Learning and Development is changing
In 2018, 94% of employees said they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development. So, what does that mean for you?
That means Learning and Development is no longer just a nice to have in the workplace, but absolutely a must-have! That’s not just going off the opinions of your employees but based on the positive impact expected to be seen on their productivity, with results from an IBM study proving that well-trained teams increased their productivity by 10%.
The workplace as we know it is continuously changing, so it’s no wonder that employees want to learn and develop new skills to continue progressing within their careers. As seen in our recent global research, for many the recent additions of furlough, remote working and lockdowns has caused a shift in personality, attitudes and emotional wellbeing. One of the most significant being a shift to being more introverted and risk averse. Helping people to be self-aware so they can take advantage of the new changes to their personal style and workplace behaviour is absolutely key to help organisations reconnect effectively in the wake of these changes, whether expecting people to slowly shift back to their older pre-Covid era self or if these changes are more permanent. On top of that, advances in technology are impacting existing job roles and the skills needed.
With the prediction from McKinsey that automation could displace 800 million jobs by 2030, it’s clear that the usual efforts of Learning and Development need to evolve if organisations want to maintain their competitive edge. The threat of automation has led to an urgency from organisations to set them apart from the competition and increase their efforts to develop those skills that a computer cannot replicate.
We have established that Learning and Development is essential for both retaining talent and making the most of talent available to you to increase productivity, but how can L&D be elevated to be more effective in these roles than ever before? Solutions must transform at the same pace as technology because strategies that have been popular in the past tend to focus more on processes rather than people. This approach to Learning and Development may have contributed to people believing that 70% of all change efforts fail.
This mythical statistic traces back to authors Michael Hammer and James Champy, who wrote this in ‘Reengineering the Corporation’. The book was published in 1993, just before scholars started focusing on the possibility that personality is predictive of performance. Until the last 20 years, the use of personality assessments in the selection process was frowned upon, a misunderstanding that may have led to organisations evolving at a slower pace.
Since the realisation that personality is predictive of performance and a great way to upskill talent, more and more organisations have been incorporating personality assessments into the selection and development process. Although assessments are continuously improving, learning from personal development initiatives can often be forgotten or not engaged with after the intervention. What does this suggest? We identified three possibilities:
1. Data is not accurate in a way that’s useful for people to learn from and puts people into boxes hiding some of their less apparent talents (and risks)
2. The assessment is often boring and non-memorable and at worst stereotypes the person, which disengages them from learning
3. Learning after the development and selection process can be limited to workshops and coaching sessions. Whilst essential to the development journey, we know personal development opportunities often happen in the real world outside of training exercises, meaning solutions need engagement beyond the limited time of coaching and workshops to achieve continuous long-term impact.
Organisations that discovered the importance of developing their organisational capabilities years ago have been reaping the benefits for a long time and provide an excellent example for what we should all be aiming for. Hewlett-Packard decided to make this exact change back in 1980; they went from lousy performance levels to now being a well-known brand that benefits from strong and lasting commitments from their employees.
Benefits
That’s only a small part of what effective learning and development have to offer; according to McKinsey, there are five strategic purposes when it comes to L&D.
As you can see, Learning and Development does wonders for your strategy! These five areas are all key motivators for incorporating a solution focused on talent development. Organisations like Hewlett-Packard realised this decades ago and reported an immediate positive impact on their productivity, engagement, and profit.
So, where have people been going wrong? Well, in an organisation that focuses more on processes than people, commercial growth is an expectation. But these organisations don’t factor in how teams can impact the processes, and this can ultimately limit your potential at making a better return on capital. However, if you focus on the talent of your team and their career development, this will, in turn, result in an increased profit; this is evident in the fact that those who spend more money per year on training and development are reporting earning 24% more than those with lower budgets.
The positive impacts of Learning and Development just seem to continue growing! A significant benefit is that people are more engaged with their work. This fact is highlighted in results from a survey carried out by ETS (Expert Training Systems Plc) with 16 out of the 20 global companies surveyed ruling training and development as a key driver of employee engagement. Better engagement is beneficial for your organisation’s bottom line. Harvard Business Review compared top-quartile companies to bottom-quartile companies and found that those with higher levels of engagement benefitted from lower absenteeism and turnover (specifically 25% lower turnover for high turnover organisations, and 65% lower turnover for low turnover organisations).
