Human-Centered Workforce Development in an Age of Advanced Technology
A Q&A with Marc Booker
Ever since computer and communications technologies became common in the workplace, educators have explored the best uses of those technologies — not just to boost speed and efficiency, but to leverage the latest technologies with human-centered skills that truly empower students as they take their places in the workforce. How can we feature those skills in workforce education programs in our colleges and universities?
Here, Marc Booker, vice provost of strategy at the University of Phoenix examines how to recognize and promote human-centered workforce development in higher education.
The University of Phoenix has supported human-centered workforce development for 50 years. (Image Courtesy University of Phoenix)
Mary Grush: Is it fair to say that in its 50 years, the University of Phoenix has prioritized curricula that support workforce development and student success?
Marc Booker: Mary, I think it's beyond a fair statement given that our institution was created especially because there weren't a lot of programs for working adult students to learn to navigate and succeed in the workforce or to change careers. So workforce development is part and parcel of who we are, and it is deeply rooted in our DNA.
Grush: Are we heading into a time when what the workforce really needs is the development of new skill sets that are uniquely human — skills that institutional leaders employ to create effective, human-centered programs even in highly technological environments? Is this a new imperative in response to AI or any other current or emerging technology?
Booker: Actually, workforce development has always been a human-centered endeavor at the University of Phoenix. You see this when you look back — over decades — at what we've done to foster the best employees who serve their companies well and ultimately serve society better.
Workforce development has always been a human-centered endeavor at the University of Phoenix.
In workforce development efforts the best place to start is with the person — the human who has the knowledge or teachable skill — because even in the world of evolving and advancing technology, people personalize and add their own creativity and insights to the technical capabilities we already have.
Advanced technology and tools should make us more efficient and allow us to work faster and produce more; there's no argument with any of that. But the human-centered nature of drawing connections and making those connections personal, relevant, and accessible to other individuals always delivers more. It's here where you find the magic of any technology — when it operates through a human lens. And human-centered workforce development is how you offer the skills that impact and represent not only the product and the practice, but also the person.
The human-centered nature of drawing connections and making those connections personal, relevant, and accessible to other individuals always delivers more. It's here where you find the magic of any technology.
To your question about AI, while a myriad of human-centered workforce skills like change management and the effective use of guardrails are applicable and helpful in AI environments, in the big picture AI is just another flavor in the evolution of advancing technologies in the workforce. Right now AI is the most recent, critical example of how we tap workforce development resources by giving students the capabilities and learning content that helps them meet the challenges of the jobs and the environments they're going into.
AI is the technology that employers are requiring more use of by their employees. It pervades most organizations, and we must embrace it in our daily lives. It's our responsibility as educators to include AI in our human-centered workforce toolsets and strategies. But again, while our focus is on AI today, it might be on some other advancing technology five to 10 years from now.
And so, workforce development isn't simply about reacting to any specific tool. It's about skill development and training our students how to think about and use technology to be agile and nimble — to be prepared for whatever comes next. That's how we've evolved and will continue to evolve as we look at workforce development — because it's meeting the needs where our students are, and where employers are as we reach for the goals of advancing society.
Workforce development isn't simply about reacting to any specific tool. It's about skill development and training our students how to think about and use technology to be agile and nimble — to be prepared for whatever comes next.
Grush: How do we recognize skills that are that are uniquely human?
Booker: First, it's important to understand that skill development is the name of the game; not knowledge transfer. Giving you knowledge is not getting you skilled in something. Uniquely human skills are those that bring people together to unlock better capabilities. Skills that allow people to explore connections or consider disparate items together and think through all the outcomes — including how these connections affect people on a personal basis — run the gamut of human skills. All of these skills become components of good critical thinking, which at the end of the day is something that you'll have to teach someone to do.
Giving you knowledge is not getting you skilled in something.
But all too often, people will confuse knowledge transfer with skill development. Because AI is the flavor of the day, I'll use it as an example.
