Chief Learning Officer - CLO Media

Solutions for Enterprise Connectivity

Lee Maxey

Combatting a campus (and workplace) mental health epidemic

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In the past few weeks, a number of college campuses have become COVID-19 pandemic hotspots, with numbers of cases spiking as students return to school for the Fall semester. However, an additional risk lurks in the shadows: Some behavioral experts, media and research point to a mental health epidemic on college campuses.

According to an article from Psychology Today, students seeking treatment for mental health issues in the past year had risen from 19 percent in 2007 to 34 percent in 2017. The uptick seems to be a boost in the number of students seeking mental health services, rather than more people who suffer from poor mental health. Either way, counseling services on college campuses are far more frequented than ever before. And while companies have for 50 years or more offered employee assistance programs, the root cause of rising anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation seems different. CLOs should know that a generation of newly hired employees seem to have a greater fragility; executives and managers must arm themselves with a strategy for helping not only themselves but also their new hires succeed.

B. Janet Hibbs, a family and couples’ psychotherapist and co-author with Dr. Anthony Rostain of the book “The Stressed Years of Their Lives,” remarked last year during a National Public Radio interview that college-age individuals increasingly have what researchers call “destructive perfectionism.” According to Hibbs, these students can’t tolerate not excelling at everything. But even students who aren’t destructive perfectionists feel pressure to succeed from parents, peers and schools.

The unwritten message for students is this: Don’t mess up a chance to have a bright future. In a simpler time, that expectation might have been more manageable for students. But in the years since the September 11 terrorist attacks, college students and recent graduates also have felt the aftershocks of school shootings, economic uncertainty from the recession of 2008 and boundless social media, wherein we compare our inside with everyone’s best outside. And certainly, the current state of the world is compounding students’ uncertainty and anxiety exponentially.

Nothing is a waste of time if …

To diffuse the anxiety, depression and dark feelings blanketing our students and soon-to-be-hired employees, let’s instead think twice about failure. This isn’t an argument for giving school and work anything less than one’s best. But if someone genuinely gives their best and stumbles, falls or flat out fails, then where’s the harm? Learning to deal with failure pays dividends for employers as well as the mental health of employees. Auguste Rodin, perhaps the most famous sculptor of the modern era, failed to get into the Paris École des Beaux-Arts three times. So, he attended the Petite École. He didn’t get his first major commission until he was 40 years old. Rodin said, “Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.”

Unfortunately, a generation of employees now entering the workforce have been taught to give failure no quarter. A mix of high-stakes testing (which establishes federal funding for schools), parents who only see a single road to success for their son or daughter — often through the gates of a brand-name college, and an internet-culture that equates worth to the number of accolades and likes one collects have made far too much of failing. To help mental health counselors at college campuses and corporate offices handle the onslaught of stressed-out students and employees, let’s take a different tack. Instead of implying that there’s no margin for error, the message for young adults could be: “There are some unknowns here, and this is an opportunity for you to figure out how to navigate your way. If you get off track, let’s find out why and try again.”

As a new generation of college students enter the workforce, they will surely seek out wellness programs and mental health counseling on the job. Their demands will add to an already growing list of to-dos for learning leaders. And while CLOs may react by adding the kind of programs to address the mental health needs of workers who feel more stressed and put upon than previous generations, perhaps a valuable antidote for all is that stress is inculcating new hires with the notion that failure can, and often does, lead to success. Perhaps this means creating a workplace culture that showcases in some way (e.g., all-hands meetings, lunch-and-learns, podcasts or videos) that some of an employer’s best work and workers persevered not just one failed attempt but repeated tries. Wouldn’t that, as Rodin noted, use the experience of failure wisely?

Employers can’t right the wrongs of how employees were or weren’t raised or educated. But CLOs can rally executives and managers around the idea that a company can achieve success from analyzing — not fearing — failure. A culture like that could bring out the best in employees, while reducing stress.

Don’t close the door on disabled workers

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Like the opening to Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” current U.S. unemployment data is the best of times and the worst of times. If you’re an able-bodied worker, unemployment has hovered near 3.5 percent during the past year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If, however, you’re a disabled person in America, the unemployment rate is approximately 70 percent according to Our Ability Inc., an Albany, New York-based provider of workforce consulting and mentoring for employers and disabled people.

