Agile learning is upon us! Will you be ready?
This is certainly a challenging time in many ways, but this time has presented us with immense opportunities to do things differently. So far, we have witnessed our lives being digitised at unimaginable speeds. Businesses are prepared for remote working in an instant, with no sophisticated IT project plans or scrum meetings to execute the transition. Within days, IT departments were delivering laptops to employees’ homes. We even saw large call centres uprooted and distributed into homes nationwide. In short, our lives were disrupted, and we were forced to immerse ourselves into a near 100% digital lifestyle, and we coped! Individual mindsets and organisational capability to be agile have progressed years in just months!
Our mindset and behaviour towards work have also changed rapidly. So now is the time to harness this positivity, enthusiasm, lean-thinking attitude and ensure that we do as much as possible to support businesses and individuals to gear up for their future. People have started to focus on personal growth by investing in personal & professional development. So learning will become more significant in any organisation’s future.
Since our world of work has been majorly disrupted, organisations will now call for newer & higher skills in people, but most importantly for a multi-talented workforce. So don’t expect to go back on this trend! The present circumstances have also brought to light the need for two prominent skills in every employee; digital and emotional skills.
The key question to businesses and business leaders is, do you intend to invest in the future? And if you have the investment to make, do you have the resources to implement your intention? I don’t mean your training department implementing old-school learning methodologies. Can your team deliver new-age learning experiences?
Most business training is focused on the here and now of their people and skills agenda. Developmental activities are focused on “The skills that have arrived”, for example, basic customer service training. A small percentage of training activities focus on “skills in progress – evolving skills”. However, only a very small proportion are delivering training on “skills in anticipation – emerging skills”, for example, lean-thinking in designing customer journeys to improve customer experience. Hence, in such a rapidly evolving employment and skills landscape, where a new line of thinking and technology continues to disrupt previously successful business models, the ability to anticipate and prepare for future skills is increasingly significant for organisations. To future-proof your organisation by understanding the skills you need in the future (“skills in anticipation”) and source them.
What will the learning and development strategy catering for “skills in anticipation” look and feel like? Well, start by developing a proactive approach to understanding the current and emerging risks and opportunities in your sector; this will help you focus your efforts in the right area of your training strategy. Couple this by leveraging technology to create highly personalised learning experiences; then you are set for a quick win.
So how do you make personalised learning experiences?
- Increase the accessibility of learning resources to your employees. In this fast-changing world, learning needs to evolve, and it must be easily accessible, agile and flexible.
- Make learning integrated into the routine workflow, with accessibility to credible and reliable learning resources.
- Create a “just in time learning arrangement”, where people learn as they work and work as they learn. An on-demand model (Netflix of L&D).
- Invest in integrated learning platforms; this will help eliminate the need to create new content. Instead, you can simply curate from a vast array of content, resources and programmes already available (open sourced).
- Explore digital learning; from apps, digital simulations, virtual reality and augmented reality.
Finally, to truly transform your learning and development team. Uproot L&D from HR. In my opinion, learning is best positioned outside of HR and inside operations.