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Learning trends in 2023 - creating a great learning experience for people and teams
Working and learning patterns have changed since the pandemic, but you don’t need us to tell you that.
Working patterns were turned on their heads, and those changes are now permanent. Since then, organisations have had to evolve and adapt their L&D functions accordingly. We spoke to senior learning and development (L&D) leaders in various organisations and asked for their opinions and real-life examples of the issues they were facing.
We pulled together some research based on these conversations and a survey that went out to hundreds of leaders. Five main challenges came out, which we’ll address in this article, along with some ideas and solutions.
On top of changes in working patterns, there are also significant cultural changes as workplaces introduce measures to address elements such as gender equality and diversity and inclusion.
Meanwhile, people have different priorities and expectations of their employers. Add to this the nationwide skills and labour shortage, which isn’t set to correct itself anytime soon, and a large cohort of workers who no longer wish to work, it’s easy to see how challenging the workplace has become for learning and development partners in organisations. And did we mention the impending arrival of AI, which could herald a golden era of productivity or Armageddon, depending on who you talk to?
All of this explains why we at Laughology have put together some ideas to identify the key challenges currently faced by learning and development partners and offer some solutions. Within these challenges, there are common themes. In the second section, we will share some solutions to help address these challenges and themes.
We hope this report proves useful and gives you some ideas on tackling the key challenges presently affecting our industry.
Top challenges
Time
One of the key themes to emerge from our research was that time pressures for everyone in working environments have become increasingly acute. There was also a correlation between seniority and time scarcity. The higher the climb, the less time you have. This is no surprise.
The people who were time-poor the most were leaders. However, leadership was also considered the most in need of development, with leadership skills such as strategic thinking and planning, people skills and being solution-focused as priorities. Yet, putting time aside for learning and personal development proves problematic. These time pressures are more pronounced than before the pandemic, suggesting that the new ways of working may only work for some.
In some organisations, work/time equity needs to be reviewed across teams because when some people spend less time on tasks, others tend to shoulder the burden.
The need for time, and hence a more strategic use of time, is intensely acute in leadership roles where respondents reported that time pressures meant they were less able to concentrate and focus on some of the key leadership skills and actions, such as communication with teams and strategic planning. L&D departments tasked with helping to skill up leaders also reported that lack of time was an issue, which made it harder for them to deliver leadership training as diaries were constantly under pressure.
Content
Bespoke L&D content is the gold standard for most organisations, as it conveys a tone of voice and appropriate messaging. Quite simply, bespoke content talks to people within the organisation in a familiar voice, whether technical training, leadership skills or people skills. L&D departments which generate content purely in-house are few and far between.
Most partner with third parties for content creation and delivery and hope that the content presented or produced reflects the organisation, its values, its culture, and its tone of voice. Organisations we surveyed highlighted the fact that ideally, they would want the content to be bespoke, but for a range of reasons, including time, cost and resources, the content they often commission from outside practitioners is off-the-shelf and doesn’t fully reflect the needs of the organisation.
On some occasions, organisations were given an expectation of bespoke content but received off-the-shelf. Other L&D professionals surveyed explained that the providers they engaged did not offer bespoke options at all. The results can be disjointed and piecemeal rather than coherent when devising and rolling out a programme.
Leadership skilling
Leadership presents challenges both in terms of recruitment and up-skilling. The recruitment pool for experienced leaders is restricted, so many organisations find it makes more sense to promote from within.
The challenge faced here is that sometimes, available candidates do not have the full suite of skills needed for the role and do not have experience of strategic thinking on an organisational level. For example, the role may require technical skills, whereas the available candidate has stronger people skills.
It then becomes the L&D department’s role to facilitate the right training. This was a common scenario we encountered. Leadership comes with a full diary of tasks and meetings, and L&D departments told us they were in a constant battle to find the time with their leaders to schedule development and training.
Digital
Nearly every organisation has digitised to some extent since the pandemic. For some, it has been a digital revolution where whole workplaces have changed. Most organisations now have some form of remote working, which inevitably entails utilising a range of technology, some common, such as Teams, and some bespoke to the organisation.
