Ginni Rometty, Executive Chairman, IBM
Interviewer: Alan Murray, Chief Executive Officer, Fortune

MPW Summit 2020: A Passion for Workforce Reskilling

Uncategorized

Retraining workers has long been a focus, but now the need for reskilling is even more urgent.

re skilling workers and changing hiring practice has been a rallying call of Ibn Executive Chairman Ginny Rometty for quite some time now jenny, foreign ginny joints. Fortune See Alan Murray to talk about why it needs more urgent than ever. Allen over to you, jenny, thanks for being here. Uh this is your first time on the M P W. Stages, Executive chair of IBM after eight years as Ceo of IBM. So tell us what an executive does. Ellen a lot and that is no critique of my, my my successor, but in these moments actually got a lot of big things we're working on at IBM. Um but these moments also require you to do things that you didn't do before and uh and so there is plenty to do here. And my husband actually tells me I'm doing more than I used to do before, even if that was possible. And how do you delineate between what the executive chair does, what the Ceo does. Oh, that's great clarity. I mean the Ceo is there and our friend is doing a fantastic job of running the company. So they are the operational arms that runs the company and I'm there to both help him and do things he needs and wants some help with. Be sure there's a great transition and work on topics like what we're talking about right now, um, this whole area of skilling some of these things that are really important for the long term of both the world and the company. That's a great segue. It's my job to do the segways, but that's all right. You can, you can turn us to the topic at hand. I've known you throughout the eight years you were Ceo and I know how much of your time and attention and energy you spent on this topic, training and re skilling and it wasn't just training and re skilling future IBM employees, you were doing it as a with broader social goals in mind. So tell us why this has been so important to you. Yeah, this is it's a question I've I've had the chance in this moment in time to think a bit about because when you said and looked at me and said, would you do this? And the title with passion? I mean for me this is more than a passion. I think it has turned into both the purpose and I hope it's one of my great legacies maybe one day because I hope in addition that hoping to the left IBM with a great technology platform, this hybrid cloud, this platform around what does it really mean to be a responsible steward? And when you had asked me to kind of round out this interview with you and it made me think back, I did some early interviews with you at the beginning of my tenure. And I thought about this journey, I almost call it a journey of discovery here. Because I was thinking back, it was like, you know my story, I was raised by a single mom. We were on food stamps at a time because my mom didn't have an education, so he got one and everything turned out great. But it started there and then I thought about my first day of Ceo and I can remember being at IBM research and telling the group look, you know, David would be a competitive advantage, but all jobs are going to change. And then over my eight years I was just every day looking at pictures, it didn't matter what country I was in, whether it was Prime Minister abe prime minister modi whether it was Chancellor Merkel, whether it was Thailand Morocco, I said everyone jobs is currency that everywhere in the world there was one common currency in a job and then I fast forward in time this idea that the digital era, as you saw it start to val what got me. So as you said passionate, but to me the most purpose is the digital era became clear this was not going to be an inclusive era, ironically the whole technology about being inclusive was not going to be inclusive, there be have have not and it was going to move so fast with the people behind and every one of these steps, you know, starting with my childhood, but that first day, so that all those meetings to this point about this being an inclusive era is what led me to this moment and and this is what I have been so passionate. I was just saying to someone earlier, I think everyone watching, it doesn't matter what job you're in. I mean, we have a moment that's been caused by circumstances that this could be the largest mobilization of corporate corporations in the world. To actually solve what is to me, a critical issue around society about what is going to happen with so many people who are underserved by this era. Yeah. And I want to go into precisely what that means in in a minute. But I just wanted to ask you, you were passionate about this before the pandemic kits. The pandemic seems to have uh uh, increase the challenge in two ways when it is clearly accelerated the pace of the technological transformation and two, it's been very unequal in its effects. I mean, all recessions are unequal, but this one in particular has hit the people without good jobs, high wages, good education much harder than those of us who are knowledge workers and can, you know, we're on Absolutely. I mean, it's funny, I saw the very beginnings of this is that the at the very start when in the US it started to sink in what was happening with the pandemic. We had a meeting. I said, you know what, we could see this starting to happen. Are women leaders as an example? You can start to see saying, well I've got to spend more time at home, maybe I should go part time, maybe I should do some things. And I've seen some articles in the recent days. I feel like we saw that months ago to say, oh my goodness, first reaction was this could really impact all of our diversity of efforts that we worked so hard on. It isn't that men don't take care of their Children, don't interpret it that way. It's just if you were looking at where some of the burden was starting to fall and then, as you just said, I'm on a commission to reimagine new york, the unemployment is huge and it is all it is way disproportionate to black and women, people that are out there. And so to me that's why this is almost a trifecta, right? We had an issue for the digital era. Now enter Covid, then enter the economy and then enter. Now this resulting everything that's happened around racial injustice, right? So whether it was the killing of George Floyd, started this, so you pull all that together and you get this moment that when you say with your passion before now, the issue in my mind is that economic opportunity is the way to social equality because the way to racial just and so if you had a reason before it was because you needed an employee's boy, you have every reason now to focus on this. Yeah. And and the issue here is not whether they're going to be jobs. The issue is whether there is going to be opportunity for people to get those jobs and to be qualified for those jobs. That's right. And to me this is in our control and this is why I am so passionate about harnessing all of us. And again, you don't to be the ceo or the Chr oh it's everyone