Economic uncertainty or not – you have to make digital learning a priority

David Perring, September 2023

Fosway Group, Europe’s No.1 Technology Analyst, has unveiled its latest ground-breaking Digital Realities Research, and here, Chief Insights Officer David Perring digs into the first elements of it, concerning L&D priorities, strategy and execution in a challenging economic environment.

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Don’t write off compliance, but we need to be doing so much more

There have been and always will be predictable drivers for training. That's always been a feature of what L&D teams are expected to do. That whole sense of new systems, new starters, new products, new processes, performance gaps or performance opportunities, career growth, new roles and regulations or compliance forms a significant part of the demands of business in order to function.

Right now, most organizations work in a regulated environment, be that finance, retail, or the service industries. Regardless of what industry you're in, there are rules and regulations which impact whether you can trade or not. If you get them wrong, you get closed down and there are consequences: breaching the Data Protection Act means that your contact centres get closed; failing to comply with the Enterprise Act means that some of your directors may end up in jail; or if you fail to comply with the FDA you may face huge fines, closures of production lines or product recalls.

So, it's not surprising that against the background of all the things that we could be training people around, the visible impacts of not being compliant are so important - that's why it features so high in people's L&D delivery and execution. Conversely, people are good at simple things like transferring knowledge, so because compliance tends to be about what people know - and proving to a regulator that they know it - the ability to scale that learning using technology is really high.

The challenge is that it doesn't always drive value.

It's the price of admission to being able to operate as a business and trying to find that balancing point between the skills and the capability that drive value and those things which you simply need to be able to recall to be able to trade.

Skills dominates organisations’ business priorities

The European Union has labelled 2023 as the year of skills, and we're seeing that in the priorities of corporates today. Not just because the EU said so - it's because the availability of talent and the pace of change is so huge. And the demographic challenges that Europe is facing around the aging workforce and their disappearance from the workforce is so huge that to some extent, it's difficult to find an organisation that isn't suffering with some sort of skills gap.

So, the priority challenge for the year ahead is: how do organisations develop those skills, and how do we make sure that once those people have those skills, that they are working in the right role at the right time? That sense of upskilling and reskilling becomes central, which means that increasing people's employability to work in other roles within the organization becomes even higher. That’s where we're going to see some of the priorities shift for the year ahead.

Many organisations are facing a two-fold problem: that there isn't enough talent in their talent pool to enable business execution, but on the flip side of that, being able to encourage people to stay because they see their career growing. Harnessing those people and helping them perform on the new things that help the organization succeed tomorrow is critical.

ESG and sustainability aren’t that popular given this is the burning issue of our time

Maybe this isn't so surprising given the lack of wider social and economic pace behind resolving climate change and possible ecological collapse, but only 24% say that they have ESG as a business priority. The harsh truth is science says we're going to miss the targets for 1.5 degrees of global warming, based on our current global trajectories.

All the predictors around our export or generation of carbon in the atmosphere shows us shooting way past that. So as a topic, ESG has huge existential implications for us all – and it needs us all to be more proactive and not wait for it to come down on high from the C suite. It's something we need to be demanding more of, both as employees, customers and citizens.

If you want your budget to grow you need to proactively build influence with your leadership team

There are some gut-wrenching stats around the continued immaturity of L&D teams’ ability to measure their impact. It is a systemic issue. If you asked L&D people in the street, ‘what thing are you worst at doing?’ They would probably say ‘measuring the impact of what we do’. That shows no signs of changing from all the previous years that we've been doing this survey. Only 26%, one in four, say that they often measure the impact of learning. And 23%, just over one in five, say that they are doing anything more than starting to measure the impact of learning. Most people aren't doing a great deal.

In a modern business, if you want to influence senior stakeholders you need to have data; you need to have intelligence that shows what you're doing is making a difference and the impact of doing that on achieving higher levels of performance. We know that there's a strong correlation between C suite support and the amount of budget you get. Measuring outcomes matters because the only way you influence your C suite is through the success that you're having; not just with individuals, but with your HR metrics - people staying, growing into roles, thinking about your company as being a great place to work, but also executing future strategies as well.

We still may not be good at measuring impact but on the bright side there’s lots we can do about it. So, let's get our hands dirty.

The infographics from this year's Digital Learning Realities Survey are now available FREE to download from our website. With one being released each week over the coming month.

https://www.fosway.com/research/next-gen-learning/digital-learning-realities-2023/

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About Fosway

Fosway Group is Europe's #1 HR Industry Analyst focused on Next Gen HR, Talent and Learning. Founded in 1996, we are known for our unique European research, our independence and our integrity. And just like the Roman road we draw our name from, you'll find that we're unusually direct. We don't have a vested interest in your supplier or consulting choices. So, whether you're looking for independent research, specific advice or a critical friend to cut through the market hype, we can tell you what you need to know to succeed.

Talk to us today on +44 (0) 207 917 1870 or via [email protected], or visit us at www.fosway.com