“
FINAL WORD
STUDIES HAVE SHOWN
THAT FOR NEW-AGE EMPLOYEES –
PARTICULARLY MILLENNIALS – THE
ABILITY TO LEARN WHILE WORKING
IS A TOP FACTOR ATTRACTING THEM
TO A COMPANY.
represented depth, expertise and the
ability to collaborate as the key attributes
for future employees. Enterprise hiring
practices need to change to reflect this
transition. It’s time to move beyond
scripted interview questions and GPAs, and
test potential hires by putting them into
real-life situations they could expect to face
at work. An effective technique is hack-
to-hire initiatives which test candidates
on not just subject knowledge, but their
ability to innovate, collaborate with people
they don’t know well, fail fast and bounce
back – all attributes that signal resilience,
collaboration and adaptability.
2. Interlink learning and performance
Anand Birje, Corporate Vice President
and Head of Digital & Analytics, HCL
Technologies
changes. Creating a culture of learning also
helps enterprises hire and retain top talent,
as studies have shown that for new-age
employees – particularly millennials – the
ability to learn while working is a top factor
attracting them to a company.
With that in mind, here are five steps
business leaders and change drivers can take
to support a culture of continuous learning:
1. Evolve your ‘interview and
onboarding’ processes
In the digital age, expertise is far more
important than years of experience
and the ability to collaborate exceeds
individual brilliance. Many years ago, Tim
Brown (Founder of IDEO) established
the term ‘T-shaped employees’, which
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INTELLIGENTCIO
are also partnering with universities to
launch credit-based programmes that allow
employees to upskill, upgrade their resumes
and gain practical on-the-job experience by
applying these skills.
4. Ensure resources are accessible
Merely creating learning programmes is
not enough, however. Organisations should
ensure that the HR and IT departments
work together to make the content easily
accessible, ideally on consumer-grade
technology platforms. It’s also important
to ensure that work and learning do not
interfere with each other. For instance,
instead of mandatory group sessions
that could cause scheduling issues,
enterprises could record webinars to be
replayed on-demand.
Ideally, employees should also be able to
gain experience by interacting with the
teams working on projects that demand
these skills. This promotes internal mobility
while fostering cross-functional teams.
5. Revitalise the learning and
development function
While the current generation of employees
is typically more learning-focused
than its predecessors, it is important
for organisations to do their part by
incentivising continuous learning. This
might involve initiatives that link individual
performance with a drive to learn. Well-
exemplified by companies that support
temporary cross-functional roles for their
employees, these initiatives allow them
to build expertise beyond their function
and gain a more holistic view of enterprise
operations. Enterprises should also ensure
that employees get the opportunity to
practice what they learn in real life, weaving
continuous learning into the fabric of the
organisation long-term. Since it has the responsibility of
maintaining continuous learning within the
enterprise, the learning and development
function must play a role beyond building
course catalogues for employees. It
creates innovative, employee-centric
experiences and promotes interdisciplinary
thinking, so the learning and development
function should shift its focus. Rather
than solely content creation, learning and
development should have a more complex
role, leveraging technology that leads the
enterprise’s cultural transformation towards
continuous learning.
3. Create learning paths Enterprises need to rethink, restructure and
reinvent their approach to upskilling and
educating their workforce. It may not yield
instant returns but creating a culture of
learning is no longer a matter of choice, but
a necessity. Businesses that get it right will
find themselves attracting and retaining the
best talent and in possession of a workforce
that can keep up with the challenges
presented by a dynamic digital economy. n
Rather than leaving it up to employees to
define their learning and find resources to
enable it, enterprises should create learning
tracks tied to career progression, both within
and outside the organisation. This can be
done in-house, or with the help of external
vendors to create activities customised to
a specific industry. Some organisations
Investment in continuous
learning matters
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