CEO "Tips his hat" to entire LearnKey family!

Last week we had a great company meeting via Zoom!

Was great to get all of us connected. We did it last month and everyone really liked it. Gave us an opportunity to share some updates, successes, and talk about what we can do to give back during these times. What I have observed over the past 90 days with regards to this team and the work we do is truly amazing. Two weeks into the shelter our entire company went remote and it was because of our leaders: Kim, Marian, Kelly, Chad, Jason, and Sheena, that they were able to pull this off so effectively. We continue to show our “why”: Improving Employability Every Day. Other topics we covered included:

Pre/Post Production – Is completing more courses and domains then they did last year. Working together, being resourceful, and a big shout out to Natasha Nelson for plowing through IC3 (newest update) last week, which had to be prioritized due to a new exam release coming out in the fall. I know this one, she had short notice and Marian said she rocked it. Natasha, thank you – having people like you in production is going to enable us to shoot more courses in a year than ever before.

Career Pathways utilizing PDP – This is going to be a game changer the Know Your Talents team (specifically Kiley Leonard) has worked with key members from LearnKey (Jason, Ben, Beth, and Jacob) to build job models representative of LearnKey career pathways. Incorporating this into the learning experience for our students and teachers will be another one of our “secret sauces” when it comes to students leveraging their talents and acquiring important employability skills.

Leadership Development – I am thrilled with the progress our leadership team is making with identifying true metrics, or what are being termed as “rocks” for each team and leader. As I stated in the last update and newsletter our teams are focused on getting better. All LearnKey employees participated in the Organizational Effectiveness Survey (OES) and most recently quarterly reviews. Based on your feedback, the LearnKey leadership team, working with the Know Your Talents team, these initiatives I believe are going to make a big difference long term. One of the big things that has come out of this is developing a recognition program for all employees when we reach our goals on a monthly basis. So we can all celebrate. Additionally, I am starting to work with another wave of team members to start our own internal leadership development program. It pleases me that we are truly doing what we told you we were going to do. A lot more work- but the path to success is becoming real clear. Our “why” will always be Improving Employability Every Day, but what are some of our Big Hair Audacious Goals, better known as “BHAG”, that can tie to a true vision? Well, those are in the works and we will begin to share next month. So stay tuned.

LearnKey K-12 – We just shared the most incredible promotional video about LearnKey in the classroom that includes multiple interviews of teachers and business partners. This project was just completed by Kim Johnson and Seth Magers very grateful that teachers like our courses.

How can LearnKey give back? We have kept you up to date on the free course offer for our schools and students and as of last week 1300 schools and 19K students took advantage of this great offer. Well, now we want to take it a step further to those who are unemployed in the states where we have a presence: AZ and UT. We have hired a PR firm to help us with the messaging and our plan is to roll this out sometime in July.

LearnKey in the coming months will be exploring a course for learners in the “new environment” that will focus on topics long overdue with regards to: equal justice, understanding where racism remains in 21^st century, civics, understanding govt., social media etiquette, cultural empathy, social responsibility – what is expected of citizens, finding truth and facts in media, these are just to name a few topics. We are already in collaboration with an author and will be doing our due diligence and promise to keep you posted on our progress. Again, the hope is this is our way of giving back during these changing times.

Before I ended the meeting, as a leader of this company, it would not have been right if I didn’t bring up some major uneasiness going on right now in our country. There is a tremendous amount of frustration, hurtfulness, and fear. The past 90 days has forced us to shelter, put the US in a recession, and exposed some true weaknesses in hospital, law, govt., and supply chain. Will we get through this? Yes, because we are the United States. Will there be scares, more frustration and stress? Yes, there will be. Do we need better leadership? Yes, we do.

I share that my goal is to focus on what I can control: Love my family & friends, be the best leader I can be for LearnKey, and make sure that we as a team respect one another each and every day. You see my quotes that over the last year have been primarily focused on one word: “Respect”. This is the one thing that I will demand from myself first and then to each and every one of you. Just so you know as soon as we feel more comfortable with travel between AZ and UT Lori and I will hit the road to visit every UT office as soon as we can.

Again, I tip my hat to the entire LearnKey family for working as one team and truly Improving Employability every day.