Learning Ecosystems

Learning to change report — from Learning Conversations by Mark Berthelemy

“We’ve just published a research report, based on the opinions of senior decision makers among the UK’s largest 500 firms. Here are some of the findings.”

• The majority (70%) of business leaders fear that inadequate staff skills are the greatest threat to their ability to capitalise on the recovery.
• More than two thirds of business leaders admit that their under-trained workforce is struggling to cope with expanded job remits following waves of job cuts during recession.
• … as the economy moves out of the downturn, two fifths (40%) of leaders estimate that at least half of employee skills risk becoming obsolete.
• Over a third of leaders (36%) lack confidence that their employees have the skills required to deliver the firm’s upturn strategy, with close to half (46%) casting doubt on their L&D department’s ability to provide these learning services.
• Over half (55%) claim that their firm is failing to deliver the necessary training for recovery.
• Around half fear for their company’s ability to respond to surges in demand (51%), retrain and redeploy people where required (47%) and identify where current skills are becoming obsolete (49%).
• More than two thirds (67%) of business leaders are concerned their employees are struggling to cope with expanded remits following job cuts.
• More than half (52%) describe their L&D function as slow to respond to the changing requirements of their business during economic turbulence.
• As strategic objectives have evolved, close to half (46%) of senior managers report no significant change in the training delivery to their workforce. Going forward, almost as many (43%) expect no significant change to L&D delivery over the next 2-3 years.
• The vast majority (82%) of leaders lack confidence that their firm’s L&D strategy and delivery are aligned to the company’s operational strategy.
• Half (50%) believe that their L&D function is stuck in a ‘business as usual’ mindset.

Another interesting quote here:

“Perhaps L&D needs to rebrand – towards performance consulting… Often performance problems are more around culture, systems, processes and communication. Solve those, and you won’t need to provide training in a lot of cases.”