Trends 2024: Managing World-Class Training (PDF)

TRENDS 2024 BUSINESS PERSPECTIVES ON MANAGING WORLD-CLASS TRAINING  With more business leaders seeing a clear link between training and business success, L&D is ripe with opportunity to create value for the business. |2 TRENDS...

TRENDS 2024 BUSINESS PERSPECTIVES ON MANAGING WORLD-CLASS TRAINING  With more business leaders seeing a clear link between training and business success, L&D is ripe with opportunity to create value for the business. |2 TRENDS 2024 L&D as a Key Business Driver By Ken Taylor and Michelle Eggleston Schwartz, CPTM Organizations have been under tremendous pressure to innovate and scale business operations in the face of increasing uncertainty. The companies that have been the most successful have been those that have leveraged learning and development (L&D) to improve business performance. L&D plays an essential role in supporting and empowering today’s workforce — from increasing employee engagement and talent retention to building an inclusive company culture and strong leadership pipelines. With more business leaders seeing a clear link between training and business success, L&D is ripe with opportunity to create value for the business — making it more important than ever for learning leaders to work together with senior leaders and stakeholders to establish a cohesive and unified vision for the future of the organization. The key trends for 2024 reflect the growing prominence of L&D as a key business driver, helping organizations build the capabilities and skills needed to thrive in an increasingly complex market. These trends can help learning leaders maximize the impact of their training initiatives for years to come. |3 Leveraging Learning to Improve Talent Retention Today’s employees want to learn and grow, and they want to work for organizations that invest in their development. If employees aren’t learning, they will inevitably leave the company to achieve growth elsewhere. With 93% of organizations concerned about employee retention, the No. 1 way organizations are working to improve retention is by providing learning opportunities, according to LinkedIn Learning’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report. Learning opportunities are a clear way to support and retain talent, while also driving business goals. However, delivering training for training’s sake has never been an effective strategy (and never will be). L&D needs to connect employee learning to career growth, and this means delivering targeted learning opportunities. Employees need to understand the skills, capabilities and experiences that they need to make an upward or lateral career move in the company. Leadership training is also needed to help managers better support their employees’ career development. Leaders need to be able to have meaningful career conversations with employees to understand their goals and connect them with the right learning opportunities. Having this support and an organizational culture that prioritizes learning can lead to a more engaged workforce. L&D needs to connect employee learning with career growth. |4  Making Content Employees must be Engaging Even for the trained to spot inaccurate Disengaged Employee information and uncover A lack of employee engagement is a top concern for many organizations. With only 23% of employees engaged at biased AI content. work globally, coupled with the fact that employees want more development opportunities, L&D must ensure that their training programs are hitting the mark. Training is a key driver of employee engagement and retention, and AI’s Impact on L&D L&D must ensure that their learning programs connect with employees. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has arguably been the most talked about topic of the year — stemming from the What successful training looks like will differ from release of ChatGPT last November. Within the first 60 days company to company. Learning leaders must understand of its release, ChatGPT reached 100 million users, making the learning needs and preferences of their workforce to it one of the fastest-growing consumer applications. At develop training that resonates with and engages them. Training Industry, we saw this spike in interest firsthand, For instance, instructor-led training (ILT) may be a better with our articles, webinars and virtual events focused on fit for front-line workers at a manufacturing plant, whereas AI quickly outpacing any other topic. mobile learning and job aids may be a better fit for on-the- go salespeople. While AI is certainly not new, the accessibility to this tool is new for many people, including learning leaders. Learners need relevant content available when and With 85% of organizations planning to increase where they need it most. So, understanding the content adoption of frontier technologies over the next five that learners need and delivering it in the most engaging years, organizations must understand the benefits and and efficient way possible can increase their engagement drawbacks of using AI in the workplace. and optimize the training’s success. For L&D, the benefits are vast. AI can be used to produce However, measuring learner engagement and tracking course outlines and training materials, create training the success of training programs is not easy. Identifying assessments, build competency models and curate key performance indicators to monitor before training personalized and adaptive content for learners. AI also is developed can help to inform the training content, has the potential to make coaching more accessible to including