The Future of Work Is Human: Danielle Wallace on AI, Empathy, and Effective Learning

In this episode of Catalysts, I’m joined by Danielle Wallace, Chief Learning Strategist at Beyond the Sky and host of You in 2042: The Future of Work. With a background in marketing and leadership roles at companies like Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo, Danielle brings a uniquely human—and deeply practical—lens to some of the biggest shifts happening in the world of learning and work.

We dive into how AI is reshaping workforce expectations, why empathy and emotional regulation are the real future-proof skills, and what it actually takes to design learning that drives behavior change.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• AI won’t replace us—but it will reshape what “valuable” work looks like.
• Skills like empathy, adaptability, and critical thinking are no longer optional.
• Content-based training is flooding the market, but it’s practice that drives change.
• AI can accelerate soft skill development—when paired with intentional design.
• Effective learning starts with the right business conversations, not content.
• The cost vs. effectiveness debate in L&D is really a question of priority.

If you’ve ever wrestled with how to balance emerging technology with human connection—or how to make soft skills training actually stick—this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen now and learn how to build learning solutions that are both efficient and effective.

🔗 Connect with Danielle:
LinkedIn | Beyond the Sky

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Transcript

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Hey there and welcome back to Catalysts, the leaders shaping the future of learning and growth. I'm your host, Jacob Ratliff, and this is the show where we spotlight the bold thinkers, builders, and leaders who aren't just responding to change in our industry, they're driving it. And today I'm joined by Danielle Wallace, who is the chief learning strategist at Beyond the Sky Customer Learning Solutions with past leadership roles at Procter & Gamble, and PepsiCo, Danielle brings a sharp marketing mind and strategic clarity to one of the biggest questions organizations face today. How do we help people grow at work? Especially as AI is reshaping everything. She's also the host of You in 2042, The Future of Work, a podcast exploring what the coming decades mean for how we lead, learn, and how we live. Danielle's work sits right at the intersection of technology, humanity, and transformation, and I can't wait to dig in. Danielle, thank you so much for being on today. I'm really excited about our conversation. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you. So one of the things I love to do is start with the big picture, the big question, which is what do you see as the biggest shifts shaping the future of work right now? So I'm definitely seeing this coalescence of past trends coming through to current trends. um Past trends being our shifting labor force, just the changing demographics that we're seeing across the world, but especially in North America, where I sit. Combined with technology, which has always been there, but now accelerated by, it's all over the news, generative AI, and the work world where we have an increasing need for efficiencies. an increasing need for the population base in general who wants to be doing more work that they enjoy or find fulfilling. All of these are leading together towards a future work world, which is heavily augmented with AI and where us as employees, as leaders, where we're in turn cultivating the skills to work alongside AI with our own uniquely. human skills that only we can bring. Absolutely. And so how are these shifts changing the way people grow and succeed inside organizations and how are they even changing what it means to grow and succeed? Yeah, great question. So growing and succeeding in an organization, you know, in past years has been about being able to get the job done. So having the right skills, right competencies, you know, getting the job done. As we look out, and part of that's also having the right credentials, the right schooling, the right signals, right signals that you can get a job done. As we look out in the future, in like, you know, five years future, we're seeing Well, what if I can do all those base level skills with AI? Like where does it, does it matter so much anymore if I didn't go to school for computer science, but you know, I can code using five code. Or if I am in a world that requires writing skills and my, my background is not as an English major. Actually, I don't even speak English as an, um, English is one of my additional languages, but what does it matter if I don't have that expertise, experience or credential on that, if I can use generative AI to write for me in the format that I want. that past, we're shedding off some of the past thinking. We will be shedding off some of the past thinking about what it takes to be successful at work and heading into an era where those are uniquely skills and skill gaps, like some of those new emerging skill gaps that we'll need to work effectively. with AI. those skills become, and that mindset becomes instead what we can cultivate going forward into the future. So it sounds like we're really redefining how humans relate to their work in the first place. What