Workforce Development in Associations: AI, Adaptability, and the Power of DEI

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lowell Aplebaum (00:05):
Welcome everybody to episode two of
Associations NOW Presents, anoriginal podcast series from the
American Society of AssociationExecutives. And we'd like to
thank our episode sponsor todayVisit Omaha for the support of
this podcast. My name is LowellAplebaum. I'm the CEO of
Vistacova, typically hosting theAssociation Rockstars podcast,

(00:27):
but really excited and overjoyedto have the opportunity today to
facilitate a meaningfulconversation around workforce
development with two brilliantminds in our community. And
rather than read a speaker bio,which probably would not have
you still tuning in, we're goingto have the opportunity to hear
a little bit about the ownprofessional journey from our

(00:47):
two panelists today. So for eachof you, I'll ask you one at a
time, if you could please tellus a little bit about who you
are and where you work, as we'rethinking about workforce
development and professionaljourneys that have led you to
places of the associationcommunity. Tell us a little bit
about your journey. Haley, doyou want to go first?

Haley Jones (01:07):
Sure. So I'm Haley Jones. I'm the director of
member engagement at theAmerican staffing Association in
Alexandria, Virginia. I spent myentire career in the association
space, but I got started throughbeing placed at my first
association from a staffingfirm, ironically, X amount of
years later, so I don'tnecessarily age myself. I now

(01:30):
work at the trade associationthat represents the person who
was once a member who got meinto associations to begin with.
I started in associationsthrough member care, was
answering the 800 lineprocessing applications. Moved
into the membership department.I spent the first half of my
career in membership. The latterhalf has been in governance and

(01:52):
volunteer management, leadershipdevelopment. And then the last
almost five years now has beenalso in the DEI space. I oversee
a team of four people who runall of the, basically eight of
the nine engagement programsthat ASA has. My main focus is
our DEI initiatives. I thinkwhere I've gotten to where I'm

(02:13):
at now, I attribute a lot of itto being a DELP Scholar. I'm in
the 2019 to 2021 class, and gotaccess to mentoring and
executive coaching and justeducation opportunities that I
ordinarily wouldn't have thanksto Visit Detroit that sponsored
everything, and that was aturning point for me and my

(02:35):
career and finding my voice andjust putting me in a leadership
position, where I still work onthis now, but where people see
me as a leader and I alsofinally see myself as one too.

I love that. Hopefully, as we were able to go
into a discussion aroundworkforce development, that sort
of transformational journey froman employee to a profession to a
leader, hopefully we can dig ina little more on those stages as
well as we think about that,Joe, please.

Joe Lindhal (03:03):
Yeah, so I'm Joe Lindahl. I serve as the CEO for
Mission MSA, which is anonprofit organization for
patient advocates and researcharound multiple system atrophy,
which is a rareneurodegenerative disease
closely aligned withParkinson's, but has the size
and progression of it. I am withMCI USA, which is a management

(03:24):
company, so I think I share manysimilar stories and journey as
Haley. I was placed through atemp staff firm with the
Association Management Centerright after I graduated with a
degree in journalism fromDePaul. Go Blue Demons! In front
of the recession wherenewspapers were failing, no one

(03:45):
wanted to read or at least payfor it. The whole industry was
turned upside down. So I wasplaced in this firm and I ended
up really loving the world.This, I think, is a very common
story for us, associationprofessionals. Starting in
marketing, really, after thefirst two years of more
operations and governance, movedout to DC, where I got to work

(04:06):
for the Child Life Council, andthen also worked at the American
Staffing Association, whereHaley is now, where I had my
"association, full circlemoment." Like, I get to support
an industry that really has doneso much for me to where I am
now. And then I moved back toChicago, worked for AMC again,
serving as a senior ops forspecialty nursing groups, and

(04:28):
eventually as an executivedirector and to where I am now.
So it has been a rapid journey.You open your eyes and like, oh
my gosh, what has happened? Butit's been a lot of fun, and I'm
really excited to talk about theworkforce journey and workforce
development.

