Is the Job Title Dead? Skills-Based Approaches to L&D

Have you heard a job title recently and thought, “What on earth does that mean?”?

If so, you’re not alone. In today’s rapidly changing economy, organizations have had to become more agile and adaptable to stay competitive in their markets. 

Many organizations are adopting a skills-based approach to achieve this where, rather than focusing on job titles and descriptions, organizations are starting to prioritize the skills and capabilities of their workforce. 

The skills-based approach has numerous benefits for organizations, including increased agility, employee agency, and equity in the workplace. 

But what does this mean for L&D?

 

Easier said than done

 

This shift to a skill-based approach means that L&D is more important than ever before. However, in its current state L&D teams are not being set up for success. 

According to a report by Deloitte, 77% of business leaders agree their organization should help their employees develop relevant skills. However, only 5% strongly agree that they are investing enough to enable this. 

Without investment, L&D teams are left trying to deliver skills-based development programs using traditional delivery methods.  Which, in this era, is impractical and unfeasible.  

Further still, the common challenges L&D teams face with traditional learning delivery methods can be considered a symptom of the incompatibility of these very methods with skills-based approaches.

 

Some of these challenges include:

 

• Learning becomes outdated before it can be delivered

• • Due to the fast pace of the workplace, learning has an expiration date that sometimes even passes before learning has been delivered. The length of time that traditional methods of delivery take are no longer quick enough to keep pace with skills needs, making it impossible for L&D teams to keep up.

 

• Too much time spent orchestrating learning

• • As we move forward, the demand for personalized learning increases, and a large majority of L&D teams are spending too much time orchestrating learning, leaving them spread thin.

 

• Low engagement rates

• • Many organizations are struggling with engagement rates, due to learners expecting highly relevant and personalized learning to develop their skills in line with career aspirations.

 

• Data gaps make it hard to demonstrate impact

• • Many L&D teams don’t now have access to the key data that will demonstrate ROI of skills-based development – engagement percentages are no longer enough to demonstrate impact of L&D initiatives.

 

• Lack of ROI 

• • Many of these factors are affecting the ROI of learning programs and threatening a lack of funding for future L&D initiatives at certain organizations.

 

The role of contextual learning

 

In order for skills-based development to have maximum impact, learning needs not only to be more personalized than ever before, but it also needs to be contextualized; something that traditional learning delivery methods cannot support.

 

Contextual learning adds relevant context to the learning process, making it easier for employees to relate any information to real-life situations. The benefits this has for L&D in skills-based organizations is numerous. 

 

Challenge	How contextual learning can help
Learning delivery becomes outdated before it is delivered	Doesn’t rely on a curriculum that might become outdated, instead using real-world scenarios and experiences which continually evolve with current trends and practices.
Too much time spent orchestrating learning	Boosts knowledge retention reducing the need for repetition, through personalization, integrated into the flow of work.
Low engagement rates	Its personalized scenario- and application-based approach makes it more relevant and relatable to learners, boosting their motivation and engagement.
Data gaps make it hard to demonstrate impact	Designed to adapt based on real-time data on a learner’s knowledge and skill set. Allowing L&D teams to monitor progress and identify skill gaps instantly.
Lack of ROI	All of the above factors contribute not only to getting better ROI from learning programs, but also being able to better demonstrate real-world impact.

 

Overall, these benefits have an impact in the wider HR context. Contextual learning leads to higher overall employee satisfaction, motivation and productivity. So, HR teams are able to make informed decisions based on recent and specific data sets.

 

Empower your L&D teams to deliver contextual learning for skills-based development

 

So how can your L&D team deploy contextualized learning for skill-based development quickly and at scale? The good news is that recent developments in technology have made the skills-based organization possible for the first time. 

With AI technology such as Gen AI and Synth AI, your L&D teams now have access to AI-powered Skills Academies such as Hive Learning to enable them to fully embrace and deploy contextual learning for the best skills-based results. 

Hive Learning pairs years of experience delivering thousands of  impactful skills programs for hundreds of organizations with AI to:

• Empower business to build flexible and hyper-contextualized courses, programs and content at speed and scale
• Maximize learner engagement for faster value with better results
• Gather data insights that goes beyond engagement percentages to empower L&D teams to make informed decisions for maximum ROI

 

Reach out to find out more about how Hive Learning can empower your L&D teams to deliver results in a skills-based economy. 

 

Sources:

Deloitte, Organizational Skill Based Hiring

Whatfix, Contextual Learning