Praxis Labs has announced Pivotal Practice. It is built on the latest developments in Generative AI, learning science, and interactive simulations. According to the company, it will “Offer organizations a solution for optimizing feedback skills, fostering empathy and collaboration, and enhancing communication and innovation across diverse teams.”
At the heart of this is the employee. Improving communication with employees is essential to a productive workforce. Soft skills, especially those for effective management of employees, are hard to teach.
What Praxis Labs is doing here is giving managers and employees the tools to help. The company refers to Pivotal Practice as “an extension of the company’s commitment to elevate and transform the workplace through an equitable and science-backed approach.”
Elise Smith, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Praxis Labs, said, “Candid and actionable feedback is one of the most sought-after yet difficult skills to cultivate in any workplace, and it’s essential to driving career growth, development, and engagement. Yet, there is a lot to be understood around how to give inclusive feedback across diverse teams.
“We see enormous potential in harnessing the latest advancements in AI and immersive technologies to build the confidence and skills needed to provide feedback that helps people of all levels and backgrounds advance in their careers and supports a more inclusive and collaborative workforce.”
What do we know about Pivotal Practice?
Praxis says that “72 percent of employees report that feedback can directly improve their performance.”
So how does Pivotal Practice deliver this? According to Praxis Labs, it is about easily consumed training. It calls these “bite-sized, experiential opportunities for learners to build and reinforce their communication and feedback-giving skills.” Importantly, this is all done in a non-judgemental environment.
The company calls out three key design features of Pivotal Practice. They are:
- Generative AI Grading and Research-Backed Feedback: Learners learn how to give feedback using voice and/or text. It enables different learning and communication skills. They use a private Gen AI environment created by Praxis Labs. It assesses their responses and provides feedback to help them be inclusive leaders.
- Perspective-Taking through Immersive Technology: It helps learners improve their empathy and communication. It is done through the use of immersive simulations where users have to navigate nuanced situations. These help understand the life experiences and identities of those they work with.
- On-Demand Microlearning at Scale: Short, focused, 5-10 minute experiences allow learners to access the material anywhere and anytime. Importantly, Praxis says this can be, “before performance reviews, 1:1s, and team meetings.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Soft skills are incredibly hard to teach and to learn. With a changing workplace such skills are not only in increasing demand but essential. Those entering the workplace today have very different expectations from those from a decade ago. Traditional management approaches must change to avoid increased tension in the workplace.
What Praxis Labs is offering here is a quick way to help people self-educate. The idea of microlearning makes sense but raises other questions. Microlearning has been successful in adding skills, but what about the underlying skills that this will build on? Can those also be reduced to short courses? Will there be a need for a longer, more involved course? How will this mesh with current university and professional training?
Despite those questions, this is an interesting and long-overdue approach to employee management. It will be interesting to see what the courses contain and how it is received by customers.