Deanna Shimota (00:00:05) - Welcome to The HR Tech Spotlight podcast. I'm Deanna Shimota, CEO of GrowthMode Marketing. The HR technology market is crowded, and we know it can be hard to find the best software solutions for your business in the sea of sameness. On this podcast, we shine a spotlight on some of the best up-and-coming technology options out there. Check it out if you are interested in learning about new, innovative solutions available in the market. And if you are with an HR tech company and interested in being considered for a guest spot. Stay tuned for details at the end of the show. Hello, hello! In this episode, we are shining a spotlight on Degreed, a learning platform that makes it easy for companies to deliver daily learning, deep skill building, education benefits, real-time insights and expert services while connecting to a robust network of partners and integrations. Joining me to talk about Degreed is co-founder and CEO David Blake. Hi, David.
David Blake (00:01:09) - Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me.
Deanna Shimota (00:01:12) - Yeah, thanks for coming on the show. So let's start out. Tell us about your background in the HR tech space.
David Blake (00:01:20) - I'd never, thought I was going to be in the air tech space. I never really thought I'd going to go into education. if you'd asked me when I was 16 what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said a film director or a politician, but, the bug bit for me is I was graduating high school when I sat for my entrance exam. So I sat for the Act and just was kind of floored, perturbed by the experience. I just figured, this can't really be how all the grown up sort, all the 17-year-olds in and out of their future. And that put me on this track, became really fascinated and passionate about education and how the system works. early in my career, I started in higher education and, but really fell in love with this kind of question and problem of signalling our credentials in a world where we're going to be lifelong learners. How do we signal lifelong learning? Tell me about your education.
David Blake (00:02:13) - People tell you where they went to university, you know, which is just insufficient in a world of lifelong learning. And so through all of that started Degreed to be the platform to help people get credit for all of their learning. And in the course of doing that, it led us into our enterprise offering, which brought me to HR and tech, and here I am.
Deanna Shimota (00:02:36) - Here you are. So tell us a bit more about what it is Degreed actually does.
David Blake (00:02:44) - Yeah. So I mean, you got just a little bit there in that thread, but the vision for Degreed is we need a way to be able to answer for and get credit for all of our learning and skills. That's the mission. That's the objective. We say to jailbreak the college degree. and so on the platform, you're able to track and get credits for all of your academic credit, all of your academic learning, as well as all of your professional training and development, as well as all of your self-directed and informal learning.
David Blake (00:03:14) - So everything articles, videos, books, podcasts, courses, events, certificates, continuing education, full degrees, coaching, anything you were doing to learn. And so then companies, when we really went into enterprise right around 20 end of 2014, beginning of 2015. And that's in this moment when companies were beginning to appreciate this shift in the world. And as they were looking at their LMS, they're like, oh, you know, I mean, the LMS does its job well. It's got good reporting. But if I look at what my employees are actually doing in a year to learn and how much of that is flowing through the LMS, it's like 2%. So even if you got a great report, it's a great report on 2% of what your employees learned last year. And so they appreciated they were going to need to have visibility into what people are learning on their own. And so companies started using Degreed to sit on top of their LMS and all of their internal learning. It became known as the Lisp, the Learning Experience platform.
David Blake (00:04:15) - And so companies use it to be the holistic front door to all of their learning. The thing that sits on top of and connects their entire L&D, sort of learning stack or technology stack, and it facilitates this broad-based, holistic, learning experience and learning culture across your organization.
Deanna Shimota (00:04:38) - That's pretty cool, because I do think, you know, for a lot of people, you know, in the corporate world, many of us have gone and we've gotten the traditional college degree, but there is so much more to life and learning than sitting in a classroom. Right. And you think about, you know, some of the successful people out there, they're really smart. They've learned a lot, but they did it in nontraditional ways. Or they got out of college and they continued to learn. And, you know, people deserve to have that acknowledged by the companies that they're working for, because all of that learning is making them, you know, better qualified to do their jobs. Right, and to do the next level.
David Blake (00:05:17) - Yeah, here's a fascinating stat, which is even amongst college graduates and even amongst all of the audio content that we listen to today, and even amongst all of the new age content and course providers. So LinkedIn learning and Coursera and Masterclass, even amongst all of that, on average, you will still learn more from books than any other source in your lifetime. You will learn more from authors than you will from professors and or teachers you know and like when you just step back and appreciate, like, you know, not good, bad or otherwise, but it's just the reality. You know, we've got this college degree to answer for that learning, but you actually learned more over here from all the books you've read on average. And yet, you know, you really can't answer for that or transact on that in your career in the same way. And that's always just been sort of the, the, you know, the world needs a better solution, needs a better answer. That's always been the ambition and hope of degree.
