Musings on L&D-4: Beyond COVID19- What are the Opportunities for L&D?

COVID19 has brought the global economy to a standstill. Several industries are gasping for breath. Many businesses have shut down and many organizations have pulled down the shutters. The global economy moved into a deep recession. The million dollar question is if enterprises are prepared to deal with this crisis. In response to a McKinsey survey, a majority of senior executives agreed that organizations need to reimagine and reinvent. Most of them felt that innovating the business will be critical for success in the post COVID10 era. Over the 90% of the respondents opined that the pandemic will fundamentally change the way they do business. 85% of the respondents were concerned that the COVID19 crisis will have a lasting impact on their customers' needs and wants over the next 5 years. 2/3 rd of the executives believed that this would be the most challenging moment in their corporate career. Interestingly only 21% of them believe that they have the expertise, resources, and commitment to pursue new growth successfully. These findings do not augur well for the economy. But like every dark clouds have a silver lining. These statistics have sparked a lot of optimism for the L&D Community. While most of the findings are alarming for the business world, the fact remains that 79% of executives believe that they don't have the expertise, resources and commitment to pursue their transformation journey. And here lies the opportunity for L&D. This clearly means that Organizations and business leaders need help and a lot of this help can primarily come from L&D. Here are a few ways L&D can step up the game:-

1.Enable Organizations to bounce back

Organizations who are struggling would need to bounce back. The leaders and the rest of the workforce would need to develop the capability to rethink, reimagine and reinvent in order to come out of the COVID19 crisis stronger. They may need to completely transform their organization or come up with new business models. This presents an opportunity to L&D practitioners to help business leaders and executives develop transitional leadership capability.

2.Enable workforce to deploy new business models

It is not enough for business leaders to come up with new business models. They also need to train their workforce on the new business models. If a hospital decides to implement an online health check up platform for patients. Then doctors and the support staff need to be trained on how to effectively use the platform. If an organization decides to shift over to online selling, the sales force needs to be trained on how to sell online and how to engage, build relationship with clients virtually. Here is an opportunity for L&D to make an impact.

3.Prepare the workforce for remote working

In the new world, beyond COVID19 many organizations will continue to have their employees work from home. Several organizations have announced this already. 74% of CFOs who participated in a recent Gartner survey stated that some of their workforce will permanently work from home. Work from home is going to be the new reality. However, is our workforce ready for this new reality? Don't we need to train them to be effective in a remote working environment? Who is going to train them?

4.Prepare Leaders to lead remotely

While employees need to be trained on how to work remotely, most managers also need to be trained on how to lead and supervise their team members remotely. Many supervisors are going to lead distributed teams for the first time and certainly they need help. The skills they need to learn are how to engage and communicate with their teams remotely, facilitate team meetings, coach their team members, conduct one on one meetings and performance review discussions etc. remotely. And surely L&D can play a role here.

5.Help Organizations cross-skill their employees

Post COVID-19, some organizations will disappear. Some others will downsize. Several others will change their business model. Some other organizations will venture into new lines of business. What does this mean to jobs? This would mean that employees will have to look for new jobs either within their current organizations or outside. A couple of weeks ago, I was speaking to the COO of a premier a hotel chain in India. He talked about how they are cross skilling their staff in their hotels. During pre-COVID19 days, in a hotel a bell boy used to carry the luggage of the guests to their rooms. But then they had 100 arrivals in a day. Today they have only 5-6 arrivals. So what would the bell boy do for the rest of the day. Well, now he is being cross trained by the hotel chain to be a lift man and a room service executive. He is going to play multiple roles to be effectively utilized or else he would lose his job to someone else. What is true of hotel industry is true of other industries as well. Re-skilling and Cross-skilling are going to be big opportunities for L&D in near future.

6.Help Organizations with reskilling due to localization of Supply Chain

Experts have already predicted that a lot of manufacturing and supply chain activities will be localized in near future. Because of COVID19 movement of raw materials and finished goods across countries was disrupted leading to severe impact on delivery and consumption. Hereafter, many organizations will be looking at localizing their manufacturing and supply chain around their customer base. Localization of manufacturing and supply chain would require the workforce to acquire new skills. Well, another area of opportunity for L&D ! !

7.Help the workforce deal with emotional stress, ambiguity, new life style

COVID-19 has not only disrupted business and economy, it has impacted peoples' lives and life style also. The workforce today is under huge pressure to cope with changes happening all around them. The fear of losing jobs, isolation for months together, increase in work pressure and an uncertain future have brought in heightened mental stress for many. Organizations would look out for support to help their employees with physical and mental well-being. And this is yet another opportunity for L&D to support organizations in their efforts.

These are a few ways how L&D can step in and step up. But it is not going to be a cake walk. While post COVID19 times are going to present plenty of opportunities to L&D practitioners, they need to be prepared to encash these opportunities. L&D practitioners need to reimagine and reinvent themselves. They need to acquire the desired mind-set, skill-set and tool-set for the new world. Are they ready?