Discover your hidden gems: Unleashing employee potential

Businesses need to keep pace and accept change as a chance to innovate. By building development schemes to foster employee wellbeing, diversity, and inclusivity you will uncover hidden gems within the organisation. This not only promotes a positive work environment but also allows for a more effective and efficient hiring process.

Unleash employee potential and make them shine!

Skilling: Enhances employees’ existing skillset, benefitting everyone regardless of position. Additionally, upskilling employees can greatly improve the hiring process by attracting top talent and demonstrating a commitment to employee growth and development.

Employee retention: Ensuring employees feel fulfilled and providing growth opportunities that in turn will improve retention, which in turn helps attract top talent who are looking for businesses with stability.

Wellbeing: When we learn, we connect. This can help increase workforce happiness and satisfaction and can be embedded in a variety of ways in your hiring messages.

Leadership: To train leaders in the changes of management, find the leaders of tomorrow, and address the issue of people leaving jobs due to poor leadership. By cultivating and nurturing strong leadership skills, we create a workforce that is motivated, engaged, and committed.

DE&I: Keeping important topics at the forefront of business culture and nurturing a diverse workplace. Equally, inclusive hiring practices ensure that individuals from different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives are given equal opportunities to contribute and succeed.

Chief Learning Officers: Transforming Rocks into Diamonds in the World of Culture

The headline is clear, learning powers culture. As organisations strive to stay competitive and adapt to changing market dynamics, CLOs have become instrumental in unearthing hidden gems within their company culture.

This means that learning needs to become part of everyday work life. It is no surprise that chief learning officers are now key to the strategic plans of the business, and this is growing. Demand for learning and development specialists increased by 94% according to a LinkedIn report in 2022. The learning development team is also not siloed. Now they are sitting on the board, with their role linked to business culture. Connecting learning to HR, Talent, Marketing and more.  

“I decided to jump ship from a billing role in 2012, I went from negotiating terms with customers to negotiating the importance of why learning and development absolutely deserved a place in creating a high-performance culture, and back then the latter felt the harder fight…we were a “cost”. Fast forward 10 years to the present day, employees understand the value of “self”. Training, coaching, and well-being are just as important when you are “on the clock” as it is eating an apple a day and 30 minutes of exercise when you are off the clock”

Charlotte Smith Global Learning, Development & Talent Director, Salt

Where to focus your learning and development?  

Now we know it is key, where do you start? What should be the priority focus? For example, Europe, The Middle East, Africa, and North America have the top priority for learning with leadership and management training. In Asia, the focus lead is upskilling and reskilling employees.  

Manager training in human skills: Care and well-being have been at the front and center, especially during the pandemic. Most critical to the development of care? The manager. Therefore, there has been a 49% increase in attention to management training and support. Managers need those human skills to attract and keep talent.  

A new wave of AI-enabled tools: Not only is there an increase in training needs, but a new wave of technology to help deliver it. With more AI-enabled education tools there are augmented, and virtual platforms available for workplace learning. These tools will help supply a balance between virtual, hybrid and traditional learning methods.  

Understand the employee: We must circle back to the people and the employees because expectations are on the rise. Like consumer behaviour shifting we as employees expect to be able to grow. So, it is important to listen to what is expected. L&D plays a significant role in diversity and inclusivity and in some cases, L&D is taking that responsibility full on.  

“Employees are now asking before they join a company, does this organization align with my values and beliefs? Not only are employees after a rewarding job, but a clear progression path, continual development, and a place where they can belong. This is why employee value proposition is so important”
Laura Maxwell-Smith, People Director, Salt