Feature
In 2017, Nokia CEO Risto Siilasmaa realized he didn’t know enough about machine learning to describe it to his employees, despite it clearly being something Nokia would have to contend with. For a while, he felt frustrated that no one had explained it to him, since getting such information from staff is typical for busy CEOs.
Then he realized that he could — and should — train himself on this topic in order to make sure his organization was prepared. He became so well-versed in the technology, he created a presentation to offer Nokia staff and others in the industry — and uploaded it on YouTube, where 113,000 people have so far accessed it.
This example illustrates the natural tension between self-driven and organization-led training in today’s workplaces.
Two important lessons emerge: Workers — even CEOs — can help their organizations thrive when they take initiative for self-driven learning.
And there is a need for those at the top to set direction and tone on the task of skills development, as the world of work faces rapid transformation.
A Responsibility to Invest in Training
There’s no debate over the importance of providing training in the workplace. But striking the right balance between self-driven and organization-led training and skills development is a tricky dance.
According to Victoria Neal-Chavez, HR knowledge advisor at SHRM, employers need to be involved in helping their people access training, but what that looks like in practice varies widely.
“The social common construct is that an employer has a corporate responsibility to train and invest in training for their people,” she said. “As far as how much an employer does, that’s the variable, really. And that comes down to culture, size and the value system from the top down.”
At the very least, employers should help employees determine the skills they need to advance their careers and help the organization succeed. According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report, job skill sets have shifted about 25% since 2015, and that rate of change is expected to double by 2027. With this much change in how jobs are done, 98% of learning and development professionals say that organizations should be proactive about building employee skills to ensure they’re ready for the future of work.
Related Article: How to Get Your Upskilling Program Off the Ground
Let Employees Take Initiative
Proactive is not the same as prescriptive, however, and employers should be alert to the difference.
Some jobs or subjects, such as cybersecurity or heavy equipment operation, require prescriptive training programs that provide mastery of specific skills or knowledge. In these cases, it is appropriate and even necessary for employers to require workers to take specific training courses.
But in the majority of cases, such organization-led training is not in the best interest of either employees or employers. What will serve them both better, said workplace collaboration consultant Harold Jarche, is giving employees the opportunity and encouragement to develop the skills they feel they need or want within the context of communicative leadership.
“Setting the framework and the big picture is important,” he said. “If the people at the top can provide that, the people below can figure out where they come in.”
Related Article: Why Today's Leaders Need to Rethink Their Own Learning
Tap Into the Natural Desire to Learn
The type of training organizations should provide or encourage, according to Jarche, should focus on habits of mind and action that can serve people in a broad way within their careers.
Jarche describes helping Citibank create a program called “Working Smarter @ Citi” aimed at increasing collaboration within the company. The program comprised four modules: curiosity, seek, sense and share. Trainees came with something they wanted to explore, then learned how to seek knowledge and people; make sense of that new knowledge and network through experience; and share their new knowledge in the most appropriate ways.
“This program, from what I’ve been told, is the most successful learning program at Citibank in recent history because there were no real objectives; it was not structured or skilled,” said Jarche. “Rather, you had to figure out what you wanted to learn.”
He says that too often training programs run by organizations are “fire and forget it,” wherein participants do a training on a specific subject and then go back to working in the same way as before.
The best training programs are those that engage employees’ natural desire to learn and improve, and give them skills and strategies to take control of their own growth.
“Where formal training can help is in developing [disruptive] practices, like getting outside your comfort zone and trying something different regularly,” Jarche said.
Related Article: Motivation vs. Compulsion: Putting Learning at the Heart of the Digital Workplace
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Help Employees Stay the Course
Employees who have set clear goals for themselves and are enabled by their employers to pursue them are more likely to stay in their workplaces, according to LinkedIn’s October 2023 Global Talent Trends report. Specifically, companies that help their employees build skills have a 15% higher internal mobility rate than those that don’t.
“We’ve long known that employees consider career-development opportunities to be one of the top reasons they stay at — or leave — their company,” said LinkedIn Senior Direct of Talent Development Stephanie Conway in the report.
While an overly prescriptive and directed approach can backfire on employers, a strategy of enabling employees to target the skills they’ll need to stay the course in that particular workplace can pay dividends.
For example, in many cases organizations need employees to develop “soft” or “human” skills. The LinkedIn Global Talent Trends report found that three of the top four skills companies need most these days are management, communication and leadership skills. Leadership skills in particular are in high demand, making that an area where employers may want to encourage or incentivize employee initiative.
“There’s a realization that the middle management level is very important,” said Neal-Chavez. “If leadership isn’t doing well there, that’s where they can lose their best people. And the best people take with them their ideas and creativity that are so important.”
Getting employees to target their training and learning in such ways, however, is often more a matter of encouragement, enablement and communication than of rigid prescriptions.
“One of the most effective ways to improve learning is to remove the barriers to learning,” said Jarche. “People want to do good work. People want to learn.”