“The Department of Labor only counts people looking for a job within the last 11 months,” said John Robinson, Our Ability’s CEO. “Four out of five people with disabilities are still looking for a job after 11 months. One of the most important things we need is awareness that people with disabilities have the ability to do a job.”

At a time when our country is struggling to find workers across many sectors, Robinson said looking past a disabled American’s perceived shortcomings would not only be the right thing to do but also profitable. According to Robinson, employers need hiring managers and senior leaders who are willing to ask questions of and open their mind to people with disabilities. The type of disability someone has isn’t always a visible one, either. Seventy percent of disabilities, notes Our Ability, are invisible: Asperger’s (a form of autism), epilepsy and attention deficit disorder to name a few.

When senior leaders are afraid to engage in a discussion with a disabled person, we fall short as employers (and a society). All people are not identical or equally talented. But that doesn’t mean we can’t provide equal rights. All men and women deserve a level playing field so they can focus on and apply their strengths.

Instead, our hiring (and even our parenting) does the opposite. When hiring managers communicate with an able-bodied interviewee, the interviewer will ask the applicant about skills and experience. When that same hiring manager sits down with a disabled person, the focus tends to be on the interviewee’s weaknesses and the help they’ll need to perform the job. When a hiring manager gives a disabled person a chance, sometimes the decision rests on the fact that the employer can mitigate the new hire’s weakness rather than take advantage of their strengths. That, in turn, creates a culture of dependence. There’s a corollary with the recent college admissions scandal. The parents who attempted to sweep away the obstacles their child faced in competing fairly for college ultimately caused their son or daughter to feel devalued.

As employers, college administrators and parents, we all exert influence. We have to remind ourselves that a remarkable résumé is a beginning and, conversely, casting aside an unremarkable CV could cause an otherwise notable candidate to fall through the cracks. If someone submits a résumé, there’s clearly interest in the job. Following up on résumés could uncover more to the applicant’s story. Some hiring managers and admissions officers will balk at the notion that more time should be spent on a selection process that’s already overwhelming. Perhaps the answer is a mix of technology as well as hiring a more diverse group of people to evaluate résumés, job candidates, college applications and prospective students.

Through a grant from Microsoft, Our Ability is using artificial intelligence in the form of chatbots to help disabled workers navigate the manual process of filling out résumés; the technology is also playing a role in helping individuals find the skills they need for a job they desire. And according to Robinson, companies can search Our Ability’s website to find workers with the strengths and skills they need to fill open positions. So far, Robinson says the AI technology is proving every bit as good, perhaps even better, than the traditional job coach in helping disabled people advocate for themselves with résumés and applications.

With the passage, nearly 30 years ago, of the Americans with Disabilities Act, there’s an entire generation who’s grown up with wheelchair ramps and braille on signage inside buildings. But we have to go further and look beyond signs, résumés and appearances.

When it comes to hiring, disabled people aren’t looking for charity any more than some of the children caught up in the college admissions scandal were looking for a free ride. Both groups want what any fair-minded person wants: to be seen for who they really are.

