Blair Milo – Secretary of Career Connections and Talent – State of Indiana
In this episode of The 3rd Question we talk with Blair Milo, Secretary of Career Connections and Talent for the State of Indiana about how she is using technology to cultivate economic mobility in order to attract, develop and connect talent across the State.
Video Transcript
Ryan James:
Hello. Welcome to the third question. A video interview thought series leadership platform that we've been talking to public sector thought leaders from around the country. Today I'm excited to be joined by Blair Milo, Blair is the secretary of career connections and talent at the state of Indiana. So Blair, thank you so much for joining me today.
Blair Milo:
Thanks so much for having me.
Ryan James:
So before we get into our three questions, why don't you give our audience a little bit of your background and your role there at the state and about the state itself?
Blair Milo:
Sure. Well as you mentioned, I had the opportunity to serve as the secretary of career connections and talent for the state of Indiana. I am the first to serve in this position. It was created by executive order, by the governor of Indiana in the fall of 2017, with the idea of being able to have an individual who is able to reach across different state agencies and really actually across different levels of geography and jurisdiction and even disciplines in the state, to be able to think about how we attract, develop, and connect talent.
Blair Milo:
And within those categories, those really representing how we're growing the population, how we're increasing education attainment levels across the state, and ensuring that people are connecting up to the different job opportunities that we are growing that over the course of the last few years, Indiana has been breaking record after record of new job commitments coming forward, higher wages coming forward as a result of these new jobs, which then oftentimes means different skill sets that are required with those new careers. And then that ties back into some of this education piece of how are we ensuring people have the skill sets needed to be able to take advantage of these emerging different types of positions or evolving aspects. And so I have the opportunity to sit amidst the juxtaposition of all of these different areas to be able to help cultivate relationships. And at the end of the day, ensure that Hoosiers are connecting up to the opportunities that are growing and employers have access to the talent pool for them to continue being successful.
Ryan James:
Awesome. Well, let's get into our three questions. So for my first question, I'll ask you about your current role. So as the chief talent officer so to speak, for the last few years at the state, you are also a mayor for a city there in Indiana as well. So you've seen the state and the local government aspects. When you are focusing on the public sector workforce for what we're now in the 21st century, what would you say are some of the top challenges, but also maybe some of the top opportunities that you see at the state and local level of government.
Blair Milo:
Great. And I love how you phrased that question because I absolutely believe that they really are all opportunities, particularly as we think about where changing technology is taking us, which I alluded to previously, we're seeing some higher wages as the result of this. And so it really is cultivating economic mobility for individuals. It's resulting in more money in Hoosiers pockets when they're able to connect up with some higher skill sets and then higher paying positions. The challenges that come along with that are aligning all of the pieces. And so you may have a sense of oh, I can't access the talent pool that I need or the talent pool that I need isn't there, and it's really just a matter of re-imagining what the connection points are and what some of those development opportunities can be.
Blair Milo:
There are tremendously talented individuals to be connected to, but it may just take understanding where they're at, what kind of barriers they may be facing at the moment. And they can be the best employees, they can be the MVPs of your team, particularly when given some different kinds of opportunities because of just aligning that pathway to employment a little bit differently than we've previously operated. And so I think sometimes the challenge is knowing all of those different levers to pull and then who are those partners to engage to make that happen? So if you want to have a partnership with a school, create an internship, create an earn and learn type of experience. How do you do that? That new and different for a number of different places, but the opportunity that it creates not only for that individual coming forward, but really actually for the business or the employer themselves, the gains are tremendous. And we've seen really innovative solutions coming forward in all different sectors, including then the public sector and work that our team with state government is even adopting with some earn and learn type models.
Ryan James:
Would you say, just as a followup to that, would you say that from what your experience at the local level and now at the state level, would you say that the opportunities and challenges are similar or is it easier? Maybe it's easier at the local level because you're talking it's more one-to-one and the state levels big government. I don't know, I'm just curious your thoughts on that.
Blair Milo:
I kind of feel it's almost a reference of sort of tactical and strategic and so that you, at the local level, your boots on the ground, your interacting with people on a day-to-day basis. But not that, I mean, there are different aspects of state government that do that too, like our department of transportation, department of corrections, those kinds of organizations. But from our standpoint, we're now in the more strategic space. And it's so critical to understand the lived experiences, the day-to-day lived experiences of people who are doing the boots on the ground work, because they're the ones where the rubber meets the road. If I can add as many analogies as I can into this discussion. And so I think that it's different skill sets and that's been a learning point for me along the way, but then also what at least for me becomes fun because you get to learn new things and figure out different elements and build relationships with people in local roles and in the different roles of the partners who are going to help solve the various kinds of problems along the way.
Ryan James:
Right. Right. Well, I'm going to shift a little bit for our second question. I want to talk a little bit about technology, especially as it relates to attracting, communication, education, and retaining the public, not just the public sector workforce, but for what you're doing, Hoosier's right? Keeping people in the state of Indiana. I'd say there's probably a general consensus that the public sector tends to lag behind the private sector when it comes to technology. And in particular, when it's empowering the workforce, because whether it's cost and budget, paper, old systems, or we've done these things the same way for a long time, that's very often the talking points that we hear. I guess my ask is, the question is, what are your thoughts on how the government, and I know you're doing some things strategically at the state level, what are some of the ways the government could better implement and use technology when it comes to a talent perspective?
