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Five Learning And Development Challenges To Overcome In 2020

Forbes Human Resources Council
POST WRITTEN BY
Cameron Bishop

For learning and development professionals, our greatest challenge is how relentlessly fast technology is changing the workplace. Tech such as artificial intelligence and automation has changed how we do business and manage to keep pace with the evolving world. As we move into the future, learning and development must be agile enough to be effective, productive and successful, no matter the obstacles, and we also must look at the human factor.

As you finalize your learning and development plans for the upcoming year, it's crucial to consider both technology and people when you implement new training. Otherwise, you’ll short change your employees and leave significant skill gaps that hurt performance and productivity. Below are what I consider the top five learning and development challenges for 2020:

1. Make training a higher priority.

In Deloitte’s “2019 Global Human Capital Trends report,” 86% of survey respondents said the need to improve learning and development in their companies was their biggest challenge. However, less than half of the respondents felt ready to address it. Why the concern? Because technology is evolving work demands and the employee skills needed to cover them. As fast as today’s workplace is changing, I believe the need to reskill employees should be a higher priority for companies.

2. Upgrade the skills of current employees.

A few years ago, AT&T realized that nearly half of their 250,000 employees lacked the necessary skills to do their jobs in the future. Moreover, the hardware they used would be obsolete within 10 years. Instead of planning layoffs and replacing employees with new talent, AT&T spent $1 billion reskilling their current workforce. Why do this? Because not only is it a cheaper alternative to hiring new workers, but also reskilling improves employee retention and engagement. While you might not have more than 100,000 people to reskill, the same principles apply. Investing in your current employees will return your training dollars many times over.

3. Apply design thinking to training.

Typical employee training uses a top-down approach where managers decide what their employees will learn, as well as where and how training will take place. With the influx of millennials and Gen Zers moving into leadership positions and technology advancements in the workplace, the old approach to training has diminishing returns. Consider adopting a “design thinking” model for learning and development. This way, employees, not managers or the company, become the driving force behind training. This approach maximizes learning, increases engagement and lessens attrition.

4. Create on-demand learning content.

Millennials and Gen Zers already make up the majority of today’s workforce, and their entire world is connected to their smartphones. As learning and development professionals, it is our job to create training that is on-demand and available for mobile devices. It’s why my company has seen a dramatic spike in requests for micro and modular learning opportunities. However, it can become expensive to develop these courses in-house. Smaller companies can still add on-demand learning content by turning to learning and development providers for content licensing or content library subscriptions.

One way readers can create on-demand learning is by taking short videos that are relevant to their employees and housing them on a company YouTube channel (unpublished, if the information is proprietary) or an accessible company server. If a company subscribes to a learning management system, this can become a repository for on-demand videos and learning content.

5. Supplement traditional learning with video.

Many learning opportunities require the help of a facilitator to guide learners through the training, but that doesn't mean that technology can't be a part of the program. According to a recent survey by Pearson, 47% of Gen Zers and 22% of millennials spend three or more hours a day on YouTube, and the majority of both generations say YouTube is their preferred learning method. Video is so important to the up-and-coming workforce that it's difficult for learning and development professionals to ignore. Training content is increasingly being retooled to appeal to millennial and Gen Z employees. By adding video to your learning modalities and adopting video content management systems to plug into your current learning management systems, employers can fuel the learning needs of younger generations.

It’s never been more exciting to be a learning and development professional in the workplace. While the technology we have allows us more freedom than ever before, we cannot allow it to blind us to the fact that having current, relevant and effective content should always be our main goal to serve our employees and make them better skilled and more productive and engaged.

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