A number of companies have publicly stated that they have dropped the requirement for a college degree to apply for many of their mid-level and highly skilled jobs. They cite the need to adapt to a tight labour market, the quest for better diversity, and the realization that AI will soon make a significant impact on every level of work within a company. I’m of the belief that making high-wage jobs more attainable and less reliant upon having a college education is undoubtedly a positive change. However, there is something to be said for having gone to college and gained experiences and skills of greater breadth than what is learned in a training program.
Those experiences outside of the degree, the exploratory courses and classes that have nothing to do with a specific major, are what help make an individual resilient. Individuals certainly can develop those skills by themselves, but companies can also foster the learning and growth mindset among their employees to fill in the gaps of a very narrow education.
Every employee can benefit from having a “growth mindset,” which is the ability to develop and change, to recognize failures not as setbacks but as ways to improve. Carol Dweck, one of the leading thinkers and researchers on this topic writes that the growth mindset is not an all-or-nothing situation. People have both growth and fixed mindsets. Fixed mindsets have their value and we all need them for some portions of our work and personal lives. The goal, however, is to encourage and develop the growth mindset, especially for those who may be reluctant to adapt to change. Staff who can accept change tend to be the problem solvers who can more easily adapt, which is important in every role, but especially so in IT where the rapid (and escalating) rate of change in technology is most pronounced.
Here are several thoughts about the growth mindset and ways to foster it in your organization.
Recognize that the growth mindset is essential to dealing with change
One value of a college education is learning how to think and approach problems holistically, and that the struggle to learn is beneficial. One way college fosters this is by requiring students to take courses outside of their major. Science majors take literature, the arts, physical education or sociology, and psychology majors take statistics, chemistry, and mathematics. This breadth of study helps students better understand the world around them, including how their own lives interact with the environment and people directly within their circle, and those beyond.
Bring this same concept to the workplace and foster broad exposure and the practice of flexing mental muscles. Everyone – regardless of whether they studied at a liberal arts college or a trade school or at no school at all – can benefit from continuing their education outside of work. Employers can support the personal pursuit of a continuing education in whatever form it may take. College tuition might be out of reach, but offering stipends or simply supporting and encouraging time off for individuals to take classes can help.
Offer training programs in unexpected ways
Just as universities require students to take courses outside their major, in-house training can also supply breadth. Bring in training programs that are surprising. Network engineers and programmers can flex their creativity with training in graphic design or creative writing. And vice versa – the graphics team can learn a programming language. In addition to exercising the opposite side of their brain, the added benefit is having gained a deeper understanding of how other departments function.
Training groups of people together to solve problems in unconventional ways also builds solidarity within and across departments. This is why ropes courses and boot camps are successful for team building. Individuals with different skill sets interact and solve problems together. So if a ropes course isn’t possible, gathering people together to take on a graphics project can accomplish the same thing.
Engage in job rotations and cross-training
There is almost nothing more powerful than seeing – first-hand – the multiple parts of company operations that go into making the whole. Software engineers benefit from interacting directly with customers, helping them with installations, and troubleshooting. Marketing staff benefit from being involved in software development.
Creating a formalized approach to job rotation or cross-training conveys this concept well. We’ve all heard of the boss going incognito to work on the line, to get a better grasp of the business. There are dozens of reasons why these efforts are so valuable to the leadership team, but the spillover benefit to employees is also significant. Borrow this concept for staff on the IT team. The exercise of stepping beyond their standard job responsibilities to better understand all the gears in the business engine produces new insights, new urgencies, and often challenges individuals to think differently.
In my experience of working on our local workforce development board, I’ve seen first-hand how employers are shifting their mindset and loosening the requirements for a college degree in their new hires. We should not forget, however, that a well-rounded exposure to different mindsets and cultures is vital, not only for our social-emotional health as a society, but also as young adults leave high school and move into their lives as working adults. I am heartened that we are seeing less emphasis on college as being the only path to financial prosperity. As we continue shifting this perspective in our society, what we need to recognize is that employers can be the agents of the growth mindset. Offer employees opportunities to discover the breadth and depth of experience they might have found at college in their place of work.
