Learning and Development today addresses the big challenge for IT enterprises, the re-engineering of its 4.1 million-strong workforce and create a talent pipeline to meet the demands of fast-transforming IT businesses.
The rapid change in infrastructure and avenues like automation, big data, etc. making deep inroads into the supply chain, the demands of the industry’s global clientele have evolved as a challenge. But the rapid change in technology is not the issue.
“The issue lies in the lack of professionals who can implement emerging technology at work”
The talent gap and the skill shortage have become defining factors for enterprise competitiveness and decide if businesses are going cherish or perish. Industries around the globe have realized that onboarding and re-skilling the right talent is a way to level the uneven playing field.
The challenges of skilling workforce at scale
- With a renewed push among enterprises, re-skilling the IT workforce is across the boards.
- Identifying and implementing strategies to retain valuable employees at scale has become the primary concern among L&D teams.
- Under-skilled engineers aspiring for IT jobs are not the only blow industries face today. Even employed professionals are now vulnerable to the shrunk shelf life of skills and now require to upskill while they are still working.
- Large enterprises with thousands of employees, irrespective of the sectors they operate, aggregates millions of such employees who need instant and constant upskilling.
Employees are willing to learn new skills as per the changing job roles and L&D has been playing its part by providing enough learning opportunities for its employees. Yet there is a huge room for improvement as only 21% of employees are reported to have taken advantage of on-campus learning and development initiatives.
Amidst enterprises’ claim that they provide enough learning opportunities, there is a disconnect where L&D professionals often fail to cope with the flexibility needed for newer technology, traditional learning standards and various generations at workplaces.
The solutions has been a paradigm shift from what traditional L&D teams and employees are used to.
- Our practices redefine employee transformation away from learning altogether and provides continual eLearning resources with immersive learning practices.
- Our practices are powered by a collective intelligence architecture that becomes a part of the continuous learning and development of employees.
The much-needed change
Traditional L&D practices, which earlier focused on the narrow domains and deep expertise of skills, are now moving to a learning experience platform where learners go through continuous learning, helping them interoperate efficiently. But the scale and intensity of L&D activities at large enterprises can be terrifying for individuals if there is a “one size fits all” approach in place.
Learning is best delivered when it is in the flow of work. With employees finding it harder to take time out of their schedules, learning resources need to consume “in the flow of work,” ideally between projects, meetings, or even while commuting, etc.
Skilling at scale also requires enterprises to eliminate all artificial barriers between L&D, learning management system, and the mentors to offer a collective intelligence that is not obstructed every now and then.
In terms of the learning methodologies, contextualization of concepts are great when learners are trying to understand and retain new concepts.
Since workforces are required to demonstrate critical thinking during unforeseen situations and come up with viable solutions, learning agility among the workforce is a sustainable way of creating and maintaining talent pool which remains productive.
“The entire L&D approach where employees are exposed to learning by doing and fast feedback is a widely used approach today”.
To conclude, any new learning ecosystem has to be a harmonious integration of people and data that assesses the skill gaps, provide an immersive learning experience and learning by doing.
Source: https://www.iiht.com/blog/skilling-at-scale-with-speed/
This type of articles should have at least references to the countries you are talking about. I don’t see any resources which could help to define that neither.
So much depends on the way formal education and professional careers are structured, and about their efficiency.
IMHO, the IT industry across the world is facing similar challenges of skilling workforce to match up with the evolution of technology. The author seems to be making a case for upskilling in the era of emerging tech and declining shelf life of skills.
Formal education and structure of professional career truly vary based on geography but the threat of becoming irrelevant in the era of AI seems to be undeterred by geographical boundaries.
It will be interesting to know your thoughts on how employees can stay relevant in such a scenario with their existing skills.
Not only in the IT industry but in almost all industries this is a requirement. I still stick to my view point that this is a lot dependent on the country you’re living. This is based on my experience as consultant and trainer for Captivate: the difference between some European countries and Australia is not that big, but with the USA (not Canada) , Asian and African countries the gap is very big. To give a solution to the threat, more is needed in those countries.
On the other side: there is also an ‘attitude’ which can be positive and negative towards life long learning, and is also definitely very different depending on the country and the former education. Do the company encourage and provides time for the learning? That is bad in my country (where formal education is not bad at all): both attitude of employees and employers should adapt to these new situations.
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