the learning’s associated activities, materials employees through AI-based coaching, which can create and delivery method. Identifying the behaviors, skills and more consistency across the employee experience. capabilities that employees need to be successful in their role can help to guide the content development process. As we know, AI also has its limitations, which include producing inaccurate and biased content. Users must understand how generative AI works to fully grasp its drawbacks. Generative AI collects information from the internet using generative models to give you an answer to a question. AI doesn’t review sources or carefully consider your question as a human would. In other words, AI is not a subject matter expert and should not replace or operate without human oversight. Training is a key driver With organizations planning to increase their adoption of of employee engagement AI tools, employees must be trained to spot inaccurate information and uncover biased content. Doing this work and retention. requires employees to also enhance their “human” skills, such as critical thinking, analytical thinking and emotional intelligence, to use AI more effectively and responsibly in their roles |5  Reinvestment in Instructor-Led Training With the shelf life of skills ILT has long been the preferred training delivery shrinking, this puts pressure method for organizations — until the onset of the on L&D to deliver training to COVID-19 pandemic. With forced business closures, the pandemic triggered a drastic shift from ILT to eLearning upskill and close skills gaps. and other virtual delivery methods to train and connect a dispersed workforce. Now, three years later, we are starting to see organizations re-evaluate their training offerings, trying to find the right balance between in- Upskilling and the Role person and virtual training options. of Competency Modeling In retrospect, there was a forced over rotation to eLearning over the past few years out of necessity, and Upskilling continues to be a top priority — and challenge now, companies are looking to reinvest in ILT. According — for organizations. According to LinkedIn data, skill to Training Industry research, 34% of L&D professionals sets for jobs have changed by around 25% since 2015 said that ILT is one of the top three areas that they — and by 2027, that number is expected to double. The would reinvest any uncovered budget savings. World Economic Forum is also reporting similar figures, predicting that 44% of workers’ core skills will be While we’ve seen remarkable innovations in learning disrupted, between now and 2027. technologies and remote learning over the past few years, ILT is still a valuable training delivery option. The With the shelf life of skills shrinking, this puts pressure on balance of training offerings will be different across L&D to deliver training to upskill and close skills gaps. To companies and industries, so there is no specific ratio accomplish this, organizations must put skills first and that or formula for organizations to follow. means having a grasp on the skills needed to perform jobs successfully — now and in the future. Building As we move forward, learning leaders must stay focused competency models, or a framework to determine the on determining the right training method for the training skills and abilities necessary to be successful in a given need at hand. Whether it’s a new skill, knowledge or role or function, is becoming more important, especially behavior, training’s desired outcomes can help to guide for roles that organizations identify as critical to business learning leaders in selecting the right training method operations. for their company. Outlining skills and abilities based on job roles allows learning leaders to assess skills gaps more accurately. For instance, a competency model for an accountant may include skills related to specific accounting software, Excel spreadsheets, preparing financial statements or attention to detail. Learning leaders can use assessments to determine if an accounting employee is proficient in a specific skill like Excel. Organizations are trying If the assessment shows that an employee needs improvement, then learning leaders can develop and to find the right balance deliver relevant training to address those gaps. between in-person and Building competency models for specific job roles and virtual training options. functions can help organizations understand their current inventory of skills and where gaps exist, enabling L&D to adapt the program to the employees’ needs and more accurately predict the skills that the organization will need in the future. |6 Market Outlook The training market has continued to rebound over the past few years. Our research from a survey of over 500 L&D professionals suggests that we can expect to see an 8% increase in training budgets in 2024, with a strong focus on investing in leadership development and new learning technologies. Nearly a quarter of L&D professionals said that they would invest in upgrading learning technologies if they uncovered extra funds in their training budget. Ken Taylor is the chief executive officer of Training Industry, Inc. Michelle Eggleston Schwartz, CPTM, is the editor in chief at Training Industry, Inc., and co-host of “The Business of Learning,” the Training Industry podcast. Email Ken and Michelle. |7 The most trusted source of information on the business of learning. MAGAZINE | ARTICLES | RESEARCH | PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT | PODCAST [email protected] | ( 8 6 6 ) 2 9 8 - 42 03 I WWW. T RAININGINDU S T RY. C OM