How To Set Up A Studying And Growth Operate
A progressive learning culture retains talent
Over the past few years, the global workforce has gradually evolved due to a number of factors. A highly competitive business landscape, volatility and complexity in operations as well as digital transformations shape the talent mix between companies. Additionally, the ongoing uncertainty and diversity in the workforce has forced many companies to reinvent their talent strategies when it comes to retaining employees and staying relevant. Transformations in the digital space have prompted many companies to hire a lively and creative workforce. All of these trends have increased the importance of the learning and development function, and therefore a strong and relevant learning strategy is the order of the day.
Almost all organizations have a learning and development function, be it for a few employees or for a larger workforce. A learning feature not only helps in building the required business skills, but also in supporting the organization’s commitment to human resource development. Companies that invest in human resource development certainly have a competitive advantage.
13 Steps to Establishing a Learning and Development Ecosystem
Here are the key steps in building a learning and development ecosystem:
1. Set business goals
Establish relevant business goals for the learning and development function. What is it supposed to achieve? How will it support the company’s business and earnings strategy? How will it merge with HR and other business areas? What will the success parameters be? What important results do companies expect from the learning function?
2. Perform a Learning Needs Analysis (LNA)
Manage and evaluate employee learning needs across different levels and business areas. These can be conducted through surveys, focus group discussions, leadership feedback, assessment results, and job descriptions. Assess skill gaps required to meet individual and business goals that affect overall performance. Take into account employee aspirations for personal development that are in line with business goals.
3. Hire learning ambassadors
Hiring the right talent is critical to the learning function. This talent should act as a learning ambassador for the knowledge function, be able to consult executives in different companies, inspire employees, invest in advanced learning, create high quality content and collateral, and set the needle movement in the skills acquired by the learner measure up. It is also important to assess which programs can be controlled internally and which require external intervention.
4. Finalize a training budget
When setting the budget for the learning and development function, look for benchmarks that other organizations are following. Take into account the variety of programs you offer, the number of sessions planned, expected attendance, and the number of learners. All of these factors will affect your total annual budget.
5. Resources and collateral
Build a pool of appropriate learning resources, including materials, tools, reviews, program brokers, outside consultants, providers and industry experts. Make sure you rate external training providers on their content, expertise, testimonials, teaching presence, and topics. Identify which programs can be deployed with the help of in-house subject matter experts and which programs need to be outsourced. Consider hiring an industry expert if in-house expertise is limited, complexity is high, and an understanding of the latest market trends is required.
6. Align training logistics and management
Determine whether the training is compulsory and year-end performance reviews or voluntary. Determine how many employees can request and apply for programs. How does the manager’s approval process work? Think about how you offer mandatory compliance programs. You may also need to opt for moderation formats such as classroom delivery, online self-study mode, blended learning, and the virtual master class.
7. Sketch a policy framework
Outline an applicable framework for learning and developing policies for activities such as: B. How many niche skills programs are funded by the organization, and outline the process for doing so. Create a training reimbursement process for expenses. How does authorization for external providers work? Many organizations have an eligibility criterion for employees to participate in learning and development programs that have an immediate business impact.
8. Develop an ecosystem of priority interventions
Design an ecosystem to prioritize learning interventions. For example, high priority learning and development may involve critical business skills that require subject matter knowledge and topics of broad impact. Lower priorities can be specific to individual needs with minimal or little business impact. Designing a training matrix helps set priorities.
9. Learning objectives and takeaways
Decode the results of the learning needs analysis and indicate the programs in which to train employees, frequency of programs, batch size and methodology. At a minimum, all organizations should have a strong new onboarding strategy, security and compliance programs, leadership interventions, and skills to improve sales and the stakeholder experience. Define important learning goals for each program that speak for the applicability and impact of the company. Design programs and assessments to measure learning transfer and retention. This will ensure that your learning and development needs are met.
10. Plan programs
Once resources, learning objectives and collateral are designed, work with your internal / external stakeholders to plan programs. Design, maintain, and communicate an organization-wide learning calendar that employees can enroll in in advance. Make sure the training sessions are scheduled so that they don’t coincide with peak times. Scheduling programs in advance results in minimal cancellations, absenteeism, and last-minute dropouts. When designing the calendar, consider the frequency of the planned programs, the duration of the programs, and the locations (on-site / off-site).
11. Ask for feedback
It is mandatory to collect feedback for all training programs. This will help you evaluate which programs are making a difference and which need to be deleted. Follow the Kirkpatrick Method to evaluate learning effectiveness. It will help you evaluate learners’ responses to the program, whether the program is effective enough to produce business results, whether knowledge and / or behavior has visibly changed, and whether employees would recommend this program to their colleagues.
12. Follow-up and manager feedback
Contact the managers as they have a major impact on the success of the learning function. Ask for feedback on whether employees are able to apply their new skills on-site and in dealing with colleagues, executives, stakeholders and customers. By providing ongoing bite-sized refreshments, employees stay connected to the concepts learned in the sessions.
13. Measure your success
In addition to collecting feedback, it is important to evaluate the results of your learning and development initiatives in terms of the knowledge and skills the learners have acquired when the behavior of the individual or business unit has changed, productivity and performance have increased, or even Return on Investment (ROI). Designing specific criteria to measure needle movement helps the learning function to stay on track and relevant in uncertain times.
Put everything together
A learning and development function is vital for any company. While companies strive to achieve their sales goals with the help of exceptional talent, it is only important that they invest in a strong learning strategy that supports retention and promotes progressive learning in order to stay relevant in changing times. That makes them an “employer of choice”.