I hope that you will continue, both of you, to
insert sort of personalreflections of your own stages
of your professional progressionas we talk about the larger
workforce development. What'sinteresting, I think about both
of your backgrounds - besides,it's amazing that both of you
found sssociations by beingplaced in them; I'd be
interested in a research studyof what that percentage looks

(05:04):
like as we now go into adiscussion on workforce
development - there's really aduality that we're discussing.
One is the place of workforcedevelopment within the
association community itself,and then the larger societal
challenges or opportunities ofworkforce development across
many industries. And I imaginefrom an American Staffing

(05:25):
Association, you're looking manydifferent lenses. We all, of
course, are well matched in theassociation industry. So I
welcome either of those pathsthat you want to explore with
the top I'll start thinkingbroad, which is just as you
think about workforcedevelopment in general, from
what you've experienced and fromyour insights, what trends do
you see? What would you identifyas some of the big markers of

(05:48):
challenge, opportunity or theway things are go? Haley, do you
want to go first?

Yeah, so this is something we do talk about a lot
with our members, and especiallyin hearing what they're seeing
as they're putting people towork, and one of the biggest
ones is probably the emergenceof AI and the fact that people
really need to learn it. Andthere are people who think that
AI is going to remove otherpeople from the workforce, and

(06:13):
then that probably will happenin some instances. But there's
also a way to use AI as more ofa partner and not much for a
replacement to yourresponsibilities, and being able
to learn how to use it to helpwith maybe administrative tasks.
Or several of us have used itfor writer's block, and then

(06:36):
going back in and using it togoing through it with a to read,
for comprehension, to make surethat what it does dump out is,
one it's accurate, or you makeit accurate, and also that it
makes sense. But it gives youthe opportunity, if you are
using it, to be able to focus onhigher level work and higher
value things. But I just had aconversation about two weeks ago

(06:56):
about this, where everyone'sstarting to learn AI now. I had
an owner the other day say, "I'mgoing to become obsolete. So I'm
learning how to do all of thisnow." He's, I think, in his 60s,
and has been in the business forover 30 years, but is also
trying to keep his businessrelevant. It's just been
interesting to see the differentfacets of it. There's also a
bias issue when it comes to AIthat we can get into later, but

(07:21):
because that definitely can hurtminority communities in certain
ways. But yeah, we've beentalking a lot about AI and just
also really upskilling to learnthat or learn other skills to
help further your career.

Joe?

The general workforce piece, I think some of
the trends that when we look fortalent, at least from an
employer standpoint, is, we arelooking for a kind of
willingness to adapt, havingsome comfortability with
technology. And how we operateas a workplace is we are almost
completely remote, so our teamis everywhere. There has to be

(07:58):
the level of comfort of havingthese video conversations,
having to use SharePoint, how todo video calls, how to be
comfortable doing some of thesethings that are really
important. And from piggybackingon what Haley's saying is as
small staff especially, AIpresents a lot of opportunity. I
think it's not going to replacea lot of what we do yet

(08:19):
individually, but it certainlycan act as an accelerator or
simplifier in a lot of ourprocesses. For example, we have
a support line that is openwhere you can speak with a
social worker if you have anyquestions about your diagnosis.
No one really generally knowsabout multiple system atrophy

(08:40):
until they have to know aboutmultiple system atrophy. And in
that context, you're dealingwith folks that want everything
they want to literally swallowthe ocean, and it's a really
hard thing to do. And so what wedo have a social worker that's
available to talk on the phoneanswer emails, but we're
exploring like we know what thecommon questions are. We know
where people need to go to wherecan I find a movement disorder

(09:02):
specialist? Where can I find aclinical trial? How do I manage
my symptoms? We can create achatbot based on our documents
that will answer 75 to 90% ofthose questions immediately. Our
helpline is only open from nineto five, but we deal with a
global audience. So someone fromAustralia has a question they

(09:24):
want an answer. We think we cancreate a resource that's going
to be really useful in thatregard. So I have a person that
is a licensed social worker,that has a level of
comfortability with thetechnology. Might not have
walked in as a coder ordeveloper, but is willing to
learn and ask the questions tothose that can do it. How do we
train it? How do we make sureit's transparent? What biases?

