Going From “Well…” To “Wow!”: Elevating Professional Development, And Why It Matters

Bridging the chasm between talent expectations and corporate capabilities

If you’re fishing for top talent in 2023, mainly using compensation for bait, evidence shows that the best and brightest fish are hungry for more relevant and meaningful professional development. But delivering such programs, while controlling costs and consuming resources, is a mighty challenge for today’s HR professionals.

Here’s how to bridge that chasm between talent expectations and corporate capabilities.

When Internet Videos Are Not Enough

Great employees naturally want to grow their careers and earning potential by acquiring new technical abilities and soft skills. In a recent survey of 4,000 managers and workers in UK and US businesses, 98% agreed workplace training is important. When workers were asked to name benefits they value most, 86% named training (tying with health and wellness benefits!). More than three-quarters (77%) said they’re more likely to stay with an employer that prioritizes training and development; nearly half (48%) said questions about training are among the first they ask in job interviews.

With the real cost of replacing an employee ranging up to twice their salary, retaining talent is good business – and good training is key to retention. However, not all training programs are created equal.

Too many organizations have adopted a generalized, cookie-cutter approach that pushes everyone down the same learning paths regardless of particular roles, expertise, or wishes. A quarter of workers surveyed complained they failed to see the value behind their particular training program, calling it repetitive or irrelevant to their needs.

And the problem for laggard businesses is, employees know better training models are out there. Their expectations are moulded by decades of interactive digital experiences – systems large and small that intuit their agendas and respond in personal terms, from Google air fare alerts to Amazon suggest-selling socks to go with those new boots.

By those lights, a business that broadcasts linear, one-size-fits-all professional development content results in a user experience that elicits sighs of “Well…”Not only is this failing worker expectations, it might even propel them to a different employer.

From “Well…” to “Wow”: Up Close and Personal

If you want to surpass your teams’ expectations and have them celebrate your training program – not complain about it in surveys – it should be timely, relevant, and above all personalized. More tailored to individual job roles; more focused on specific, fine-grained competencies that are both appropriate for a particular employee and value-adds for the business; and, not least, more fun and engaging. That’s the fastest path to “Wow!” Not to mention improved retention, turbocharged employee performance, and further business success.

Easy to say. But to implement? Delivering such a modern, next-level corporate asset at scale, perhaps across a global business, can seem like a formidable order. Budgets are stretched. HR divisions, like IT, are perpetually asked to do more with less. Besides, training’s likely not the core focus of the business.

Workplace training leaders might therefore welcome a copilot.

The Smart Path to Personalized Training

A modern learning platform (MLP) for the workplace is a paradigm shift. Especially when enhanced with generative AI. It laps prior-generation learning management systems whose sweet spot is broadcasting linear content to passive viewers.
 
Modern systems deliver individually personalized learning experiences at scale. The great efficiency breakthrough lies with the MLP’s power to despatch a unique competency-based training regime to each and every learner: one built on the learner’s specific goals, knowledge gaps, and job role as well as the employer’s needs and priorities. This agenda-blending capability is a win-win for competitive businesses and employees alike. Businesses may narrow institutional skills gaps and avoid footing the bill for costly talent wars by instead recruiting “dream teams” from within. Meanwhile, ambitious employees' cravings for training can be met, and new opportunities offered.
 
MLPs gratify learners with gamified content – materials that are inherently interactive and immersive. No more long-form videos to snooze through. Injecting game mechanics into coursework like points-scoring, puzzle-solving, and quizzes will get learners more invested; they remember more of what’s taught and like the process better. That is the nucleus of the “Wow!’ user experience – one that keeps employees returning of their own volition and helps company L&D teams foster a culture of continual upskilling. 

A Copilot That Pays Off

Creating such a transformative asset manually would likely require a prohibitive budget. A modern learning platform is a formidable economizing force – and the more employees it scales up to serve, the more competencies it disseminates, and the better the numbers get.
 
Further efficiencies may be realized when generative AI technologies undertake the rote tasks of designing and curating courses, lesson plans, and assessments. AI-enabled copilot functionality takes the bulk of such work off instructors’ hands whilst accelerating course design. (What heretofore took laborious days or weeks is now typically accomplished in minutes.)
 
Human reviewers and editors review and approve what the software composes and proposes, of course – but this elevates the instructor’s role. Now they’re focused on things only people can do: tracking organizational skills gaps, aligning course material with business strategy, and adding value for learners. If the MLP now supplies 80% of the effort, real people in the mix contribute a still-indispensable, more satisfying 20%. 

Revolution Priced Right

Skills gaps are widening in sector after sector – 87% of companies see them, according to McKinsey – and are projected to worsen as various forms of digital transformation quicken. It’s crucial that HR and L&D leaders are supported with systems to track and address them.
 
Modern learning platforms offer the right breakthrough at the right moment. With speed and economy, they deliver training that delights and strengthens employees; unleashes human and organisational potential; and – the potential crowning dividend – makes professional development an essential value center. Yet another “Wow” – one the executive suite will appreciate.

Graham Glass is the CEO of CYPHER Learning.