Everything about work, the workforce, and the workplace are changing with a thought to meet the changing technology. In an undeniably aggressive market, organizational performance is directly linked to employee experience and people engagement.
As a result, promoting learning is becoming a domain for the enterprises today. There is a constant need to address the evolving challenges and opportunities for workforce innovation. The modern chief learning officers’ (CLO) responsibilities are changing and challenging. Whether to reduce costs, improve the business alignment, or prove learning and development value, there occurs the struggle at a subtler level.
Let us walk through the challenges in accomplishing employee experience and creating business value by putting on the CLO’s shoes.
Challenges CLOs might face in 2020
Being the drivers of corporate strategy, CLOs involve in developing the skill set of professionals to meet the end goals of an organization. They are the team players who mold the employees to fit into the changing organizational culture. But they too have their challenges or impediments as the business environment changes. New thinking and approach are critical for own’s survival. Let us explore the challenges of CLOs looking towards 2020 here.
Drifting from CLO legacy
To be honest, many CLOs look like glorified training directors. Though they talk about the ‘strategy talk’, many organizations still follow the so-called ‘training’ culture. Training may not be the answer for all. Learning and certification are necessary but as an enabler.
It is necessary to drift away from this tradition to:
- Define a narrow mission reflecting the highest business priorities
- Initiate to solve recognized business goals in hand
- Workforce needs solutions and not training for the prevailing problem
It is necessary to focus on standards, metrics, certifications, and results. The chief learning officer’s job is to identify techniques to measure business value and prove concrete results in training with business metrics.
Onboarding Generation-Z
The millennial generation is already in and gen-z are walking in. They are app-savvy and have integrated technology into life as no generation before. But they may lack the communication skills and fail to interact in person with the millennial generation. It is necessary to identify the skill gap of the gen-z workers like business communication, critical thinking and help them succeed in the environment.
Incorporating emerging technologies
The emerging technologies are fascinating and useful indeed. It is necessary to identify the concrete ways to apply these technologies for improving training processes. Chief learning officers must go to the exact target and explore the technology for successful implementation. The solution is to start with the problem and explore how technology can solve them. Small tweaks in learning processes goes a long way in engaging people, reducing costs, and improving profitability.
Increasing business value
Learning and development must be the means to deliver value and results. It should be a quantifiable result for the business. Some of the quantifiable measures include productivity improvement, sales, return on investments, productivity, customer satisfaction, employee retention, employee growth, and, more.
The closing thought
The chief learning officers must transform learning and development function, change the mindset from training to delivering real business value. CLOs must be the bridge to communicate with the employees and management about learning and development. A quantifiable value for the investment is the go for the CLOs in 2020.