Blair Milo:
Well in this case, I'll give an example of what the Indiana office of technology is doing that relates to the larger sort of people aspect of state government. And they're our IT department, the folks that are on the front lines of technology for many different aspects of state government, and they're a centralized technology service that supports all of our different agencies and they were facing some different challenges around how are they accessing the talent that they need to be able to serve in those different functions. They partnered with our office of work-based learning and apprenticeship, which sits under the governor's workforce cabinet agency. And they built what's called a state earn and learn, which is a variation on the theme of an apprenticeship with some different components built into it. So that then they're training different IT professionals as a part of onboarding them into the Indiana office of technology to then be able to serve in the roles that are needed.
Blair Milo:
They're helping educate people as a part of this process. And some may stay and go directly to work in the office of technology. We've found that there may be some that end up going to work at a different location. And it's actually been pretty rare that they then decide that they're going to go work for a different employer, because they've now had a relationship with state government, like being a part of it. And they appreciate having had the opportunity to be able to gain some different skills that are leading to a really dynamic career field. And so with that, it's bringing forward some really innovative talent within that tech space that are deploying different types of solutions, creative ideas that you might not get if you were limiting yourself to a talent pool of people that were just considering public sector work, or had a specific idea around that they wanted to be a government IT person.
Blair Milo:
And so it's bringing forward a lot more aggressively innovation. And that type of a solution is what creates different kinds of economic mobility opportunities, regardless of a sector that when you have these kinds of earn and learn type of models, where somebody is able to earn wages while they're learning, then that helps reduce the challenges of things like under employment, where you got people that are working two and three jobs, because they can't earn enough money at just one part-time job. And they can't stop one of those jobs to gain the skills needed to have a full career. And so they're kind of stuck with doing multiple part-time gigs, whereas building this kind of an on-ramp creates different kinds of opportunities. And in this particular example, it's helping us have different kinds of technology applications that we're accessing because of just the different types of talent that we're bringing in to the process.
Ryan James:
And I know you mentioned it, your team's also got technology in place for the employers in the state of Indiana to help them find some talent as well.
Blair Milo:
We're very focused as a part of the Indiana economic development corporation in ensuring that our employers have access to basically some concierge services to meet their needs. And so they're tailored to what kinds of talent demands they have and what interests they have, so that then we can connect them up to the right partners, some different types of concepts that are emerging on being able to attract, develop, and retain talent. And then put all the pieces together and to have someone walk with them through that whole process. So it's not just, hey, let me get you a phone number for somebody at the community college [inaudible 00:13:03] godspeed. I know the community college is going to be responsive, but it's also just having that level of comfort of knowing we're here with you along the way. So that then if something breaks down or something like that, which hasn't happened in our experience yet, but maybe that's not happening because we're there along the way with them.
Ryan James:
Right. Right. Awesome. Well, we're already at the third question and for season two, I'm going to bring this up. I give people a blank check or an infinity check. So written out to the state of Indiana, not sure how far it'll go, but the question that we've been asking people this season is if you were handed a blank check that you could use towards your organization, what you're overseeing right now to help grow, evolve, or change it in some way, what would you do with that, and why?
Blair Milo:
Well, without getting too philosophical in the discussion, I do have to say that as a good fiscal conservative, then our blank check certainly would be representative of our taxpayer dollars. So we always want to ensure that those are invested in manners that are going to create the greatest returns for our taxpayers, and that ultimately keep the largest amount of money in the taxpayer's pockets, rather than the governments. And along that same line, I would say that if I'm queen for the day and have whatever resources that I would like to be able to deploy, I think you get your best returns on community and returns on investment when you're establishing these different kinds of collaborations and partnerships with educational institutions to have pathways, not only for people to enter into different types of careers, but to really be intentional about lifelong learning opportunities because of the changing nature of technology, the changing demographics of the workforce, different lived experiences that employees are going to have all along the way, because life is not a constantly linear path for anyone quite honestly.
Blair Milo:
And so I would say putting those towards the intentional experiences that cultivate lifelong learning and the reason being that it creates not only mobility and a sense of earned success for individuals along the way, a sense of value in the work that they're doing. It does good things for the employer that is doing that as well of being able to engage the talent at our peak levels. So that we're able to connect people to using their gifts and abilities and talents in their best sense, which then creates the returns that you want. And in the private sector, that's return on investment, that's profits, whatever. In the Public sector I think it's creating and fomenting economic growth for our state and for the population. So you do get that return on community return on investment by making those sometimes capital investment.
Blair Milo:
And I think about it because I deal most often in conversations with the private sector that I'm having this discussion to say, this isn't about corporate social responsibility. I mean, if you want to look at some of these things that way, I guess that's fine. If you are inclined towards doing those things, which are valuable, but really putting these kinds of experiences in place for members of your team, to be able to gain lifelong learning resources or experiences, it improves your bottom line. You're going to get higher levels of profits as a result of this.
Ryan James:
You find people's strengths, you focus on them and develop them. And if you invest in people, you're going to see returns no matter what the return might be.
Blair Milo:
Yeah. What those barriers might be for people who have the unique talents to be unlocked as a part of your organization's mission. And when you remove those barriers, oh my goodness. The gains that come from it, it's positives, I think all the way around.
Ryan James:
Yeah. Well it's okay. Yours was much more thought-provoking. Sometimes my simple brain has to squeeze it down. Well, I really appreciate the time with you today. I know you've got a lot going on. It's exciting to see what's happening there in the state of Indiana. So thank you for sharing with our audience. Good luck with everything that you've got going on for 2021. And I look forward to staying in touch.
Blair Milo:
Me too. Thanks so much, Ryan.
