With four generation of employees at the workplace, the game has changed drastically for organisations today. There is a greater need for the leaders to retain their workforce and keep them engaged by providing learning opportunities for each of these generations.
Since the age gap between the youngest and the oldest employee, at the workplace, is nearly 30 years, there cannot be any one strategy to engage all of them. Baby-boomers and Gen X have been interested in hierarchical growth and have always craved a career path that would take them to the next level. Millennials, on the other hand, not looking for linear growth, are more interested in engaging experiences and challenging opportunities.
With a focus on today’s diverse workforce, there are multiple possibilities to engage them with different types of learning programmes. With new and emerging digital technologies like AI, ML, IoT, Analytics and others; tech employees need continual upskilling to support organization’s stay ahead of the curve and achieve their business goals. When organizations provide opportunities to continually advance their proficiencies; employees feel empowered.
Organisations are making learning a strategic priority for their talent pool and here is how!
• Ensure that learning is relevant and continual: The L&D teams have to continuously update their learning programmes, to keep pace with the volatility in the technology space. Employees are interested in future-skills, leaders have to ensure that the learning modules are continuously upgraded. Moreover, continuity in learning lessens redundancies and skill gaps amongst the employees.
• Integrate learning into employee’s workplace: There is no dearth of learning avenues in today’s workplace, as business processes are changing continuously due to the emerging technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as internet of things, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Change always brings in a great opportunity for the employees to acquire new skills, adopt new methods and techniques. The ones who are eager to put their thinking hats on, love challenges, use them as a trigger to upskill and then apply them at work.
• Support micro-learning: The intuitive learners require small doses of everyday learning. They like to learn in bite-sizes, which enables them to learn between tasks. By offering them a digital learning platform, learning is approached in a holistic manner by the organisation.
Download the guide to know how coordinated learning and talent management strategies can enable companies to succeed in this emerging workplace.
• Enable self-directed learning: When leaders invest in a futuristic learning infrastructure for their talent pool, they are able to engage the most engaged employees. This talent pool is highly motivated and likes to self-learn, all they need is a platform and updated modules, they are ready to learn anytime anywhere.
• Provide guidance: Employees also learn on the job from their mentors. Having skilled leaders in the organisation has a direct impact on the new hires, who can learn directly from their bosses. This also helps them to align their personal goals, such as job satisfaction, with the organization’s goals. Not only the boss, having competitive team members also helps these employees develop a keen eye for learning.
• Provide cross-functional experiences: Employers need to constantly provide learning opportunities to their most curious employees. By leveraging cross-functional movement, they can provide them with an organisational structure that encourages them to self-educate themselves and grow within the organisation. Moreover, in order to retain these employees, they must be given challenging work, otherwise, they could either leave or look for side projects.
Organizations also need to ensure that learning & development programs are directly aligned with their goals
• Define organisational needs and areas of future growth: The challenge-oriented employees need well-defined goals to work towards. It will help them if their employers have clearly outlined career paths for them. By communicating to their employees, the areas that will be high in priority for growth, employers will be able to keep the interested learners motivated.
• Integrate learning with talent management: These employees also have the potential to become future managers. Organisations have to gauge that the learning programmes are helping the talent to develop managerial skills so that an effective leadership pool is getting created.
• Quantify training ROI, monitor progress: Since all organisations have a business goal, to make a profit and improve its return on equity. It is imperative that the L&D teams have to calculate the ROI of their learning investments.
Challenge-oriented-inquisitive employees require continuous upskilling, organisations which have an effective learning system in place will be able to quench their thirst for continual learning.