Future of Work for HR. Part II: Learning & Development

Future of Work, millenials, Gig Economy, comprehensive HR analytics and automated application scans. We’ve heard it all. With these series of articles I aim to be a bit more specific and hopefully shed some of light about what I personally believe the future of work is and how it could influence HR. You can see the previous articles here.

Last week, we've talked about 'the death of HR' and the future values and responsibilities of the field. Today, I'd like to focus on the increasingly growing and expanding field: Learning and Development. So why is L&D becoming exponentially more important than HR ? Very simple. New and future employees are hungry to learn. They want to develop and grow. And if they don’t see they do, they leave. No free lunch, Friday night drinks or kicker would keep them with you in the long-term. For sure, millennials got a bad rep, but it won’t help your recruitment efforts if you sit on your chair and lament: ‘They’re demanding, entitled and irresponsible’- however you want to call them. Embrace it and adapt to them.

If a company doesn't (yet) have L&D Department, it hires external trainers. Sadly, when it comes to external trainings, very often executive team and HR department assume that miracles would happen straight after one ? day training. With a wave of a magic wand, all problems would disappear - communication issues evaporate, emotional intelligence grow and virtual teams finally find consensus.

Unfortunately, there is no magic formula, especially when it comes to soft skills training. As I always tell my clients: we either do a one-off day training, you tick your box and you don't expect any long-term change, or we develop a long-term plan with several short coachings/trainings and then I can guarantee the result. Sure, there is an opportunity for me, but will it actually benefit your employees?

So how so you ensure your L&D budget doesn't go to waste? Develop a comprehensive plan of how you see your company and employees in 1, 2, 3 years. What skills are missing? What are the individual needs of your employees? Companies that think in advance have a budget of how much they are willing to invest per employee. According to The Association for Talent Development’s 2014 State of the Industry Report, employees spend an average of 31.5 hours in training per year. But are your employees learning because it is something interesting/beneficial to them and the company or they are learning because their boss told them to?

Let your employees choose how they want to spend L&D budget.

Tech conference tickets, qualification upgrade courses, Spanish classes, public speaking trainings or intercultural communication coaching- does it make them happy? Does it contribute to their performance in the company? Then go for it!

Afraid that your employees would take advantage of your investment and leave?

Total 2017 U.S. training expenditures rose significantly, increasing 32.5 percent to $90.6 billion, according to 2017 Training Industry Report. There is a higher risk of your employees to leave if you don’t invest in L&D at all. Just like that old anecdote when CFO who was lamenting to the CEO about the cost of investing in employee development. He said, "I'm having a hard time spending this money. What if we invest in employee training and then they leave?" The CEO responds, "What if we don't and they stay?" Or as, Richard Branson pointed out:

Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don't want to.

Growth and Development is not 'nice to have' anymore, it's as compulsory as paying your employees. Look at the greatest companies and what makes others want to work there. Is it a brand name and high salary? Or perhaps high growth potential and opportunities? For example, Amazon trains its employees for jobs that have no relevance to Amazon as a company - in health, transportation, among others. Why? Is it a waste of money ? Or trying to be 'cool'? Amazon does it because it knows that the opportunity to grow is of paramount importance to it's employees.

Olla Jongerius is a organisational development trainer and coach. She helps companies bridge the gap in intercultural, virtual teams and departments as well as re-design organisational structure to successfully integrate freelancers. Olla is also a co-founder of Freeliance, a Berlin based not-for profit with over 4000 members, whose aim is to shape the future of work, unite and support freelancers on the journey to become self-employed. She is also a founder of Trainers, Coaches and Consultants Tribe, a community of over 2000 professionals in Berlin. If you have any questions or would like to collaborate, feel free to contact her at [email protected]