From providing nap pods and gaming rooms to happy hours and catered lunchers, businesses go to great extent to keep their employees happy. But what is left when the brilliance of these offices perks wear off? Employees today, especially Millennials are more motivated by the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge than by trendy perks, friendly work environment and even money.
In fact, a recently presented Gallup report revealed that 59% of millennials say that the opportunities to learn and grow are extremely important to them while looking for a job. As per Deloitte, Millennials who are satisfied with their development opportunities are twice more likely to stay with an organization than those millennials who are unsatisfied.
The Workforce today is loud and clear about what they want and what they expect in a job and when you consider a shrinking talent pool and increasing costs of replacing employees, it would be crazy not to listen. To meet the expectations of the millennial, learning should move beyond its present state, which is too often outdated and irrelevant. For Learning & Development (L&D) professionals, this means giving the right kind of learning experience to support the lifelong pursuit of upskilling and reskilling their employees, which differs in some ways from traditional learning.
Applying the tenets of adult learning, such as making sure that it is highly relevant to the requirements of the learners and provide an opportunity for self-assessment, is a must, regardless to the learner’s skill level, title, or where they are on their learning journey. To make sure that employees can succeed at what their organizations need from them today or tomorrow, learning and development leaders must design learning experiences and ecosystems that align with the requirements of the learner.
Here we have listed 3 major factors to consider while preparing a corporate learning strategy:
Learning methods are not the same at all stages
When learners are in the stage of identification (the early ‘what is’ stage’) and awareness (the intermediate ‘why’ stage) areas of proficiency progression, they benefit from the reports of performance development that are more structured. This does not mean through traditional methods like classroom training. Video courses can provide the kind of structured sequence these learners require in the foundational stage. When learners are in the fluency stage, where they have a deep understanding of the content, they are more likely to need performance adjustment leaning tools. These consist of less-structured experience and access to the board, in-depth content. They often prefer content in modular form, which is that provides quick answers through easy search, as close to the workflow as possible and in methods that facilitate a non-linear (point-of-need) learning experience.
Design Learning Environments for multiple proficiency levels
The strategy of corporate learning that fails to understand the efficiency progression of the users will fail to deliver the most appropriate experiences for their learners in the most contextually appropriate manner. For example, delivering highly structured experience aimed at developing fluency, or higher-level learning, is likely to fail. Delivering experience proposed at identification or beginner- level of proficiency with too much concept or not enough structure will also be problematic for learners as they move towards awareness and understanding.
Factors in the realities of learning today
L&D must free themselves from the notion that formal learning, in-person or online, is the only method to deploy a corporate learning strategy. Actually, in most cases, formal learning won’t succeed for those who have a general understanding of the topics at hand. By accepting tools like performance-adjacent learning tools that target to minimize disruption and friction by making it easy to access information and return to a normal workflow rapidly, business leaders can design learning and development programs that are relevant as well as empowering for employees.
Unlike courses in colleges or traditional on-the-job training programs, learning today is not happening in a predetermined time and it doesn’t end on a schedule, given how significant learning is for the employees, nor should it. The desire to learn is there and smart business leaders have already started making it a priority, instead of a sporadic occurrence. After all, retaining good talent relies on it.
Final Take
Corporate learning and development mean to make sure that employees have an upgrade knowledge and expertise in their related fields. L&D is the essential things for employees that make them competent, efficient and effective. They have to deal with new equipment and technical devices, they should have knowledge about these issues, it is the method from which the corporations get effective results. Corporate learning and development are required for the good progress of employees; it increases their confidence and motivates them to work for their organization apart from money.