(09:46):
How do we make sure it takesthese two outputs that's really
important from a workforceplace, because that way, I'm not
training two skills they have alevel of comfort they're walking
in with.

I love that we've started in terms of
discussing workforce developmentwith really front and center,
the role of how AI is impactingworkforce development today and
for the future. What'sinteresting, I think, is if we
look at historical trends ofwhere workforce development
issues and discussions havebeen, it's really been that,
like your career journey hasbeen defined by being able to

(10:18):
demonstrate the skills andexperience that you have, right?
That's what your resume shows.Does the skill and experience
align to the position you'relooking for? But what you two
are discussing is actually thisintersect that's not, perhaps
not, about rate interested tohear about the skills you have.
It's about how much you're ableto demonstrate an ability to

(10:39):
adapt to the skills that youwill need.

It kind of reminds me of 2020 and obviously we all
had to go virtual, and suddenlyeveryone was learning how to use
Zoom. And I remember for myselfand what we were doing. We used
Zoom already however, we didn'tuse it as often as we do now.
And everyone laughs about Iremember when I had to just make

(11:02):
a phone call, and now if someonecalls you on the phone, it's
weird. And I became the residentZoom expert. There's two of us
on staff who all of a sudden itwas like they know how to do
this. So let's have them runthis virtual conference on Zoom.
And when we have breakoutsessions, even now, for one of
our virtual conferences, I getthe one that's the most
difficult to set up, because Iknow how to do it. I saw one of

(11:25):
my chapters ran, I forget whatthe platform was, but she ran
virtual conference, and thenstarted offering her services to
others because she had alreadypaid for the platform. So she
offered it to other chapters andother organizations, and she
would run logistics inproduction of their entire
virtual conference. That becameanother stream of income. She

(11:46):
just adapted and learned how touse it and became this expert at
it. But I feel like AI is aboutto become that same situation
where you're figuring out how itworks best for you, how you can
use it to move your eitheryourself or even your
organization, forward, but weought to adapt to it.

So I think the question I would ask based off
of that really tangible,excellent example is, as you
think about workforcedevelopment, both for those
seeking positions and thoseseeking positions, what is your
perspective of what that lookslike in a different context,
when it's about, as you'resaying, finding someone who has
the agility to adapt to whatwe're going to need. Right? From

(12:25):
your perspective in workforcedevelopment, either, how does a
candidate display or demonstratethat agility, or from your
perspective, how do employersseek that agility that's not
just based off of "give me yourresume of all the things you've
done," because that doesn'tdisplay that, right? I'm
wondering if either of you haveperspectives about from either
side of that. We've talked aboutAI, this would have been a very

(12:46):
different conversation 24 monthsago.

Yeah,I think it's a tough thing to get at times
like, it's not you're like,you're it's not on a resume,
it's not in chronological orderof how my past experiences would
be a perfect fit for this role,this opportunity in your
company. For, I would say, like,entry level folks, they don't
have that. They're an intern,maybe. But asking the questions

(13:08):
around some more thaninterpersonal like, how have you
been a chameleon? And then alsoasking, here you have the job
description, I'm happy to walkyou through it in more human
terms, because sometimes thesejobs because they already read
like they've been written byrobots at times. But how do you
just say, "Hey, this is what Ineed. Give me an example from

(13:29):
your perspective. How do youmake this work? What would you
do differently?" I even givethem like test scenarios,
saying, "This is the issues theopportunity with what when the
landscape of tools orprocessing. What would you do?"
It doesn't have to be perfect.You don't know like the disease
per se, but I just want to givea general sense of how does your
mind work? How does it adapt?And can take things that aren't

