Creating an Agile, Adaptable Workforce with Modern Learning Tools

The world of work is changing - and fast. The half-life of many technical skills has already dipped under five years, and research suggests that over 80% of jobs that will exist by 2030 haven’t been invented yet. Shifts like these are putting pressure on organizations and challenging traditional approaches to learning, training and professional development.

To make the most of this impending evolution, you need a workforce that’s eager and able to continuously upskill, reskill, and improve — modern learning solutions can make this possible.

Before we get to the how, let’s take a step back and look at why adaptability matters. Perhaps the most dominant factor is the rate at which skills are altering. In 1984, for example, someone who learned a skill could expect its value to hold for nearly the length of their career—about 30 years. Today, many business competencies are becoming obsolete in five years or less. This presents real challenges for organizations of all types. What kinds of skills and competencies do you need to focus on? Will your solutions move fast enough to keep up?

A term you may have come across is recently is adaptability quotient (AQ). Broadly speaking, AQ examines an organization’s ability to adapt its practices and offerings in the face of changes in the marketplace, consumer behavior and technology. Organizational AQ is something companies should develop by fostering it at the individual level, encouraging and enabling employees to improve their own adaptability skills so they’re ready to meet emerging business needs.

This is when the right learning strategies and solutions can play key roles in driving transformational change by:

Developing soft skills. These skills are becoming increasingly important for a few reasons. One is that whereas technical skills become obsolete and need to be updated relatively frequently, soft skills can be much more durable and long-lasting. According to LinkedIn research, over 50% of senior leaders say soft skills are more important than hard skills. Another is that many key soft skills, such as creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration, can actually play vital roles in fostering adaptability by enabling people to communicate more effectively, share knowledge, and evolve and grow their own skill sets to meet shifting needs.
Powering a culture of continuous learning. A variety of benefits come from creating strong learning cultures, ranging from improved performance to better engagement to higher retention, but ultimately it comes down to helping your teams prepare to succeed in an ever-changing world. You can do this by using tools like bite-sized, self-led, personalized, gamified, and social learning, which help employees access information that’s relevant to them in their own time and on their own terms.

Leverage learning to develop the skills employees need to thrive and create an adaptable workforce (and organization) that’s ready to make the most of future change.

Join us on Nov. 13 for a webcast that will take a more in-depth look at how you can leverage learning technology to encourage organizational change.