is the role of human involvement and human work in an organization? Exactly. And it's a whole model reshift as well, where currently we have a business has a challenge, an organization issue, like a reason to exist. The business has a reason to exist. And the typical solution on that currently is defaulting to all hire people. I hire people to do that. Business grows more, hire more people, I hire. Which is great. And it's fabulous. But if you look out again, those shifts, the changing demographics, you know. That's going to be affecting the labor force regardless. And the fact that we're driving for more efficiencies, every organization is, and technology. What if instead these organizations can grow forward with a much smaller workforce, with more use of autonomous agents, more use of AI, more use of what's yet to come. And then instead have their smaller workforce have the right mindset to embrace change, to learn, and then the right practical skills. which then become a bit different. Those practical skills are more about being able to effectively work alongside AI and supplement some of the gaps that will happen nonetheless. Thank you. And so as you're seeing organizations who may be say ahead of the curve in this really massive revolution, what are they doing differently that other organizations aren't? So a big key thing is driving actually today, it's driving these uniquely human skills. these enduring human capabilities or soft skills. So leading organizations are actually leading in to more. learning solutions, which could be training, that better foster empathy within their workforce, critical thinking, communication skills relating with others. And these are skills that people need to have today anyhow. And those happen and those align with the World Economic Forum's future skills as well. And they're the skills that are more uniquely come to a premium in the future. where people do need to be able to have the critical thinking. The critical thing is a particular gap we have in our workforce at large. The critical thinking to be able to discern, work alongside AI, to apply logic, like some of higher mental processing as an example, as well as like the uniquely human skills, the empathy, um caring, compassion. Those organizations that are leaning forward and bracing more into that. At the same... what I'm currently seeing now is more organizations also leading into uh more 2025 skills that poise well for future. So 2025 skills, adaptability, resilience, 2024 skills, 2025 skills, things that are definitely needed in today's day and age and still help this future workforce because things are just going to be changing more. We're not going back to a world I think, but even when I started the work world, where it was much more predictable, that's not happening. So as we look out, even some of those more reactionary skills that leading organizations are leaning into, that as well, places us, them well for the future of work. Thank you. And I'm hearing this emphasis on uniquely human skills, right? The things that AI can't do, the things that, if we're being honest, AI will probably never be able to really do. And you said that, yeah, these are the things that, soft skills that we should probably be developing in people anyway, right? And I don't think anyone would disagree with that. However, my question is having worked with lot of organizations developing soft skills, always, the rub is always, what's the business case? What's the ROI for it? Right? Because it's so hard to measure. So I'm curious, how do you think about kind of developing these uniquely human soft skills in relation to kind of the concrete business case for why objectively it's a good idea? Yeah. And that's such the fascinating part of our discussion because I see across organizations and I mean, not only is training often cut, which is fair people, that's totally fair, but what often is added cut on top of that is an investment in a longer term because inherent within that. it's part of it's a disservice that we as learning development professional have not done. that, that's that issues on us not showing our value. But part of the other part of that is if you don't do anything, you know, the business still runs. If you don't develop your people, it's totally fine. You'll still go for another year. Will you go for the five years? I don't think so, actually. I don't think you will. I think you'll get turnover and you'll your culture will atrophy and your leaders will atrophy their skills. so that's where it becomes interesting. You know why the investment in these, these future skills. And I think ultimately. will be, we'll see it. So in the absence of us as a profession showing a value, regardless of that, we'll see it in organizations that are leaning forward versus those that are not. I even think back to, again, this is qualitative, but back to my experience at Procter & Gamble where I started my career. Procter & Gamble within the consumer packaged goods industry is really known for developing their training and developing the people. it's why you go there. And it's awesome. As anybody who's ever worked at P &G can attest. And then you see that you see the output. the company makes a big investment and you see the output in the products are launched to market. You see the output in the business results. Like you can see the output in terms with other organizations