Key trends in leadership and development

The Learning and Development landscape has understandably changed over the last few years. What has emerged is the fact that L&D plays a vital role in the future of every organisation especially during times of uncertainty. Bringing the ‘human’ back into the workplace, developing people for the long term, learning collaboratively and learning that identifies the needs of the individual are the key trends that we’ve noticed come to the forefront of the L&D leaders we speak to.

Longer learning journeys

We’ve seen an increase in organisations developing longer learning journeys and pathways as they recognise the need for ongoing development.

There are the immediate benefits of delivering learning over the longer term enabling all employees to participate so that a new language and style of development can be brought into the organisation making everyone feel part of the journey.

Also, what we’ve learned from the ‘Great Resignation’ is that if you don’t invest in your employees and they don’t feel valued, they are likely to want to find that value at another organisation.

By developing longer learning journeys employees will feel valued and motivated a provide them with a sense of purpose. This approach will help with retention, motivation, productivity and provide the incentive for them to take part in their development journey.

Bringing humanity back to work

Creating a human connection at work isn’t just about saying hello to each other as you pass in the corridor. In terms of developing employees, it is key for driving change, establishing the right behaviours and skills.

Training initiatives and organisational strategies need to engage and motivate. This applies to all aspects of a person’s working life, whether its career progression, wellbeing, training and development journeys or looking at softer skills, bringing humanity to each area or you working life is a vital step in creating the right culture at work.

We need to understand how to develop the right human behaviours in order to create an engaged workforce that’s fit for the future.

Collaborative learning

Organisations are increasingly showing a move towards collaborative learning as part of their initiatives. Collaborative learning brings employees together, is open and encourages the employees to overcome hesitations about learning something new. Combining this with experiential learning can really make a difference to an organisation. More and more businesses are using it as a tool to train their people or are adopting learning programmes that use experiential learning.

Considering the popularity, and benefits of experiential learning many would say that it is the future. As we rely on practical experience to enhance our learning and creating connections and collaborating with each other can have an extremely positive impact on an organisation.

WIIFY

In organisations with a poor learning culture it’s obvious that when learning and development initiatives are brought in, there will be a level of scepticism and a lack of engagement. Showing what the benefits are, and enabling employees to understand the value the learning will bring will immediately answer the question ‘What’s in it for you?’.

Employees will want to understand how any learning programme will benefit them first and the organisation second. This may set alarm bells ringing for some organisations especially if the gap between these two is miles apart. Aligning the needs of the employee and the organisation reduces the feeling thar corporate learning is disconnected from the needs of its people.

On average UK employees spend over 3,500 days working in their lifetime and this doesn’t take into account any overtime worked. It also depends on your role and the industry you work in, so for many this figure will be much higher. In the US this figure is even higher. So it’s really important that we develop the right kind of development training that provides the necessary skills and value and is delivered in the right way so that the WIIFY question is answered at the start.


Olivier Mythodrama has been delivering innovative and thought provoking leadership training for over 20 years. The people and organisations we have worked with describe our training as life changing. We think they’re right. We already work with some of the world’s leading businesses. Are you ready to join them?

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