Strengthening L&D´s role as a critical strategic value driver
The crucial role of L&D
We have experienced a significant change in the way people communicate, work, and learn together as communities, the pandemic – as we know – heavily accelerated this. Learning and Development (L&D) has been one of the functions under high pressure and expectations to re-organize the whole people development strategy to match the constantly evolving business landscape. Once done well, it might carry us to an even brighter future.
During recent years, many studies have been underlining the crucial role of L&D and leaders in ensuring people´s wellbeing, capabilities, and upskilling to adapt quickly to changes in our environment. World Economic Forum has also reported that more than half of the workforce need up -and reskilling to meet the changing requirements shortly. Deloitte has found out in their survey that 86% of companies have improving L&D as a critical area on their business agenda – better learning, better business results. The list of studies supporting and underlining the crucial role of self-leadership and leadership skills is long, we see the emphasis in soft skills (or powerskills) in professional development. We know, that these human skills are the area, where we have to shine also in the age of AI, but this is not done by the old way.
Technology as central element in L&D efforts
Looking back a couple of years, organizations already a long way in the digital transformation easily embedded digital L&D into their people development and (up)skilling interventions even in the middle of the distractions. For some organizations, the first careful shift has happened from classroom to virtual, which is starting to be a standard procedure at the moment. As people development specialists, it has been joyful to see many organizations building everything online, reorganizing their ways to develop their people, and by doing that making themselves future-proof for the inevitable shift in upskilling their people. These changes that has reflected the learning and development space has happened at fast pace, L&D leaders don´t have that much choice though.
Nowadays, it is rare to meet HR and L&D specialists who would not talk about e.g. microlearning or on-demand learning opportunities combined with the most valuable parts of more traditional methods. We should never forget the value of human connection, but learning does not happen as one time shot in a classroom, it´s always a process and we should salute that. Of course, we see organizations evolve at different speeds, some still taking baby steps in adopting new models for their people development, but it is fair to say, that things are moving in the right direction.
Increasing the business impact
Learning and development (L&D) have owned for a long time the role of deploying training programs at the request of business leaders. This role has been in the winds of change for years and now more than ever before. Rapid changes in the business environment have – at least should – a direct impact on the way organizations ensure their human capital and responsiveness to change in strategic capabilities and behaviors. Referring back to our surveys by FranklinCovey about the future of L&D, in the findings, there were three main barriers to tackle: lack of time, budget constraints, and proving the ROI of development investments. That makes it extremely important to ensure alignment with the higher level of business targets. We should offer valuable learning opportunities to our people to grow and close the skill gaps – L&D´s role is crucial in ensuring the business thrives in the future.
Learning and people development professionals should take a solid and credible role to link the strategic goals to behaviors and capabilities and help people to match those. That requires a proactive role in aligning the most critical business goals to have sharpened and scaled organizational performance as an outcome. We should also aim to put the value of learning to figures even more often to take a more strategically central role. We are lucky to see this happening often nowadays but cannot take it for granted. Many executives increasingly recognize the value of world-class L&D also in the process of talent acquisition. The younger employees we talk about, the more there seems to be a pattern of wanting personal and tailored learning opportunities in different modalities. If we see the employees as our “learning clients” – just like we definitely should – and try to structure our services internally to match the demand, there is a good foundation for success. The people who get the best support also stay longer in the house and attract other talents and they also score higher in wellbeing.
One could also think of the times we have at hand as the best possible to make this change in the way we think about learning. Times of crisis have presented challenges as well as a opportunity for L&D to innovate and be the catalyst to build a competent workforce and drive organizational success. For years, we have lacked the courage to cut out the practices that don´t give the best ROI, or should we call it ROLI (Return On Learning Investment)? If the changes and learnings, we look after don´t happen, why not ditch and replace your models with something better.
Your company C-suite most probably thinks that their investments in learning are sufficient. The challenge is for L&D to make certain the investment is reaching the right level and delivering the outcomes it is expected to. Every time we have talked with a client and been able to help them understand the actual value of their investment in learning with figures, it has caused some immediate positive response. So it seems to pay off to put some effort into that field also internally. On the contrary, if you lack capable people to make the best impact, your business will not stay relevant for long. As the speed of change doesn´t settle back to the old days, reskilling and upskilling employees faster becomes highly important. The most crucial role for leaders responsible for learning is to deliver effective learning solutions paced with the needs and aligned with strategy.
About the author: Jukka is a seasoned professional with 20 years of experience in learning and development in organizations. He started his career in the eLearning industry already year 1999, and since those days, he has worked as a trainer, facilitator, and coach in numerous international companies. Nowadays, he serves as CEO at FranklinCovey Finland.
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