Right now, organizations are being challenged to unlock collective knowledge and develop skills faster. As an L&D leader, you need to react quickly and help your organization build new skills and capabilities at a pace never seen before.
The Skills Accelerator is a report from CLO LIFT (a collaboration of Fortune 500 Chief Learning Officers), who set their minds to solving the problem of how to surge upskilling.
In this second article of a three-part series, featuring insights from Heather Stefanski and Bjorn Billhardt, we explore how L&D leaders can leverage three principles to start surging upskilling in their organizations and boost performance.
Guarantee a successful move to skills-based L&D
By providing your contact info, you agree to receive communications from 360Learning. You can opt-out at any time. For details, refer to our Privacy Policy.
Build a solid ecosystem to support upskilling
To close the skills gaps in our organizations, L&D professionals must pinpoint the skills that will drive the most business impact.
You also need to ask yourself if your organization has the ecosystem to support your upskilling initiatives. Closing skills gaps requires an employee-centric approach focusing on authentic capability building that goes beyond simply building learning programs.
“We need a network or system of things to help us deliver upskilling,” says Heather Stefanski, Chief Learning and Development Officer at McKinsey & Company.
“We need a network or system of things to help us deliver upskilling,” - Heather Stefanski.
To build a solid ecosystem to support your upskilling programs, organizational and leadership role-modeling of skills is needed. This includes manager and organizational support for employee development and the ability for employees to practice the skills on the job.
Great upskilling aligns with your organization’s business strategy. Ask yourself how your L&D practice supports that strategy to enable impact and measurable outcomes.
Three principles for developing skills
The big L&D thinkers at CLO LIFT identified three principles that will help you close your organization's skills gaps and keep up with the speed at which skills can change.
1. Pace: surging skills development
The speed of change in the business world is only getting faster, and L&D needs to be able to surge skills development.
“Businesses are relying on L&D to be able to quickly react and help the organization build new skills and capabilities at a pace we've never seen before,” says Heather.
“Businesses are relying on L&D to be able to quickly react and help the organization build new skills and capabilities at a pace we've never seen before,” - Heather Stefanski.
Luckily, AI technology empowers your ability to deliver learning more quickly. We can now get a minimal viable product on the ground and to learners in weeks, not months. With AI tools, L&D can be more agile and develop new upskilling initiatives at a pace that matches the rapid nature of skills.
For example, SkillsGPT empowers you to build a skills library with proficiency levels in minutes. You can then fine-tune the skills to match your organization's unique context and define what each skill means to your business.
2. Relevance: upskilling that impacts business outcomes
Skills relevance starts by understanding your organization’s business strategy and the capabilities the organization needs to perform better.
For upskilling initiatives to be relevant, you need to find the sweet spot between what the organization identifies as its skills gap and what employees recognize as vital to them.
For example, L&D needs to be more granular when developing learning for AI capability within organizations. Upskilling interventions should be designed around relevance to how the learner can do their job now.
“That requires L&D leaders to be a lot more strategic with where the business is going, not just with learning strategy and checking off the boxes of topics people need to learn,” Bjorn Billhardt, CEO of Abilitie.
“That requires L&D leaders to be a lot more strategic with where the business is going, not just with learning strategy and checking off the boxes of topics people need to learn,” - Bjorn Billhardt.
3. Scope: solving the broader problem
Impactful upskilling requires a holistic approach focusing on systematic solutions, not just training programs.
“If I'm not spending at least 50% of my time engaging the broader business to go after a problem, I know I'm not going to deliver a surge of skills at the pace we need that's really driving the right business outcomes,” says Heather.
“If I'm not spending at least 50% of my time engaging the broader business, I know I'm not going to deliver a surge of skills at the pace we need that's really driving the right business outcomes,” - Heather Stefanski.
For example, a friend of Bjorn's has started a company that embeds AI in hard hats for solar roof installers. L&D is driving the initiative, and not only are they embedding learning into the workflow, but they also have AI analyze the installation as it happens. This is a great example in delivering immediate training in the flow of work.
Start driving skills development today
The Skills Accelerator report is the product of work from a group of Fortune 500 CLOs and how they recommend that L&D leaders set out to increase their skills initiatives.
“Using the report, an L&D leader can reflect for themselves or engage in conversations with others in the organization to identify what to change to deliver on accelerating skills development,” says Heather.
“Using the report, an L&D leader can reflect for themselves or engage in conversations with others to identify what to change to deliver on accelerating skills development,” - Heather Stefanski.
From here, you can leverage the report to:
- Help you work towards understanding your organization's business problems.
- Plan the time you spend with the broader organization to solve real pain points.
- Understand the pace at which skills move.
- Be ready for how and when AI will change L&D.
Explore further insights on surging your upskilling on the latest episode on The L&D Podcast: The Skills Accelerator with Heather Stefanski and Bjorn Billhardt
Want more peer insights on transforming workplace learning? Sign up to become a member of the L&D Collective. Or you can subscribe below to our weekly newsletter to receive our latest posts directly in your inbox.
NEWSLETTER
Subscribe to the new
(unboring) way of learning
Our weekly newsletter of the best insights from L&D peer to L&D peer.
By providing your contact info, you agree to receive communications from 360Learning. You can opt-out at any time. For details, refer to our Privacy Policy.