HRchat Podcast

Psychological Safety, AI, and the Future of Learning with Laurie Carey

September 04, 2024 • The HR Gazette • Season 1 • Episode 741

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Curious about how to bridge the ever-widening skills gap in the tech industry? Join us as we welcome Laurie Carey, CEO of Nebula Academy, who brings 40+ years of industry wisdom, including an impactful decade at Microsoft.

Laurie shares her approach to tech training, emphasizing the importance of psychological safety and resilience. Discover how these elements can create a fear-free learning environment that fosters both innovation and growth.

Laurie also delves into the future of tech training programs, highlighting the crucial role of AI and data analytics while maintaining the human touch in education.

Don’t miss this insightful conversation packed with actionable strategies and forward-thinking perspectives on the future of tech training and education!


We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom and visit hrgazettecom.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannam, and joining me on this episode is the awesome, marvelous, fantastic Laurie Carey, ceo over at Nebula Academy. Hey, laurie, welcome to the show today.

Speaker 3:

Hi Bill, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2:

My pleasure. Thank you very much for joining me. So why don't we start, as we usually do on this show, by turning over to you for a couple of minutes to tell us a bit about your career background and, of course, the origin and mission of Nebula Academy All?

Speaker 3:

right, cool. So my background is over 40 years of experience in the tech industry. That's a long time, including a decade at Microsoft. You know I've witnessed firsthand the challenges employers and employees face in keeping up with this rapid pace of technology change. You know I observed the skills gap and the struggles between businesses, what they encounter when trying to find talent Right and to support their growth. This really drove me to this kind of you know, discussing these challenges and trying to figure out what's going on here, what's the root of the problem here and how do we kind of look towards a solution to Brie Hill's gap.

Speaker 3:

At Microsoft, I led a community of over 5,000 women Really, that organization was Women at Microsoft and it was dedicated to raising awareness about career opportunities for women in tech, to help promote women in Microsoft kind of looking at more tech careers, maybe within the business. This experience really inspired me to further my education at Harvard, where I developed this concept of my non-for-profit organization called we Connect the Dots. So I run a social enterprise, not only Nebula Academy but also we Connect the Dots. So our focus is on, really, when we started, that was focusing on 13 to 18 year olds, helping them explore opportunities in STEM, because through our research what we realized is that students just aren't aware right, and so how do you bring that awareness at a younger age? So after leaving Microsoft, I founded Nebula Academy.

Speaker 3:

Nebula Professional Development Academy is our real official name, and that really was to further the nonprofit's mission by offering adult professional training programs. So at Nebula we've established ourselves as a Microsoft global training partner, a continuing teacher and leader education provider, which is basically for educators who can get CEU credits and everything. Any training they take for us helps them meet those requirements. And we're also a US Department of Labor National Apprenticeship Sponsor, which we're super excited about. And most recently we've developed a learning management system. So all of these efforts are part of a holistic approach that's up for our training, grounded in cognitive neuroscience research. So we established not only teaching technology skills but also integrating resilience training through psychological safety awareness. So this whole comprehensive methodology ensures that our learners are equipped to thrive in this ever-evolving tech landscape. So this whole comprehensive methodology ensures that our learners are equipped to thrive in this ever-evolving tech landscape. So that's kind of us in a nutshell.

Speaker 4:

Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at hrgazettecom. And now back to the show. Learn more at HRGazettecom. And now back to the show Gosh.

Speaker 2:

That's a lot. Sorry, that's a lot of stuff.

Speaker 3:

Next question how do you find time to sleep? I'm definitely a type A personality so you know, I'm just very passionate about what I do and I bring that passion and my team does. It's like I look at my team and I see how just very passionate about what I do and I bring that passion and my team does. It's like I look at my team and I see how excited they get about what we do and it's so rewarding. What we do is so rewarding that it kind of energizes you. And working with young adults and teaching they energize you, they get you excited. So you know, kids keep you young.

Speaker 2:

They get you excited. So you know, kids keep you young To be confirmed listeners. We've just had our second child a week ago today actually, so I'll feed back on my thoughts around that in a few months time. Laurie, you mentioned towards the end of your answer there there is a focus on psychological safety. What inspired you to offer that focus in your technology training programs?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So the inspiration came from that understanding of the barriers that prevent effective learning Right. So we realized that the fear of judgment or failure can significantly hinder somebody's ability to participate and retain information and training programs. So by fostering an environment of psychological safety, we create a space where learners feel comfortable expressing themselves, taking risks, where learners feel comfortable expressing themselves taking risks right which risks are a big part of learning and making mistakes and being okay with those mistakes, because failure is part of the learning process and these are all essential elements of deep learning and innovation.

