Michelle Weise, PhD

When an organization wants to foster a disruptive innovation, careful steps must be taken, according to disruptive workforce design expert Michelle Weise, Ph.D. In this engaging presentation, she explains how pursuing a culture of innovation and transformation can provoke unexpected responses within an organization, and a successful strategy requires deliberate mobilization and coordination of teams. Encouraging and collaborative, Weise illuminates how leaders and teams can create autonomous growth/innovation units that can easily break out for collaboration, then seamlessly reintegrate back into the larger organization. Audiences will learn how her actionable and practical guidance around change management and organizational design create a unified action plan for fostering internal disruptive innovation that preserves relationships and boosts teamwork.

What is a learning ecosystem? According to Michelle Weise, Ph.D., an ecosystem grows and thrives by the health of its limiting factors. And in our particular value chain made up of millions of educators, learners, and employers and layers of federal, state, and local policies and technologies, the most critical contingent we must pay attention to are the people who are being left behind. Those facing the greatest burdens today illuminate the 5 principles required for a healthier learning ecosystem of the future. Ultimately, we need to design a new learning ecosystem that is fundamentally more navigable, supported, targeted, integrated, and transparent. Businesses and community leaders, educators and human resource managers can apply Weise’s invaluable frameworks and tools for educating and training workers who can meet the needs of the work of the future.

A new kind of working learner is emerging, one who must continuously learn while earning a living in order to keep up with a rapidly evolving economy. Drawing from her book, “Long Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs That Don’t Even Exist Yet,” Michelle Weise, Ph.D. offers a blueprint for how to cultivate the workforce of the future. The lifelong-learning market has yet to be tapped into, and that is a significant miss, says Weise. She helps audiences harness those opportunities, outlining ways to reshape business models to serve job seekers and employers – all while capitalizing on new forms of revenue.

Rapid technological changes have been reshaping the nature of work and refinding jobs and the types of skills needed to perform those jobs. As a result, explains Michelle Weise, Ph.D., educators are struggling to keep pace and employers are having trouble articulating the skills they need. Energizing and action-oriented, Weise provides a roadmap for turning the challenge of preparing for the future of continuous learning into an opportunity to reshape training and future-proof an organization.

As ongoing skill development becomes the new normal, working learners will be seeking the most direct route to their next career destination. Michelle Weise, Ph.D., an expert on building brief, targeted, and precise education and training programs to help more people get access to better economic opportunities, explains that it’s not just about technical or technological skills development. In this presentation, she will illuminate the human skills critical to complement the work of machines in the future of work. Precision education offers employers, training providers, colleges, universities, and Workforce Investment Boards clear opportunities to adjust their programming to serve the new consumers of education. Weise also highlights the value of “try-before-you-buy” apprenticeship programs which have been shown to result in demonstrable outcomes and proof points.

Generative AI has just begun to make its mark on the world. Tomorrow’s workplace will require workers with a hybrid of human skills and tech skills – intellectual dexterity mixed with technical expertise. Michelle Weise, Ph.D., dispels the fear-mongering myths that AI and automation will replace people and points instead to the high-leverage opportunities ahead to upskill, retool and outskill workers for an increasingly turbulent future of work.

Do you know the talent gold you’re sitting on in your organization? According to Michelle Weise, Ph.D., in order to move confidently into the future of work, you need a deeper understanding of your workforce’s skills – and not just their skill sets, but their skill shapes, too. In this engaging presentation, she explains “Skill Shape” – think about a role like a cybersecurity specialist – it turns out that that same role looks different in terms of its skill shape, depending on where we’re looking. There are certain areas of skill development that are emphasized depending on a metropolitan area of a state. That’s because skill demands are shaped by the supply chain, employers, and dynamics in a specific locality. With an understanding of the labor market dynamics at a hyperlocal level, you can attract and train the right talent pools for your workforce needs. Audiences will learn how to discern the skills gaps and skills surpluses in your area and how to build the right learning pathways to get your people to the right level of skill demand.

How many of us have heard the story that goes like this: if you invest in your own people, they will leave you for your competition? According to Michelle Weise, Ph.D., it turns out that this narrative has absolutely no data to support it. It’s a myth — one of the most enduring myths at that! In this engaging presentation, she explains how sadly, over the last four decades, we have witnessed a massive disinvestment from training incumbent workers, with many companies somehow resigning themselves to high levels of churn. But it doesn’t have to be that way, she emphasizes, the idea of a 40-year career with one organization can become the new ideal. She shows how, by taking the long view on your existing talent and investing in building their skills for the jobs of the future, your employees will see how your company is committed to their skills development. Prospective job candidates of the future will become choosier about working with an organization that is building talent from within. She helps attendees answer key questions: does your company have clear roadmaps for internal advancement? Is your company investing in creative pathways for employees to fill their skills gaps on the job? Weise shows leaders how cultivating the careers of your organization’s own people will be the best way to increase brand loyalty for the future.