Is your people development strategy fit for purpose?
Now before you answer this question let me provide some context. Crises have a way of accelerating trends already in motion and the COVID-19 pandemic has proven no exception. The long-term trend that sees people embark on multiple careers and many more jobs in a lifetime is only increasing as COVID reshapes the skills required for the workplace of the future.
A recent report by the Foundation for Young Australians states:
“Through four key reports, the research has revealed that traditional, linear career trajectories are rapidly becoming an antiquated notion. It's more likely that a 15-year-old today will experience a portfolio career, potentially having 17 different jobs over 5 careers in their lifetime.”
As my teenage daughter would say, “Wait, what? 5 careers and 17 different jobs!!!!”
The concept of having a long stable career and working for one employee for any length of time is considered obsolete. Young people entering the workforce today will need to constantly retrain and adapt to be ready for their next job.
When I see figures like these I immediately start to wonder, where is all this training and development going to come from? How will people like my 16-year-old son be supported as they undertake all these careers and jobs?
Recently, Microsoft launched a global skills initiative aimed at bringing more digital skills to 25 million people worldwide by the end of the year, for free. This is a good start. Governments, both federal and state, are working to reshape the university and TAFE sectors to encourage training for the jobs of the future, and they still have a long way to go.
But what is the role of the employer? It seems a pretty simple to me. Failure to retain and attract great talent is the number one issue facing global CEOs, ahead of economic growth and competitive intensity (McKinsey, 2017). Organisations that attract, retain and engage talent in this new intensified world will be the ones that excel at developing people to transition from one career to another, and one job to another, all without them ever having to leave. To achieve this, organisations will need to invest more in developing their people. Pretty obvious, right?
Maybe not. In the launch of their global skills initiative, Microsoft reports that the percentage of employees undertaking employer-paid training and/or on the job training has decreased by 6% in the last ten years and investment in training has stagnated since 2008. ABS data shows the same trend and notes that employers are spending less than 2% of payroll on training.
So now back to my original question, do you have a people development strategy that’s fit for purpose? While you are pondering the question consider this. If your expenditure on learning and development is stagnating or decreasing, it’s probably not.
[Photo by NEXT Academy on Unsplash]
