6 signs it’s time to review your L&D approach
I’ve noticed a trend. 9/10 times a conversation about learning with a client comes down to these six themes. These are often the catalyst for teams looking outside of their organisation for help bringing their learning up to date, and turning it into a valuable part of their employee value proposition.
Do these sound familiar?
1. You haven’t looked at your L&D offering in a while
Look, the last couple of years have been a lot for any organisation to get through, it’s understandable that your L&D plans and curriculum might have been sitting on the shelf for a while. When you dust it off you might find that what worked in 2019, feels dated in 2022 (and beyond), and needs a more modern approach.
2. You don’t have an L&D offering
New business? Growing business? Firstly, if you’re at the stage where you need to provide structured, interesting, learning and development opportunities that work to your people then congratulations! Maybe you’re not at the stage where you need to employ your own full-time L&D team, but you do want to include great development in your employee value proposition.
3. You’re worried your team aren’t going to keep up with the skills for the future
If you read posts and articles like this and get a knot in your stomach, now is the perfect time to design the approach that’s appropriate for your people and your industry. The good news is that you don’t have to develop these skills yourself, all at once, or with a multitude of ‘courses’. Instead, we can take a smart approach to learning that goes way beyond ‘the classroom’, and goes into the future.
4. You’re running your learning as ‘people in a room with a slide deck’
We’ve all done it, and sometimes a group of people in a physical or virtual room with some slides can be a useful tool in delivering learning. But it shouldn’t be the only technique. The learning people are experiencing outside of work has improved considerably, and most organisations are not keeping up with what’s available elsewhere.
Internal podcasts, video series, curated external content, case studies, future simulations, quests, book clubs, expeditions, unconferences, peer learning communities, personalised budgets, elements of surprise and delight, or erm… opening your own restaurant are all approaches that could be blended into your curriculum to provide a much more colourful and effective learning experience.
5. You’re hearing about a lack of development options in your exit interviews, engagement surveys, or performance conversations
Retention is a particularly juicy issue at the moment, and with costs to replace someone apparently spanning anything between $24k to $50k for rehiring costs and up to $800k(!) when you take into account training and the lost productivity and engagement of losing a high performer, it is not something to disregard.
If you’re hearing comments about a lack (or perceived lack) of development opportunities in your surveys, performance conversations, or exit interviews, that’s a clear sign that your people value development. It’s time to amp up your offering, your approach, and/or your communication and engagement around what is available.
6. It all feels like a lot
I get it. Let’s turn that overwhelm into relief and a creative approach that blends your business strategy and objectives, your employee value proposition, your people’s learning experience, and modern learning approaches into something that gets people talking.
The good news is, help is at hand. Get in touch find out to learn how we can take your learning approach from ‘oh no!’ to ‘woah!’.