Speaker 2:

Perhaps now you could share some case studies, some use cases that highlight the impact of your psychological, safety-based training. Give us two or three brand names that you're particularly proud of working with and what have been some of the results.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. One of our standout success stories involved a cybersecurity company and I really can't mention the names, so that's okay. That's okay, but they've already been acquired and they're part of another organization already anyway. But they were a New York City cybersecurity company that struggled with the resource allocation because their sales team frequently relied on the technical team. So when you've got a sales team that's constantly pulling at your technical team, there's a cost associated with that.

Speaker 3:

So by integrating our teaching them these foundational concepts, the tech skills, and also integrating our psychological safety, they got a double whammy or two values from that training. Now their tech team reach out or their sales team reach out less to the technical resources because now they have a better understanding and they retain that information because of the approach that we take with training that they also got to benefit from their communication skills for their customer integration. So salespeople talking to customers, you know having this training really brought value to these customer satisfaction you know, their communication skills with their customer and overall corporate satisfaction because of the way they worked more productively together as a team. So that's one example of the outcomes of our training model.

Speaker 3:

The other one is a success story around a large insurance company that was undergoing an acquisition and again I can't really speak to the name of the company. They're a Long Island based insurance company. Such this transition created a lot of uncertainty, as you can imagine, reducing productivity and company morale and providing you know, really potentially leading to talent leaving the organization and decreased customer satisfaction. So our training provide employees with a safe space to express their concerns about the acquisition and learning strategies to navigate the uncertainty, and this not only maintained a strong communication but increased productivity and also improved overall employee morale and retention during the acquisition process, which was really key for them.

Speaker 2:

Okay, thank you very much. In your first answer a little while ago, you mentioned that you guys have got a fabulous new, shiny LMS, so congrats on that. I wonder if you can give us an overview of the new LMS and, as part of the answer, what makes it stand out? What's a big differentiator to other solutions out there in the market?

Speaker 3:

So I'll start with why we did this in the first place. So you know we struggled with this decision because you know we're a trading company right, but we're a trading company that teaches software engineering. So we really needed a platform that really met our needs, and all the platforms that we used out there and we've used quite a few just didn't meet our needs, and the biggest part of the need that they didn't meet was the data, information and analytics and the AI integration that we needed as part of our solution. And so my team basically came to me and said we need to develop our own system and there's value to doing that. So the sales pitch to me was not only can we use it for ourselves, but we can create a SaaS model that brings revenue to the organization and our apprenticeship model can be used. So now our students that we teach in our software engineering programs can now have a platform that they can build skills on and then, hopefully, build their portfolios up and get real world experience before they enter the workforce. So it was like, wow, that's a win, that was a great pitch, so let's do it. And so we started developing the system, and it became so exciting and such a driving momentum for the organization to have a system that's designed from the ground up to really be a strong learning management system, but also for that data metrics and analytics, because we, as a CTLE provider, we need to provide CEU credit verifications and all that data metrics and analytics Because we, as a CTLE provider, we need to provide CEU credit verifications and all that data analytics to government.

Speaker 3:

And also our certifications we do certifications. We wanted a platform that wasn't two different systems that you had to go take your course and then go to another system to take your exam. We wanted to be able to have those things integrated so that students could see a dashboard of hey, here's all the courses I'm taking or I'm in the process of taking, here's all the courses I've completed, here's all the certifications I've earned, and look at how that's impacted my career path. Right, that's the kind of data metrics we wanted to be able to give so that when we because we get a lot of funding from government for our training programs to help people get jobs and to help people upskill, and so that data metric is really important to us. So now we've got a system that's not only usable for us but we think about economies of scale.

Speaker 3:

We want to be able to have this environment be attainable for any educational organization that's doing similar things, like we are, and needing those same requirements for data metrics, so that they can have a platform that's cost effective, that they can afford and use and they get a lot of benefit from it. Because we're mission driven, we want to be able to really help others be successful as well, and that's really what this kind of focus is on the learning management system and we're excited to launch that. We're in prototype mode right now production in January. We already have our first customer. We've got a pipeline of customers already we're having conversations with, so we're really, really excited about it. Just one more thing I want to add there. So the value to corporate customers too is that when they come to us and they want us to do customized training, then they can have that training be on a learning management system that they can have data metrics on and use it for new hires or employees coming in. So there's huge value for our customers as well.

