Is the need for learning and development initiatives increasing?

Question

Answer

Learning and development has become much more critical for both strategy and retention. From a strategy standpoint, the best example is Satya Nadella when he took over at Microsoft. He transformed Microsoft into a company that focused on more than their own little ecosystem by introducing broader thinking. If you spoke to Microsoft employees early on in this tenure, they would tell you they were spending a lot more time doing not just research and development but also learning, so they can be better enabled to understand customer needs and where customers were going. That perpetuated a cultural shift in the company. Rather than being anti everything else, the company started adopting the perspective that it just has to understand the customer's needs, be a better company and release better products. That was critical.

Learning and development has become much more central to the general business cycle that companies are competing in. Coursera and Udemy have been around for years, but they did see an inflection point over the last couple of years. If you can offer good managers to mentor or coach people, or provide the resources of professional growth, but you’re not providing the resources to grow intellectually and build knowledge, then people will look elsewhere to find those opportunities where they can take on new projects or challenges. That’s why we’re seeing companies embed learning and development as part of their strategy, in addition to using it as a talent retention technique.

Answer

The dynamics in every industry is changing very quickly, you have competitors trying to get the market share either by providing a better customer experience or technology. Now, to meet this gap, you cannot replace all the workforce. Thus, upskilling the existing workforce becomes mandatory so that they can help you meet the challenges faced by the competition.

Another point to note is, employees need opportunities for growth, L&D provides this comfort to the employees and that helps in retention because cost of hiring is very expensive. Skilled workforce is very expensive. Hence, we are left to train the team and upskill them to meet our organization goals.

Answer

In an era where our workforce is changing, we need are challenged to provide new opportunities to keep our teams engaged and retained. There is a huge need for learning and development initiatives to help retain our teams and build on our internal digital transformation strategies.

Is the need for learning and development initiatives increasing?

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