Why learning and development is rising up the corporate agenda

Since the finan­cial cri­sis of 2007–8, com­pa­nies have faced an increas­ing­ly unpre­dictable oper­at­ing envi­ron­ment, while demand for employ­ees with the right skills and apti­tudes has soared. 

A grow­ing num­ber of com­pa­nies have turned to learn­ing and devel­op­ment (L&D) as a solu­tion, fig­ur­ing that by invest­ing more in train­ing they can pre­pare them­selves for loom­ing chal­lenges, such as the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion, an increas­ing­ly com­pet­i­tive busi­ness land­scape and grow­ing reg­u­la­to­ry com­plex­i­ty.

But while spend­ing on train­ing was climb­ing before the pan­dem­ic, coro­n­avirus has forced many com­pa­nies to review their pri­or­i­ties, even as the need for new skills has jumped. Accord­ing to a sur­vey by the Char­tered Insti­tute of Per­son­nel and Devel­op­ment (CIPD), in the 12 months to Jan­u­ary, a third of firms report­ed a decline in their train­ing bud­gets while only 6 per cent saw a rise. 

That was while demand for improved work­force agili­ty, line man­age­ment capa­bil­i­ty, rela­tion­ship man­age­ment and dig­i­tal sys­tems climbed as work­ers shift­ed en masse to work­ing from home. Some 84 per cent of firms report­ed using dig­i­tal vir­tu­al class­rooms more often in the last year, accord­ing to the CIPD’s research.

Complexity and paradoxes

Andy Lan­cast­er, head of learn­ing at the CIPD, believes “per­for­mance and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is on the mind of all cor­po­rate lead­ers as they try to sur­vive the pan­dem­ic” and most realise L&D dri­ves those things.  

But while some con­sid­er it an invest­ment, oth­ers see it as a bud­getary spend that is eas­i­er to cut back. “Insight­ful organ­i­sa­tions recog­nise that invest­ment in learn­ing is vital for the organ­i­sa­tion at a time like this. But there will be oth­ers that see all expen­di­ture in terms of sur­vival,” he says.

One firm deter­mined to pri­ori­tise L&D despite the chal­lenges of COVID is Unilever, the con­sumer goods giant. Accord­ing to chief learn­ing offi­cer Tim Munden, there is no sign of the “ambi­gu­i­ty, com­plex­i­ty and para­dox­es” of busi­ness life abat­ing and life­long learn­ing would be key to deal­ing with chal­lenges such as dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion once the pan­dem­ic sub­sided. 

“We’re real­is­ing there are two sets of capa­bil­i­ties need­ed for this dig­i­tal age,” he says. “There are tech­ni­cal abil­i­ties and there are some human abil­i­ties, like agili­ty and emo­tion­al intel­li­gence. And we are going to need to con­tin­ue to deep­en and deep­en those, part­ly because the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of the world is going to grow.”

Online versus face-to-face learning

Lan­cast­er thinks L&D will play a cen­tral role as firms rebuild after the pan­dem­ic, but that the cri­sis has per­ma­nent­ly changed the way it is deliv­ered. With the rise of remote work­ing, there has been a big increase in demand for pure online cours­es and per­son­al coach­ing using tools like Zoom, he says. 

At the same time, demand for face-to-face train­ing has dropped mas­sive­ly due to social dis­tanc­ing, a trend he believes is now “baked in”.

Not every­one is so sure, though. Take Lon­don Cor­po­rate Train­ing, which ran exclu­sive­ly face-to-face cours­es for busi­ness and the pub­lic sec­tor before the cri­sis, but has had to move its entire oper­a­tion online dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.  

Sales and mar­ket­ing direc­tor Praveen Math­ews says organ­i­sa­tions and indi­vid­u­als may well decide to stick with vir­tu­al train­ing after the cri­sis because it is more “con­ve­nient, time effi­cient and cost effec­tive”. But he says the pan­dem­ic has also exposed the lim­i­ta­tions of this mod­el. 

“Some of the less tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits of face-to-face learn­ing, on moti­va­tion, cross-fer­til­i­sa­tion of ideas and per­spec­tives, for exam­ple, are now much clear­er and there­fore we could see a deci­sive shift back towards good-qual­i­ty face-to-face or blend­ed learn­ing.”

A strong rebound for learning budgets

For Dean Cor­bett of Ava­do, an online learn­ing com­pa­ny that has deliv­ered train­ing for the likes of BT, Bar­clays and AXA Insur­ance, firms are going to have to make L&D more flex­i­ble after the pan­dem­ic. This is because there is now a greater acknowl­edge­ment of the dif­fer­ent pres­sures peo­ple face in their lives out­side work as a result of the cri­sis. 

“That empha­sis will con­tin­ue and busi­ness­es will look for flex­i­ble L&D options that work for their peo­ple, not just in terms of ‘place’ of the learn­ing, but time as well,” he says. “On top of this, flex­i­bil­i­ty of deliv­ery that sup­ports indi­vid­ual ways of learn­ing, which can be dri­ven by arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, for exam­ple, will absolute­ly be worth the invest­ment.”

CIPD’s Lan­cast­er is con­fi­dent there will be a strong rebound in cor­po­rate invest­ment in train­ing as soon as com­pa­ny finances are back on an even foot­ing. 

Firms don’t just stand to gain a stronger work­force by hav­ing good L&D pro­grammes, it also helps to attract and retain tal­ent, boost employ­ee engage­ment and build stronger cor­po­rate brands. 

Of course, employ­ers could always be ruth­less and just hire in the skills they need, get­ting rid of exist­ing work­ers. But this is not a good strat­e­gy finan­cial­ly or moral­ly and would leave firms with­out prop­er tal­ent pipelines, says Unilever’s Munden.

Cor­bett believes the biggest dri­ver of L&D spend­ing in future will be dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion because the pan­dem­ic has shown dig­i­tal skills can no longer be ignored or seen as a nice to have, no mat­ter the indus­try. 

“Nobody could have pre­dict­ed the impact of the pan­dem­ic, but some busi­ness­es were bet­ter able to respond because they had the right skills in-house,” he says. “As we look to the future, that les­son will def­i­nite­ly make L&D a high­er pri­or­i­ty than ever before.”