Deanna Shimota (00:06:21) - That's so interesting. I am an avid reader myself, but I've never stopped and thought about the fact that I've probably read a lot more books now. Not all of them are educational, but you know, then. Then I have sat in front of a professor and listened to them talk. Yeah.
David Blake (00:06:41) - So that's our goal. We want everyone to get credit for all of their learning, irrespective of how or where you learned it. And to the extent we can make that true in the world, the world's a better place because it shouldn't matter what sort of logo you know you have on a credential. It should matter what skills you have, what knowledge you obtained, not where you obtained it. And, yeah, it's just that's that's a better world.
Deanna Shimota (00:07:09) - Yeah I agree. you know, in thinking of the context of learning and employers, what would you say is a big challenge or problem that you see facing HR departments and organizations that really
Degreed helps solve for.
David Blake (00:07:27) - Sure.
David Blake (00:07:29) - I mean, if you step back and frame this from let's look at the CEOs biggest, most pressing problems.
David Blake (00:07:34) - So PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC, they've done their annual CEO survey for I think it's going on like 30 plus years now. They've just consistently every year they send out the survey. Now COVID radically shifted that all of a sudden. But you see climbing over the last decade, the CEO level concern of not having all of the skills that the organization needs to capture all of the opportunity, in front of the organization. And it now was bouncing around about the third highest CEO-level concern. That's a big deal. So CEOs are worried we don't have enough. We don't have the right skills. To meet our moment and our industry, you know, to capture sort of everything. So that skills gap is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It's getting more and more pressing. And so, you know, what do we all need to mobilize around HR l and we help meet the business needs will increasingly is the skill gaps gets bigger and bigger and bigger. The organizations that get good at building skill, measuring skill, mobilizing based on skill.
David Blake (00:08:39) - Those that get good at this kind of skills orientation are capturing meaningful advantage. And those who aren't are starting to get left behind. And that's a real consequence. And there's now research out of McKinsey, out of Deloitte, out of the World Economic Forum that does show the quantifiable advantage of this kind of skills orientation. So, you know, I think that's that's going to be a defining characteristic of great HR and L and D versus kind of legacy HR and legacy, and is whether or not you get good at the skills orientation.
Deanna Shimota (00:09:13) - So I know David that you know that learning and development, that category in HR tech is very crowded. What is it that makes Degreed unique from the other options that are out there.
David Blake (00:09:28) - Yeah. So we created, our own category of software and what we do. So historically there was the LMS and now we've created a net new category called the LSB. So we created it. We lead it. We acquired the second largest competitor in the space. And the third largest competitor is much smaller still.
David Blake (00:09:50) - so we really created this new category, you know, what distinguishes it? What's different? So the LMS, that's really where you do your like regulatory and compliance-driven learning. So that's learning that is typically helping the company, helping the company stay in compliance, helping the company meet regulatory needs. Where Degreed in the loop is really about learning that helps the employee. So. What is what are your employees goals? What is your employee interested in and how do you help meet those needs. So you can just distinguish it that way? kind of there's other nuances to point to. But you know, Degreed is really about empowering the individual, upskilling the individual, helping the individual, navigate in the organization and in their career. It's helping the individual unlock opportunities based on that education, knowledge and skill. It's really all about the individual.
Deanna Shimota (00:10:54) - And what type of companies would you say are the perfect fit for Degreed?
David Blake (00:11:00) - Yeah. Are. We now serve a third of the employees across the Fortune 100. So our clients tend to be some of the world's largest, most complex multinational organizations.
David Blake (00:11:20) - And I think the reason why it's caught on there first is because for a couple of reasons. One, they often just have at most learning systems and content. And so having this unifying thing that creates a great experience for the employee was most needed there. I think one of the other reasons is because they are who is feeling the skill, the pressure of the skills gap most. And so it has caused them to mobilize first. so companies we serve a lot of companies. So like NASA, JPL to, Citibank to Bank of America, to visa, to Mastercard to, Unilever, to manufacturing companies like Simex and, pharmaceutical companies. We serve companies of all industries. But those that are feeling the skills gap most is who has mobilized to Degreed first.
Deanna Shimota (00:12:25) - Tell us some stories about the experiences those clients have had. You know, what kind of ROI and takeaways are they getting from working with Degreed?
