just do a year or two of
learning at a moment in time.”
She works with a network of
around 400 organisations and
senior leaders in HR, and reports
that most “talk about ‘skills for the
future of work’ being a very different
skill set from today’s”, incorporating
social and emotional skill s ,
collaboration and problem solving.
“While we don’t know definitively
what future jobs are going to be, we
know the ability to constantly learn,
to develop and to deal with continual
change is going to be crucial. That
trend is where the change in
qualification comes in. Because
doing an MBA for a limited time will
not suit that.
“We’ve spoken to universities
that are exploring the concept of
education taking place over a
lifetime,” she adds, echoing
Schlegelmilch’s prediction. “In
future, you might sign up to Harvard
and do a short period of learning
right away, followed by access to 10
days a year for the next 15 years.
You can’t just
do a year or two
of learning at a
moment in time
O
It would be an ongoing relationship,
with learning being constantly
topped up.”
However, she reports that, for
now, mos t universi ties and
employers remain set in their ways.
“People are still looking at education
in the traditional sense,” she says.
“The reality is that HR gets a resumé
and the first thing they look at is your
university, your masters degree,
your MBA.”
For Gowdridge, “evolving new
methodologies that test capacity,
potential and skills” must become
a priority for business.
“We work with EY and Unilever,
whose graduate programmes don’t
take qualifications into account. It
comes from an understanding that
traditional qualifications are not
going to tell you as much as you
would like to know about a person’s
c a p a c i t y to p l ay a ro l e i n
your organisation.”
She points to the development
of digital platforms that can capture
practical skills and experience,
giving employers a new way of
understanding an individual’s
capacity and capabilities, beyond
the roles and education set out
on their CV.
To this end, ‘digital’ or ‘stackable’
credentials are being developed by
organisations such as Credly and
City and Guilds, providing people
with a ‘dashboard’ to showcase
to employers. “The idea is almost to
gamify learning, encouraging
people to undertake development,”
points out Gowdridge.
W
hile ‘credentialing’ is still
in its infancy, what is
clear is that today’s pace
of change is determining
the shape of all professional
learning. Related drivers include the
desire for practical, experiential and
timely learning, which can be fitted
flexibly around work and life.
“We’re noticing a huge trend in
the need for agile and blended
learning approaches,” reports
Caroline Taylor, head of accelerating
talent development and principal
consultant at The Oxford  Group,
who helps organisations identify
their learning needs, particularly in
the management and leadership
development space.
November – January 2019 // 35