TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT: THE ONLINE AND VIRTUAL FUTURE OF WORK

Training and development professionals keep asking: What does it take to education upskill employees in today’s remote and virtual work environment? The short answer: It certainly requires businesses (and business leaders) to get more creative. On the bright side, that doesn’t mean that your efforts to provide employees with training and professional development programs have to be more time-consuming or expensive. Following, you’ll find a number of pieces of market research clients have asked us to look into lately, and some key insights into what the future of upskilling will hold.

Topic: Training and Development: The Soft Skills Employees Need to Learn

Scenario: In an age of growing uncertainty, getting ahead isn’t about being brighter, more creative, or more talented. More often, it’s about being scrappier, more clever, and more resilient. This requires us to employ many skills – e.g. the capability to quickly learn, adapt, bounce back from setbacks, etc. – that aren’t necessarily taught in business school, and certainly aren’t technical in nature. 

Insight: From learning to effectively communicate, collaborate, and steer others towards common goals (noting that today’s growingly sophisticated challenges often cannot be tackled by a single individual alone, no matter how talented) to mastering the arts of innovation and disruptive thinking, the new skill set required for business success will look radically different in tomorrow’s world than today’s. It’s imperative to upskill yourself and your team at every turn – but not necessarily in concepts that are rooted in capitalizing on familiar business equations and concepts, which are increasingly breaking down in a growingly unpredictable world full of new and novel business problems.

Topic: 5 Innovative New Approaches to Employee Training and Education

Scenario: Businesses still need to train their workforces and upskill employees even while working remotely – technology can help.

Insight: From virtual reality experiences and interactive simulations to video games, online group exercises and more, there are many ways to educate your staff that don’t require you to sit in a classroom – and that are often more effective at driving learning and retention.