Don't close the door on disabled workers

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Like the opening to Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” current U.S. unemployment data is the best of times and the worst of times. If you’re an able-bodied worker, unemployment has hovered near 3.5 percent during the past year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If, however, you’re a disabled person in America, the unemployment rate is approximately 70 percent according to Our Ability Inc., an Albany, New York-based provider of workforce consulting and mentoring for employers and disabled people.
“The Department of Labor only counts people looking for a job within the last 11 months,” said John Robinson, Our Ability’s CEO. “Four out of five people with disabilities are still looking for a job after 11 months. One of the most important things we need is awareness that people with disabilities have the ability to do a job.”
At a time when our country is struggling to find workers across many sectors, Robinson said looking past a disabled American’s perceived shortcomings would not only be the right thing to do but also profitable. According to Robinson, employers need hiring managers and senior leaders who are willing to ask questions of and open their mind to people with disabilities. The type of disability someone has isn’t always a visible one, either. Seventy percent of disabilities, notes Our Ability, are invisible: Asperger’s (a form of autism), epilepsy and attention deficit disorder to name a few.
When senior leaders are afraid to engage in a discussion with a disabled person, we fall short as employers (and a society). All people are not identical or equally talented. But that doesn’t mean we can’t provide equal rights. All men and women deserve a level playing field so they can focus on and apply their strengths.
Instead, our hiring (and even our parenting) does the opposite. When hiring managers communicate with an able-bodied interviewee, the interviewer will ask the applicant about skills and experience. When that same hiring manager sits down with a disabled person, the focus tends to be on the interviewee’s weaknesses and the help they’ll need to perform the job. When a hiring manager gives a disabled person a chance, sometimes the decision rests on the fact that the employer can mitigate the new hire’s weakness rather than take advantage of their strengths. That, in turn, creates a culture of dependence. There’s a corollary with the recent college admissions scandal. The parents who attempted to sweep away the obstacles their child faced in competing fairly for college ultimately caused their son or daughter to feel devalued.
As employers, college administrators and parents, we all exert influence. We have to remind ourselves that a remarkable résumé is a beginning and, conversely, casting aside an unremarkable CV could cause an otherwise notable candidate to fall through the cracks. If someone submits a résumé, there’s clearly interest in the job. Following up on résumés could uncover more to the applicant’s story. Some hiring managers and admissions officers will balk at the notion that more time should be spent on a selection process that’s already overwhelming. Perhaps the answer is a mix of technology as well as hiring a more diverse group of people to evaluate résumés, job candidates, college applications and prospective students.
Through a grant from Microsoft, Our Ability is using artificial intelligence in the form of chatbots to help disabled workers navigate the manual process of filling out résumés; the technology is also playing a role in helping individuals find the skills they need for a job they desire. And according to Robinson, companies can search Our Ability’s website to find workers with the strengths and skills they need to fill open positions. So far, Robinson says the AI technology is proving every bit as good, perhaps even better, than the traditional job coach in helping disabled people advocate for themselves with résumés and applications.
With the passage, nearly 30 years ago, of the Americans with Disabilities Act, there’s an entire generation who’s grown up with wheelchair ramps and braille on signage inside buildings. But we have to go further and look beyond signs, résumés and appearances.
When it comes to hiring, disabled people aren’t looking for charity any more than some of the children caught up in the college admissions scandal were looking for a free ride. Both groups want what any fair-minded person wants: to be seen for who they really are.

Obsession with efficiency is creating more impatience and less happiness

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David Elkind writes in his book “The Hurried Child” that society is increasingly rushing children and students through life in the name of achievement and efficiency. Pushing oneself beyond what’s comfortable to grow physically, emotionally and spiritually is valuable. But we’re seeing signs of what happens when a healthy pursuit becomes an obsession.

“I’ve inflicted more damage than I could’ve ever imagined,” said actress Felicity Huffman in early September as a judge prepared to sentence her to federal prison for paying $15,000 to have SAT scores corrected for her 19-year-old daughter. The conviction is the first of what will likely be more such decisions in the college admissions scandal. There’s no way to know for sure what motivated Huffman. But there’s an argument to be made that greed and impatience played a starring role. Perhaps with a warped sense of efficiency in mind, Huffman was too impatient to let her daughter find her own way. So she took the reins and bought the score she decided her daughter deserved, maybe thinking it would ultimately bring happiness.

In our tap-an-app society, efficiency is creating more impatience and less happiness. According to a report published this summer by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of suicide in the United States in 2017 was 33 percent higher than in 1999. The American College Health Association reported that from 2011 to 2016 there was a 12 percent rise in students stating they feel “overwhelming anxiety.” The American Psychological Foundation states the most common stress reported by young people is what they’ll do after high school or college.

Efficiency isn’t bad, but it isn’t always good. Some people, schools and companies know how to balance efficiency and quality. They strive to serve others instead of self-interests. Businesses, however, are about making money. But there are successful businesses with a mission and vision that include quality, ethics and generosity.

For example, the grocery store Wegmans is routinely named among America’s top five best companies to work for. Wegmans’ mission is: Every day you get our best. Wegmans still believes in efficiency. In fact, a Wegmans cashier is coached to scan a customer’s groceries at a designated “items per minute,” or IPM. But there is a team of people behind that cashier who genuinely want them to be happy on the job, learn new skills and develop a relationship with the team. Imagine what that same cashier’s work-life would be if they were only rewarded for their IPMs.

