The Paradox of Relearning to Learn

The Three Challenges of Learning

Learning is crucial to the performance of your business. But recent research has shown that traditional learning models face pressure from emerging new hybridwork models. 

The three most acute challenges are:

1. Increased workloads have reduced learning time. Workload pressures are one of the top challenges faced by leaders. Post Covid many employees, particularly those managing others, feel that their workloads have significantly increased. Data also suggests that burnout has increased during that period. The net is that employees need more headspace for learning and feel pressured to prioritise work tasks over learning activities. Battling this challenge requires leaders to maximise the value of any available learning time and create an environment where their team feels safe taking time to learn. Continual learning is crucial to the performance of any business. But it is becoming clear that traditional learning models previously employed by companies face pressure from Hybrid work models. 

2. Hybrid work has increased the complexity of learning. 

Flexibility in terms of where and when employees work is an important challenge. Leaders fret that employees may not be connected fully in moments that matter for formal and informal learning. Managers reported that they find it more difficult to identify development opportunities for remote employees and fear that remote work negatively impacts how people share tacit knowledge. Nearly half of employees are concerned about missing out on informal learning opportunities while working from home. Addressing this challenge will require leaders to build a new robust learning strategy within their Hybrid working environment..

3. A tightening labour market has brought skill shortages. Companies have identified finding workers with specialised skills as a major challenge. Many companies have historically looked to the external labour market for these speciality hires. However, as the market tightens, particularly for hard-to-find digital skills, the focus has shifted to boosting the skills of internal employees. Reskilling has always been seen as important, but now it’s critical. Tackling this challenge will require leaders to align business strategy with expertly executed upskilling and reskilling initiatives.

While these are tough challenges to face, executives also acknowledge how important it is to solve them. Skill shortages are one reason, but successful corporate learning also has a significant motivational impact.

In today’s VUCA labour market, where employees are quick to move from one job to a more advantageous opportunity, the chance to learn something new that will be valuable in the future is a central reason why they stay. A MIT Sloan study shows that 76% of employees say they would stay at their jobs if they could benefit from learning and development support.

Moreover, in the face of growing concerns about workplace inequalities, there is a perception that skills based learning can help to reduce them significantly. This is particularly the case for employees who are not highfliers, don’t have a college degree or an educational certificate, or have historically been excluded.

Relearning How to Learn

So here is the paradox: When learning is seen as a crucial part of many companies’ business strategy, those tasked with delivering on a learning agenda describe issues with the implementation.

How are you experimenting in trying new ways of learning and delivering learning that can be models for similar situations? 

1. Using personalisation to maximise the value of learning time.

One way to ensure every hour devoted to learning counts is by closely aligning learning with the learner's needs. This kind of personalisation is typically hard to deliver at scale. But experimentation with virtual and online instruction has opened up routes toward personalising learning.

One approach is to develop learning plans or pathways. Companies are developing and offering multiple learning pathways (that change annually) from which employees can choose. Each pathway is a blend of participation in core projects and tutorials delivered by employees who are subject matter experts. One important innovation is that the pathways are available to all employees, this approach is designed to break down the traditional siloes between communities and embed learning into the natural flow of work.

Experimentation with virtual and online instruction has opened up routes toward personalising learning. Organisations have also approached the task of personalised learning by using AI-driven career diagnostics.

Accenture developed an AI tool to help employees build individual learning plans based on data about themselves, their group, and the external labour market. Following this individual diagnostic, a learning platform provided resources such as online courses, workshops, and mentoring programs.

2. Leaning into the hybrid experience.

Hybrid working has set the scene for learning to be as flexible as work is. Peer-to-peer learning can be part of the learning culture it is an opportunity for employees to share their knowledge and skills. Crucially, in the spirit of hybrid work, face-to-face and online workshops can be delivered. Employees, whatever their work schedules, are able to participate fully. A rich community-based learning program can successfully driven through informal connections, piqued curiosity, and can result in robust employee engagement scores.

3. Transferable skills. 

In the face of tightening labour markets and skill shortages, the most obvious learning strategy is to focus on reskilling current employees rather than recruiting new ones. But the challenge is that this is hard, particularly at scale. Markets are constantly changing, and reskilling is essential to deliver on strategic plans, ensuring that all employees are equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to grow in their careers to be successful now and in the future.

Rolling out a skills-based development program for internal candidates who want to pursue a career changes they must be able to identify, assess, and develop the transferable skills they needed to move into new roles

Many leaders are advocating that in the present climate “in the workflow” learning would be more important strategy going forward. What is coming through crystal clear is that while some of the more traditional forms of learning are diminishing, experiments and new projects are demonstrating how significant challenges can be overcome.