Interview with Dr. Keith Keating
Photos courtesy of Dr.Keith Keating

Dr. Keith Keating, chief learning and development (L&D) officer at BDO Canada, discusses the importance of learning and development and how AI is changing the work landscape.

Not every company has a learning and development department. Would you talk about its role?
In 2022, McKinsey identified that an estimated 40 percent of those who left their jobs the previous year did so because they didn’t have careerdevelopment opportunities. People want to be developed, engaged, and challenged and know they have a future—L&D, also sometimes known as talent development, focuses on ways to do this. Across the globe, L&D is a solution to a multitrillion-dollar issue. Employees are the most important resource in any organization. As more leaders begin to acknowledge this, L&D continues to grow in relevance as the key support system to developing those resources. I view us as the changemakers in a company: When change happens, it’s rapid and employees are impacted, and we help them lean into the new culture or products and develop new skill sets. This, in turn, drives value for the company via retention and employee engagement.

Is such awareness the purpose of your book, the trusted learning advisor?
Yes. L&D practitioners are largely treated as order takers in organizations —somebody else determines the problem and the solution and tells us what to do, such as creating a thirtyminute web-based training session to talk about culture changes. But there’s a science behind what we do, so we can explain things like why certain engagement tactics work and others don’t. My book aims to help those in the L&D industry evolve into strategic business partners who are embedded in their businesses and involved with everything from generating ideas to executing its mission.

Do companies foster L&D enough?
Companies may say they believe in lifelong learning, but it’s largely lip service. For example, for my doctorate dissertation, I interviewed Fortune 500 chief financial officers. Everyone I spoke to said they found value in L&D in their organizations, but when I asked how they attached value to it, they largely couldn’t answer—many couldn’t even tell me anything about their L&D departments. A CFO’s responsibility is to understand the value of every business unit in their organization, so I encourage L&D practitioners to find out what language and measurements are important to their CFOs to help quantify what L&D is doing to help the company thrive.

One of the processes I’m trying to put in place at BDO is setting a minimum- annual-hours requirement for growth. I don’t care if they’re the CEO or executive assistant—I want them to consistently spend sixty hours throughout the year discovering something new, whether that’s playing the guitar, trying a different recipe, or learning AI.

Speaking of AI, it offers clear benefits for businesses, such as increased efficiency and lower costs. But is it a real concern for employees?
I want to say it’s complicated, but I don’t think it actually is. AI replacing the workforce is a myth the media plays into because it loves to focus on fear and clickbait—for example, truck drivers were supposed to be out of jobs by now because of self-driving cars, but they’re more in demand than ever. In addition, anytime something new is introduced, there’s a fear of the unknown. That happened with the advent of the weaving loom, books, cars, ATMs, smartphones, and even the teddy bear. We’re in the same place now with AI. We just need to understand what it is: primarily a way to find and eliminate inefficiency gaps that exist in organizations.

To reach this understanding, companies need to educate their employees about it, but employees also need to educate themselves. AI such as ChatGPT is available to anyone with a computer or smartphone, so play with it, learn about it, and embrace it. Does it do some things better than us? Absolutely. But in the context of your job, focus on how it can free you up to do things you are better at, such as empathy, compassion, and relationships. After all, there is no version of the future that exists without AI; it’s not going anywhere. At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, where I had the privilege to speak, the most interesting thing I heard was “It’s not if AI wakes up. It’s when AI wakes up.”

How game-changing can AI be to the world at large?
I believe that AI, with its immense potential, will play a vital role in making the world better, democratize educational experiences, and, ultimately, be a great equalizer. In ten years, we’re all going to have access to this problem solver that knows us, works with us, and coaches us to help us grow. The larger issue is that half the world currently doesn’t have the internet. So for this great tool to truly revolutionize the future, we need to address some inequalities—and soon.

Is shifting to this AI reality another example of how L&D helps businesses?
Yes. We encourage and enable talent to take control over their destinies through the power of lifelong learning, including about AI. For example, I’m not a know-itall; I’m a learn-it-all. I’ve learned how to access the tools that can help me learn, which is an asset wherever life takes me. My mission is to help people in the workforce understand this truth because it unlocks their full potential and makes them unstoppable, whether they’re an employer or an employee. At the end of the day, paving your future is all about learning.

TAKE ACTION:
Examine your company to see how it can benefit from dedicated talent development.