COVID-19: Heralding a new era in Learning & Development

"In the first week of April, people watched 1.7M hours of learning content on LinkedIn Learning vs. 560K hours in the first week of January – a 3X increase in time spent learning" Hari Srinivasan

Classroom based learning has been the status quo for many years, mainly thanks to the roadblocks in the way of innovation, but technology is now playing a vital role in enabling change. In fact, in many ways, COVID-19 has been a catalyst for long overdue innovation in learning and it has accelerated a rethink of different modes and content elements for the development of people.

Learning in lockdown: all change

"Employees are spending 130% more time on learning since the pandemic" – LinkedIn Learning

In the last few months, many organisations that didn’t have an adequate digital learning infrastructure or delivery plan have been forced to invest in one. A process which would have taken years has taken weeks.

We’ve also seen the need for leaders to put people first and be more human. 

There’s been a clamour for sustainable businesses focused on people and the planet before profits. I believe that long overdue support for climate change, communities and each other (as we’ve seen most recently with Black Lives Matter) – and the appetite to learn more about these issues in order to advocate for them and help change happen – will only continue.

John Amaechi OBE spoke passionately about learning being key to addressing racism at the recent CIPD Festival of Work. And Dr Sam Collins and her excellent speakers at the recent Aspire for Equality event, ‘Reimagination’, encouraged the 500 women from 50 countries attending to share learning, connect and collaborate to make a greater impact in our world.

There is recognition that learning and collaborating are the ways to make change happen. So how can we embed a learning culture for good? 

There is also a clear increased desire for more balance in our lives, and remote and flexible working will be a key part of that. What training can help? And what is the mindset – and what are the skills – that leaders will need to encompass to lead their people and their businesses going forward? Fostering a learning culture will be key to surviving the ‘new normal’. 

"A strong culture of learning is our north star. It means that every employee has access to content to help them build new skills and the importance of learning is articulated through our values and cultural practices. It happens when leaders model learning, when managers recommend learning, and when learning is recognised and rewarded. Those things are even more important now as we learn how to operate in this new environment." Thor Flosason, PhD, Senior Director, Global Learning & Development at Kellogg Company 

What does the data tell us?

During the pandemic, we’ve seen significantly more uptake in the following courses: 

• Managing change
• Mental health and wellbeing
• Resilience
• Financial wellbeing    
• Remote management
• Collaborative working
• Digital skills
• Productivity, Performance and effective team working 
• Innovation

These courses will continue to be of interest in the short to mid-term as people working remotely and flexibly seek to master skills in these areas. 

Udemy have seen a 425% increase in enrolments for individuals, as online learning has surged. People have been looking for ways to be productive while staying at home, and there’s been strong global growth in professional skills including:

• Neural Networks (61% increase)
• Communication Skills (131%)
• Growth Mindset (206%) 

At the end of May 2020, LinkedIn Learning released their Leading with Learning report.

To collect this data, they interviewed 900 L&D professionals and 3,000 learners in 21 countries and looked at behavioural insights around how these people were using LinkedIn Learning. 46% of organisations had over 90% of their employees working remotely.

The report is fascinating and echoes information released by Udemy and my assertion that there’s a more human side to leadership now. For example, 69% of Leading with Learning responders said that supporting the mental health and wellbeing of employees is a new part of their role since COVID-19. And 10 times as many learners watched courses on mindfulness and stress management in April compared to February 2020.

What skillset and mindset do leaders require for the remote environment?

It’s clear that leaders need to hone their skills and mindset to adapt to the new ways of working and to support a learning culture. In my view, leaders should be focusing on the following 'People First' Leadership Skills, particularly in our volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous world:

V – Vision and Values-led – focused on shaping a better future, a sustainable business, that supports the community and wider world. Able to develop a shared vision and purpose that inspires, engages and empowers employees, allowing them to understand the bigger picture and how they personally fit into it

U – Unflinching Innovator – continually asks questions and challenges the status quo; encourages experimentation and calculated risk taking without fear of failure or repercussions; encourages collaboration across all stakeholders; able to anticipate future scenarios 

C – Coach – self-aware; authentic; emotionally intelligent; empathetic; listens to learn and understand; there to support, enable and grow employees; trusting; reflects and learns from mistakes; fosters a culture of regular feedback

A – Agility – the ability to stretch out of comfort zones, be open minded to rapidly embrace new concepts and pivot as required, continuously learning and iterating 

And the Leadership Mindsets which will become increasingly necessary: 

• Global citizen – champion and role model for inclusive, respectful behaviours, embracing diversity and equality
• Partner – there to support, enable and help employees succeed, promoting great teamwork and collaboration
• Explorer – curious, questioning and seeking to learn and understand at all times – and encouraging the same of their team members in order to embrace innovation 

In this new era, remote and flexible workers will need more of the following skills, which can be woven into learning plans to strengthen: 

R – Resilience – capable of recovering quickly from set backs; disciplined in managing wellbeing and balancing work and home life; able to maintain perspective

E – Empathy – open minded; self-aware; able to build relationships and collaborate

M – Managed learning – curious and continuously seeking to learn and understand

O – Ownership – Accountable and committed to own work and self-development

T – Tech savvy – harnessing the value and opportunity that digital capability can bring

E – Experiment – innovative and agile; able to adapt, develop new solutions, trial, fail fast and iterate

L&D delivery: the future?

I believe that, in the future, learning delivery will be increasingly:

Self-directed

As a consequence of COVID-19, training has moved from predominantly face- to- face courses to more digitised, self-directed learning options.

Digital

Over the last few months we’ve seen organisations convert training to bite-sized videos. One day courses for many people have become two-hour modules with small cohorts, delivered virtually. Courses have been made shorter to support concentration levels online and include more video content.

Content curation over content creation will be key for future learning, allowing companies to direct staff to free pre-existing online content (e.g. TED Talks, YouTube, LinkedIn Learning) when they need it in the flow of work or life. 

However, one size doesn’t fit all, and ideally digital learning in the future would be adapted and tailored to specific employee groups, for example, creating a bespoke offering of blended learning for departments that need up-skilling or re-skilling for the new world of work.  

Experiential and reflective

A move to more experiential learning (learning by doing) and reflective practice (‘what will I do differently next time?’) are likely to be increasingly important from this point onwards.  

The engaging panel discussion at the recent CIPD Festival of Work “applying experiential learning to deliver more impactful programmes” highlighted this, as well as the value of creating communities and sharing knowledge and expertise from the wider team to support learning. Thank you Krystyna Gadd for sharing this visual summary!

Coaching oriented

It will become increasingly important to adopt a coaching leadership style when managing a remote team.  

Personal accountability and self-reflection, as well as giving and receiving feedback, will support team members to develop the skills they need to solve problems independently. This will also be a catalyst to get creative about future products and services and support continuous improvement and learning across the organisation. 

Peer to peer coaching and knowledge sharing across teams, via online learning groups or in person, will also prove valuable.

It’s clear that in and post our COVID-19 world, embedding a strong learning culture will impact bottom lines and ensure that leaders and employees adapt and thrive.

To continue the conversation about remote and flexible working, do consider becoming an Advocate of our Remote Working group at Tech London Advocates. You don’t have to be based in London to join. If of interest, please connect with me Louisa or Zoltan Vass as co-Founders of our group.  

Further Resources

Festival of Work

Aspire for Equality

Talent LMS shares a helpful blog on how to train remote employees and the training topics and tools you need

LinkedIn Learning has shared an insightful infographic on the state of learning today and tomorrow

Ken Blanchard’s “New One Minute Manager” discusses the manager as 'partner'