Today’s businesses understand the importance of employee learning and development. An organization whose employees are constantly learning is more dynamic and flexible, able to adapt to new challenges and adopt new technologies. On the other hand, companies whose employees don’t develop their skills have no choice but to stick with the status quo.
But is it enough just to encourage your employees to develop their skills? How do you know they’re focusing on the right skills for their role and the business as a whole?
A recent article from Harvard Business Review highlights the problems that arise when employees study the wrong skills: “Learning Emerging Skills Doesn’t Always Pay Off.”
The article analyzes a recent Gartner survey exploring which skills employees focus on and what those decisions mean for the organization:
A recent Gartner survey of 3,375 employees found that training workers in the core skills essential to their roles right now has five times more impact on their performance than teaching “emerging” skills that don’t have a clear here-and-now application. It’s important to note that core skills will be different for every role, and certain emerging skills may actually be immediately needed in some jobs. AI-prompt engineering, for example, isn’t essential at this point for employees in accounting, but it is for certain engineers working with large language models. Unfortunately for HR managers, only 25% of employees prefer to improve core skills rather than learn new ones. Companies want their employees to focus most of their training time on mastering their core skills, but 40% of employees aren’t doing this. That is a mistake.
The article goes on to make the case that employees should focus on developing core skills — those most relevant to their current responsibilities — in order to maximize value and impact. But how can learning leaders ensure their employees are learning the right skills? Here are three key strategies to keep your team on the right track.
“Unfortunately for HR managers, only 25% of employees prefer to improve core skills rather than learning new ones.”
This quote highlights the challenge facing business and learning leaders. When employees are left to chart their own learning pathway, they will rarely choose the skills that match with the goals of the organization.
Businesses must work backwards from their goals in order to determine which are the core skills their employees need. Those skills will vary across different roles and teams: while every employee needs to learn AI to some extent, the needs of a data scientist differ from those of a marketer or sales representative. When an organization takes the time to define the core skills needed for each role, its employees have more clarity as they focus on upskilling.
It’s important to communicate the “why” behind these decisions. As the HBR article mentions, employees are naturally interested in learning new skills. By explaining how each skill helps the organization reach its goals, business leaders can more effectively motivate employees and keep them on the right path forward.
“Companies want their employees to focus most of their training time on mastering their core skills, but 40% of employees aren’t doing this.”
It’s one thing to prescribe the right plan for your employees. It’s another thing entirely to know they’ve executed the plan. Skills verification is essential to an effective learning and development program — without a clear, real-time understanding of your workforce’s skill levels, you lack the precision needed to set goals, assign staff to projects, and develop a long-term business strategy.
Organizations should make assessment a consistent aspect of their upskilling programs. Initial assessments help employees and managers alike understand current ability levels and what needs to be accomplished. As employees invest time and energy in upskilling, they should also assess their skills on a regular basis. Once an employee has become accomplished in a specific core skill, they can then move on to a different skill — rather than wasting time honing a skill they’ve already mastered.
While the Gartner survey offers valuable insights, business leaders should be careful not to draw the wrong conclusions. Yes, employees should focus on core skills with “here and now” implications. However, those core skills aren’t frozen in place. As new technologies emerge, and as businesses respond to market changes, employees will need to center new skills to succeed in their work.
To stay ahead of the pace of change, business and learning leaders should conduct quarterly reviews of their skills frameworks. These regular reviews will help the organization to remain flexible and ensure that employees are always focusing on the skills that matter to them today — and not six months ago.
For example, think about how generative AI changed workflows for teams and employees. Organizations needed to adapt quickly when ChatGPT debuted in late 2023. If a team were locked into a rigid skills framework, with no flexibility to incorporate new core skills, they would have gone months without learning this crucial technology — while their competitors got a commanding head start.
To learn more about how Workera helps enterprises identify the skills their employees need — and verify progress — schedule a demo with a member of our sales team.