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Busy, busy, busy, busy. You always toss out saying “there are never enough hours in the day,” and this is not a joke. The reality hits when your life revolves around unfinished work, crying babies, or continued uncertainties that have left you feeling distracted and scattered.
While business leaders work to support employees to survive these times, they also need to prioritise professional developments to help employees thrive in this environment.
Some think employees are “nice to have” to get all the work done but refuse to invest in learning programs to grow and develop employees. Did you know, 70% of employees would be somewhat likely to leave their current job to work for an organisation known for investing in employee development and learning?
In today’s corporate world, how can organisations innovate and make learning more accessible to employees who now have less time and more to do? Consider these five new learning and development trends!
1. Reskilling and upskilling for the digital workplace
The thought of working from home is far less daunting for the digital generation. Most of them grew up with online lectures and lessons through video-based learning. And YouTube has risen to become a useful platform than school ever would. Coding, for instance, has hundreds of explainer videos on YouTube.
Your employees can learn a raft of new skills relating to their job requirements, considering many traditional jobs will be automated. With the emerging digital transformation trends, it has become easier for the corporate world to learn from professional platforms such as Udemy, Coursera, and LinkedIn Learning.
The Learning and Development (L&D) team can also reward or incentivise workforces by offering time off, raise, or recognition for developing new skills.
2. Learning in the moment of need
It’s about gaining new knowledge when you need it. Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher discussed and identified “five moments of learning need” to help employees apply their knowledge, solve problems, and easily adjust to organisational changes. They are:
- New – Learning something for the first time.
- More – Expand what has been learned.
- Apply – Act upon what has been learned by remembering, planning, and adapting.
- Solve – Using knowledge to solve a problem when something didn’t work out as expected.
- Change – Learn a new way of doing something that requires giving up old, comfortable practices.
It’s about gaining new knowledge when you need it. Conrad Ditch the idea of spending hours on “what-if” training. Learning through real-life work experiences can help connect the dots between the answer given and the problems at hand when your employees experience it first-hand.
“It is not about what they know; it is about what they can do.” – Bob Mosher, CEO and Chief Learning Evangelist at APPLY Synergies
3. Microlearning
Let’s face it; with the 40-hour work week, employees can’t consume in-depth content. They tend to have little time in the day to carve out hours for learning. Josh Bersin, an HR expert, pointed out an average employee only has 24 minutes a week to learn.
Instead of spending hours on an online course, microlearning supplies bite-sized, 2-to-5-minute content to keep the learning brief and to the point without disrupting employees’ work schedules. Short learning modules, each around 10 minutes, your employees don’t need to rework their schedules to attend the session.
Despite the busy schedules, organisations need to keep their workforce updated on the latest skills and knowledge, and what better way to do that than microlearning?
4. Knowledge-sharing ecosystem
Sharing is always caring. Not only is knowledge-sharing helpful for internal communication between executives and employees, but it also develops a more engaged workforce. They need the right resources for any question they may have in their jobs.
Scrap the cluttered information across internal Google Drives, PPT, or word-of-mouth between employees. Consider creating easy access to documentation base, organise the content into internal content-storing platforms with a detailed step-by-step guide.
Your employees no longer need to rummage through different file locations for a simple piece of information. The knowledge-sharing initiative can help you deliver better results, a more productive workforce, enhance idea sharing, and keep your company on the cusp of new trends and strategies.
5. Data-driven learning
Data says it all. Moving into the digital world has enabled businesses to track various modes of work, employee behaviours, and learning habits. This is where data comes in — the demographic shifts could mean that the existing learning mode may be ineffective, and your training has to evolve with changing needs.
For example, if you are running a learning module, you could collect data based on learners’ progress, course completion rates, test results, training efficiency, or any data that is relevant to your training.
Organisations can adapt and customise training modules to the unique needs of employees by collecting and analysing data from learning management systems. You can even track the mistakes they make during the training, the difficulties they face, and more. The system then provides insights that enable you to tweak your learning process to make it more adaptable.
Continued learning in a smarter, more flexible approach
Most businesses have gone through a lot of change in a short time, and the effects are impacting others, especially the employees. Motivated employees want to find out ways to improve their work quality, productivity, and morale in the workplace.
Therefore, evaluation is a part of continuous learning and development. Take time to offer constructive criticism and praise through the learning management system. Not only will it help employees know where they stand, but it also makes them more engaged.
In 2022, the learning and development trends will rely on technology advancement, new digital tools developed specifically for a remote workforce, and focus on productivity instead of work quantity. Are you ready to accept the change?
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