With the arrival of the new year and new decade, it’s a must to have a clear vision for our talent management efforts. Here are our L&D predictions for 2020:
The future of talent management is bright. With the ushering of the new decade, we’re now faced with more changes that may or may not alter workplace learning for the better.
So, as more L&D challenges and trends await us, it’s only fitting that we take a look at how the L&D landscape will evolve this year and the coming years. For quite a while, we’ve known that there’s a high demand for self-paced learning, content curation, and mobile learning — some of which have been the top trends during the previous years.
In 2020, we can’t help but be optimistic that a lot of developments in learning technologies and trends will help us towards our learners’ career and professional growth. So, here are our top 5 workplace learning predictions this 2020:
Organizations will create an internal talent marketplace
One of our most notable predictions this coming 2020 and beyond is the rise of the internal talent marketplace. Organizations around the globe are now vying for knowledge, skills, and talent. Global companies shouldn’t be defined by hierarchical constraints. It’s said that companies are not hierarchies; they’re networks. And this means that it’s not enough that you do your job well, you should also help your colleagues and other teams to succeed.
Josh Bersin stated that organizations must redesign themselves. This is because there’s an increasing need for organizations to build followership, agility, and project-based teams. And for this to be possible, your organization should have a competent pool of talent.
Unilever even calls their internal talent pool a “talent marketplace.” This allows managers and teams to “shop for skills” inside the company. But in the case of other organizations and enterprises, they should start rethinking their rigid management system that hinders this kind of new emerging system.
To remedy this, organizations must become more employee-centric. They should assign employees to projects and give them tasks that are matched to their knowledge, skills, and abilities. By mobilizing talent internally, your organization can allow managers to maximize talent across departments and across the company.
Skills mapping will be utilized among organizations worldwide
With the development of internal talent marketplace among organizations, companies will also be using skills mapping in determining and addressing skills gaps within the organization and the industry, in general.
Through competency mapping and skills mapping, your organization can determine the skills your employees already have; thus, you can have a firmer grasp on who are your subject matter experts in specific areas and topics. In turn, you can also use this to form collaborations and peer-to-peer training sessions among your learners.
With workforce development becoming one of the top organizational priorities, careful workforce planning must be done to identify relevant skills that employees must acquire in line with organizational objectives. But undoubtedly, forecasting future skills isn’t an easy task; reskilling will certainly become a challenge for L&D and HR leaders.
Skills mapping is a great solution because it involves predicting what skill sets will be demanded by your organization and industry in the future. And with these, you’ll need to align your L&D strategy, reskilling, and upskilling efforts with your skills map and predictions. And while you map the skills in your organization, you must also remember to consider the interests of your employees and get input from your stakeholders.
A data-driven culture will be the new trend
A data-driven culture is an operating environment that uses data whenever and wherever possible to enhance business efficiency and effectiveness. In short, it’s a practice wherein organizations leverage data for better company ROI and overall employee productivity.
We’ve seen companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon that are able to make use of data in a myriad of ways. As for your organization, you can also use data in numerous ways. In order to help you in skills mapping and creating a better internal talent pool, it’s better to cultivate a data-driven culture. This coming decade has a lot of possibilities for different industries, especially for the corporate training industry.
It’s important to know that data has long been the currency, not only of the technological economy, but also of the whole world. According to The Economist, the world’s most valuable resource now is data. You can only imagine if organizations are able to harness data and use them in creating personalized learning opportunities among its employees.
This 2020, it’s important to start using your data to address the most in-demand skills in your organization and industry. But the triumph of this initiative won’t solely depend on L&D and HR professionals. This also depends on the C-suite level since it’s been said that a data-driven culture starts with executive buy-in.
There will be a radical transformation of L&D in the coming decade
So far, the 2000s and 2010s have seen the most radical change in corporate training paradigms. With the coming of the new decade, there’s a great possibility that we’ll be seeing another huge evolution in the L&D landscape.
Corporate training is at the center of the 4th Industrial Revolution. And with more and more organizations vying for talent and improving their internal talent pool, leaders and executives are expected to reshape learning ecosystems and optimize the learning experience in the workplace.
Part of the radical transformation in workplace learning is the application of AI and AR which some organizations are starting to explore. Surprisingly, some have a positive outlook in its implementation. So, in line with this, you should also try looking more into personalization in learning as well as creating tailored training paths for your learners. This way, learning becomes more relevant, tangible, and applicable.
Social learning will be the solution to greater collaboration
Social learning is now a trending topic in the corporate training scene as more organizations and enterprises are trying to leverage the knowledge of subject matter experts across their entire organization. Accenture reports that 82% of businesses that currently use social technology still look forward to using them in the future. On the other hand, a report by the Brandon Hall Group says that 73% of surveyed organizations expect to increase their focus on social learning.
In essence, social learning involves the continuous process of learning from other people through observation, asking questions, and sharing knowledge. In short, it encourages collaboration among peers. Plus, it’s one of the benefits of cultivating a culture of social learning in the workplace.
Another benefit is that it enables employees to take responsibility for their own personal learning. Through peer-to-peer training, employees are expected to understand their job functions better while also being people other employees can go to for questions or advice. This, then, allows professionals to be empowered not only when it comes to their learning, but also in their expert knowledge and growth mindset. Some of the social technologies you can start exploring and utilizing for microlearning are blogs, wikis, discussion forums, and videos.
Conclusion
As more and more learning technologies and techniques arise, it’s an imperative for us to see what the future of corporate training has in store for us. With this, we’ll be able to strategize better to create more effective L&D programs for our respective organizations.