that don't invest that same level in their people, a different strategy. Totally get it. But you just see the difference output in the long-term share price. Like you can actually observe the input and then being a part of that was, it's pretty obvious as well. Like it's really obvious. So. that's on the qualitative side. Yes, developing our soft skills, helping our people skills actually will pay out. And then hopefully it also pays out for those individuals, not just their work world, but in their entire world. So maybe especially with these soft skills, power skills, maybe employees when they're outside of work can have authentic conversations with their loved ones. They can actually effectively communicate. to those they want to be communicating with in their life. They can actually have these effective skills, not just to work, but through their entire life. Then that's ultimately what's fulfilling for people. Yeah, and I'm hearing this distinction, and this is my own language interpreting it, between leading and lagging indicators, right? The leading indicators being, are you developing your people in this way? The lagging indicators being, okay, here's how that's impacting the share price. Now, you mentioned training a couple times, and I want to talk about that, especially in relation to actual concrete behavior change. because I know I've seen, and I'm sure you've probably seen as well, that there's so much training out there on soft skills that is so heavy on concepts and theory, but when it comes to actually creating long-term sustainable behavior change, it falls short. So my question is, with all of the emerging technologies that we're seeing, with all of the rapid change that's happening, What opportunities do you see for learning and development practitioners to leverage training to actually create that behavior change? it's as if you've been reading my inner mind and thoughts. This is awesome for an unprompted question. So to your point, there is lots that's happening right now already in the landscape of a lot of these soft skills. You can take courses, you can watch videos, there's public courses, whatever. There's so much out there. There's always been a lot out there. And on one side, we're seeing I see the amplification of this. I I project there's going to be more. Just like we say, content-driven courses. Great. I can learn more about empathy. Great. I can watch more videos. I can read more texts. I can read blogs. I can read courses, whatever. I can take a test at the end. Do I understand what empathy is? Yes, I can write down and I defining it and you know, voila, I take a test. pass. Great. Now I'm empathetic. Awesome. No. So I see the, I unfortunately see the increase of that going forward because of the rapid increase of tech products that allow for that to be done even easier, creating ineffective courses faster. So on the other side, where those in the learning and development industry and people leaders have an opportunity to really rise is having an application focused mindset that actually drives skills practice, not just concept series. actually drives learning transfer. Putting that forward into our working world, into our learning initiatives, into our on the job behaviors and coaching and that work ecosystem, that's what drives change and actual skill improvement. So our role as professionals is to be able to support that future vision, which we hopefully know how to do or if not, that's totally fine. There's definitely things. I speak a lot about that, about effective learning. So we can propel that forward. And where I'm playing in is creating more effective learning using AI. So doing so in a way that drives measurable results, learning outcomes, not just the concepts and the theories that you started as you spoke about this, Jacob. Yeah, I think it, I you mentioned this, that it all, so much of it comes down to practice, right? And in the model that I frequently use with my clients, we are specifically teaching soft skills. There's so much practice and so much small group work done with a facilitator, which means there's one facilitator for every four participants. And it's a great model. The results we get are insane, unheard of. But it's expensive, right? Because for a cohort of 16 people, need to pay four facilitators, four coaches to be there. And I'm seeing so much opportunity for how we can transform the way we approach practice, uh specifically using AI. uh It's super, super exciting. uh So I know that one of your big focuses specifically focusing on the human side of AI. What does that mean in practice? Can you unpack that a little bit for us? Yeah. it's being able to even piggybacking what you said, Jacob, being able to enable practice of these very human skills, emotional regulation. Like that's a pretty human skill that me as a as a human has my AI account for it has no problem with that. um But we can then actually use AI to help evoke situations that enable me as a human to practice. So I've created scenarios that allow me to provide an opportunity for emotional regulation. these, it's all practice. Everything becomes practice driven at that point. So with technology, we're able to even help increase these uniquely human skills using a technology that has no emotion at all. Well then that's the beauty of it. So me as a human practicing these unique human skills, I can do so. than with an