How can your L&D Department succeed in 2021?

The year 2020 has brought with it unprecedented challenges. The pandemic has brought a tectonic shift in the business ecosystems across the globe. Businesses are striving to define customer experiences by adopting cutting-edge technology and reinventing business processes. Given these major transformations in the business landscape, “Talent Management” has taken the center stage in organizations, with Learning and Development (L&D) taking a proactive and strategic role to enhance human resources. L&D needs to ensure that employees possess the skills required to meet the ever-changing business needs. This blog talks about the trends and techniques in L&D in 2021 that will guide organizations through transformation and achieve success.

What is L&D?

The HR Technologist defines Learning and Development as a specialized HR function that empowers employees with specific skills to drive business performance.

L&D involves systematic processes that can enhance the employees’ knowledge, skills, and competency resulting in improved performance and outcomes. The goal of most L&D systems is to alter an individual or group behavior by enabling knowledge sharing and attitude forming that can help them to work better.

Organizations worldwide are spending big money to enhance their enterprise learning and development programs. With the global corporate learning market anticipated to reach 11% CAGR by 2022, all eyes are on L&D and your L&D strategy moving forward will be key to your company’s success.

Why is L&D important?

The main objectives of the Learning and Development department are leadership and professional development, reskilling, upskilling, e-learning, and so on. These objectives set the foundation for the development of human capital as well as the entire organization. Beginning with onboarding, L&D includes all aspects of talent management strategy.

Here are the main objectives of the L&D department in a company:

• Retain Top Talent

  A business must create an environment where employees constantly get opportunities to improve. According to research by the Work Institute, lack of career development is the top reason for increased attrition rate in companies. L&D initiatives help motivate and retain high performers and top talent. Ambitious workers often feel restless and de-motivated if they are underused. The L&D department devises methods to challenge the cream of talent to enable their constant growth and retention.

• Reduce Cost of HR Turnover

  Every time a company loses any human resource, it faces significant turnover costs. Research from the Work Institute says that the average cost of employee turnover is 33% of his salary. Moreover, even after the position is re-filled, it may be months before the new employee will show productivity. Investment in human capital through effective L&D programs is the best way to avoid the huge costs of HR turnover.

• Help Scalability

  All businesses have a common goal – to grow. Learning and development plans aim to achieve just that and If done well, they will grow with the business. Conservative and formal learning approaches limit an organization’s scaling ability. The learning and development department must be able to onboard several employees at the same time and must be a top priority.

• Customer Satisfaction

  Customers choose one business over the other most often due to the availability of information on knowledge centers and community boards created by teams. Customers trust companies through the employees who are experts in their area of work. Employees who gather and retain this knowledge through effective training and development strategies help improve customer satisfaction with the brand. When employees are encouraged to succeed, their performance is reflected through their satisfied customers.

L&D trends of 2021 that can help your organization succeed

• Training for Change Management

  Efficient change management helps businesses to adapt and work through any big business disruptions. The main element of change management is effective training. Training can empower leaders to manage people in rapidly fluctuating organizational situations by having a clear sight of changing priorities and goals. Learning and development initiatives train managers to put them in a position to support their subordinates and lead them through unique initiatives. Through training, they can communicate effectively, identify skill gaps, measure, and report the impact of the initiatives. L&D covers all aspects of training from process establishment, program development, and resource allocation aligning with business objectives.

• Upskilling and Reskilling

  The business world is rapidly evolving due to advancements in technology and market shifts. Lately, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation have transformed the work environments at an accelerated pace. This shift has highlighted the technical skills gap workers face while handling issues. Learning and development departments offer the necessary resources for upskilling the workforce and succeed in their roles. As the scope of work begins to evolve, new roles and skills will be added requiring organizations to reskill their employees as well. L&D must work with executives to identify skill gaps, create training programs and plan for the future.

• Customer Education

  With increased consumer awareness, people have high expectations from companies’ products and services. With the reduction of brick and mortar stores and the influx of online shopping, companies need to educate the customers and reach them at their points of need. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, L&D professionals must evaluate the consumers’ buying processes to create appropriate training programs. They must offer a high-quality consumer experience to establish long-term relationships with existing customers and obtain new customers.

• Importance of Soft Skills

  There has been an increasing focus on soft skills training in all industries. Gaps in soft skills at various levels are a common problem in several organizations. Since soft skills have become imperative to organizational success, L&D training must work to effectively deliver this skill set through face-to-face training. Virtual reality platforms can be used for training in areas of active listening and communication.

• Equitable Workplace

  Organizations are re-examining their company culture and making changes to make it fair for all employees to thrive and grow. Values, hiring practices, remuneration, decision-making, and leadership demographics are the key factors that impact equality in the workplace. L&D can support equality at the workplace by training people in leadership roles to provide their subordinates with enough opportunities for professional development and career advancement. Strategic succession planning is required to ensure that leaders have diverse perspectives for delegating work and making decisions.

The Future for L&D

Going forward, L&D departments are going to become an integral part of business operations with deeper alignment with organizational objectives. L&D teams will play a significant role in speeding up the training pace of team members across multiple domains and technologies. Organizations are leveraging learning to encourage employees to find innovative solutions to new challenges.

Gyrus has been successful in delivering exceptional learning management systems that can be customized to meet the needs of the organization. Gyrus learning systems can build learner skills and carve a challenging career path for them from anywhere and from any device.