Did you know that 32% of employees who changed jobs within the past year did so to learn new skills?
The workplace is changing so rapidly; AI is everywhere and people worry about becoming obsolete, so managers and leaders are clamouring for new skills to stay relevant and future-proof their careers.
And, of course, skills and leadership development programs are good for the organization as well. A 2019 Deloitte report outlined how an organization reaped a 30% increase in employee engagement after introducing an internal career program to help employees learn new skills and seek alternative roles.
The bottom line is that your talent wants to expand their knowledge and learn new behaviours, and in the process they will deepen their engagement to their work and the company. Now that’s win-win.
Here are a few strategies that learning practitioners can use to engage employees and support an environment of continuous learning.
Support Personalized Learning: We are seeing a move away from standardized, one-size-fits-all approach to learning. Instead, there’s a shift towards an approach where the individual needs, skills and capabilities of employees are the starting point. By giving managers and teams a say in the direction of that learning, it renders it more relevant and actionable to their daily work life.
Create a Sense of Purpose: Best-in-class organizations purposefully connect their mission to their employees’ jobs. When your talent can find meaning in their jobs there’s a renewed sense of purpose at work. Research shows us that companies (and their leaders) that can set clear direction and expectations outperform the competition in the market. L&D should centre all learning around organizational objectives, and then cascade that throughout the company so that all employees understand their role in achieving those goals.
Think 1-to-Many: When you can harness the power of the collective, you can move from one-to-one learning to one-to-many learning. (And, let’s face it, leaders are time starved and 1-to-1 coaching and mentoring is hugely time consuming.) Whether it’s a common goal or an organizational challenge, if you can get a collective group sharing experiences, exchanging ideas and learning together, it is going to have a ripple effect in your organization. (If you haven’t read our paper on promoting collaborative learning and leadership, you can download Learning Together here.)
How Can We Help?
Leveraging our highly tested CECI™ Goal Setting Process, your leaders learn a system to successfully navigate current and future leadership situations with ease.
Through our unique peer-to-peer group coaching and guided group mentoring programs, your leaders and key talent will learn how to adapt their leadership approach to thrive in an ever-changing world. They’ll also develop the superior coaching and collaboration skills essential for success.
Peer group coaching may be just what your organization has been looking to take its employee development efforts to the next level. If you’d like to know more about our group coaching programs, contact us to start a conversation.