While many people embrace the change, others have been reluctant to engage. The challenges of up-skilling people with the technical skills needed to function in newly digital workspaces are exacerbated by the fact that, by its nature, technology evolves and changes constantly, which then requires ongoing upskilling. This challenge is particularly prevalent in organisations which previously had little need for digital workplaces.
Resources
Learning partners and directors increasingly tell us their organisations must do more with less. This is not solely cost-cutting. Increasingly, there’s a struggle to recruit skilled people at higher levels. Recruitment and retention are a pressing challenge, especially among Millennials and Gen Z. Younger people are not staying in roles for long periods, and there is pressure on L&D practitioners to get recruits skilled up quickly only to see them leave in a year or two.
Solutions
Bite-sized learning
Learning doesn’t have to be delivered in long workshops. Indeed, research suggests that short bursts of learning are more ‘sticky’ than more traditional, longer rote learning sessions. Bite-sized learning is delivered in short, focused sessions, typically around 15-20 minutes and delivered virtually.
The topics covered can be wide-ranging and be incorporated as part of leadership updates. They are also accompanied by short post-delivery topic-linked resources, such as podcasts, ‘cheat sheets’ and action learning tasks, to help reinforce learning. Laughology promotes a ‘watch, read, do’ approach. Subjects covered include psychological safety, creative and innovative thinking and strategic thinking.
Peer learning
Learning is more effective when it’s done between peers, and one way to achieve this and to maximise resources and time is to deliver it through ‘action learning groups. Logistically, this entails organising for a group of people to meet up once a month to discuss a challenge they are working through.
This method allows organisations to create self-sustaining learning models and also combats silo working. The best action learning groups are small, with a maximum of 3 participants, allowing diaries to be easily matched.
A top-down approach to learning
Leaders in all departments should be cheerleaders for L&D to embed a learning culture in the organisation. This can be achieved through example and commitment whereby leaders are seen to prioritise L&D. Practically, this can be displayed through small, simple actions, such as honouring meetings on the topic rather than pulling them from diaries for something else to go in, which our survey found tends to happen frequently.
Solid external partner relationships
Having good partnerships with external learning and development specialists and investing time and effort in getting to know each other can save more time and resources in the long run and help develop suitable and bespoke content. Taking time to talk through a specific need and set time for planning and design should be viewed as an investment which pre-empts any issues further down the line when resources have already been committed.
A partnership, as opposed to a hierarchical customer-supplier relationship, is a more effective route to meeting aims, as a supplier that genuinely understands the organisation is more likely to get it right and land it right. Having a clear understanding between partners and adhering to an agreed programme from the start, rather than jumping about and changing content and parameters, also ensures more effective delivery and uptake, providing better ROI.
Embrace digitisation
Not all learning needs to be delivered face-to-face. Coaching, particularly, can be labour and time-intensive, yet some very effective apps are being used successfully, such as Ezra.
Creative recruitment
In leadership particularly, our survey identified a theme whereby the pool of candidates only sometimes matches the role. External applicants are unsuitable, and internal candidates applying for promotion are preferred but only occasionally have the right mix of skills.
In these common scenarios, there is an option to recruit and train, but this option might not be feasible if, for example, the role requires a high degree of specific technical knowledge of a topic. Recruiters could instead consider splitting the role. Job-sharing is possible at a leadership level and makes sense where a role requires a mix of both people skills and technical skills but where no candidate is available with both skill sets.
Conclusion
L&D is not alone in facing challenges, and many of the themes identified are not solely challenges specific to L&D but rather a consequence of wider changes. We know from our research and survey that a one-size-fits-all approach to learning will fail to address individuals' and organisations' diverse learning needs and preferences and that there are no silver bullets.
Organisations must first be aware of the sticking points in their people's learning journeys and then be creative in finding the solution.
First and foremost, organisations and their leaders should promote a culture of continuous learning, and L&D departments should focus on creating opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing. With these in place, engagement and motivation should follow.
Here at Laughology, we like to understand your challenges and build solutions around them with you. To chat with us about anything, contact doug@laughology.co.uk - even a quick chat can help you think differently, and it costs nothing.