(13:51):
necessarily crystallized, butabsolutely can be flexible, and
put them into work that advanceswhatever industry, or that's how
like as an employer, that's whatand from a talent perspective,
that's what I look for,especially for folks that are
coming into a small stafforganization. We have titles,
but the reality is, we're doingwhat's best for the patient and

(14:13):
the care partners, and we wantto find a cure. That's it.
That's the North Star. So if itcomes outside your job
description, and if you'rereally good at zoom, or you're
really good at implementing X, Yor Z, I think you'd be willing
to do it, it, be it in researchor advocacy or awareness, that's
what we look for. Yeah,

I doubt that if an association executive
actually had a business cardthat was the title of everything
they did that would fit on abusiness card. What you just
shared, Joe, in terms of theidea that I love...the "how have
you been a chameleon?" That thedemonstration through
application of how someone wouldsay that they would deal with a

(14:52):
situation and adapt, is reallyinteresting. We all are really
enmeshed in the associationworld, part of which the mission
of many. Organizations is tosupport individuals on their
professional journeys. Do youhave any perspectives from a
place of how we help theindividuals that belong to our
organizations get better atdemonstration of this

(15:13):
adaptability? How areorganizations that are supposed
to be your partners insupporting your professional
success actually helping peoplelearn how to be adaptable in the
skill sets they need for thefuture.

I honestly get an opportunity with a lot of the
programs that we do. Themajority of our members are
small businesses. Many of themare jacks of all trades, and
they're putting people to work.I say, I don't, Joe, I don't
know if you ever said this toois, having worked at ASA, that
the staffing industry, to me,always reminded me of the
association industry, and thatthere's an association for

(15:47):
everything. There's a staffingfirm for literally any job that
you can think about and what wedo a lot of our programming, in
some cases, it's to helpstrengthen their own internal
workforce, but also to help themguide the candidates that
they're placing, or the clientsthat are accepting the
candidates and working withthem, and different ways to
hopefully either adapt to whatthey're about to hire or be

(16:10):
higher into and succeed. But wehave one member in particular
who I always love hearing aboutthem, their focus is skills
first, and so they're takingthese great skills that their
employees or candidates have.And they're finding the best fit
for them in the workplace. Ithink of one story where a

(16:31):
person is actually someone whohad special needs and he was not
doing well at a job site. He wasalso non-verbal, so he couldn't
necessarily express what hedidn't like about the job. But
they knew that he likedsomething down the street,
because he was always going to acar watch, and was an amazement
at these cars. So they thought,why don't we focus on what he
likes and see if we can get hima job down there? He still works

(16:54):
there, and he dries off the carsin a car wash, watches them go
through. But he's succeeding inthis role because it's something
that fit him, and they focus onhis skills and interests.

First, I love that the people-center approach
to that, that how do you balancethe needs of an organization or
a company, and what they thinkthey need is a skill set by
recognizing the strengths andinterests and potential in the
individuals that work for thatcompany, and have that be
something that can be, hopefullysomething in harmony. That's a
really nice picture of whatideally a workforce could look

(17:26):
like.
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I want to shift, if I can, a little bit,
just to recognize that whilethere are sort of general
workforce challenges out there,I'm curious, as we go into a D&I
lens, what roles do you see theassociations playing in the
future of workforce developmentwhen it pertains to diversity
and inclusion? Do you thinkthere's a role for our

(18:46):
professional organizations as wethink about workforce
development paths and have alens towards minority
communities or the need for amore diverse workforce?

