Skills Building: Getting Serious About Continuous Learning

It’s time L&D stopped worrying so much about courses vs resources and different types of learning content. Because the reality is that content itself will only ever be part of the answer your people need to upskill and perform at their best. Instead, it’s time to focus on creating continuous, action-based development programmes that harness a variety of different content types. But how do you make that happen?

Why is this important?

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), at least 80 million workers in Europe are mismatched in terms of the qualifications they possess versus the roles they carry out at work . This means workers lack the right level of qualification for the job they have been hired to do, either because they are under or overqualified.

Digitalisation, the transition towards a greener economy, demographic changes, a shifting political landscape are all increasing skills gaps. The European Commission believes there could be three quarters of a million unfilled jobs this year – and that this is a problem set to grow if we don’t do something about it.

Stretching beyond the predictable drivers for learning

The traditional drivers for learning in organisations are fairly predictable (see diagram below). And the truth is that they rarely happen in isolation. New products require new processes, new innovations and new compliance etc – and what they all have in common is that they are about doing. Forgetting curves are actually not that important because the crux of the matter is that this learning is not about knowledge, but about skills and proficiency and ultimately, mastery.