The Great Next Step

I blogged my previous thoughts on companies’ response to Covid-19 which was well received. Lots of good feedback and we used it as the primary contents for a webinar in which we had over 300 people join.

It has become clear to me that L&D professionals are doing the right thing. They value the advice and support from LinkedIn and our Customer Success team. This has inevitably led to the question of ‘What’s next?’. Given the support we provide, I feel I am well placed to, once again, provide an insight into the next steps from L&D and HR Generalists in response to this situation. I am calling this ‘The Next Great Step’.

The Run Up

Firstly, let’s reflect on the impact and value you just added to your employees. As you work through the three stages of support, you will start to see how important these ‘learning interventions’ were.

You are offering people support and help with some of the most challenging times we have ever seen and beyond this you have just successfully helped them through technology changes, personal life upheaval and mental health and wellbeing challenges far greater than anything ever before.

Stop reading now and give yourself a pat on the back, that’s astonishing.  

Then, we must start looking to the future where I see three big changes happening. Two of those will be long term and they are,

1. I see the speed of change for things like project deliveries OR technology roll outs being sped up an enormous amount. I am certain that following this issue there will be senior IT people globally wondering why it was projected to take 12 to 18 months for a MS Teams roll out or Virtual Contact Centre when these things have just been delivered in a matter of weeks (albeit with a bit of a crash!).
2. I see remote working normalised, not only will ‘working from home’ be expected from roles, companies that don’t offer it will start to suffer and lose talent to rivals. The ‘inconvenience’ of a post man calling OR a baby popping up will be perceived as being as normal as needing to pop out of a face-to-face meeting for a comfort break or a drink (as it always should have!).

These business shifts will be long term and have wide implications. I see businesses who embrace these changes and the ‘move fast a break things’ mentality which made Facebook famous as the emergent ‘winners’ from this huge upheaval we are experiencing.

The Corona Curve

I also see one more change, a much more immediate and actionable reaction to this crisis. In the more immediate future, we will see companies starting to ride the ‘Corona-Curve’. This is happening right now in your business, directed by you OR not, the question is ‘What are you going to do about it?

Corona Curve: The marked increase and traction in both online and remote training/coaching that has bloomed in the void left behind by cancellation of face to face workshops.

?Seen here as an approximate 20% increase for this customer over 3 weeks.

This ‘surfing’ of the Corona Curve has to be done carefully, considerately and it must not overtake OR overshadow the continued support you are providing to people for the upheaval of Covid-19.

Surfing the Corona Curve

BUT surf you must! We are all facing a period of time where people are engaged, and some have less work. There are activities you can do now that when your people return to the office, they come back compliant / trained / upskilled / knowledgeable (delete as appropriate). The way this time is used, right now is paramount. It will be looked back upon in six months-time as either the ‘time we lost to corona’ or the ‘time we got shit done’.

And if you are lost for what you might start trying to achieve? Well, here are some for starters,

• The core competencies you all should have? Pick one, start training it in VILT or via remote content.
• The values your company has, can you start to work on those now? Can you train them?
• The major projects your department has, or the wider HR team or business – get started early!
• Is there a new leadership programme coming? Start it virtually.
• Onboarding not happening now, review it, blend it, make it online, make those changes now!

Maintaining this curve and capitalising on it is crucial. In six months’ time will instructor led, once again, re-emerge as the de-facto, go-to training method OR will we see a more balanced (and honestly, more effective) blended strategy takes its rightful place in L&D departments catalogue of interventions!

I am sure there is more you can do, but the time we have now is precious and valuable. As we start entering The Great Next Step, I am very keen to ensure that no time is lost. I want to make sure that we continue to add value and I am certain (just like we did with stages one through to three) that we will and businesses around the world will profit from this. Profit in human capital.