It's an unfortunate reality that we have to put it
this way sometimes, but it'salso effective. DEI affects your
bottom line positively, if donecorrectly, and that's something
that I work for my I'm the staffliaison to our IDEA group, which
is inclusion, diversity andequity advocacy. And we are just

(19:18):
promoting the business case toour members and to understand
why these inclusive practicesessentially help your bottom
line, help your retention, withyour employees or candidates,
for that matter, but also justmake it a better place and
environment to work. But I thinkthat one of the ways that we can
play a role in this is just atleast setting not a standard per

(19:39):
se, but maybe a good example, Ialways hesitate to say best
practices, and I try to sayeffective instead, but showing
effective ways that you canincorporate dei into what your
workforce and by helping themsucceed, I just think that
that's where associations canhelp and having things that they
can model after. Even for otherorgs who are modeling DELP-like

(20:02):
programs for their respectiveorganizations, that's where
ASAE, I think, has played a hugerole. We've all seen the success
of the DELP program, and we'restarting to see other
organizations do somethingsimilar to try to have that same
success for whatever thatpopulation is.

I totally agree. I think there's a lot of different
responsibilities associationsand nonprofits have when they
represent a whole industry orprofession. You have so much
access, in theory, to thoughtleaders staff that can help
elevate communities that haven'tbeen seen or heard from in a
really meaningful way. There'ssystemic issues I think that

(20:39):
associations can certainly playa role in. I also think that
there's an opportunity and aresponsibility for groups like
ours to elevate, purposefullyand intentionally provide
invitations and access of almosta see it, and you can be it kind
of situation like I think ASAEhas done a pretty good job of
that from a personalperspective. As an association

(21:01):
management professional cominginto the industry, I'm a member
of the AANHPI group that werecently formed three years ago,
and one of the first things Isaid of why I even want to be a
part of this--shout out again toDELP because this is where this
conversation starts--is mybarrier has been, I have never
seen anyone that looks like mebe in a CEO position of a large

(21:25):
association. One person I knewthat was the name only, and now
I think I can call him my mentoris Richard Yep, who was with the
American Counseling Association.That was it. And for me, I think
we have a responsibility to askthat question of, "Why aren't
there more folks that areactually reflective of the
country and the world that welive in places of influence?"

(21:48):
Because we shouldn't be. And Ido think there's a
responsibility for associationsto be reflective of their
industry, and there areunderrepresented people and
communities that have theability to be elevated, not
because of tokenism, but becausethey're really good at their
jobs, and they have to do it.And eventually you want to get

(22:09):
to a place where it isn't a bigdeal, but it is. I notice every
time, as an Asian American, iselevated to senior level
position, or when there's aFellow at ASAE, and I think it's
really important that see it,you can be it, so it really
supports the next generation,the workforce development,
saying, that's cool. I never sawan Asian American male in this

(22:32):
capacity, and that is an actualviable place for me, because I
won't be the only one. I dothink that there's a
responsibility there for groupslike ours, of why we exist as
nonprofits and associations.

How do you think associations can prepare
themselves for these evolvingworkforce needs, thinking back
to where we started, right likeadaptability and what we need to
demonstrate in the future forsuccessful career journeys. How
do associations preparethemselves to be able to address
those workforce needs, whilealso, as you're saying,
meaningfully maintaining a focuson minority communities, knowing

(23:08):
that it creates a better wholecommunity, a better industry, a
better bottom line. Haley, asyou said, right, all the
benefits of doing so. Anythoughts or examples you've seen
about how associations preparethemselves or take action on
that?

I think you have to be prepared and also forward
thinking. I was on a program, Iguess, last month, and we were
talking about the legislationagainst DEI or the threats that
are coming out, one of which isfrom the other VP candidate, and
they're trying to flip theacronym on its head and make it

(23:42):
negative. And someone said, wehave to be ready. I challenge
you all to be ready for this andprepared for something like this
so it doesn't throw you off whenit comes because what you see
now are people not necessarilywalking back their initiatives,
but they're changing names ofit, so that they're not under,
kind of falling under thiscategory. But I think it's just

(24:05):
being able to really have someforesight and being ready for
it, but also leaning in and notwalking it back the way that
people seem to have starteddoing right now.