David Blake (00:12:36) - Happy to. I actually don't know. Where do you live? That's, That question betrayed a bit of a midwestern, possibly Canadian accent.
David Blake (00:12:49) - where in the world are you?
Deanna Shimota (00:12:52) - I am in Minnesota, but I have been accused of being Canadian before ya hey, you know? Yeah.
David Blake (00:13:00) - I love it. I lived in Ontario, Canada for a good stretch, and, Okay. You're about. You're about was very nice. Minnesota makes sense. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, let me talk about some, client stories. So we're working right now with Wells Fargo and. This is a team of people that we've actually worked with historically. before they all came to Wells Fargo, but they were brought to Wells Fargo to really reinvigorate and reimagine and leapfrog what the employee experience can be at Wells Fargo. And so to do that, one of the framings that I take when I work with companies is this kind of small arc, medium arc and big arcs. So what are you doing daily and weekly? What are you doing quarterly and semi-annually, as well as the big arcs is like, what are you doing to help people get ready for their next job? What are you doing to help people on a five-year, you know, career arc? And that framing came from the world of game design, where there's actually this framework in game design where your game has to have good second-by-second, minute-by-minute interactions.
David Blake (00:14:17) - It has to have good medium-sized like world leveling systems, and it has to have big, good long arcs, which is like the story arc. And they whichever in game design. They look at where do you lose players? That's kind of the weakest link in the chain is where your game is going to break. And so they look at where they lose players and it might be oh, at minute 27 is where we lose the most amount of players. Or it honestly might be at our 47 or on week 70. I mean, some of these game franchises are decades old now, you know, World of Warcraft and whatnot and Fortnite and it might be we lose players at year four. Well, if you think of HR, if you think of L&D as like this game and where are you losing your players? Where are they disengaging? Where are they actually leaving and getting another job? And so just like in game design you can look at HR that way. You can look at it through this frame and say, oh here is where we are losing our players.
David Blake (00:15:18) - Here's where we're losing the engagement of our employees. And when you look at HR that way, typically what you will find is that HR and L&D the natural course of what they do tend to be very good at medium-sized darks. A lot of air and land programs are medium-sized arks. Quarterly training that my annual leadership development. Hi. You know, medium-sized arms. And so where we step in and have been able to help organizations the most is in the small arcs and in the long arcs. So what does that look like for Wells Fargo? Well, getting this culture of daily learning right in the flow of work, when you are just at your desk working on something at your fingertips, how do you have resources that help keep you sharp, keep you unstuck, help inform a question that you have. You got to get good at that. And then the medium-sized arcs in the employee journey. That's a lot of the conferences, trainings, development, the stuff actually, that most organizations tend to already have in place.
David Blake (00:16:26) - But then how do you get good at the big stuff? And that's where we're helping kind of the most innovative organizations right now, which is around like their education benefits. So tuition assistance, tuition reimbursement, this is kind of a big expenditure. It historically has only been used by frontline employees who didn't have their college degrees to go get online degrees. It's used by some to get advanced degrees. We're helping organizations to reimagine that, to say, what are the possibilities? What are the skills that you need inside of Wells Fargo? And rather than sending people off to get full degrees, how can you use that education benefit to invest in your employees to meet the needs that the organization has? And this is huge right now. One of the things we're seeing, last thing I'll say just on this thread is, you know, especially amongst younger generations, the, employees, like often Gen Z, Millennials, will opt for employee development over a $10,000 raise. So when it's phrased that way in employee surveys, they will opt for value higher.
David Blake (00:17:32) - Development and skill development in my career than they will actual compensation. So we know getting this part right has a huge sort of leverage in the organization to help you meet strategic needs, but also to help you just engage and retain your employees. So the small to medium, the long arcs, if you can get all of that right, you've got a great game. And the Wells Fargo I love that they're they're pushing on all three fronts right now.
Deanna Shimota (00:17:59) - Very cool. So what is the future vision for Degreed?
David Blake (00:18:05) - Yeah, we've been talking about this future for a long time where instead of, you know, the world transacting on where you went to college, what degree that you have that we're in a world where we're transacting on your skills. And so that's been the vision. And it's coming alive right now, because in large part, AI is unlocking enough of the technology to kind of make it real. So the same way that a decade ago when Degreed was born, it was born in this moment of like content was exploding, lifelong learning was exploding, it was becoming the norm.