In the 1980s, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman wrote “In Search of Excellence,” wherein they chronicled the benefits of management by walking around, or up-close management. In their observations of companies, they learned spending even a minute or two with an employee face to face brought outsized returns. With that research in mind, isn’t it possible today to balance quality and efficiency? I personally have a sticky note on my monitor that reads “Five minutes a day.” This is to remind me to walk around our offices and listen to what’s going on in people’s lives for at least five minutes each day.

An employer could invest the time to develop a groundbreaking product or deliver extraordinary customer service while employing, say, the Toyota Production System. Instead of emailing a newly hired marketing specialist a chunk of attachments to use in learning about a new product, a sales manager could invite the specialist into the field for a few hours to see the product in action. Instead of diving into a lecture, a professor might start class by asking students what they thought of the previous class assignment; by risking some efficiency in slowing down class, a learning opportunity or quality discussion might happen.

What are we giving up at home, in education and on the job because we’re slavishly seeking efficiency? Is an email really better than a five-minute, face-to-face conversation with a student? What do we sacrifice as hiring managers or admissions officers if we rely on AI to winnow down a pool of candidates or applicants? What damage are we doing as parents by running our children’s lives because there isn’t time for them to learn to do it themselves?

The face of higher education is changing

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According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 1970, 2.57 million 18- to 19-year-old students were enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions compared with 767,000 students age 35 years and older. In 2020, the NCES projects those same groups will total 4.24 million and 3.28 million, respectively. A number of things — including recessions, downsizing and the rapid development and application of technology — have served as a catalyst for people 35 and older enrolling in postsecondary study. But not every 30-something wants (or needs) to enroll in a degree program to acquire skills they need to do their job, gain a promotion or switch fields. There’s a critical opportunity for higher education to serve students beyond the stereotypical college-age learner.

Some universities and colleges see the opportunity; others don’t. Compounding the challenge for nontraditional learners are institutions of higher ed teaching with an agrarian paradigm in mind. Even schools offering adult programming largely structure courses and schedules by semester, whereas businesses operate on a quarterly calendar driven by fiscal-year budgeting and strategic plans. Simply put, there’s a disconnect between the way higher ed delivers its product and what adult learners want.

With a new mindset, universities and colleges could be a far greater resource for working adults and their employers. Schools that adapt to meet the needs of businesses may find an untapped dividend. For example, 15 years ago business training was a $60 billion industry; today pundits peg that industry’s value at more than $360 billion. Clearly, there’s a lot of companies and employees invested in developing workers’ skills, and higher education could carve out a piece of this by rethinking learning.

Some universities have already begun pursuing flexible options for educating traditional and nontraditional learners. Unity College in Maine, for example, bills itself as the first college in the U.S. to base its curriculum on “a framework of sustainability science.” The school’s approach educates students to help an earth and environment in crisis.

I spoke with Unity College President Melik Peter Khoury about the school’s new TERRAIN program, in which students are traditional first-year and transfer students who will acquire expeditionary learning across Maine with full-time faculty and professionals in lieu of simply taking five independent classes to fill a semester. With TERRAIN, students apply the skills they learn so they can solve real-world problems.

In addition to Unity College’s flagship campus, which is mostly made up of 17- to 22-year-olds, the school offers an online learning program, which Khoury referred to as “distance education.” With its distance education program, Unity serves up five-week undergraduate terms and eight-week graduate cycles. According to Khoury, even the online programs are experiential, with field work tailored for the working professional in mind. The school also offers “low-residency” certificate courses, meaning students spend a few days or weeks at Unity College learning about, say, biology, and then visit a sometimes exotic locale to interact with the environment they’ve studied in the classroom.

Like Khoury, Rovy Branon, vice provost for the University of Washington Continuum College, told me his institution is changing the traditional definition and understanding of education. “We’re not an old-school extension or continuing education program,” he said. “We’re a comprehensive part of the educational ecosystem in Seattle, and we now serve more than 55,000 learners annually ranging in age from eight to 98.”
One way that Continuum College is changing education for learners is with its Career Accelerator program. Working professionals have four paths to obtaining credentials that will advance their careers. Learners can earn, for instance, a data analytics certificate via: 1) a self-paced, online approach; 2) an accelerated classroom path lasting two months; 3) an online group class lasting five to nine months; or 4) a part-time class meeting once a week for nine months.

Additionally, to accommodate employers and employees, the college also offers some programs that allow for enrollment any time.

