Avoid the L&D Squeeze

With the economy as it is right now, we are seeing many companies tightening their belts and one of the first areas that get squeezed is learning and development.

Many companies see this as a nice to have rather than a strategic gain, however with the war on talent, we have to question what will be the impact of cutting training budgets both short and long term.

Investing and developing your people, is a proven method of successfully retaining talent, so why do businesses stop or reduce this investment in challenging times?

Skills mapping exercises are critical in identifying what the business needs and developing people can be a very effective when it comes to attracting new talent and retaining the current ones, however is identifying a gap in someone’s knowledge or capabilities, and sending them on a course too reactive?

Should businesses focus on what skills they need for the future, rather than right now? – and not ignoring the fact that we are managing multi generations and neurodiversity.

Their learning styles are different, so are the latest approaches to L&D outmoded?

The world of HR

When you work in HR it’s expected that you will have your CIPD qualifications if you are looking to grow your career. Time served isn’t enough. Almost every job advert states this as a pre-requisite. But should it be that way?

There are many roles where experience should be equitable to a formal academic-based qualification. Academia doesn’t work for everyone

We talk about inclusion but not everyone has the opportunity to study formally.

When it comes to costs, is it the responsibility of the business to develop their own people? It’s a great discussion for debate.

Time for CPD to move with the times

We talk about continued professional development but this is only associated with formal courses which are validated by a governing body. We now have to question this concept because we have so many other ways to learn and develop our knowledge.

Since the explosion of the digital platforms YouTube, podcasts, e-learning, books, articles, and even Tiktok are all valid portals to expand your learning. But because these aren’t underpinned by a governing body they are deemed as irrelevant in the world of CPD.

Blended Learning is an all-encompassing option because it incorporates several learning styles, in different formats so more likely to be a more inclusive way of learning.

We need to look at the road ahead and not our feet

In the last three years we have adapted and evolved in ways that without the pandemic would have taken many years, if at all. We can now provide learning in multiple countries, several languages and varying time zones in a quality way.

The explosion of online learning has opened lots of new opportunities in the learning and development arena BUT we need to update the archaic ways in which we assess and manage qualifications and find a way to develop CPD to incorporate all the new tools we use to learn from.

We can’t use what has served us in the past in the same way. Times have changed!

We need to find more agile solutions to learning and development, so it is accessible to all, and affordable to all. It cannot be something that gets cut from the budget, but instead it should be seen as a critical driver to business success.