AI that I know is objective. If I get super angry and mad, it doesn't matter. Like, it's not going to get mad at me back unless I program that. Everything's still under the control of the human. That's where we're able to dive deeper into fast forwarding some of these uh unique power skills in a way at scale and forever much more efficiently than we could in the past. It's a neat compliment. We're trying to build human skills, but using artificial intelligence to do so. Yeah, mean, just objectively looking at how AI is developed and how it's trained, it's trained on human content, on human material. And so it's this weird, almost paradox of it's objectively not human, but in some ways is a really great representation of humanity, for better and for worse, right? Right. Definitely. But at times even just looking at the skills standpoints, there's also things that we can look to from an AI tool model system that we can't have to the right level we want in our human counterparts. I mentioned critical thinking. Critical thinking is like a big one. That's a gap. But recently I've been uncovering the fact that... um There's a critical thinking gap in my team member. What are my junior team members? I don't know if I can solve this, like just given his skillset, like, I don't think I can ever solve that. So I created a program. was trying to update timelines. I created a program and said that just does, takes that work off his plate because he's not able to use the critical thinking to fact check like how a timeline sequence goes. No problem. I've can program in. not critical thinking per se, but that consistent objective thinking about how to read a timeline. I can program that in. So suddenly I have my AI that has more critical thinking skills than my assistant. That's an interesting place where we're heading to the balance of where we're at some point where we're able to provide critical thinking to those that it's just going to take, like, it's just not their thing. Like they're just not going to be wanting to move there. No problem. We're able to augment them then with their own, their own crutches, their own, their own sidekicks to help them get their job. Yeah, so one of things I talk about a lot with my clients is um very much related. So specifically around people skills, right? Helping people develop people skills that if you and I looked at them, we might say, they're not really quote unquote people people, right? They're not, they're never going to be the like warm and fuzzy, easy to relate. And I see a similar, you know, issue here with critical thinking of we might be able to teach them but there's still always going to be a little bit of a gap. And so one of the ways I've tended to approach it, that question, is around kind of a paint-by-number approach to say having a difficult conversation or uh tackling an issue that requires strategic thinking. uh How effective do you think That approach isn't how and what would the look at the role of AI be in that? Yeah. Great question, Jacob. So that thinking that that systematic thinking paint by numbers, step by step already in that yourself, other leaders are parsing information and parsing the task to be done, which is one of the key steps when working with, let's say a large language model to get the accuracy you want. is parsing it down to those step by steps. So it not only is very helpful, I used to do this with my team as well. used to parse things down. Great for them because people could execute who they're just going to execute. But now if I'm already doing that work to parse things down step by step, my numbers, I can write a GPT pretty easily to enable that. So I think a practical example of that this weekend, I was trying to reconcile my books. Great. Um, should get someone to do that. Or I'm like, let me just write a GPT for my own use that is able to look at my bank statements, looks what I have in my accounting software and notice where there's differences each month. Like, I mean, I could type up what someone else could do. I mean, I could hire a bookkeeper or I could type up like, you know, look at this bank statement, look at this accounting software, where, don't they match by date? Or if I'm already going to put in that amount of effort, why not just create a GPT and does it all for me? So I created a GPT and done. Like that was faster than it would be for me hiring someone to reconcile this aspect of it or try to train my team to do that aspect. So that that step by step thinking could go far. Yeah, and one of the things, and this may be me nerding out a little bit too much, but one of the things I really love about using ChatGPT when you give it a complex or even really simple task is you can actually, where it says analyzing, you can click that little down arrow and it'll give you it's step-by-step process for how it's actually going about parsing down that issue. Which I think can go a long way if, you know, We as humans are not sure how to tackle our partisan issue. We can ask Chagy P.T. to do it. We can see what it's doing. And then we can start to replicate some of that as well uh in the way that we're thinking about it and use it as a tool to help us think better as well. There's just so many different, right? It's so many different ways to use it. It's something I can talk about all day, that's for sure. I created a free GPT last year that, uh, mostly because people