How to Build an Employee-Centric L&D and Assessment Program

If an organization wants to retain quality employees, investing in the individual's personal growth and learning is extremely important. In simpler words, the more you help your employees gain the required skills and knowledge to do their jobs better, the more profitable it is for your organization. Don't believe us? Data states that companies that spend $1,500 or more on employee development yearly report 24% higher annual profits than organizations that spend less.

Here's what additional research tells us about the benefits of a Learning and Development (L&D) program:

• Learning trumps raises: According to LinkedIn's Workforce Learning Report, a staggering 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if it simply invested in helping them learn.
• Learning = happy employees: The survey further suggests that for a quarter of Gen Z and Millennials, learning is the number one thing that makes them happy at work. Moreover, 27% of them attribute the inability to have the right opportunities to learn and grow as the primary reason behind leaving their jobs.

Needless to say, organizations that do not focus on designing training and development programs and targeting individual growth and profession will lose out on quality talent. 

In this blog, we will explore:

• The need for L&D professionals to target individual growth and progression and marry L&D initiatives with organizational goals.
• Top 8 strategies that can help L&D professionals build an employee-centric L&D and assessment program.

Let's get the ball rolling.

Individual Growth + Organizational Goals = Successful L&D Program

Let's start by setting the context as to why L&D programs are gaining traction. The research paints a positive picture:

• L&D programs are bouncing back: Around 66% of L&D professionals world-over agree that rebuilding and reshaping their organizations should be a prime focus now. Plus, 64% of them globally agree that L&D has shifted from a "nice-to-have" to a "need-to-have" in 2021 (and beyond). L&D can double up as a strategic change-maker within organizations, demanding greater buy-in at the executive's table.
• Monumental leap in learner growth and development: There's a big surge in learner engagement on LinkedIn Learning, with data suggesting that the number of enterprise learners has more than doubled in the last two years. Furthermore, the amount of learning has skyrocketed, with Gen Z learners watching 50% more hours per learner
  of learning content in 2020 vs. 2019. Clearly, learners have a huge appetite for learning and are more focused on career growth.

Despite these motivating statistics, there's a greater need to realign the L&D initiatives with the business goals. According to the latest research by Deloitte, 53% of organizations surveyed identified the alignment of learning to business outcomes as their "numero uno" priority. Changes brought on by the pandemic, such as remote working and virtualization, have forced business leaders to rethink the role of learning. This is why organizations are:

One, focusing on building learning strategies to better integrate learning with the business.

Two, reinventing how they can create and implement learning content that is better aligned to the organizational objectives.

Pro tip: It is critical for L&D practitioners to factor in the employee's individual growth and professional success at the centre of all learning and assessment initiatives. 

Top 8 Strategies on How to Build an Employee-Centric L&D and Assessment Program

1. Start with the skills: If you want to keep your employees, managers, and executives inspired and create a culture of learning, you need to create an L&D program that:

- rewards what employees already know

- helps employees learn new, high-demand skills at a steady pace; skills such as resilience and digital fluency are the most sought-after skills today

- provides opportunities for upskilling and reskilling, leadership and management, and virtual onboarding:

2. Encourage internal employee mobility: As per data, employees at companies
with high internal mobility stay 2x longer. This is why organizations should develop L&D programs that encourage internal mobility between teams, functions, and roles. 

3. Do not lose sight of the "human" element of training and development: Despite L&D programs going virtual, it is essential that L&D leaders do not simply focus on technology, leaving the "human connect" behind. In other words, the L&D program should aim to build a human-centric workplace by training employees on the following "soft" (read: human) skills:

• Self-awareness: Organizations should focus on helping employees to better connect with their own feelings, thoughts, and needs. This can be done by driving workshops that focus on thought observation. The idea is to help employees understand what it is that they aspire/need via a clear action plan and self-identified concrete goals. To keep things simple, employees can start by focusing on one area of growth and leverage the team as an internal support system. In the end, remember that the more self-aware your employees are about their core needs, the higher their productivity and well-being will be.
•  Empathy and compassion: Social-emotional skills such as empathy and compassion are instrumental to building an employee-centric workforce. In fact, according to Deloitte's 2021 report, in the wake of COVID-19, 93% of leaders believe that strengthening the emotional muscle of the workforce will help navigate future crises more easily. It is important to train employees to engage in active listening and step into their team member's proverbial shoes to approach situations with greater compassion as well as empathy. The end goal is to build a more inclusive environment where everyone has each other's back. 

The big takeaway: The new mandate for L&D requires organizations to build an emotionally intelligent and empathetic workforce that can demonstrate compassion and promote positive relationships. Employees will not be able to "thrive" in the new world without these capabilities, according to 93% of leaders. To drive business performance, there's a need to cultivate human capabilities such as the skills mentioned above. Other "highly-rated" capabilities include:

4. Learning has gone 'virtual:' As per Deloitte, there's a paradigm shift in the learning landscape. The research indicates that:

• 98% of organizations have leveraged virtual learning formats during the pandemic, and 66%  have leveraged existing virtual assistant technology
• 80% focused on creating and communicating detailed learning-related material
• 68% borrowed talent from the business to support learning activities

The writing is on the wall: Interactive virtual training should be integrated into L&D programs, and classroom sessions should be redesigned using self-paced tools (think: Skype) to drive more convenient-based and customized learning - one that depends on the interests, needs, and skills of the learners. This anytime, anywhere format of virtual learning is finding takers among 23% of learners. To top it off, 30% of organizations are offering information and learning that is available to employees where
the actual work happens.

