What comes to mind when you think about learning and development from an employee perspective?
Not all L&D departments are thinking about the EX when they design their strategies. Organizations hire very talented and creative L&D professionals but they usually approach their L&D design from their own perspectives and teachings. This is not completely wrong but it is not a complete process that is aligned with the employee experience in mind. It can be complicated too if you are not familiar with journey mapping.
Journey mapping for the EX may bring complexity but it also brings much value when you try to address the impact of your L&D strategy to different genders, generational preferences, experiences, and your organization’s DEI goals. In addition to journey mapping, you should be conducting an internal labor market review as well.
Where can you find support?
To alleviate some of this complexity you need to lean on technology. There are some great products in the market that will help identify the existing skills your current workforce have, what skills your open job requisitions need, and future identification – the new skills needed for current roles in your organization or future roles. Think of what value it would bring if all of your current job roles were listed in a database with the associated skillsets for each. Then these skillsets could be mapped to available training for different generations so anyone that has an interest in that role can work on their skill gaps.
To take this a step further and bring even more value, have your employees create a profile listing their specific skillset and allow the system to alert an employee to any job openings in your Company that their skills may be aligned with. This could truly identify a career path or help them find new opportunities within the organization without leaving!
What do employees want?
This is where the employee experience comes in. Employees have been telling us for years that they desire a career path and they do not know where to start, if one even exists, and lack of internal guidance from their Company.
According to a SHRM 2017 study, only 29% of employees are very satisfied with current career advancement and 41% consider this a very important factor to job satisfaction. In a Gallup survey, 87% of Millennials consider development in a job important. If those numbers do not motivate you to really dive into your L&D strategy and apply an EX lens, I am not sure what will. O
rganizations should be looking at development programs such as, job shadowing, apprenticeship programs, mentoring (that really works), old fashioned on the job training, and offer free skills building training where employees can be the driver. Another concept that can complement your strategy is having career counselors on-site or available through a vendor. These professionals can help your employees navigate their careers. They will need to have insight into the roles in your company and can help manage the aforementioned development programs.
Constraints
Where will you most likely hit a wall? Budget? Managers? Maybe, but plan for that. Managers may argue that they do not have time to let an employee step away for career development. If this occurs, then explore some solutions. Maybe it means having additional headcount or skilled temps ready to fill-in.
Where will you most likely hit a wall? Budget? Managers? Maybe, but plan for that. Managers may argue that they do not have time to let an employee step away for career development. If this occurs, then explore some solutions. Maybe it means having additional headcount or skilled temps ready to fill-in.
You may also hear that they do not have time to spend with this person. I recently heard this complaint but that is where you need to help that person realize that spending “X” hours with this colleague will free up your time later as you now have another person experienced in this area. This is also where succession planning comes in play. You can move employees on an org chart and say I sent this person to a conference, I score them high on their performance review, I think they are a high-potential and possible successor.
Was that a real employee experience? Did that employee even experience anything that will keep them engaged and retained? You have to create real experiences to adequately prepare employees for succession.
Alysson Dupont, SHRM-SCP, MBA, Director of EX and HR Operations at Sandy Spring Bank
Lastly, you may not have the budget. Do you have the budget to continue recruiting all the time, managing turnover and absorbing the costs presented by low employee engagement? Most likely the costs of the latter far exceed the costs to spend time with employees, offer them quality programs and help defer the expense of education.
To conclude, your L&D strategy is arguably more critical now than ever before for learning organizations. Employees are smart, they have capacity and skills that we need to help them realize and unleash. There are tech tools that can help us be innovative and creative with the human element in mind. The future success of your business requires that you do this. Make your strategic move and elevate the employee experience at your company.
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