I don't have terribly much to add. I think
preparing the the wants and theneed to the workforce, while
keeping a focus onunderrepresented or minority
communities is one in the same.I just feel like what we here to
see from folks that are comingup is they want to have that
type of education. They want tohave these discussions. This

(24:37):
idea of bringing a whole self towork is valuable, and so how do
we as employers or supervisorsor whatnot, prepare ourselves
for that? How are we going toreact to that? What level of
conversation, what level ofresources do we want to put
around this? That's what I thinkis really an interesting

(25:00):
conversation, because I thinkthe conversations you might have
with your managers, yourdirectors, your admins, your
coordinators, probably sounddifferent than the CEOs. And how
do we get to a closer alignmentand transparency around what is
valuable when we prepare theworkforce for the DEIA-type of
discussions and what's theexpectation of the employee from

(25:22):
the employer? Is it an emailcelebrating a AANHPI Heritage
Month and then nothing happens?I don't know. And how are these
questions being asked earnestlyand honestly? So I see this as
one of the key needs forworkforce development and
consideration moving forward.

I know we talked about a number of
questions beforehand, but bothof your responses makes me want
to ask one last one, which isnot on the list, which is...I'd
love to hear if you have anythoughts about the implications
and needs of culture within anorganization as we think about
minority community involvement,commitments, implicit or

(26:01):
explicit, to diversity,inclusion, or in general, a
shifting workforce trends like,what are the those cultural
pieces internally that are goingto lead to better organizational
success in workforcedevelopment. As I heard in
elements of both of what yousaid, not just process, but
culture. Do you have anyreflections on sort of insights

(26:21):
of cultural commitment ordirection organizations need to
embrace to see more workforcedevelopment success. I'd love to
hear any of those culturalreflections.

I think for me, it mean that just not tiptoeing
around it. DEI is not a badthing, and I think sometimes
people get uncomfortable withit. And it's not always meant to
be comfortable conversationswhen you're talking about
certain things, especially forus as minorities, who see things
through a different lens,experience things completely

(26:50):
different than others do.Because sometimes people do just
look at us differently becauseof the color of our skin or
because someone who might have adisability or whatever it is.
But I think that just havingopen discussions about it,
having awareness around certainthings, giving time and space
for people to be able tocelebrate certain things. In our
office, we either have a monthlyactivity, or we have training,

(27:14):
or we have some kind ofcelebration around food, because
that brings people in the doo.But a lot of it is usually ways
to just teach people aboutthings they might not know. You
know, in February we did a wecalled it Bagels and Black
History Month. But our the wholekitchen was filled with fun
facts about black history thatsome you would think people

(27:37):
knew. And there are others, likeone of them, which was a hot
topic, was about ReadingRainbow, the theme song being
sung by Chaka Khan. A lot ofpeople didn't know that. I can't
tell by your face if you knowwhat I can, but it was such it
was a fun fact that it wassomething that everyone was
talking about for a week, but itwas a space for people to learn

(27:59):
things about my culture, andwe've done it for a couple of
other celebration and awarenessmonths as well. But I think
having space for people to dothat makes a big change, and
also, I would hope, even withsome of the trainings, just
helps people maybe take a beatbefore they say something that
might be deemed offensive, or itmight change their perspective

(28:21):
moving forward. Yeah,

I think that the culture is...we always I think
we all ask that question ifwe're interviewing or doing the
interview. It's a hard one toanswer and when and someone
asked me that I was I say to me,culture is walk into a room and
you basically already know whatthe expectations are of you and
the people in the room, what areyou committed to? And so I think

(28:46):
culture can be viewed a lot ofdifferent ways from different
lenses, and that's part of it isbeing okay with people will
experience and perceive thingsdifferently based on their own
perspectives, but we're allpushing towards this one goal.
Here's what's acceptable, hereis what's not. But I think it
has to be the culture ofacceptance and learning and

