Turbulent economic times and demographic changes in the working population call for strategically aligned learning programmes as well as skills that can be acquired and used quickly in the workplace. Even as the demand for increased talent intensifies, agility in the organisation has to be maintained.
Buzzwords such as ‘Boomsday’ and ‘The Silver Tsunami’ refer to a surge of retirements from an ageing workforce – which in turn point to a depletion in the talent and leadership skills of our ‘baby boomers’. This talent crisis will have to be addressed through active engagement by agile organisations.
Organisational agility is the ability of an organisation to adapt in response to changes in market conditions. An integral part of being an agile set-up is preparing your workforce by addressing those talent shortages that negatively affect productivity, honing existing skills and improving morale at the same time.
This essentially means shaping your workforce so the organisation can thrive in changing market conditions.
While most leaders can see how the advent of the internet and ongoing changes in technology can be used for an economic advantage, many are indeed slow to appreciate how this can be used to increase the value of human capital. The key question here would be: “Are we ready to adopt technology that can transform training into actual learning?”
Given the tech-savvy younger generation which is swelling the ranks of the workforce, organisations around the world, irrespective of size or sector, are resorting to a multi-stage, blended learning framework, providing both formal and non-formal learning opportunities for their staff.
The task at hand is to articulate the organisational value of learning, to gain the support of other leaders in the organisation and to implement the right mix of learning resources at the right time to deliver cost-effective learning programmes.
Research has shown that organisations worldwide are making increased use of technology and online content to provide self-paced tools to create a blend of learning resources
In today’s ever-changing landscape, successful organisations are those that can adapt to innovation in technology by creating an agile workforce which can in turn address the organisation’s changing needs and flourish in such an environment.
Attracting, developing and retaining talent requires active engagement on the part of the organisation. Methods that worked well for training the ‘baby-boomers’ will not work as well for the younger learners. Generations X, Y and Z, which comprise learners below the age of 40, lack patience for the traditional approach to learning.
They want to have quick access to technology, anywhere and at any time. Classrooms alone will not be suitable to deliver sufficient training to accommodate an organisation’s growing needs. Classrooms are simply not as scalable as online learning.
Research has shown that organisations worldwide are making increased use of technology and online content to provide self-paced tools to create a blend of learning resources.
Besides learner aptitude and scalability, other factors to consider while choosing the right mix of learning resources are cost, speed of transfer and retention. The cost of off-site courses as well as the disruption in the workflow are common excuses to put off training.
The longer the face-to-face course duration, the longer the absence from the workplace and, consequently, the longer it takes to get productive again. This often poses a challenge and results in a backlog of demand for training.
Online learning, or e-learning, lends itself very well to organisations wanting the best of both worlds – building human capital which is well-trained in those key skills that are strategically aligned to the business goals of the organisation while at the same time having minimal disruptions in the workplace.
In this model, the speed of skills transfer is determined and controlled by the learner. Self-paced learning allows an individual a certain comfort level – as opposed to a classroom set-up where some may find it difficult to actually ask questions in front of peers. More importantly, the control over one’s learning, the speed, the sequence of skills acquisition and the discipline it involves can prove to be rather self-motivating.
Learning management systems or e-learning platforms provide consistency of course delivery, a feature HR managers find appealing when deciding on which learning resources to invest in. In addition, revisitation and repetition of courses after they are completed actually promote enhanced retention. This could well combat the oft-mentioned anomaly of scrap learning – training that is provided but never transformed into learning that can be used in the workplace.
In the long run, the focus should shift from skills that are immediately needed in the workforce to those that will have an increased impact on the business strategy as well as those that will empower the individual learner.
Return on investments made in e-learning can be measured not only in terms of actual cost savings but also in terms of how it helps contribute to the organisation’s goals. Employee empowerment and a shift towards pull learning or just-in-time learning using on-demand assets such as e-books and online mentoring will help promote a nimble, adaptive workforce that can make use of emerging opportunities to achieve strategic business goals.
To find out more about e-learning and how it can affect your return on investment on training, visit www.isl.com.mt or www.facebook.com/islmalta.
Roshnan Mohnani is an e-learning specialist at Information Systems Ltd, who has worked in IT and language skills training for several years.