Speaker 2:

Okay, right, so I'm just going to put it out there now while this is being recorded. Laurie, when you guys begin your launch in January, I'm looking for an exclusive. Okay, so we've got to have another conversation at the turn of 2025. Can I get a yes from you? Sure, yeah, all right, you heard it here first. There we go. And exclusive for the HR Chat Show very good, okay. So let's just make sure that we've got a good understanding of what folks can expect from the LMS. I'm going to challenge you in 60 seconds or less. Can you briefly walk us through the key features and benefits of your LMS for training organisations? Let's just make sure we've got that in there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so the key benefits are AI integration and it will keep evolving as AI evolves for our customers and also data metrics really strong data metrics and user interface is just really a phenomenal dashboard that gives not only the users a really good perspective of where they are and what they're doing, but also their managers, so that you can have a company where to look at overall my own staffing and where they're at with training, but also as an individual as well. So it's really about individualized experience and dashboard, as well as a administrative dashboard for those who are managing resources and need to know where they are with their training requirements.

Speaker 5:

This episode of the HR Chat Show is supported by our friends at the People in Performance Podcast, a popular show offering insights into the strategic competencies, behaviors and results needed to increase the performance of employees and leaders. The show looks at all areas of the world of work, including attraction and recruitment, onboarding, training and succession planning. Tune in to get a better handle on the stages of workforce planning you need to master in order to guarantee long-term success in a rapidly changing world of work. New episodes drop each week. Check out the latest people and performance episodes on your podcast platform of choice. Follow us on socials and read the latest articles at pp-podcom. And now back to this episode of the HR Chat Show.

Speaker 2:

That's it, okay, you've got 15 seconds to spare.

Speaker 3:

Good work, well done I talk fast too, so I hope everyone's talking too fast.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so what are your future goals and vision for your psychological safety-based technology training programs? Can you give us a bit more overview of that? And take your time for this one, Laurie?

Speaker 3:

Okay, cool.

Speaker 3:

Really, the vision is to keep building on the success of that platform and learning from our customers and our own environment.

Speaker 3:

So the benefit of building a learning management system as a training company is that you're in it right and you're outside of it, so you can look at it from both perspectives and really create an amazing, valuable system for others. And by listening to our customers, we can enhance the program and continue to enhance it. And because we're software developers, there's a huge value for us. There we get to continue and grow our skill sets and our team, and I kind of think of it as a learning hospital. Right, it's really our teaching hospital, whatever that model is, where our students are learning on our system and it's obviously a non-production system where they can continue to evolve and also bring value as a student too. What was the experience? Like me, how could they make it better as a platform, coming at it from all those lenses? So that's really where we're excited to see that evolve and to see how we can continue to enhance a product that brings value to any organization that's looking to continue to train their staffing.

Speaker 2:

Just out of interest, laurie, for any students listening to this pod today and we don't typically have many of those surprise surprise it's mainly HR people and business leaders and such but you know any students out there who are going to be starting university in the next year or two. They're thinking about what courses they want to do, what their major could be in a few years time. Maybe they're debating whether they want to do a STEM topic or an arts topic or something like that. What would be your advice to them in terms of embracing the importance of data analytics and, specifically, machine learning and AI?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So I would suggest, no matter what career path you take, that you kind of step your toes into a course that discusses business automation and process automation, because reality is that's what happens in businesses. As businesses transform and transition, they're looking to make things more efficient and better. Right, and you can get caught up in that in your career path. Your career path might have to change because of those technology evolutions that occur where that skill set or thing that you're doing no longer needs to be done by a human. It now is done by an automated system. So by being close to that and understanding it, it'll help you better position your role and your career path and where you go.

Speaker 2:

How do you see the role of AI and data analytics evolving in the field of education and training over the next few years? We are still, in many ways, just dipping our toes in field of education and training over the next few years. We are still, in many ways, just dipping our toes in. One of the things that I get up to is I produce a bunch of AI summits around the UK, in addition to events for HR pros and leaders. A lot of people are scratching their heads about where AI is taking us over the next few years, so what are your thoughts? How do you see the role of AI and data analytics evolving specifically?

Speaker 3:

in education and training.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so it's going to continue to play this transformative role right in education and in training and you know it's really going to have advantages in this predictive analytics, right, and deeper personalization for someone, right, because if you're especially for educators, they're going to see the insights that they and things that they couldn't see, but the AI can right Patterns that are happening with a student and the learning experience at a young age. You know teachers can use this tool to do that, to really kind of dig into things that they couldn't see, but the analytics are presenting to them and saying, hey, this might be a possibility Now, keeping in mind that you always have to bring that human perspective in there, but the data is a tool and that's how it has to be treated. As the AI is a tool, right, so it's doing what your brain can't do fast enough or you can't gather all that information together to make a decision as quickly as it can. It'll take you years to come to a conclusion that AI will come to in a second right or less than a second. So you know, it's really about understanding the tool. Just like I said, that reference to students understanding this.

