Trends Disrupting Learning and Development

With COVID beginning to reduce, companies are faced with new challenges, including managing remote workers. Learning and development (L&D) teams faced the toughest challenges of all departments in the company.

Throughout projects, L&D professionals were responsible for developing new remote onboarding programs, tracking the performance and effectiveness of virtual teams, and developing innovative digital techniques and tools to facilitate and support a hybrid work environment that is both effective and efficient.

The effort to adapt to this new working era has mostly been successful. L&D professionals across enterprise companies today are more valued than ever. Furthermore, the leadership team has observed the success of these new, innovative learning and development strategies – which they plan to continue in the coming years.

There will be more investment in the L&D function and programs going forward, and the following trends deserve your attention:

Business integration with L&D

The purpose of workforce enabling is to ensure organizational success. It is important for executive teams to hire and retain staff in order to succeed in business and remain competitive. This talent shortage is not restricted to resignation. There are shortages in every industry, at every level, and at every position. Therefore, executives have been more focused on how training and knowledge can be aligned with business goals. The companies have observed that business success is directly tied to the development of key skills among employees and employee retention. Therefore, they have started investing in learning tools and LMS to improve their L&D section.

Providing a great learning experience

Organizations that promote learning are realizing that each learner has different needs. Thus, businesses do a good job of personalizing their customer experience with the latest technologies. But they haven’t really personalized the learning experiences of their employees. In today’s digital world, learners increasingly expect an immersive, reflexive, collaborative environment. Their technology experience should mirror their daily use of technology. This includes a mobile-friendly interface, search functionality, library organization, and seamless video streaming. All this is easily achievable with advanced LMS such as Accord LMS, Discoverlink, Paycom, and many more.

Adopting a permanent hybrid workplace

Hybrid work emerged during the pandemic as a temporary solution but may stick around permanently. Headquarters jobs are now performed remotely or with a hybrid schedule instead of being completed in person. Associated companies, platforms, and brands are also hybrid and remote, creating the most complex work environment in history. It is challenging to maintain connections when working in all of these diverse environments. Coordination, communication, and knowledge sharing are fundamental to an organization’s success. At the same time, healthcare workers, retail employees, hospitality professionals, and other essential workers need continuing training. Because there are so many workplace scenarios today, learning platforms that allow employees to learn anytime, anywhere make it possible to learn and apply new skills immediately.

Transitioning to digital learning

The digital transformation of companies has been an ongoing process for quite some time. Nevertheless, most of them are focused on operations automation, which includes robotics, detectors, and automated self-service. Still, the digital transformation of education has received far too little attention. The vast majority of employees rely on outdated user guides or seek out a centralized resource or learning management system (LMS) to get the most current training and knowledge. Workers today are looking for relevant knowledge, learning it, and applying it as soon as possible. There is a greater emphasis on real-time, interactive learning these days, offered through video, games, and immersive technologies. For operational learning, this model is useful, as it reinforces knowledge and refreshes skills. There is a rapid trend toward diminishing the value of paper-based and instructor-led training since online learning allows businesses to be more agile, driving down costs, reducing errors, and creating more satisfied customers.

Prioritizing ROI

Pandemics have accelerated the demand for evaluating the return on investment (ROI) for digital learning platforms. Increasingly, businesses are requiring team members to measure metrics in a similar manner to other business segments. For an innovative digital learning platform to be effective, it must include tools for monitoring employee learning and metrics that show a company’s leadership how important learning and development are to the overall business.

Conclusion

As your organization prepares for the challenges following COVID, you should take these trends into consideration. Organizations can embrace digital transformation in L&D to develop a high-performing, sustainable workforce with the skills required to deal with any disruption.