How tech can help employees have the right mix of the ‘skills of future’
Ever since the eruption of industrial revolution in 18th century, employers across the globe has not faced such a skills crisis as we have today. The pace of digital evolution means that employees also need to upskill or reskill accordingly, in order to stay relevant. The shortage of skills, if not addressed soon, could also pacify the economic promise of smart technologies. Therefore, the imperative for employers is to reevaluate their learning and development strategies.
Over the years, incremental changes to our education and corporate learning systems have not been in line with the technology dynamics. This means that the businesses need to completely transform their workforce management, from anticipating the required skills, to helping their people learn and apply new skills on their work. For leaders looking to drive growth in an incredibly competitive and rapidly changing business environment, investing in s ki l l management i s bot h responsible and cost effective. The good news is that corporate learning itself is undergoing rapid advances. Hence, the solution to this tech dilemma is also technology.
Therefore, future oriented employers are looking for technology driven learning solutions to ensure the right skill mix for them. Here is how it can be done:
PERSONALIZED LEARNING EXPERIENCE Traditionally, corporate training programs have been a group activity, providing a uniform experience to all the participants.
However, every individual has a different level of skills, aspiration, and bent of mind. Therefore, employers have been using technologies such as e-learning and assessment, podcasts, screen grabs, augmented reality, and learning chatrooms etc. to make learning a customized experience to suit each participant. Once the organizational target for learning and skill development has been set, people can learn, assess, and follow a training program at their own pace. They can rewind the modules, decode the concept, and engage in peer discussions. Instead of attending a training program at a specified day and time, people can manage their own growth. Last but not the least, the experience works seamlessly across devices. Hence, learning does not stop, in the office, at home, on-the-go.
ENGAGEMENT
Learning outcomes are directly correlated with employee e ngagement. Technology empowers employers to gamify the learning experience so that people are motivated to enroll, go through the course material tests, group tasks, and await their results.
The idea of gamification is to associate learning with clear outcomes. The learning journey could be based on simulated situations where they team up with others and compete to complete the assigned tasks. As people see their scores move up or down the leaderboard, being shared on intranet, and shared with them via digital badges, t here i s always a spirit of competition and achievement.
TRACKING THE JOURNEY
Human Resource Leaders rely heavily on data regarding personal information, individual s ki l l s e t s , l e arning goals, expected outcomes and so on. Dashboards based on advanced analytics allow the HR leaders to organize this information and draw meaningful insights.
A single screen dashboard can suggest the macro or micro trends, areas that require intervention, and impact of learning programs on the overall business goals. Such a dashboard also provides features for intelligent graphical representation which helps in internal merchandizing the investment on learning programs.
FEEDBACK AND REVISION
Employee feedback plays a very important role in designing and evaluating the effectiveness of a learning program. Without technology, collecting, compiling, and analyzing this feedback in a large organization could be a herculean task. Once again, collaborative tools for data collection and analytics come to rescue. These tools help employees provide objective feedback and trainers to pinpoint the areas in course curriculum, methodology, or evaluation process which need improvement. Employees could also track the impact of their feedback in near-real time. Such an effect also increases the level of engagement for the programs. The ongoing programs could become much more effect i ve wit h t hi s t e c h dri ven approach to manage employee feedback.
THE STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE
Leveraging latest technologyenabled training capabilities optimizes training resources, enables the organization to attain the right skills mix, and be relevant amid a changing external environment. This makes the technology investment in learning and development an imperative and not a choice.