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Connecting Learning to Development for Maximum Impact

28 March 2024
3
learning and talent development

Companies across nearly every sector need more highly qualified employees, especially for specialist, senior management, and leadership roles. Amid such demand for skilled professionals, top talent is likely to gravitate toward companies that offer table stakes like employee benefits and competitive compensation and provide professional development opportunities that could help them level up their careers.

The best way for any business to ensure it has the talent it needs to scale is to retain employees and develop top talent internally to take on greater responsibility as the company expands.

Let’s explore three ways to connect learning with development for maximum impact.

Connect Skills to Jobs for Career Growth

Businesses are scrambling to hire people with the skills required to drive business growth, from restaurants to tech firms. Every business is different, though, and in many cases, the best way to ensure people have the skills needed is to provide adequate training to nurture and reinforce them.

Most learning systems out there can help any business accomplish the basics: assign coursework, track training activity, and record results of assessments to confirm completion. Real learning, however, is about more than checking the boxes. To see an actual return on investment for training programs, organizations need to be more strategic about their L&D goals and create opportunities for employees to develop the skills that translate into business results. That starts with determining which skills employees need to be successful in specific roles and then offering targeted training that strengthens those skills to the right people.

In a high-volume restaurant, for example, most employees need to complete food safety training, but some might also want to take leadership training to prepare them for managerial positions. By connecting skills to jobs, L&D teams can design and deliver personalized learning programs that help employees develop the skills necessary for their career goals.

Connect Online Learning to Real-Time Development with Coaching

Online training is essential, but career development requires real, one-on-one connections. Coaching is an excellent way for promising employees to learn the ropes from trusted experts within the company. Whether one needs hands-on training with a specialist to learn how to use more complicated equipment or mentoring from a leader to sharpen their knowledge about specific areas of the business, coaching is a fully customizable, dynamic, and interactive way to prepare high-performing employees for advanced roles.

Create Opportunities for Continuous Learning

Training shouldn’t end once a new employee steps onto the frontlines or as soon as essential tasks start piling up—it should be a prioritized part of each individual’s experience throughout the employee lifecycle.

A learning platform that leverages the power of artificial intelligence is instrumental to delivering continuous learning at scale. With the right tools, L&D leaders can automate mapping specific skills to jobs and assigning coursework based on employee strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. As learners continue to build skills and interact with training, AI engines can provide smart, tailored content suggestions that align with personal and organizational goals.

It’s also important to deliver training on devices employees are comfortable using and can access while on the job. Employees are much more likely to engage in training opportunities if it’s more like a fun game on their phone and less like tedious homework.

The Role of L&D Technology

If learning will drive development, organizations need to look at learning as a tool to shape an employee’s career. Proper career development requires learning, onboarding, performance, coaching, and more. From personalized career assessments to learning resources and analytics, businesses need a learning management system that incorporates all the features and functionalities required to offer valuable career development opportunities.

To learn more about the value of connecting learning and development, download our free guide by clicking below.

Download the L&D Connection Guide from Schoox
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