were sending me angry emails. I'm like, Whoa, you should have like, should have had chat GPT send that to you first or revise that first. So, um, I'm just angry. So I created GPT that let people write their angry emails and then it transforms into something nice and it evaluates you and lets you know for future, you know, what word tones you should avoid and your passive aggressive, like things you just might not know. So a learning tool. as well as just a correction tool. And I have just another really great example. There's an episode by the time this episode's airing, it'll be out with Brandon Carson, the chief learning officer at Decebo. And he has created a GPT of himself that anyone can go on access online and basically have a consulting conversation with him as if it's him. uh Now talk about insane, amazing ways to scale yourself. That is huge right there. Exactly. And you put that back to where we started conversation on the world of work and where things are heading and then assets were upscaling people. Then you can start to see where we then as profession can provide the value. Maybe it's not necessarily on those base level conversations, like a consulting piece out of just a more generic base level. It then provides that unique premium. The premium. on the human interactions. So suddenly then being able to people being me through Jacob becomes the premium ability versus your avatar. Yeah, precisely. And so I wanna zoom out for a second because I know that uh you have your own podcast, you're pretty active uh online. And so I always like to ask L &D leaders, when you think about your own leadership visibility, how do you decide what to share publicly? or build thought leadership around how important of a role is visibility when it specifically comes to having an impact as an L &D professional. So I'm very uh vocal within my team and outwardly on effective learning. So because it's something I'm very passionate about. But then a part of that was also ensuring that within my team, we have the right KPIs to measure quality, effectiveness, efficiency. So it's the same message I'm reporting individually, the same fulsome learning initiative we had internally to help upscale my team through series of uh learning sessions as followed up by coaching as well as work opportunities and job shadowing experiences and then on the job application to enable that. So those same things I'm mirroring within my organization are the exact same things I'm speaking with outwardly, mostly because I'm just really passionate about it and you have to walk the talk. So what you're saying outwardly, hopefully it does really align. If it doesn't, and I know leaders where it's not just through circumstances, I'm not under their control. They've not been able to align and it doesn't feel good and they normally find organizations where they can align. So what they're saying outwardly in terms of that walk, in terms of that public message does fit what they're actually practicing. Yeah, mean, right, you can just open up LinkedIn scroll for five seconds and probably find an example of that misalignment. You know, these days, the idea of building your audience and becoming a thought leader is really all the rage, right? Everyone's always talking about it on LinkedIn. But I think you hit on something really critical, which is that when it's out of alignment, when your external messages are not aligned with your internal ones, there's just a disconnect that and it feels and appears fake, right? Yeah. And I think everything comes back around. Like, it's not real. That's such a disservice. my gosh. Such a disservice to the communities we serve. Yeah, so, go ahead. no, was going say, yeah, some things I'm very, particularly passionate about is effective learning and then effectiveness given the need for efficiency in the face of technology. So using technology so we could have more effective learning. Going back to what you said, not just more concepts and there's already too much training out there, but cutting through that to ensure that the limited time corporate employees actually have is spent driving skills that they can use, which often. I a question that is something that I've been wrestling with a lot recently personally, which is the effectiveness versus specifically cost efficiency trade off. So I mentioned that in the way that I put together training, it tends to be really expensive. It tends to work really well. And I have a hypothesis that if you can have 75 % effectiveness as that expensive model but at 25 % of the cost to the organization, right? It's still a win-win even if it's not as effective because you help them achieve it for a fraction of the cost. So my question is, in thinking about that trade-off, what questions would you be asking to figure out where the line is between Like I said, effectiveness and cost efficiency. Yes. So at some point it's, uh, so it ultimately comes to the group that is championing this need. use those words very intentionally. When the need is for a, let's say a training program or learning, a learning solution that is tied to business metrics that is tied to, like people actually need to do this. Like, no, no, no, they, they, like, they really like full stop. need to have. these practices in our workforce, we need safety, okay? There's zero tolerance for anything, for any fatalities, like full stop safety, whatever, whatever. Those