The latest Deloitte survey suggests that for 62% of leaders, the focus of L&D teams has shifted towards making the content "more interactive" using facilitator-led live instructional training, simulations, and panel discussions over conventional modes. A few experiential modes of learning that are gaining traction include:

Case Study: How a Fortune-500 Oil and Gas Organization used a Cloud-based Virtual Interactive Learning Platform to Encourage a 300% increase in course completions!

The problem: The pandemic forced the organization to rethink its learning and development strategy and go the digital route. Using an innovative approach, the enterprise introduced a new Learning Management System, which included creative forms of learning formats such as simulations and gamification.

The solution: The company developed a cloud-based virtual interactive learning platform that is home to 500+ hours of e-learning content. The platform was curated based on the organization's technical competency framework.

The result: It led to a 300% increase in course completions and could effectively cater to the learning needs of its 17,000+ workforce.

5. Personalized training programs are among the top priorities for learners: When designing training and development programs, L&D practitioners need to prioritize learning design and customize it to cater to the learner's needs. Research suggests that 54% of employees would spend time on employee development if they were given specific courses recommendations geared toward helping them reach their professional goals.

A static, "one-size-fits-all" approach will no longer cut it. There are numerous ways to personalize learning, such as:

• Using highly-contextualized content library platforms such as Coursera to encourage bite-sized learning and deliver a "customized, Netflix-style" learning
• Using a Learning Management System as a course catalogue, as 73% of learners actively prefer using integrated learning management systems 
• Using tools such as MS teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint for internal collaboration and knowledge sharing - a big catch for 61% of organizations who believe that promoting a knowledge-sharing ecosystem is the key to maximizing human potential at work and empowers employees to share and transfer their brain power

The takeaway: A learner-centred design thinking strategy can add a human touch to the learning journey. It empowers the organizations to enter the learner's mindset and craft personalized experiences that can match the learner's holistic needs. Such is the demand for this learning-based skill that an overwhelming 82% of organizations
consider "future designers" to be a top skill for their L&D teams.

Also Read: Four Quick Steps to Lead Upskilling Initiatives for Data Science Talent

6. Close the skills gap: To maintain a competitive edge, L&D professionals need to expand their focus and bridge the ever-widening skills gap among the employees. This will not only help recruit and retain top-performers but will also equip the organization to be future-ready. Boosting investments in online learning can help drive learner engagement and help employees get the requisite training for soft and hard skills. Furthermore, organizations should focus on curating content that is more targeted, organized, contextualized, accurate, and offers just-in-time information.

7. Measure the impact of learning on the company's bottom line: As mentioned earlier, a successful L&D program rests on how effectively it is tied to the business objectives. To measure the program's success with respect to the company's productivity (and bottom line), leverage the following strategies:

• Leverage qualitative feedback from employees to understand learner satisfaction scores.
• Analyze the number of employees that routinely engage with learning content using employee engagement survey scores.
• Roll out qualitative surveys that shed light on the behavioural changes in learners.
• Measure key metrics such as the increase in the number of skills employees are developing as well as business metrics such as deals closed, time saved, productivity increased, etc.
• Analyze the organization's ability to retain talent by looking at the employee churn rates.

8. Keep it "social": LinkedIn's survey also suggests that learners who use social features (think: Q&A, course shares, and learning groups) end up watching 30x more hours of learning content than learners who don't. In an effort to make the L&D programs more employee-friendly, they should consider integrating social elements that can boost learner engagement.

Bringing it All Together

"New approaches to integrate learning and work are arising—combining development and work into 'dev work,' building on the realization that learning and work are two constantly connected sides of every 'job.'"  – Global Human Capital Trends, Deloitte

There's a raging need for organizations to build a culture of continuous learning, one that:

• Is in line with the needs of the modern learners as well as the business needs without compromising on the employee experience
• Keeps pace with the changing environment and needs
• Integrates upskilling/reskilling in the regular flow of work

Did you know? 

Established enterprises such as JPMorgan Chase, Amazon, and PwC are increasing their employee upskilling budget according to the Harvard Business Review:

• JPMorgan Chase has increased their $250 million upskilling investment to $600 million.
• Amazon is spending a staggering $700 million on upskilling its employees.
• PwC is investing $3 billion in upskilling over the next three to four years.

That said, to take your L&D program to the next level, L&D leaders need to prioritize their employee's professional success and personal growth as integral components, and more importantly, ensure that the program aligns with the business objectives as well.

Long story short, organizations can leverage all this and more with a complete overhaul of the learning and assessment program instead of making half-baked tweaks along the way. Ultimately, the recipe for L&D success comprises employee-centric personal growth and aligned business objectives, paving the way for an engaged, productive, and profitable workforce.