New sources of uncertainty, disruption, and volatility are shaking traditional assumptions about business strategy and effective leadership. Every enterprise function is under pressure to respond strategically and provide real value to stakeholders. And we can no longer rely on familiar solutions to these fresh challenges.
Traditional Models of Learning No Longer Suffice
Corporate learning has survived largely on a diet of program design and delivery. Business leaders, confident in their problem diagnosis, have accepted this approach. In response to the pace of change, we need richer and more varied options. Our research, in collaboration with Fosway Group, identifies the top three people initiatives to future-proof organizations to 2025:
- Skills and capability bridging and enablement
- Empowering all talent and liberating all potential
- Lifelong learning and resilience
These solutions indicate a scale and complexity beyond a program-led approach. Reaching all sources of talent and potential calls for insight and a personal touch across organizational boundaries. Continuous skilling and reskilling of the workforce require a toolset to benchmark current skill levels and target gaps in potential. And organizations need support as their people learn together.
Corporate learning demands a coherent and consistent mindset to rise above the “design and deliver” model. The chosen method must offer a true people-development service—one that responds quickly to current needs, is fit for the future, and flexes enough to sustain business impact in the long term.
Multiple Sources of Disruption Create Deep Uncertainties
Volatility and uncertainty are constants for business leaders. But rarely have such a range and depth of pressures arisen simultaneously and in such quick succession. Added to the intense pressures of competition, pandemic recovery, and sustainability are supply chain disruption, energy insecurity, and price inflation.
In people terms, the nature of work itself continues to shift. Workforces expect more of their employers while the range of skills needed to compete grows. Digital fatigue is persistent. Research from Microsoft suggests that some workers spend as much as two days per week managing email and in meetings. Fosway Group’s research echoes this, with 40% of learning professionals stating that digital learning fatigue is a growing problem.
As digital transformation continues, the onrush of powerful artificial intelligence technologies shows disruptive potential as well as great promise. While precise impacts are too early to call, the speed of change is accelerating.
For More on This Topic
This summarizes a section of our article Steering Your Learning Strategy Through Volatile Terrain, written in collaboration with Fosway Group.
Read the full article with more insights on what you should do as a strategic learning leader.
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