Samir Hassan is the CEO of Knowtified which helps businesses with knowledge transfer & competence assurance using AI & Augmented Reality.
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Companies around the world train their employees either to comply with statutory requirements or to enhance their performance. Either way, their expectations are that the employees learn those skills and apply them to their jobs for a good return on investment. This being a fair expectation, why is it companies struggle to know if their employees were able to apply the skills to their jobs or get a decent ROI from the program?
Today we have no dearth of learning systems, resources or content, yet we have a massive skills gap of 87%, according to a survey by McKinsey. Despite companies spending an average of $1,308 per worker on learning and development activities, only 12% of employees are able to apply skills to their jobs, as per Harvard Business Review.
The problem continues, and Fortune says that 71% of CEOs find skills to be the biggest disruptor of 2022, and here we aren’t even sure where the root cause of the problem lies.
Since the world has plenty of workplace learning resources, I believe adding more will only bury the problem. Finding a solution is a Herculean task, but I believe my company was able to get to the bottom of the matter in order to see some of the problems that have decayed the process and weakened the foundation for countless companies.
Once we made these discoveries, then came the mammoth task of not only closing the skills gap but breaking the process into steps without making disruptive changes to daily operations. In the end, we decided not to reinvent the wheel but pick solutions from the forgotten past and apply them to the present.
While companies around the world work hard and use many resources to close the skills gap, I found many answers were hiding in plain sight within two extremely well-known theories from the 1970s and 2000s.
The Kirkpatrick Model was created by Don Kirkpatrick in the 1970s and has four stages of learning. This theory is highly popular and is followed by most of the L&D professionals I come across. This theory was further evolved by Jack Phillips in the 2000s, who took the performance indicators coming from the Kirkpatrick model to generate ROI. But while these theories are popular in many industries, condensing and applying them can be difficult.
The blast from the past did come with procedural and technical challenges, but the advent of new technology and changes in work culture has made it, so we are more equipped than ever to close the skills gap and transfer knowledge seamlessly within departments.
Based on my research and experience, here are 10 things to consider when looking to close the skills gap at your business.
1. Don’t drop your existing learning systems, but instead integrate them with other worthy systems to get the maximum value.
2. Change is scary, so go slow and smooth.
3. Although you should integrate systems, understand that having too many processes in learning only dilutes it.
4. Increase your stakeholders in your learning process.
5. Concentrate on skills verification rather than course completions.
6. Identify the competencies that require your help rather than sending employees for detailed refresher courses.
7. On-the-job training is a waste of time and money. These are massive savings if you merge this with your skills verification process.
8. Encourage your employees to learn and have fun while they do so.
9. Know your audience, for the demographics of the workforce are rapidly changing.
10. Trust your data based on the above rules to bring accountability.
I believe following the rules of 10 will seat you in the captain’s chair overlooking every detail related to employees and departmental learning. By applying these ideas, you can help close the skills gap and bring the kind of accountability that will translate into increased performance across your organization.
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