are the organizations that are more likely to get from the outset this idea of effective training. What we're faced, but effective training for that particular topic. The challenge at large with this is much of the, those not within the learning development sphere don't understand the concept of what is effective. And what you're talking about, lots of courses online, great concepts, yada yada, not practice. Yeah, I can check the box. I'm empathetic now. Unfortunately, those are much of the work much of the work world doesn't understand that if I take a course, I'm not just trained. So if I take a course, great, I can take an empathy course from an online platform for very little cost. Great, but was it actually worth my time? So those employees, the workforce aren't thinking about that. That's the actual challenge, Jacob. Hmm So the challenge from the get-go is what is effective, what is worth it. And do you actually need people in the end to be safe? Yeah. Do you need people who are following the anti-money laundering laws, not just checking the box? Like, no, no, like we want to avoid fines and it's a bad thing to do to fund organizations we shouldn't be funding. Okay, that's part of where it comes to effectiveness. And then it's a different conversation on where the costs are and where the magnitude is. Very neat specific. Certainly is what I'm hearing. Right. But part of that is um why I'm so passionate about this topic is I'm trying to help our, least us as an industry, realizers and discern that difference between creating a course, fine, to create something that's actually effective, that has that skills practice, that has the coaching, that has the application. And that's really the world I'm playing. And now using technology in a way that can make them a bit more affordable, but still is solely focused on the application. Absolutely, absolutely thank you. And so in thinking about this kind of big question of learning effectiveness, which you've mentioned is, you know, one of the things you're most passionate about, what advice would you give to L &D professionals who want to be more effective, who maybe suspect that they could be, you know, doing things that are more effective but not really sure where to start? What advice would you have for them? It actually would start with having the right conversations with their business partners. I use the word business partners to be whomever is championing this need. So have those conversations on getting really clear on what the need is that that's being solved. So that's like, in essence, like a mini needs assessment. And it sounds obvious and we as an industry don't do it. We don't have time. There's so many reasons why, so many reasons why we don't do it. But it's actually having those conversations. Ideally, the real conversation, the full conversation, the right business partnerships that that will unlock everything, like everything. Suddenly, then we are able to discern, actually, rather than do this course on anti-money laundering, we need uh this aspect anti-money laundering. We just need a checklist, which is more efficient anyhow. Suddenly, we're able to make the right business decisions from a ah that impact learning. they all interplay together. So it's taking that first step to have a strategic conversation. Yeah, and I think actually I just had a conversation with someone yesterday who said basically in her experience when you know an internal client comes with them with a training need, training is the solution maybe 12 % of the time. That if you have to be able to take that strategic partnering approach to look at the process factors that might be contributing and what are the potential process improvements? What are the environmental factors? and how can we influence those? And so, yeah, the phrase that comes to mind, of course, is being a true strategic business partner rather than just a pair of hands who's developing training. Exactly. And at times we may need to do that, but our ultimate goals should be that strategic partner. Of note, I have a talent development at work, um like mini book created by ATD coming out on this very topic. Excellent. Please let me know the link for that when you have it and I can add it to our show notes as well so listeners can find that pretty easily. So finally, for people who want to follow your work or connect, where's the best place to find you online? Yeah, best place to reach all the free webinars is a lot of free webinars I do and host um is following me on LinkedIn, which I'll put in the show notes as well as beyond the sky dot CA. Excellent. Thank you so much. Danielle, thank you for coming on today. This has been such a lovely, thoughtful conversation. I really appreciate your presence and your willingness to share your insights with us. Thank you so much and thank you so much for help driving the world for more effective learning. Thank you. And if you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to follow Catalysts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, just to make sure that you don't miss what's coming next. And if you're an L &D professional who's really ready to amplify your voice and build a stronger executive presence online, feel free to reach out to me. You can click the link in the show notes or reach out to me on LinkedIn. Thank you for listening and I'll see you next time on Catalysts.