Recap: From Day One LIVE Conference in Boston

What will the future of work look like at your company? Experts from major organizations gathered together to answer that question at the recent From Day One conference in Boston.

The theme of the day was “Building a Culture for Workers and Companies to Thrive in Times of Change.” This addressed an important puzzle all companies need to piece together.

ETU partners, industry leaders, and our team gathered together to discuss digital transformation, employee expectations, hybrid work setups, and skills data. Here are some takeaways after attending last week.

Maintaining human connection in a digital workplace

While technology is important and unavoidable in the workplace, nothing replaces human connection. How can workplaces weave the human element into their offices and remote work environments? Take a look…

• People-first workplaces: Companies are built around people – not just technology. The more organizations can foster a people-first environment, the more creative and driven employees will be. Simple core values like empathy and collaboration can cultivate a strong workplace where people want to put their best foot forward. If HR leaders measure their skills data, it’s clear that employees perform better when they have supportive DEI initiatives, personal time off policies, and more.
• Data-driven decisions: Are you measuring skills data? If organizations don’t measure skills data, there’s no way to benchmark, track, or improve behavior. From the executives to the average employee, skills data should be used to make crucial decisions. What skills should you work on as an organization? Where should departments allocate their budgets? Which teams should get a raise? All of these questions can be answered by tracking skills data.
• Change isn’t always easy: In today’s economy, employees are expected to change their habits within weeks, if not days. This can be very difficult as an employee! Human Resources leaders have to encourage employees to voice their problems with adopting new technology, different processes, or changes to the team. Every company wants more agility and adaptability from their employees, but it’s not always easy. Take the right steps to ensure your employees feel supported.
• Empathetic leadership: Gone are the days where managers can tell employees what to do, or scare team members into producing better work. Progressive leadership requires top executives to practice empathy on a daily basis – in every single interaction. By developing leaders with great soft skills, you’ll cultivate a human-centered culture.

Top sessions of the day

After attending a handful of insightful discussions in Boston, these top picks were the most intriguing. With themes around skills, data, internal mobility, and AI, experts from the world’s largest companies dropped these gems.

Reimagining skills with simulation learning

Jennifer Iannetta (Merck) and I led an interesting session to showcase the power of simulation learning. Merck reimagined their mandatory training with the help of ETU. They leveraged custom simulations and rich skills data to train and upskill a new workforce.

Leveraging internal mobility to grow

A highlight of the day was the panel featuring Shardé Marchewski from Wayfair. She shared her philosophy on internal mobility within a company. By promoting movement within, Wayfair and other leading organizations foster a more diverse, inclusive, and growth-oriented environment. The most important piece of internal mobility comes from empowering your managers with great decision-making skills and identifying internal leaders as early as possible.

Building better career development

MassMutual has the challenge of employing well over 10,000 people on 6 continents! Cindy Ryan, MassMutual’s Human Resources leader, shared her approach to handling the high expectations of employees today. She explained how to balance an organization’s rapid growth with personalized career development across departments.

Embracing change and empowering people

The From Day One conference in Boston left us with a powerful message: the future of work is not just about adapting to change, but actively shaping it. To excel in today’s fast-paced work environment, we cannot abandon people as the center of an organization’s growth. Put your people first, and good things will follow.

Katie Laidlaw, CEO

As CEO of ETU, Katie is passionate about how data can improve workforce development. She believes in the future of skills analytics as a means for organizations to understand how to engage, retain, train, and empower employees. Katie previously held a leadership position at a leading big data analytics company and worked as a consultant for a top global professional services firm.