(29:09):
being willing to say, "Hey, Idon't know." I think it's a good
idea to ask employers andemployees of what their
expectations are around some ofthese things, because they like
Haley said, they can be hotbuttony, but they don't have to
be like, I'm just like, I justwant you to bring your whole
self. And if I don't knowsomething or like, I'm of the
age where pronouns are still newto me, but I will ask now, like,

(29:31):
I've learned a lot as aolder-ish millennial, at this
point, I want to learn exceptthe whole person, and I think
there's strengths in that

time goes by very quickly, and I have at
least 20 more questions I wantedto ask, but we'll wrap up our
time with this last one, whichis, just as you think about the
range of our conversation todayand the intersects of
adaptability and AI into reallybuilding a stronger workforce,
towards embracing that priorityof diversity, inclusion, and how

(30:01):
that can help strengthenworkforce and providing those
opportunities and aligningculture the borrowings we've
gone through. For those who arelistening in, if you were to
share with them a closingthought, a one-piece-of-advice
or one takeaway that you'rewalking away with, what would be
the one piece that you wouldhope people would remember from
this or start from ourconversation today. And I had

(30:24):
Haley introduce herself first.So Joe, I'm gonna go to you
first for a conclusion.

Advice usually comes from a wise person, and
I'm trying to think how wise Iam. It's just my perspective,
but I guess my one piece ofadvice is wherever you want to
work, and when you think aboutworkforce development, just
think about the whole person.You don't spend any more time
with a group of people or in aplace than you do at work. I

(30:49):
don't spend as much time mywife, my kids. This is it. This
is where you spend a bulk ofyour time. So you can be
professional. You can obviouslynot bring your full 1,000%
authentic self. I don't think wedo that other than maybe in
front of a mirror every once ina while, but understand that
like they're bringing a widerange of background and

(31:10):
experiences to the table, and beready to embrace that. I think
it's positive.

Haley?

So I'm also going to offer advice, and this comes
from the lens of...I was acollege basketball coach, so I
tend to operate with my team theway I would operate with my

I love that. We can't thank you enough, both of
players, especially in terms ofdevelopment. So I would say just
as far as development of youremployees, it's finding out what
you, for your time today, forbeing willing to bring your
motivates them; finding out whatinterests they have and maybe
wisdom and your insights andyour experience you've all
where they see themselves goingin their career. But not
necessarily long term, but atleast in the next few years.
benefited from it, and reallygood thoughts on the workforce
I've done that every year I askwhy--one person on my team has

(31:47):
actually been with me for over ayear--and every year since I've
ahead and how we need to bechameleons for success in there,
become her supervisor, I say,tell me what you want to work on
this year. Tell me where youwant to go, where you see
yourself going, as far as yourcareer, because she's decided
in the skills that we developand bring forward. Thanks to
she really likes associations.She finally started referring to
herself as a component relationsprofessional. And so I said,
everyone for listening to thisepisode of Associations NOW

(32:09):
"Tell me what things you want towork on so that I can help you
get there. Because in my eyes,I'm developing you either for a
Presents. We hope you'll join useach month as we explore key
promotion where we're currentlyat or for whatever your next
role is, whether it's at ourassociation or not." And I enjoy
topics relevant to associationprofessionals, discussing the
coaching people, and so that'sthe approach that I take, but
it's really finding out whatgets them going so that you can
challenges and opportunities inthe field today and highlighting

(32:31):
encourage that and cultivate itmoving forward.
the significant impact thatassociations have on the economy
the US and the world. Again,we'd like to thank our sponsor
Visit Omaha. For moreinformation about them, you can

(32:57):
check out visitomaha.com/meetings. We hope that
you subscribe to our podcast onApple Spotify, or wherever you
listen to your favoritepodcasts. For more information

(33:17):
on workforce development in theassociation space, visit
Associations NOW online atassociationsnow.com We hope
you'll join us next month, wherewe'll have part two of our

(33:38):
discussion on workforcedevelopment. We hope to see you
there. Thanks so much for tuningin.

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