AI can communicate quite a bit, but it lacks true connection in that its communication does not deeply understand its audience without tuning and fidelity. Does AI have the ability to evoke emotions? It has some limited ability. Does it have the same ability as a human to do that? Absolutely not. If you were to say, I need someone to communicate to a group of people to get them engaged for some tough times that are coming up when we'll all need to band together… AI's not going to do that well. It could give you a start, but without human review and a voice, the message may come across as sanitized — and potentially cold. When evoking emotion and rallying around a common goal, you still need a human-centered communicator who understands their audience, understands what's going on, and conveys information in a certain way that allows for the nuance of connection to come through. There are many skills relevant here. For example when you consider ethical reason, adaptability, and empathy, these all still fit squarely in the wheelhouse of humanistic skills. Empathy in particular is a human-centered skill that is key to understanding how all the cues will come across to the people you are communicating with — but it still can't be fully replicated by AI.
These are important factors to consider in human-centered workforce development. And while AI has the ability, as any adaptive technology does, to make us move faster, if you aren't providing a lens or a framework of the human or the human ability, you're going to be missing out and falling short of your objectives to get better results.
Grush: Why is it important for institutions aspiring to develop a human-centered workforce to consider prior learning assessment and articulation strategies?
Booker: Prior learning assessment is the recognition of learning that the student or learner already has, that they bring to the table. But the challenge with this is that in some cases, institutions are hesitant to recognize learning from another institution or another source because they want to train the student on all the things that they think are pertinent and in the way that the institution has set up its own requirements. And so historically, it has been a challenge sometimes that institutions may not accept prior learning or prior transfer or articulate credits as effectively as they could.
Often what can happen when these policies are too restrictive is that the student ends up repeating content and feeling disengaged because they're repeating what they already know. This is something we actively try to minimize any way we can at University of Phoenix.
It's so important that articulation and prior learning is recognized for all students. And it's often doubly so with older adult working students, because they're coming to the table with experience that enriches your campus. You want them here. They've experienced things in the workforce that they contribute to your learning programs and can share skills and expertise with your own learners, who may not have had similar experiences.
And here is where advancing learning mobility technologies and strategies can help institutions by allowing students to take learning from other arenas and apply it forward, into their new environment. Providing trustworthy and replicable data sets or criteria allows institutions to decrease barriers on content reviews and apply outside learning towards degree requirements. Leaning into learning mobility helps unleash student potential so that they get credentialed sooner and serve society with their human-centered workforce skills.
Leaning into learning mobility helps unleash student potential so that they get credentialed sooner and serve society with their human-centered workforce skills.
Leveraging students' prior knowledge and skills becomes strategically important, because if you can recognize their experience, two things happen: First, you get a more diverse student body. Second, when you recognize who the student is as a whole person, they're more likely to stay and complete their degree. There are ample statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and others about the benefits of prior learning assessment for retention. I've seen this not only in the NCES data, but also in results at the University of Phoenix as well as borne out in my own work collegially supporting other schools in expanding their learning mobility strategies.
Grush: I know you've contributed substantially both to programs in your professional community as well as at the University of Phoenix. Could you tell me a bit about one in particular, the Leadership Development Institute that you founded with PACRAO, and how it has provided a means for education professionals to foster human-centered workforce development skills at their own institutions and in their own career pathways?
Booker: For the Leadership Development Institute, our goal (with me as a founding faculty member and a dean for the program later on) was to help people in the higher ed field increase their workforce development skills to expand their roles at the institutions that they serve. We designed a multifaceted program focused on human-centered skills such as leadership, communication, and public speaking, as well as technical skills including running an institution and balancing a capital budget.
And it was a way for me to give back. My work at the University of Phoenix has been very enriching, and that is why I have served here for 25 years, but the Leadership Development Institute has been one of my outside volunteer efforts that was truly amazing and rewarding because I've had the opportunity to help other people grow their careers and be empowered through human-centered workforce development that extended beyond the walls of my institution.
That's what it's all about, whether it's my students at the University of Phoenix or people I supported through professional associations — seeing them grow and realize their dreams is what drives me as a leader.
[Editor's note: For PACRAO members, the application deadline for the Leadership Development Institute's 2026-2027 cohort is July 31, 2026. For information on this membership-based event, contact PACRAO.]