David Blake (00:18:39) - And now what we're seeing is the skills. Data is exploding. So Degreed built this layer, the Lisp that sat on top of all of your learning all modalities, platforms, providers, academic, professional and formal. And now we want to do the same thing for skills. So anywhere that there is skill data on you. So increasingly that might be yes learning platforms, but that also might be in HR or payroll systems, that might be in performance systems. We want to connect all of those so that you can have one unified skill profile inside the organization and across your career. And when people ask you. You know, tell me about your education. Instead of answering with where you went to college, what degree you have, or if you don't have a college degree that you'll be able to answer with a quantified, verified, you know, profile of your skills.
Deanna Shimota (00:19:36) - What is the biggest hesitation that you see companies have when they're looking at a solution like Degreed? And what would you tell them?
David Blake (00:19:51) - Yeah.
David Blake (00:19:51) - What? Tends to be the break point. Is this mindset of. You know, there's kind of, So are we doing this to the companies? Good. Are we doing this to the employees? Good. And the companies that are willing to take that leap, take that step. There's the old training of like, well, what if we train our employees and they leave? You know what? If you don't and they stay, you know, it's it's, perhaps cliche or trite, but, you know, it is a good break point because often when Degreed to selling into organizations, it's, sort of do nothing is what we tend to. When people don't engage with Degreed, it's not because they're going somewhere else, it's because they tend to do nothing. So the organizations that are leaning in that are saying, okay, we've got to invest daily, weekly, monthly in the development of our people. We can't do that with the old systems and in the old ways. We can't come up with a program every time someone needs to learn something.
David Blake (00:20:57) - We have to have this agile, continuous way of empowering our employees to get the learning they need, that mind-shift companies that make it. You know, that's a Degreed clientele. Those who are still. you know, do we have to or what is the sort of minimum, amount required to check the box that'll keep you with your LMS? Because that's what the LMS is there for, is to keep you in compliance, and then they tend to just try and sweat that asset, if you will, to try and, get the most learning they can out of it. But I think we can all appreciate these days when you need to learn something. Rarely do you log in to your LMS. You typically go to Google, you go to the web, you find your answer, you know, and that's just the reality of the world we're in.
Deanna Shimota (00:21:46) - Yeah. So we are up on time here. what final thoughts do you want to leave our audience with?
David Blake (00:21:57) - You know, we can have a discussion, about how long it's going to take.
David Blake (00:22:02) - But as I look into the future, I really see a world where instead of organizing our careers and our companies on jobs and job roles and job descriptions, that we're going to get to this more nuanced, more sophisticated world where we're organizing it based on people's skills, the skills required to do the work, the skills that people have, and that is going to create a more efficient and effective organization. And I think the bellwether of this are like, you know, as we get in the future and look back, like many of the organizations listening to this podcast today are going to have dozens, hundreds and some of them, maybe thousands of people in the same job role getting paid the same thing. And like 5 or 7 years from now, we're going to look back on that and think, that was crazy. Like, of course, like that's silly. Like we're paying these 3000 people the same thing. Like, of course those 3000 people don't all have the exact same skill, but we just didn't have a more sophisticated, you know, canonized way of organizing it all and measuring it all.
David Blake (00:23:02) - So that future is coming. It's going to look, I think, dramatically different going to be better. And, you know, very excited. And if we can be a resource to anyone who's interested in exploring what that future looks like, feel free to reach out and connect.
Deanna Shimota (00:23:19) - Yeah. So that leads me to my last question. Where can our listeners go to learn more about Degreed?
David Blake (00:23:26) - Yeah. my email is [email protected], so feel free to reach out to me personally. The website of course is Degreed.com or you can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn, pretty easy.
Deanna Shimota (00:23:41) - You're going to have every marketer out there listening to the show emailing you now. I should say sales rep, not a marketer.
David Blake (00:23:49) - I would welcome. Yeah.
Deanna Shimota (00:23:50) - All right. Great. Thanks, David. I really appreciate you coming on the show today.
David Blake (00:23:55) - Now. Thanks for having me.
Deanna Shimota (00:24:02) - Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Tech Spotlight podcast, where we showcase some of the best up and coming HR technology options in the market.
Deanna Shimota (00:24:12) - If you are an HR tech company leader who would like to be considered for a guest spot on this program, please contact me via GrowthModeMarketing.Com or reach out to me Deanna Shimota on LinkedIn. And if you found this show informative, subscribe. Connect with us on social media and leave a review. This is Deanna with GrowthMode Marketing signing off. Thanks for listening. We hope you'll tune in again next time.