One thing this year has made clear is that skills are the new currency in the workplace. With the pressures from COVID-19, the pace of digital transformation and the elevated obligations to actively address racial inequities in the workplace, L&D is well-positioned to have a long-term, elevated role within organizations today, from promoting internal mobility to actively creating a more inclusive and equitable workforce.
From an organizational standpoint, creating a culture of continuous learning is a competitive advantage. Those organizations that seize the moment, and get this right, have a higher likelihood to outpace their competitors. It’s not just about learning itself — it’s about the outcomes. After all, what organization doesn’t want better solutions in the market, improved internal mobility, higher retention rates, higher likelihood of attracting a diverse pool of talent, and happier and more engaged employees? You’d be hard pressed to find a C-suite that isn’t interested in these types of outcomes.
At the ground level, it’s important to note that when leaders champion learning, it drives higher learner engagement and impact. That’s why the C-suite has never been so engaged in talent strategy. And as they become more engaged, they are realizing how critical it is to lead by example on what great looks like, building in the right incentives to positively reinforce the behavior of learning and holding their collective teams accountable to do the same. LinkedIn Learning’s fifth annual “Workplace Learning Report,” which taps the insights of 1,260 L&D professionals and 814 learners globally, found that more than half of L&D professionals agree that L&D has shifted from a “nice to have” to a “need to have.” Here’s why.
L&D in the driver’s seat as change makers
Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of L&D pros said they still have a seat at the C-suite table — a huge lift (27 percent) in the span of just a year. When taken together, these data points tell us that learning leaders have truly elevated the L&D function as they prove the value of their programs, and everything is more effective when senior leadership is actively engaged.
With the right resources, technology and support, people are highly capable of learning new skills and moving into priority positions at a higher rate. This is critical as the pace of technological change accelerates and the need to retrain and redeploy talent for the new world of work becomes even more pressing.
Organizations need to be agile and adapt to this new world of work, which in many cases includes a heavily remote, more autonomous workforce. L&D leaders are actively reviewing their current learning programs, refreshing their approach to be more holistic and offer a blended learning experience, while abandoning the programs that are now obsolete. The reality is, the shelf life of learning programs is shortening at the same or faster clip than the shelf life of jobs.
Upskilling and reskilling is the top priority for L&D pros globally, especially for internal mobility
According to a report published by the World Economic Forum last year, the rapid acceleration of automation and economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic will shift the division of labor between humans and machines, leading to 85 million jobs being displaced and 97 million new ones being created by 2025. Some of the largest global enterprises have seen this shift coming for the past few years and have invested millions in “future proofing” their employees, arming them with the capability to learn the skills needed for the new world of work.
Our report found that L&D professionals globally say upskilling and reskilling are their priorities for 2021, and more than half report that internal mobility is top of mind. Most organizations don’t have an internal mobility department or a designated person to oversee these efforts; that tells us that it’s a distributed, cross-functional effort. However, L&D is already playing a critical role in bridging this gap to ensure internal mobility is ingrained within the organization.
An example of this approach in action is at Nationwide, which in January 2020 made a commitment to their people, and a big commitment to learning, with a $160 million investment in its Future of Work program — a five-year plan to reskill and upskill its associates across the U.S. The goal is to help associates explore new learning and career progression opportunities while also building digital literacy skills so they can keep pace with the technological change that’s reshaping financial services. To help learners feel in control of their learning, the L&D team provides curated LinkedIn Learning courses tied to the core skills while also allowing for a flexible, “self-driving” experience. Nearly 99 percent of all Nationwide associates completed their Future of Work learning goal.
Quantifying the value of learning is a moving target — start with employee surveys
If L&D professionals want to keep their spot at the C-suite table, measuring the value that learning brings to their organization is going to be more important than ever. This has been an age-old challenge for L&D leaders. Looking for correlations trends on critical business metrics is a great place to start. Proving that learning, by itself, is the sole contributor to moving any business metric is a fool’s errand, but highlighting the outcomes influenced with stories that bring it to life will catch the eye of any executive. Employee voice surveys, like LinkedIn’s employee engagement arm Glint, can be a powerful tool for an organization’s measurement strategy.
Given that many organizations had fully remote workforces or were managing the new territory of a hybrid workforce this past year, staying close to listening to employee sentiment and needs was critical to better decision-making for the business.
Jacqueline Gay, L&D manager at TomTom, an Amsterdam-based multinational developer and creator of location technology and consumer electronics, shared with us that her team spends time really listening. “We’re talking to our internal customers more about what they want to learn and what the best format will be. We’ve been joining our software development teams’ virtual stand-ups every week and using Glint surveys to identify focus areas like collaboration tools. We’re able to go back to them with the right, relevant solution rather than just the programs we think they want.”
Now that creating a culture of learning has shifted to a necessity rather than a nicety, we need to help our teams build the skills that will help them feel more productive, get that dream job, thrive in a culture where they feel supported and collectively achieve better outcomes for the organization. The conditions have never been more right to prioritize skill development as the new corporate currency, level the playing field, create a more equitable workplace and achieve business results that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
