What Abilities Do L&D Professionals Want?
Valuable skills that every L&D professional needs
COVID is wreaking havoc on the globe, both in terms of loss of life and the economic downturn. Ironically, however, most of us will also acknowledge that there has never been a more exciting time for the L&D community than it is today. Initiated by the pandemic and accelerated by the increasing need for training and retraining in all organizations, L&D executives have rightly earned a well-deserved place at the C-suite table, spending time devising strategies and solutions for employee engagement, empowerment and empowerment to develop. Personally, in all of my professional activities, I have not spent more time on further training than last year. And maybe most of us do. Everyone wants to learn and grow.
With continuous learning more important than ever, L&D experts need to go beyond their standard skills. They need to equip themselves with skills that weren’t normally tied to their role but can help them deliver what employees really need, in a format of their choice and in the workflow. These skills will enable L&D experts to create jobs of the future where every learning initiative has a direct impact on the bottom line. Here are some of them:
1. Advice
Asking the right questions and understanding the context of the business will never go out of style for L&D. While not technically new to L&D stakeholders, consulting is still a skill where there is always room for improvement. L&D people need to put on their advisory hats to have a positive strategic impact on businesses. You should not instinctively create a desired training course, but question such requests with the right questions. You do not have to be guided by the managers with regard to the training courses to be developed, but work with them as a consulting partner in order to find the right solutions. Working with executives to develop L&D KPIs in line with the business KPIs is the order of the day.
2. Curation
Content curation is perhaps one of the most useful skills the L&D function possesses today. Gone are the days when creating content from scratch was a must-have skill listed in the L&D rulebook. Given the information overload we are experiencing in all walks of life, it may be the best time to curate content from resources already available. L&D stakeholders should actually be wondering if they are spending a lot of time creating all of the content from scratch. Today’s businesses capture a whole range of content in information systems – there are recorded teams and zoom meetings, guidelines and memos, webinars, case studies, images, work videos, and much more – L&D should just take that content and get the most out of it and reuse.
3. Personalization
It is imperative for L&D stakeholders to understand the ways and means to personalize learning content and experiences for their employees. You need to go back to the drawing board and revisit creating bespoke learning plans that keep learners at the center of all learning initiatives. Creating personalized learning using technologies like AI mapped to the skills the business needs would add value to rapidly changing workforce dynamics. The L&D function needs to use extensive analytics to continuously evaluate what they know about an employee’s learning needs and then regularly compare it with what they have learned.
4. Use technology
Unlike a decade ago, when L&D executives probably didn’t need to be very familiar with technology to improve work and productivity, they have been adopting new technology with ease for quite some time. In the post-pandemic world, this is even more important. Joti Joseph, a seasoned learning expert, shared similar thoughts in one of Harbinger’s recent Power Hours when she said, “We will never go back to a chief learning officer who doesn’t know what technology can do for his company.” L&D- Experts become one of the first people in a company to take advantage of the power of technology in the future – a big change for the L&D community.
Are you an L&D professional and are you taking full advantage of your C-suite seat? What shifts do you see in learning in the post-pandemic world? Any other skills that you think would be of value? Do share your thoughts in the comments below.
Harbinger Interactive Learning Pvt. GmbH.
Harbinger Interactive Learning is a global design and development company specializing in eLearning modernization, learning experience design, and custom eLearning solution development.
