We’re in a recession … or maybe we’re not.
The company laid off a bunch of people … but is still struggling with labor shortages.
Management is cutting budgets and slashing earnings guidance … but they’re also rapidly evolving the business to stay competitive and requiring everyone to develop new skills ASAP.
No one knows where the economy is heading. There have been plenty of ups and downs over the past 40 years but nothing quite like this. Textbook rules and past precedent don’t apply when you’re facing an unnerving equation of global pandemic + supply chain disruption + record inflation + international war + societal polarization + climate change.
The prolonged uncertainty is exhausting. No wonder burnout and stress are at all-time highs, according to the American Psychological Association.
Existing on unsteady ground
Getting stuck in the middle of disruption is just another day at the (virtual) office for learning and development professionals. Even if we’re at the table, we’re rarely in the driver’s seat. Management decides things need to change — for whatever reason — and our mandate mutates as a result. Today, customer service is the biggest issue facing our business. Next week, it’s a regulatory change. Six months later, it will be digital transformation.
L&D is a function of change. Our job is to make sure the people we support are ready for whatever comes next, at all times. We do some of our best work when trying to hit moving targets. In fact, if L&D was an Avenger, we’d totally be Hawkeye!
Bracing for impact
Getting knocked around by dynamic business priorities and demanding stakeholders is one thing. Staying productive in the face of economic uncertainty is a different story, and L&D pros are all too familiar with the risks this can bring to our function.
Most organizations view L&D as a cost center, not a revenue-generating entity. That puts our function at risk when budgets are cut. If management lays people off, the company needs less training resources. Training programs get eliminated. Technology is consolidated. L&D jobs are lost. These moves may save the company money over the short term, but they can also set the organization back for years when it comes to agility, readiness and culture. Remaining employees get a less-than-optimal experience with reduced job support and limited mobility options — all while being required to take on more responsibility.
There’s one way to stop this problem: Avoid all disruption forever. Unfortunately, that’s impossible. Even the most responsibly run business will face unexpected challenges. This isn’t L&D’s fault, but it’s definitely our problem. It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when your L&D function will be impacted by economic disruption.
CLOs, CHROs and L&D VPs must prepare for the inevitable. You can’t sit back and hope your customers (stakeholders) will re-up their contracts with you no matter what. Instead, like any great business partner, you must continuously improve your practices — how you take care of people, how you demonstrate value and how you reshape your strategy — so that renewal is an absolute no-brainer, even under the most challenging circumstances.
Taking care of people
Your L&D team can’t properly support the workforce if they don’t feel properly supported themselves. Disruption makes the workplace feel like a depressurized airplane. You have to put your oxygen mask on first before you can effectively assist others. If you want to keep your L&D team focused on key priorities and timely deliverables, you need to make sure they can breathe first.
This starts with transparency. “What’s going to happen,” and “Is my job safe,” are difficult questions to answer during challenging periods. They’re also at the top of everyone’s minds. You may not know the answers, or you may not be permitted to share details. Your team knows there are rules. This shouldn’t keep you from communicating openly and honestly. When you can share, include the whys behind difficult decisions. Give people context so they understand how they will be impacted by workplace changes. Make sure all members of management are communicating clearly and consistently with their teams. Don’t leave people guessing.
Another important way to take care of your team members is to prioritize their skill development. The worst joke in L&D is how badly we struggle to find time for our own development. This goes from sad-funny to downright detrimental during turbulent times. It sucks to be a classroom trainer when the company decides to shut down most classroom-based programs. Dedicate time and resources to boosting people’s capabilities. Explain why it’s important for an e-learning developer to build project management skills or for an online facilitator to become a solid writer. This will make your L&D function more agile and create new opportunities for people in the future.
Demonstrating value
Any decision to reduce L&D investment should not be based entirely on capacity. If the thinking goes “dropping headcount by X means we need Y less L&D resources,” the organization doesn’t strategically value learning. To the contrary, companies struggling with financial uncertainty should invest in building people’s skills to enable business transformation. It’s up to L&D to influence stakeholders to adopt this mindset so, when the time comes, cutting back on L&D (people, tech, priorities, etc.) is an obviously bad idea.
To begin with, the organization’s top priorities must be L&D’s top priorities. It doesn’t matter how many training requests the department receives from their favorite stakeholders or how long that program with a 4.9 on participant surveys has been running. To justify ongoing investment, L&D must align with the direction of the business and prove our ability to deliver solutions that propel the organization forward. Make sure every team member understands how their everyday work aligns with organizational priorities.
L&D projects should be selected and resourced based on anticipated business impact. There are plenty of reasons to fix learning measurement, but this is the biggest. If every other function — sales, marketing, IT, etc. — is held accountable for quantifiable results, why shouldn’t L&D? Impact must be at the center of every L&D strategy, project and conversation. You’ll still need to check plenty of boxes along the way, but compliance and risk mitigation are measurable outcomes too. Leverage improved data and analytics to demonstrate the risk of deprioritizing workplace learning in familiar business terms like lost sales, poor customer service scores and reduced employee retention.
Reshaping strategy
This article is about preparing L&D to manage uncertainty, not creating justifications to keep things exactly the way they are today. After all, if everything was working perfectly and the organization valued learning as a top priority, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Like every other function, L&D must evolve so we can thrive in uncertainty rather than be consumed by it. Your strategy must be built for disruption so that, when change inevitably comes, you’re already prepared.
This means getting L&D off the sidelines and into the everyday workflow. It’s easy to push L&D aside when we make ourselves easy to avoid. Employees only visit the LMS or attend a class a few times per year, often when required. They rely on other tools and resources to get their daily work done. L&D must reach out to the employees, not expect employees to come to us. Rather than offer your solutions in an L&D silo, find ways to embed learning and support resources within the workplace ecosystem. Shift from building stand-alone programs to architecting systems that embed seamlessly within the day-to-day work experience. Integrate learning tools with operational systems so they’re easily accessed when and where people need help.
Content is another critical consideration for a modern L&D strategy. We spend a lot of time and money building content, buying content and managing content. Outsourcing is already part of the L&D strategy for many organizations. There are only so many projects L&D teams can handle with limited resources, so contractors and third-party content libraries fill in the gaps. You can take this a step further by emphasizing the importance of curation within your practices. Rather than requiring L&D to always be hands-on as content designers, developers and deliverers, upskill your stakeholders and subject matter experts to build their own resources. This will make the organization more agile, provide greater support to employees who are trying to keep pace with change and allow you to dedicate specialty L&D talent to right-fit, high-impact projects.
Finding opportunity in disruption
You may already be feeling the impact of economic disruption as a result of layoffs, budget cuts and radical priority shifts. Or you may be struggling to navigate uncertainty and prepare your team for what may or may not happen over the next few months. These times are hard on everyone — from people who lose their jobs to those who remain and are tasked with finding new ways to get work done.
Preparation won’t make you immune. L&D will never be disruption-proof, but the past few years have demonstrated the value of being disruption-ready. This requires building a function that’s more agile, proactive and resilient. It means learning from difficult periods and seizing the change to push beyond what was previously thought possible.
Uncertainty causes doubt, concern and fear, but it also triggers unexpected discoveries, remarkable innovations and inspiring moments of leadership.
Be well.
