Are your learning interventions falling flat? Many learning and development teams struggle to see real impact from their efforts.
Why? Here are a few reasons:
1) There’s no direct correlation between spending and the impact.
2) People are resistant to taking time out of their busy schedules for additional learning activities.
3) Employees often don’t understand why certain training is important.
It’s a frustrating cycle, but there are ways to break free.
If you’re in L&D and gearing up for your annual training calendar creation and execution journey, focus your energies in identifying the learning needs of your organization.
The following tips may help:
A) Managers may struggle to identify the necessary training interventions, even with a list of options. Instead, sit down with each team and conduct a 90-120 minute skill-gap identification process. Ask questions like:
– What are this year’s new targets?
– Did the team achieve last year’s targets? Why or why not?
– What key problems did the team face last year? How were they solved?
– What are the team’s current skills?
– What more is needed, and for whom?
B) Employees may not be able to assess their own training needs. Instead, send out a form with questions like:
– Did you face any difficulty achieving your targets last year?
– What hard and soft skills are required for your role?
– What are your core skills that have helped you in your career so far?
– What skills are needed to further grow in your role? Do you need to develop those?
C) The leadership team must meet their business targets without complications. Sit down with your leaders and make a plan for organization-wide learning interventions. These could focus on company values, ethos, or principles.
Invest your energy in these time consuming steps & see the difference in the way learning is embraced by your teams.