Learning and Development sounds amazing, right? Not only does it improve productivity, but you improve your chances of attracting and retaining top talent and increase performance levels amongst all members of the organisation whilst positively impacting your ROI. What more could you want?
Well, suppose everyone has the same idea. In that case, the competition for Learning and Development will be at an all-time high which is why now more than ever, you need to invest more in your organisational capabilities to set you apart from the competition. Investing more in your learning and development is the first step, but to create a truly effective solution, you need to consider the three common downfalls and tailor your solution to fit your organisation’s individual needs.
That’s where Lumina Learning comes in
Lumina Learning is at the heart of many successful selection and development solutions. When you decide to use any of our solutions, you can be sure to embark on a development experience that lasts a lifetime, improving communication, teamwork, and leadership.
Our solutions are brought to life by combining cutting edge technology with years of research into personality and performance. We pride ourselves on our humanistic approach and believe our take on selection and development equips organisations with the right tools to empower people to take ownership of their own development in a highly memorable, accurate and inclusive manner.
Lumina Learning worked with the Finance Director of Adidas to improve employee satisfaction. Utilising Lumina Spark and Lumina Leader 360, Adidas were able to transform internal communication at an executive level. This led to a dramatic improvement in results across the Employee Engagement Index.
According to a McKinsey survey, 66% of respondents say that they plan to increase L&D spending over the next few years. As fantastic as that is, organisations need to go beyond spending budget for the sake of trends and make sure they are adopting Learning and Development solutions that meet organisational needs, especially as L&D is expected to shift over the next few years completely.
There is a reason our solutions are used and trusted by 1000+ organisations on a global scale. Here at Lumina Learning, we have identified three things that must be present in top Learning and Development solutions for them to be effective and stand out and we have committed to making them our USPs.
1. Smart data, Simple language – We provide highly accurate and predictive analytics about workplace behaviours. By measuring your personality across 3 different Personas, we understand that people are likely to behave differently in various contexts. Our data may be smart and sophisticated, but you don’t need to be an expert in psychology to understand our solutions. Each of our fully customisable offerings are renowned for being simple, colourful, and memorable in a way that is truly personalised to you.
2. We value different ways of being – We believe in celebrating the value of your personality by going beyond just obvious strengths. We assist you in finding your hidden talents and help you make use of those skills usually neglected. By measuring your personality across 24 Qualities, we explore all of your personality without bias. You are not simply Extraverted or Introverted, not just a thinker or a feeler. Unlike other tools, Lumina Learning shows you how to work with all aspects of your personality.
3. Effortlessly virtual – As a company that prides itself on being digitally native, all our learning experiences are digitally deliverable and highly interactive, making every solution memorable and enjoyable to engage with. Continued engagement with our solutions is captured through our wrap-around structure, providing learning before, during and after the workshops. On top of that, we have our world-class Lumina Splash App, which is beneficial during development sessions and in the workplace.
Lumina Splash App
The invention of our Splash App has made continuous learning that much easier. Is there anything more convenient than having a Learning and Development solution that is both portable and fits in the palm of your hand? Not much can beat that when it comes to effective L&D.
Learning and Development no longer has to be limited. Not only do you have unlimited access wherever, whenever, but you also have access to the Share and Compare capability, which allows teams to understand each other in a more interactive way than was ever possible during the ancient times of PDFs.
Lumina Spark
Derived from our first solution, it seems that Lumina Spark is the gift that keeps on giving. Created to provide you with a personalised portrait of your whole personality, we set out to increase self-awareness, reveal hidden potential and help you to cope better under pressure. But what we accomplished was beyond all expectations and has led to Lumina Spark transforming into a whole suite of essential Learning and Development solutions.
If you are not already familiar with our story, you can learn more from The future of development & selection; what makes Lumina Learning different.
We designed our entire suite of solutions to select, onboard and develop all from one platform, streamlined, familiar and easy to work with. We spent the first 10 years transforming how personality is understood and now we are transforming how solutions are delivered to be more engaging and more memorable than ever before.
Curious how Lumina Learning could help your organisation?
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