Speaker 3:

Educators need to understand this too. They need to know how this tool is going to help make them better as a trainer or a teacher and how that's going to help Stop with the fear of it, because it's not going to replace humans. It's going to really make us better and make us do our jobs better, and that's really what I see, and it has. Technology has already proven that it's done that for us right in our productivity today and our life balances. Look at this. You know we're able to work at any, from anywhere. Now. That's huge value, right, if you understand those benefits and those things and there's some challenges that come with it as well. But there's a greater benefit from it overall, especially from students that have learning disabilities and really have to have that customized personal experience in a short period of time that you need, right, because otherwise it would take you five years to realize, oh, that student I was teaching 10 years ago, wow, could have really benefited from this. You know why not have that now?

Speaker 2:

Now, within your answer just then, laurie, you mentioned that it is vital. You said it's very, very important that you always have humans as part of this process. We talk about AI and its impact on the world of work a lot now on this show. Surprise, surprise, it's a very sexy topic at the moment. Okay, but as part of that is this concern around inherent biases within AI brought on by those developers, those backend developers, who are creating it, and also a need to audit the AI to make sure that it's doing what it should be doing. What are your thoughts around that?

Speaker 3:

Oh, absolutely. This is the human pieces of it. Right is to make sure that whatever we're feeding it, it's really what we're feeding it right. What it consumes is what it's going to kind of understand. We're feeding it wrong information or biased information. It's going to come out with bias and so this is really where you know. You know legislation and controls need to be put in place to make sure that we've got due diligence about what we're feeding it right, because it only knows what we've told it right. So yeah, and if we're giving it bad information, it's going to spit out that information.

Speaker 2:

Until it becomes sentient and takes over the world. But that's another conversation for another time. Yeah, I'm not sure of that one.

Speaker 3:

Only because I know the technology and how it works.

Speaker 2:

It's like takes over the world. But that's that's a. That's another conversation for another time.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm not sure of that one. Only because I know the technology and how it works.

Speaker 2:

It's like that's just not happening okay, okay, thank you, because uh, regular listeners of this show will know that I I do fear a terminator style future for us all, so I'd like to hear I fear the tools being in the wrong people's hands.

Speaker 3:

that's what I fear more so, right, it's being used, you know, just like anything. You know you can create an amazing solution or product, and there's so many examples of this, but there's that, you know, evil thought process or bad business decisions that can kind of drive a really good thing in a bad direction, right? So I think that we've got to be good humans and that's really what we need to focus on, and that's why I love psych safety, because it helps people be better humans. That's what we hear from our students when they take our resilience training and our psych safety training is they feel like that's like a way for them to self improve. And that's really what we have to do as a society is to truly understand where each of us are coming from in our learning experience, in our working experience, and then how do we use that information to adjust ourselves to that person's needs? Um, so that we can work better together.

Speaker 2:

we can learn better together laurie, I'm sad to say because I enjoy your company that we are coming towards the end of this particular conversation already. Before we wrap up, two part question Anything that we've gotten to discuss today, anything else you'd like to mention in terms of what you guys are getting up to and, of course, how can our listeners connect with you personally? So maybe through LinkedIn, email address, tiktok, wherever you hang out, and, of course, learn more about the programs that you guys offer I guess I'll summarize it with we're passionate about making a positive impact through education and technology.

Speaker 3:

That's first and foremost. Our journey has been incredibly rewarding, just changed so many lives in positive ways, and we're excited about the future. We have several upcoming projects, including new ai training modules and partnerships with leading education organizations, coming on to our LMS. If your organization is struggling with employee productivity and you're attempting to build your own learning management system, we welcome a conversation to see if we can support your needs and to help you do what you do best and let us do what we do best. How do you reach us? We can be reached at nebulaacademycom. You can find me on LinkedIn Laurie Carey, nebulaacademycom CEO.

Speaker 2:

We're on Facebook and all those other things as well, too, and there will, of course, be links in the show notes listeners, so you can connect that way too. Laurie, that just leaves me to say for today I think you're awesome. I've got my exclusive booked in with you for January 2025. So until then, thank you very much for being my guest. Thanks, bill, it's a pleasure, and listeners, as always, until next time. Happy working.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work? Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom.

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