Both Khoury and Branon said partnerships forged with business and government have been key to re-engineering their respective programs and curriculum. They acknowledged they want to work with companies and government agencies with workers who need varied, changing skills. Some learners may require a bachelor’s degree, others may want a certificate, and some employees seek microcredentials.

Branon’s approach has been creating a corporate advisory board for each certificate offered and pairing that board with faculty who have cutting-edge, industry knowledge. If, for instance, line workers at Boeing need a course in composite manufacturing, the team comes together to decide what that course should look like; eventually, other manufacturers can enroll too.

“We solicit an employer’s perspective,” Branon said. “By offering certificates, we gain approval at a speed that keeps up with industry; gaining approval for degrees is a much longer road.”

Khoury and Branon acknowledged that academia doesn’t always make partnering easy. They recommend CLOs seek out people in charge of outreach or a dean or vice provost overseeing adult or distance education. These are people often trying to adapt calendars and curriculum to forge unconventional programs, open enrollments and institute rolling admissions. If a CLO articulates a desired outcome, school officials say they’re open to listening.

What should be the employer’s role in tackling student loan debt?

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Students will be heading back to school in another month or so, and along with the excitement of a new school year comes the stress of figuring out how to pay for it. Federal student loan interest rates have been on the rise, up from 3.76 percent in 2016-17 to 5.05 percent for the 2018-19 school year. Interest rate hikes may be leveling off. But the number of people behind on paying back their student loans has grown to 20 percent, up slightly from 19 percent in 2016 and 18 percent in 2015, according to the Federal Reserve.

Imagine the stress it causes parents and graduates alike to know they will have debt hanging over them for decades. Last fall, the U.S. Department of Education released data showing only 50 percent of students attending college during the 1995-96 academic year had paid off their loans within two decades. In spite of what a student might’ve studied in college and which employer could be an ideal fit, graduates are increasingly forced to think about choosing the best-paying job available to manage student loan debt. I’m not arguing for or against the value of college for all, but at the forefront of decision-making these days, high schoolers and their parents are very much making choices about postsecondary education vis-a-vis debt.

What if the majority of companies (in partnership with universities, four-year and two-year colleges, and trade schools) took a different role helping students pay off those student loan debts? For example, students at the University of Utah have access to an income-sharing system piloted by the administration. Students get a break on tuition, and in return the university gets a cut of their income after graduation for a certain time period. The College Post recently quoted the university’s president saying the school’s program, called Invest in U, would help students, for example, avoid interrupting their studies because they had to work to pay for classes or living expenses. The Invest in U payback would cost students just under 3 percent of their income and last three to 10 years, depending on the student’s major.

Some private-sector employers are now adopting student loan contribution programs to attract and retain talent. Two companies that focus on administering these programs are Gradifi and Tuition.io, which offer software platforms for employers to manage student loan repayment benefits for employees. According to both software companies’ websites, a variety of employers currently participate, and the contributions range from about $1,000 a year per employee up to an agreed-upon maximum. Companies set the dollar amount and decide whether to make the payment to the employee or the loan-servicing company. Some companies even allow employees to convert unused, paid vacation time into money toward paying down their student debt. If you’re cash-strapped, how tantalizing is the thought of a “staycation” anyway? Better to put the money toward getting out of debt.

As these benefit programs evolve, employers should consider working with colleges and universities to begin the recruiting process earlier. If a student and an employer see a link between the student’s interests and major field of study and the company’s culture and mission, recruiters and school counselors can create a strong offer together with contingencies that protect all parties.

Identifying talent early in someone’s academic career and subsidizing their learning isn’t unlike the work the military has undertaken for a century or more in this country. For example, the Reserve Officer Training Corps, which the federal government established in the early 20th century to add to the ranks of the military’s leadership, offers high-school seniors a four-year, full-tuition scholarship and a commission in a branch of the U.S. military upon receiving a bachelor’s degree. The commitment after graduation requires several years of serving on active duty with the military to repay the cost of the scholarship.

What if a college student early in their education demonstrates amazing potential through an on-campus visit with company officials? The employer might (for a future high-potential hire) see the benefit of paying for the student’s tuition senior year in return for a commensurate commitment to work for the company. That sounds like an investment in both a company’s and a graduate’s future.