company to harness them to look at the world differently that your zip code should not determine your destiny. I'm one of those kids and that there are in underserved communities everywhere. With a little help in a few different beliefs. We can pull the people into the middle class and into our company. Okay. So what companies need to do, what is it that you believe needs to happen now to deal with this monumental challenge? Okay. And I've always have never done one of these with you. And I thought, okay, I gotta leave everybody listening with something concrete. And I wanted to fight the problem. My engineer in my head in two sides first, let me say, you know, I was a, your work starts at home. So what do you first do for your current workforce to reschedule them? And then I wanted to talk about pulling in all the underserved. If I could give three pieces of advice that I've learned from the current workforce. The first was to value some propensity to learn more than their skills. It completely changed the way I looked at hiring. It's more about are you willing to learn because still lasts about five years now. So I need people who want to be curious. You can test for that when you hire. The second thing is give them an Ai driven learning system that sounds like so particular, but just think about netflix. If I serve you up shows you want to watch, you watch more shows, just like learning, I serve you up what I know works for you. You will learn more. I now have the data to show you watch more, you'll learn more, you get promoted more, you get paid more. I can prove this. So I say Done # two, give them netflix are learning, so to speak. And then the third thing is you and I were talking about this be transparent for people with people about their skills, in your work force because if I show you what the demand is for your current skill, it'll it'll encourage you to go get new skills and I think the rest takes care of itself. I wanted to, if I could get three concrete things to do for my current work force, it would be that. Now can I quickly, before you go to the external workforce, does the netflix for training exist? Well, um now this is going to sound very self serving. Um We've certainly built, we're happy to share with people. Um so there are things out there and it's a great use of ai that shows you know how to look at what career paths are that work and serve those ideas up to, you know the way you kind of, you like to learn just a couple out there and we have 12 it's not that it's a major business, this is we did it for ourselves, so happy to share. So then I want to flip in our short time to okay now there is so much talent I got into 10 years ago because I needed hires and education system wasn't serving up people we needed so public private partnership and don't wait for government, public private partnership. But the biggest thing I would say to people think of the words pathways, meaning can you embrace people that do not have a four year degree and give them a path into your company to start. I have now got that sort of proof under eight years under our belt, we forced go through all your job requisitions, 43% of all job requisitions at IBM, no longer required before you restart. Second point, it didn't dumb down our workforce. People say, oh, you're watering down the workforce. Oh, contraire. And in fact what we found on their ability to perform their curiosity matched everyone. They lagged innovation one year and then they caught up and by the way, many go back to school. So this idea that you accept a skills approach versus diploma, you'll change your job requisitions and then go to those places. By those way. Those places for us have been 90% black and Hispanic or Atlanta necks that we've gone and been able to then bring all first generation into the company. Got a pipeline With our own program of about 100 50,000 kids around the world. But many places community colleges, this is why I say it is in our hands to actually change society for editors because simple number one number, I like to look at, if I look at a wealth of a black family and and a white family, White on average, $147,000 of wealth, a black family 4000, it perpetuates itself until you break that cycle and that's what is an economic opportunity does. It's fascinating jenny that you talk about this and you, you haven't once mentioned government. I mean, 30 years ago we used to think of this as a government responsibility. If every company does what you just said, is that enough to address the problem? Let me tell you what, it's enough to turn it into a virtuous circle. And in fact, we're working on an initiative with a number of companies, many, hopefully watching on a coalition to hire a million black employees into our workforce is it will make a cycle. And it isn't that you don't work with government because there are progressive community colleges, principles high school, they are there and people who really want to change. So it's finding those, What I have found is none of these providers are at scale. So we have to come together back to where I started a job as currency. We take that binding power, We can go forward on what we need and then we have to be willing to take his skills first approach if you are, I'm telling you that people are out there with the skill and then we can teach them the heart, the hard skills, it's the soft skills they need to help with to come into our workforce is so this is why I feel so you said, we're passionate to me, it's a purpose that we all collectively here, we can actually change. This is the most important thing is the purpose of the corporation that you and I have talked about. It's the business imperative and as a social imperative. Well, let's talk about the purpose of Ginny Rometty because this executive chair gig ends at the end of the year. You are in my book, a very young one. Uh so what happens next? What do you do next? Uh well, my, my first thing to do is just finished up some of my some big things here at I B. M. And then my next I guess I'm following the advice everyone has given me. I've got lots of ideas that I am looking at, but I know that next Alan for me and maybe for many others like me, it's going to be something that has. I wanted to have a big impact on these issues. Can I do something to contribute in my way that uses the platform that's been built here? And I think this is something we all, all of the women who watch, you know, all of us are in these positions. I say at some point you come to recognize that you have been blessed with a platform now. It's just like what to do with it and they like to hear this. Maybe you maybe you create the netflix of training. Well, I wanted to do something that really helps bring all the underserved communities into this economy. I think this is the most lasting thing we could do, not only, but for our companies. It is good for peace in this world. All right. It's inspiring to hear. I can tell you everyone in the M. P. W. Community is going to be watching. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you. Good to see you.